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City of Gulfport, MS
State of the City Address
March 2008
The Year of Bricks and Mortar
Good evening and thank you for coming tonight. I would like to thank Principal Mike Lindsey and his staff, Superintendant Glenn East, and the school board for opening their doors to us tonight. We have wonderful schools in Gulfport. Their excellence is exhibited in the number of Level 5 schools and our 2 National Blue Ribbon schools that have been awarded in the last 14 months. Great schools make a city desirable, which translates into stability and growth. We are proud of our Gulfport schools and the fine work that the administrators, teachers and students continue to display. Thank you and Congratulations to you all. And, doesn’t the newly remodeled Ray Bishop Auditorium look great?
We’ve been looking forward to tonight for some time. This evening is our third State of the City presentation since Hurricane Katrina, and I will report to you stability and growth and what we have accomplished during the year. We are officially calling this presentation; and this year for that matter “the Year of Bricks and Mortar”.
The future is taking shape. We have asked you to participate in the plan for rebuilding and you have responded like champions. We have planned together! This administration has worked diligently to secure funding and now we are taking those plans and turning them into reality. Bidding, permitting and construction are all under way. We have drawn on experience from residents, dedicated directors, contractors and city employees. We have worked exhaustively with federal and state agencies, and have benefitted greatly from deep commitments and heavy lifting by a superior congressional and legislative delegation
In Gulfport, the coast wide issue of hurricane clean up has moved into singular property demolition, we have picked up more than 3 million yards of debris, demolished over 380 derelict houses and before this is over the city will have spent seventy four million dollars and of that 100% are federal dollars. We are now in various stages of rebuilding 149 damaged city owned structures. There is still clean up that must be done, mostly by private property owners. We have been as careful as possible to not put undue pressure on owners of hurricane damaged property, but the time has come to finish this phase. The city is taking a more aggressive stance than ever before and property owners should act.
Today I ask for all citizens and property owners to look their properties over and clean them up. The city is working with Senator Billy Hewes and our state delegation to spearhead new legislation to give cities greater ability to enforce clean up of negligent properties. We are very excited about this. Thank you Senator Hewes.
In March of last year, our Public works department kicked off a beautification project “Keep Gulfport Clean and Green”. I would like to take this opportunity to thank volunteer organizations, corporations, churches, Commanding Officer Van Dobson and the men and women of the Gulfport Naval Construction Battalion Center, the Harrison County Board of Supervisors, along with the residents of the city of Gulfport who picked up 25 thousand cubic yards of debris and litter.
This was a huge accomplishment in any year, but especially for the first year. Please join me in thanking all participants for their extraordinary effort.
The second annual Gulfport Clean and Green campaign begins this month on March 28 and run thru May 16. It is an opportunity for property owners to have litter and debris collected from right of ways in a concentrated manner. We’ll be passing out flyers as you leave tonight. If you can, please get involved. It is worth the effort.
We are working together to clean up and green up. I hope that you are enjoying the beautification efforts of our newly established landscaping division. Gus Wesson Gulfport’s landscape architect and Bruce Griebel our horticulturist and their hard working crews are concentrating first on major thoroughfares and gateways, but they’re coming soon to a street near you.
We are turning the corner on clean up and working on other coast wide recovery challenges such as Housing and Insurance. Gulfport has taken these issues head on. An amazing fact is that today we have more single family homes in Gulfport than we did the day before Hurricane Katrina. However the need for affordable workforce housing continues to grow with our economy.
To address housing we have worked with state and federal agencies, as well as the best planners and developers from across the United States, to create high quality affordable housing. We have very carefully planned and permitted new construction for quality multi-family residences. The newly opened residential complex, Saw Grass on Engram Drive in Ward 1, is an exciting example of quality affordable housing. You should all go see it. It is beautiful and it is an asset to the surrounding properties. And I was honored to participate in the groundbreaking for Regency Way, another high quality affordable place to call home in Ward 3.
It is good for our city and for every resident that we require development to be high quality, safe and respectable and done in a manner that it is an improvement to the surrounding properties.
I want to formally thank Jimmy Gouras, David Nichols, B’nai B’rith International and the Mississippi Development Authority. With their help, Gulfport is the recipient of a 9.2 million dollar grant to provide approximately 235 homes to working families. This should be a significant stimulus to local housing professionals and help upgrade areas all over the city.
