NPR NOTES

Commentary by Mayor Rob Marlowe

  • Home
  • About the Mayor
  • Get NPR Notes By Email

Archives for December 2016

Quality of Life

Posted on December 16, 2016 Written by Rob Marlowe

Mayor Rob Marlowe

Mayor Rob Marlowe

I regularly hear from folks that are very happy with the changes that they are seeing in New Port Richey.  I’ve been blessed to serve with council members who are committed to investing in a series of positive changes to the city.

For entirely too long, the city based its plans on what was “good enough” to get by.  It was almost as if the powers that be thought that our residents didn’t deserve anything better.   Doing the minimum you can get away with is NOT the way to effect positive change.

When I came on board as Mayor, a majority of council members agreed with me that we weren’t going to accept “good enough” anymore.  We set a higher bar for ourselves and our city.

You can sum up why we want more for New Port Richey with the term “Quality of Life”.

Sims Park is an obvious example of where that investment has paid off.  In spite of a number of people who didn’t want us to make major changes to Sims Park, we moved forward.  We spent several million dollars sprucing up Sims Park.  The park is not a revenue generator.  On a strictly dollar basis, it makes no sense to invest in a park that will never make money.   That’s the point:  The improvements we made to Sims Park have NOTHING to do with generating revenue and EVERYTHING to do with improving the Quality of Life in New Port Richey.  Most of the skeptics now agree that the Sims Park improvements were a good idea.

When companies and families look at places to settle down in and call home, they look at Quality of Life issues.  Other examples, besides parks, include things like housing, schools, roads, shopping, entertainment, libraries and recreational opportunities.  No one thing is likely to be the key factor in a decision to move here, but they all play a role.

If you look at the items in the city’s five year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), the vast majority of them are tied to making New Port Richey a more attractive place to call home.  The next big item on the list is the Recreation and Aquatic Center.

After nearly ten years in the current facility, we’ve figured out that some things need to be changed to meet current and anticipated future needs.  The center needs additional space for exercise equipment and meetings & parties.  One glaring omission from the original design is that there is no day care center.  That wasn’t a big deal when “everyone” was a retiree, but our city and the surrounding area is getting younger and a safe area for kids while mom or dad workout is important today.

How important is this?  I’ll suggest you think back to Sims Park before and after the upgrades there.  The park is routinely mobbed with children in numbers that none of us had ever seen before.  If we make the Recreation Center more conducive for use by families, they will come.  Unlike Sims Park, the Recreation Center charges for memberships and admission.  More people signing up will help cover the operating cost of the center.  Will memberships and admissions ever cover the full cost of the Center?  No, but that isn’t the point.  The point is that having a modern, well equipped Recreation Center is a part of the Quality of Life we want for our city residents.

Like the Sims Park plans, the Recreation Center upgrade plans have attracted opposition.  There are those that would have us do the minimum necessary to address the most critical issues and let everything else slide.  I believe that is a mistake.  We will be reviewing the latest quotes for upgrading the Rec Center at our January 3rd meeting.  My guess is that we will approve more than the “good enough to get by” folks want and less than everything that the design team has proposed.  The key will be doing as much as we can to modernize the Rec Center while staying within our budget constraints.  We have to address the changing needs of our community while being fiscally prudent.

There are other Quality of Life items that are included in the CIP, such as a proposed expansion of the library.  A public library is, by definition, a money loser.  Virtually everything the library offers is free of charge to the public.  Making money has never been the point for the library.  It is an integral part of our city’s Quality of Life.  Back in the 1980’s, the city had the opportunity to give the library to the county system and eliminate the cost of running a library from our budget.  The city turned that down because of the importance that city residents placed on the library then.  Our city library remains a vital part of our city to this day.

When I was growing up, the New Port Richey Public Library was a small, one story building sitting where city hall is now.  The library moved into the old Pierce Elementary School building some years back and is still there today.  The biggest impediment to physically expanding our library is one of space.  Fortunately, there is an obvious location right next door:  Fire Station One.

The good news is that the city is already scoping out possible locations for a new Fire Station One or a consolidated station that would house all of our fire service employees.  The new fire station is also in the CIP.  Once the fire station issue is resolved, then it becomes a simple matter to look at converting the old station into a library annex or “Maker Space”.

It has been suggested that we would be better off to spending money earmarked for the Recreation Center on things like paving.  Keeping our roads up is important, but there are already three sources of funds for paving:  The local option gas tax, a portion of the Penny for Pasco receipts, and assessments of the properties benefiting from the paving.  We’ve got some work to do getting the assessments sorted out to be as fair to everyone as possible, but the funding sources are there.

The local option gas tax is particularly important.  The county changed the allocation methodology to what they thought was their advantage a year or so ago.  It is in our interest to spend as much as possible on paving to boost the amount of gas tax receipts that come to the city.  If you don’t spend the gas tax revenues each year, the next year’s allocation goes down.  As the old expression goes, two can play this game.

In looking at how our city ranks on the Quality of Life scale, it is important to look at the whole picture.  No single piece is of overriding importance, but everything together makes a difference.

So where do we go from here?  We could do as one council member suggested in September and slash taxes, spending, and city services to the bone.  The other four of us disagreed.

In my opinion, the way to make things better is to make strategic investments in our community, secure in the knowledge that those improvements are going to make our city more attractive to the businesses and residents we want to attract.  The second phase of Sims Park / Orange Lake improvements, updating our Recreation and Aquatic Center, building a new entrance into the Grey Preserve, planning for an expanded library, and all of the other things are strategic investments in the future of New Port Richey.

So what do you think?  Do you believe we should settle for “good enough to get by” or are we right to set a higher standard and strive for that going forward?

Rob Marlowe, Mayor

 

Filed Under: Local Commentary

Next Page »

My Day Job

When I'm not doing mayor stuff, I spend my time at Gulfcoast Networking. I solve Internet issues, clean up infected computers, and build websites. I'm always happy to take a break from computers to talk about New Port Richey's future, so feel free to come by my office at 6335 Grand Blvd to chat.

City of New Port Richey

This website expresses my views and not necessarily those of the city.  If you are looking for the official City of New Port Richey website, you can find it here.

Recent Posts

  • A Matter of Scale March 10, 2023
  • New Year 2023 January 2, 2023
  • Happy Thanksgiving 2022 November 22, 2022
  • Ian Recap October 3, 2022
  • Stroads July 25, 2022
  • Celebrating Our Independence July 3, 2022
  • Road Trip – Durham, NC May 10, 2022
  • Dreams and Opportunities April 26, 2022
  • Chasco Fiesta – 100 Year Anniversary Edition March 23, 2022
  • March Update March 3, 2022

Recent Comments

  • Bonnie Martin on A Matter of Scale
  • Marc Yacht MD on A Matter of Scale
  • Joan Rees on New Year 2023
  • Chris Lineman on New Year 2023
  • Rob Marlowe on New Year 2023
  • Frank Starkey on New Year 2023
  • Rob Marlowe on New Year 2023
  • Ken Houghtaling on New Year 2023
  • Rob Marlowe on Ian Recap
  • Joan Rees on Ian Recap

Archives

  • March 2023
  • January 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Copyright © 2023 · Rob Marlowe · · Log in