Tallahassee Commissioners and a large chunk of city staff were jammed together in a packed conference room overlooking Cascades Park Wednesday for the commission’s annual retreat.
During the six-hour event, the commissioners received updates about several of the city’s most important issues and gave input about what direction they want the city to go. Here are some key takeaways from that meeting.
What’s next for Tallahassee’s airport?
Tallahassee International Airport Director David Pollard gave one of the longer presentations.
He said over the last year, the airport has made strides towards several of its 2020-2024 strategic priorities. The airport has a nearly $1 billon economic impact in the community. It moved almost a million passengers and 19 million pounds of cargo last year. He said that in the coming year, efforts will be focused on making further improvements to prepare for future growth.
“What if we were to secure a low-cost carrier? What if that low-cost carrier wanted to come in with not one destination, but three or four destinations? What is that going to do to our terminal? What is that going to do to our parking? What is that going to do to our concessions, our seating, our outlets, our Wi Fi, all these things that we're thinking about that we need to continuously stay ahead of as we position ourselves for the future,” he said.
The airport has been at the center of criticism from some city residents. One of its few carriers, Jet Blue, left after providing less than a year of service. According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Tallahassee also has the most expensive airfare costs out of the top 150 airports in America by traffic.
City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow questioned why the rates are so high.
“I know the high cost of flying out of Tallahassee is not a new subject. It predates your tenure. Probably all of us up here have been talking about it my entire life. We all saw the report in December that had Tallahassee domestic flights of the top 150 airports as the most expensive. And I was wondering, can you speak to that metric in what 149 other airports may be doing differently?” he said.
Pollard responded the costs are largely due to market forces outside the airport’s control. The area around Tallahassee has a low population density. Those that fly into the airport are less likely to be budgeting vacationers and more likely to be connected to work with the state government or the area’s universities, meaning they can afford steeper airfare. Ultimately, Pollard said the city needs to keep working to attract more carriers to create competition.
“There's so many factors, Commissioner, it's not just one or the other, it's us needing to be positioned to move ahead, to work together and make the business case for these future airlines and be great partners for our existing carriers,” he said.
Mayor John Dailey agrees that ticket prices are too high. While he doesn’t blame the airport, he wants the city to look for partnerships with state entities to bring prices down.
“I am also formally asking that we formally engage with the state to bring back a contract as part of that minimum revenue guarantee. And how can the state participate, allowing the state workers to be able to fly through our airport to and from and participate in that minimum revenue guarantee,” he said.
Minimum revenue guarantees ensure a business receives at least a minimum amount of revenue. Dailey’s proposal would create a partnership between the city and state that would help to make up the difference for a potential future carrier if a flight is under booked.
Disaster recovery efforts
Commissioners also received a presentation about Tallahassee’s disaster response efforts that reflected on last year’s hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. Some commissioners expressed concerns about the number of damaged properties remaining, as well as the city’s progress in burying its utility lines.
Ever since Tallahassee’s famous tree canopy was twisted by extreme weather last year, there has been chatter about increasing efforts to bury the city’s powerlines.
City Manager Reese Goad estimates doing so all in one go would be an expensive and time-consuming effort.
We’re very confident in that it wouldn’t be less than a billion [dollars]. It probably would be more than several billion, but it would take decades of time. Estimating cost gets difficult and so. So, the strategy that we’ve really been employing is a multi-pronged strategy. New stuff goes underground, where we have opportunities to underground, we take advantage of it. We incentivize that as well,” he said.
City Commissioner Jack Porter said she’s noticed several properties in the area of town impacted by the tornadoes that have had few or no repairs made since the last storm. She believes it could be a safety hazard for nearby residents.
“I imagine some of those properties, they were either people from out of town who had tenants, the tenants moved out when the properties were compromised, and then they didn't really do much to fix it, because there wasn't an incentive for them,” she said.
Commissioner Jeremy Matlow expressed interest in creating an official policy to explore foreclosing on homes where no repair efforts have been made. Deputy City Attorney Louis Norvell said there is a process already in place, but it’s rarely used.
“When code enforcement gets a fine for violations after some time, it is recorded as a lien. It's in the property records. It attaches to the property and other property that's owned by the owner for other places in Leon County so that lien can be foreclosed. That is a sparingly approach,” he said.
He said the foreclosure trigger has only been used on fewer than five properties in the last 15 years.
Amid a hectic 2024 storm season and increasing concerns around natural disasters like the wildfires in California, local governments are looking increasingly at ways to mitigate costs from such events.
Violent crime rate
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell also gave a presentation.
Aside from discussing recruitment success and other metrics, he highlighted that Tallahassee’s violent crime rate decreased by 15.5 percent last year, marking several years of that rate trending down.
Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey said it’s down because of the leadership of Revell and his team.
“I think it speaks directly to your leadership, the leadership of the deputy chiefs, all of your the great men and women that work for toss Police Department, and I congratulate you. Thank you. That is incredible. Thank you,” he said.