And while we have been working on understanding the needs, we have also been working to understand the problem. The cost of homeowners insurance, especially wind and flood, have caused a slow down in our recovery. Some of the issues can only be solved at state and federal levels and by the industry itself, but as the state’s second largest city, there are things we are doing to benefit our citizens.
At home, city government can influence insurance rates through management of flood, fire and building codes. With wise management the city can help residents qualify for discounts on their insurance rates. The City of Gulfport is presently rated among the 5 best fire rated cities in the state of Mississippi meaning some of the most favorable fire insurance for citizens in the state. Thank you, Chief Pat Sullivan and the Gulfport Fire Department. This excellent rating achievement was maintained while the majority of our fire stations were damaged by the storm. Presently, we have under construction, with estimated completion dates of June 2008 fire stations 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,11,&12 (that is 9 out of 12) and at a recent council meeting a land swap was approved that will enable us to build a new fire station #7 on Cowan Road south of the tracks.
Also, the City of Gulfport has a favorable rating with National Flood Insurance Program and citizens enjoy a 10% discount on flood insurance. We intend to maintain that discount; and through hard work, we are optimistic that our rating might soon be further improved and deepen discounts to those who own a home in Gulfport.
Our city has come a long way in rebuilding and at the same time we have kept pace with pre-Katrina needs and projects. Our city employees were blue ribbon champions time and again last year, as work loads doubled and tripled. We have heard from our citizens and city employees, that now more than ever, there is a critical need to simplify city services. So we have taken big steps to improve. We have organized the Building and Planning Department with a “one stop shop” approach.
We are striving for a customer-focused process to get every individual and developer through the process faster and with less confusion. We have a team of dedicated professionals, who understand that their mission, every day, is to get to “yes” when customers walk through the door.
It is working. For example in the year 2004, Gulfport issued 8,708 permits valued at $124 million dollars. In 2007, we issued 17,033 building permits valued at half a billion dollars ($499,780,799.00). Thank you to Director of Urban Development, Larry Jones and his staff for the great job they do.
Traffic is another issue that is being addressed to improve quality of life in Gulfport. Our Public Works Department led by Kris Riemann continues to maintain high quality services at a record pace. We have increased the paving budget for local and state funded roads from 1 million dollars last year to 8 million today. Gulfport owes thanks our state and federal partners for this. We are also working to make driving easier. We are presently doing traffic analysis to find ways to better organize layout and synchronize the traffic lights and patterns. This recommendation should be to us by May 1st. So, to give fair notice, we are going to see road work and experience the inconvenience of it, but we are going to get where we need to be! ...On better roads!
Our public works and engineering departments have installed over 54 miles of sewer infrastructure north of interstate 10. To put that in perspective it is 57 miles from O’Neal Road to Hattiesburg. During the next fiscal year, we will continue rebuilding infrastructure along highway 90 south of the tracks, to the tune of 70 million dollars. This will enable us to serve current customers with sewer and water as well as support our future rebuilt beach front. City owned Hwy 90 street lights are going up as we speak and the project should be complete by the end of April.
We recently settled a 13 year old issue that makes me proud to say that Gulfport now owns every utility company within our city boundaries. This is very important. When Gulfport annexed the Orange Grove community we promised city services. Now we will be able to deliver on those promises!
It is my honor to declare to you that we have the finest police and fire departments in the state under the leadership of Police Chief Alan Weatherford and Fire Chief Pat Sullivan. We consider safety our highest priority and they are doing a great job. Police Chief Weatherford and his team have taken the most aggressive and community focused approach to law enforcement in Gulfport’s history. The residents of Gulfport are now protected by real time crime mapping thru computers in every police car to track crimes as they occur. Gulfport is the only city in the state to have this ability.
While many cities are dealing with officer vacancy rates, Gulfport has reduced vacancies in the police department from 27 to 5. Before long, we hope to have a waiting list of qualified officers standing by to serve and protect the citizens of Gulfport. Gulfport has seen a reduction in the violent crime rate by 66% in the last 12 months! As a matter of fact it has been over 10 years since this rate was lower than that. They accomplished all of this while in temporary trailers and during a complete move of police and court facilities into 28th Street Elementary School. I would like to take a second opportunity to thank the Gulfport School District for the 28th Street Elementary School that now serves as temporary police offices and municipal court.
