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T h is C o m mu n i t y N ewsp a p er is a pu bl ica t ion of E sca m bia / S a n t a Rosa B a r Assoc ia t ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icial Ci rcu it
Section A, Page 1
Vol. 19, No. 5
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Meet the New Faces at City Hall by Will Isern
January saw a couple new faces at City Hall; Jared Moore, the new City Council representative of District 4 and Ann Hill, the new City Council representative of District 6. Hear a little about their plans for their districts and what they hope to accomplish while in office. Jared Morre, District 4
Jared Moore is a busy man. The 37-year-old father of four works a 9-to-5 at his family-owned business and was just elected to represent District 4 on the Pensacola City Council. These days it’s rare that he doesn’t take meetings over his lunch break or after hours. “It’s beautiful though, that’s just the chapter of things,” Moore said on a recent lunch break. “There will be a chapter to sleep in, right now is the chapter to get work done.” Moore is a Pensacola native whose first forays into local government were as a member of the city’s planning and zoning boards. He holds a master’s degree in education from the University of West Florida and taught in the Escambia County School system before joining the family business, J&M Valve, Inc. Moore’s campaign to fill the District 4 seat vacated by former councilman Larry Johnson didn’t make headlines the way other local races did. He and opponent Chris Phillips ran a low-key, door-to-door style campaign. Moore ran on a platform of improving stormwater infrastructure, walkability throughout the district and water quality in Bayou Texar. Cordova Park, where Moore lives, was ravaged by the April 2014 floods, and Bayou Texar, which divides District 4 in half, has only recently begun to see the return of marine wildlife such as dolphins after decades of poor water quality. While he pinpointed these as issues he wants to see improved, Moore said he hopes to take a holistic approach to representing the different parts of his largely residential district including parts of East Hill, East Pensacola Heights and Cordova Park. “I have some very specific ideas about what those neighborhoods need because they are distinct,” Moore said. “But then also I think it’s important to be able to draw back and not just become a guardian of District 4 because
I’m voting on stuff for the whole city.” Moore is a proponent of the East Cervantes Corridor Management Plan that would slow traffic and add bicycle and walking paths to the stretch of Cervantes Street in his district, and at his first city council meeting was appointed to the Florida Alabama Transportation Organization where he can advocate for the plan’s implementation. Moore is passionate about the potential for the public-private partnership model to address local issues and better the community. He was excited to discuss the Pensacola Bay Oyster Company’s partnership with the Port of Pensacola where the company incubates its oyster before moving them to the bay to grow to full size. “Any opportunity to facilitate businesses like that, I just love that model,” he said. “That it’s addressing some of our ecological issues, that it’s a private sector business that is just being enabled. We’re not subsidizing anything; it’s able to exist and carry its own weight in the private sector and at the same time its solving problems. I love that.” Outside of his job and work on the council, Moore trains and competes in triathlons with Pro Cycle and Tri out of Fairhope, Alabama and runs with the Running Wild team in Pensacola. He said getting elected to represent his neighbors is both an honor and a privilege. “It really is an honor to think that there are 6,000-plus people (that I represent) that are my neighbors,” Moore said. “I feel the weight of the responsibility. These are my neighbors. When I walk out to my truck, there’s a line of people waiting to get into Cordova Park and it’s a litany of different people and I’ve got to represent them and represent them well.”
Ann Hill, District 6
Ann Hill, a former newspaper editor, spent years participating in community groups and attending local meetings be-
January 30, 2019
fore announcing her candidacy last year to replace Brian Spencer on the Pensacola City Council. Despite spending less than her opponent, Hill was elected on Nov. 6 by margin of roughly 600 votes. Hill’s District 6 includes the core of downtown Pensacola, the historic Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood, the I-10 corridor and Old East Hill. We asked Hill what it was like to get elected and how she plans to represent her diverse and growing district. What was your reaction when you found out you had been elected to the City Council? I had campaigned believing that every vote counts. People in poor neighborhoods especially have felt ignored, and I am elated and honored that they chose me to be their voice. At the same time, I am eager to champion our historic neighborhoods and our thriving downtown. This is an amazing opportunity, and I am extremely happy to represent such a diverse district. Your district is basically ground zero for a lot of the redevelopment that is taking place. What are your thoughts on the soaring prices of property and the balance between redevelopment and historic preservation? When I first purchased an abandoned historic house that was up for auction in Belmont-DeVilliers in 1991, Palafox was lined with vacant, deteriorating storefronts; graffiti and boarded houses were common in my neighborhood, and we heard rounds of gunshots rather than Wahoos fireworks on the weekend. The Downtown Improvement Board was established 20 years earlier to bring back commerce to the 44 core blocks of Downtown, and the strategies implemented at those meetings by leaders like Jennifer Fleming and Louis Maygarden in the 1990s and by all the pioneer business owners gradually helped turn this blighted area around and pave the way for Palafox becoming one of the most admired streets in the country. In a similar way, the Belmont-DeVilliers Neighborhood Association, first under local activist Dolores Curry and later under architect Eddie Todd, has worked tirelessly to encourage infill housing and development that reflects the historic character of the Blocks. Affordable housing is essential for our growing workforce population, but the price of most of the new downtown housing is beyond the means of those we want to help. I’m not so pleased when whole blocks of historic homes are torn down. These older or “used”
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homes are often the only “affordable housing” left. People want to know what is being planned in their neighborhood and have some say in it. I am committed to increasing public input. As CivicCon speaker Ed McMahon said: “Why go anywhere if it all looks the same?” District 6 is arguably the most diverse district in the city. How will you try to balance the needs of your constituents including those living on the west side, downtown, the I-10 corridor and East Hill? The diversity of District 6 is what I have loved about living here. The desire to preserve our city’s historic character runs through every neighborhood, whether it’s a colonial in North Hill, a treasured barbershop in Belmont-DeVilliers, an early “skyscraper” downtown, a quaint cottage in East Hill, or a shotgun in the Tanyard. Recently, we have had some success stories for preserving the fabric that makes each neighborhood unique, including moving the D’Alemberte house in the Belmont, saving the Ella Jordan House on the Blocks, and opening or the Chappie James museum in the East Side neighborhood. I am especially focused on continuing to emphasize the important African-American contributions to the history of Pensacola. I was at both the demolition of the San Carlos Hotel in 1993 and the John Sunday House in 2016. It was like attending a funeral. Those losses are strongly felt and deeply mourned in this district. Residents want a voice in protecting important historic structures and our architectural diversity. We all also love our heritage trees, and most residents I’ve talked to want to make sure they remain for the next generation to appreciate. Other common interests are almost a motto in Pensacola now: walkability, bike-ability, skate-ability. Those interests call for improved street lighting, ADA accessible sidewalks, and safer traffic flow for pedestrians. Residents along 6th near Tarragona say their street lamps are dangerously dim, while some in the downtown historic district complain the wrongly installed halogen lights are blinding people. Many want Martin Luther King and Davis to return to being two-way streets because of wrong-way accidents. Part of the Cervantes corridor road diet plans run through D6. Of course, not every neighborhood has the same priorities, but they are usually not in conflict with each other. The main thing is that the all deserve city attention.
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