In every department of the city, we are filling our ranks with quality professionals and paying better. We have raised pay and benefits dramatically and are requiring higher job performance with 7% fewer city employees than 2 ½ years ago. Every employee in Gulfport today makes within 3% of their peers anywhere in the southeastern US, enabling national employee recruitment. We have only raised our taxpayer’s annual salary expense by a small percentage and we have set in place programs that will offset costs. One such program is the new Municipal Wellness Center for current employees, their dependents and retirees. The center’s first month of operation resulted in an estimated savings for employees and Gulfport taxpayers of approx. $118,000. If this number holds consistent it alone could off set the entire increase of salary expense to you , the tax payer. I would like to thank Cheryl Millender, Human Resource Manager, for launching this new program.
You should know that our city’s financial condition is excellent, and I give our Director of Administration and Finance, Mike Necaise, all the credit. Nothing illustrates the wellbeing of an entity better than cash in the bank. The municipal standard for undesignated cash reserves is 15%. Based upon the city's most recent audit, Gulfport’s undesignated cash represented 42%. After Katrina, Gulfport experienced a 46% increase in sales tax in the year after Katrina. I am happy to report that our sales tax numbers are still up and we are maintaining about a 26% increase as compared to Pre-Katrina levels. We recently issued bonds for the new Municipal Court and Police Facility; Gulfport received an interest rate of 3.9%. We were informed that it was the lowest interest rate awarded to a government entity in the entire state of Mississippi since Katrina.
We are proud to report that in October of this year we will break ground on that state-of-the-art Public Safety and Municipal Building that will be at least 57,000 square feet, at a budget of $21 million, of which over half is funded by FEMA and insurance. Experts in court design have assured us that this building will be a premier municipal court and police facility in the United States upon completion.
We currently have 3 community centers operational. Of the 149 damaged city owned
facilities, 42 are repaired today, 67 are under construction and 40 are under design as
we speak. Under construction or design are Herbert Wilson Recreation Center, Katie
Booth Community Center, Willie Locke Community Center, Gaston Point Community
Center, and a new Senior Citizens Center at West Side Park, Gaston Hewes RecreationCenter, West Side Community Center, Orange Grove Community Center, and a new
Community Center on Dedeaux Road. These projects have an estimated cost of over $18
million. Within 60 days, construction will begin for many of these centers and we hope
to have them finished by May 2009. Iconic structures, including the downtown Train
Depot, the original Courthouse Building on Courthouse Road and Grass Lawn will begin
construction this summer.
We have spent or will spend this year over $2 million on our piers, jetties, and boat launches. Volunteers and city departments have partnered to rebuild Bayou View Park, making it a true city asset. Jones Park construction documents are in the final phase of completion. And after a tremendous amount of work, public input, permitting and negotiation, we are 100% funded and scheduled to start construction in June of this year on the $24.8 million redevelopment plan for Gulfport’s Small Craft Harbor. The department of Leisure Services Director Edmond Salloum, Asst Director David D’Aquilla, Harbor Master D J Zeigler, and the project management team – Broadus and Associates, along with hundred’s of volunteers are seeing these projects through. Thank you all.
Your city government is on a solid foundation and we are also seeing growth in the private sectors of our city. We are seeing major retail investment in Gulfport. Historic Downtown Gulfport has new retail stores opening. In the downtown district thanks to Lisa Bradley John Harral and Gulfport Main Street Association’s hard work, we are underway to spend $4.4 million dollars on 88 building exteriors and 7.7 million restoring the grand boulevard to the 1940’s streetscape.
The Pass Road and Cowan interchange is developing beautifully. Orange Grove retailers continue to be a vital part of our city’s well being. We are proud of the new Super Sam’s Club under construction today at Landon Road and Hwy 49. The new Courtyard by Marriott Gulfport Beachfront Hotel will open soon on the beach in the former site of the Holiday Inn, as well as the Hilton Garden Inn and Residence Inn by Marriott at the airport. We are presently working on a project to be located at the intersection of Cowan Road and Dedeaux that will be among the finest retail lifestyle shopping centers on the coast.
Our International Airport is growing and improving services with well over a $100 million dollar renovation and expansion adding 14% in new passengers and 2 new airlines. Any of us that have not recently been to the newly renovated airport are missing quite a treat. It is truly an asset that we are proud of.
Industry in Gulfport is thriving. Eight new companies have located in Gulfport’s Industrial Park in the last 12 months. That means 13 million in capital investment, over 400 new jobs and 15 million in additional payroll.
It was my great honor to participate last week in the ground breaking for the new Armed Forces Retirement Home. The federal government has carefully designed a new state of the art retirement facility for our veterans. It has taken 2 ½ years to be certain that what is built back is something we can be proud of. Their projected budget is $175 million and the finish date is a year and a half away. We are “tying the ribbons ‘round the old oak tree” for the 400 of America's heroes that were displaced by Katrina. We look forward to their homecoming.
The State Port at Gulfport is now the 3rd largest container port by volume on the northern Gulf and longshoremen who work there receive the same wage as their counterparts in New York Harbor. Just think of how exciting it is that we will soon be seeing a $600 million dollar redevelopment of the State Port at Gulfport? Thank You, Governor Barbour.
The Island View Casino with their star restaurateur Emeril Lagasse has proven that Gulfport is a place where the finest gaming establishments in the industry belong and prosper. We welcome the fact that Gulfport is home to high quality gaming and entertainment, we look forward to the expansion of this industry in the future. Our city is blessed with amazing assets that have recently been detailed in the Andres Duany Design Conference. These development plans will soon be available on the city’s web site.
Once developed, the VA Hospital site can be a unique place with a resort conference hotel, dining, and green space, and retail, cultural and residential experience for tourist, neighbors and residents of the entire coast. And the Gulfport Sportsplex can be the finest recreation and sports related retail development in the entire south. And finally, when we see how special the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor and Jones Park redevelopment turn out we will be happy we took the time to get it right.
As a matter of fact, Forbes Magazine has said we are getting right! In an article published in the Sun Herald a few weeks ago Forbes named Gulfport/Biloxi in a list of the top 10 fastest growing small metro areas in the nation. The article went on to say that over the next five years our city will experience a 23.12 % growth in metropolitan products and a 17 % grow in population during that same period. Folks, we are getting it right!
Next week we are holding a public hearing to review the recent work produced by the Andres Duany Design Conference. This is very important; we need participation from all sides to support forward motion. I call on the city council to take positive steps forward, consider the public’s voice and then act as soon as possible. We must utilize the recent plans from the design conference, so that the momentum and energy currently underway can continue. When that is done we can begin negotiations that will enable construction. Our goal is actual development and investment in these key city owned sites planned by this internationally respected firm.
I would like to thank CAO Dr. John Kelly for his leadership in this last year. His steady hand has served Gulfport very well. I would also like to ask all of the directors, managers, and city employees to stand. There is not time to name them all but you will notice that they are seated through out this auditorium. They are accessible to you. They are working for you. All that has been reported here today is the result of their dedication and talent. They have the heart to take us the next length of this road.
I want to take a moment to remember one of Gulfport’s great cheerleaders. We recently lost Mr. Ronnie Herbert. His enthusiasm for the youth of our city was real and long lived and he will be greatly missed. So today, it is my honor to announce the beginning of the “Ronnie Hebert Spirit of Gulfport Scholarship” This scholarship will be available to all high school seniors who live in Gulfport. We were blessed to have Ronnie in our presence and thru this scholarship citizenship and positive attitude will be rewarded in his name.
We have a lot in our city to be proud of. We will be remembered by what we have created out of a disaster. As municipality, we will deliver over $150 million dollars worth of “brick and mortar” projects which are in design, acquisition or construction phases this year. As a city, we can point to investment and projects city wide, well in excess of $1.3 billion.
I believe that in 10, 20, 30 years our children won’t remember the year or 2 it took to get it out of the ground, they are going to look at the product. In the world of carpentry the saying goes "measure twice and cut once" -- be deliberate and careful with your resources. And so we have. We have been deliberate in our work, we have planned and solid foundations for the future have been laid. Rebuilding our city is underway. Gulfport, Mississippi is in better financial shape than ever and our resources for rebuilding and building are secured. We are "building a better Gulfport” and our possibilities are endless. This is the year of bricks and mortar…Bricks and mortar done right!
Thank you all for being here tonight.
See also: State of the City Address 2009
