Music
Indian Rocks Beach is such a beautiful place.
It's hard to imagine living anywhere else.
Sometimes it's easy to take all this for granted.
Keeping a city and its beautiful beaches going doesn't just happen.
There's a lot going on behind the scenes.
Music
Hello, I'm Phil Hanna.
I've been a resident of Indian Rocks Beach since 1991.
I'm your neighbor, and with your approval, your next Indian Rocks Beach City Commissioner.
I've never actually been in politics before.
I think that's a plus.
I'm an independent thinker, and I'll approach city issues through your eyes.
If you've arrived at my website, hopefully you've had an opportunity to learn a little bit more about me and how I approach things.
My background in advertising, marketing, and real estate has taught me to research before acting, to make decisions based on facts,
and bring things full circle to see how the decision will play out.
Part of my research is to find out what you believe.
I want to know what you like about Indian Rocks Beach, and what can maybe be improved.
But it goes much deeper than that.
I'd like for you to become involved.
Get your thinking.
Become part of my team.
Encourage you to bring your solutions forward.
We may be a small town, but that doesn't mean our challenge is already less important than larger cities.
We have economic concerns, and just like your family, there's only so much money available.
You have to live within your means, put a little bit back for a rainy day, and assure you get value for your dollar, right?
So why should a municipality operate any differently?
With that said, let's take it to the streets and find out what's on your mind, because with me, everyone's opinion counts.
I like the way things are now.
I like the fact that our trash guys will take anything we put out there on trash day, and they come a couple times a week,
and all of the services that we have are good the way they are now.
I'm afraid that possibly we might lose some of those things.
Our fire department, the way it is, is good.
I'd hate to see any of those services lost because of loss of revenue or anything like that.
What I'm concerned about, and what I like about Indian Rocks Beach, is the small neighborhood, unique beach community.
And I'd like to make sure that we can keep it that way and keep the improvements.
I love the improvements along Gulf Boulevard.
I think they're great.
In these economic times, I think maybe we should look into getting together with other beach communities to see if we can pool some resources
or what we might have in common to work that would work for all the beach communities.
And I'd like to look at that too.
Hi, Dr. Matt Faccarazzo.
I've been in Indian Rocks Beach for three and a half years now.
My wife, Kelly, and I moved here then.
The main attraction moving here was the small town atmosphere.
We've both worked in bigger cities, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Miami.
And the small town atmosphere where people, everyone knows each other and you can pretty much walk.
I could walk to work.
I live maybe 10 minutes down the road.
It was the main attraction for us moving here.
So living here, I have seen the city make some nice improvements with the sidewalks.
But I would like to see a lot more landscaping done with being very close to the beach.
I think we could get a lot more colorful landscaping on not only the road but on the beach as well.
We've had that triangle and we've wanted to develop that triangle for many, many years.
But the problem that we have down there is we just like the parking.
Say a five-story parking ramp that would be on the Holiday Inn property.
And we could still allow them to be able to use the same area that they use right now for parking.
And then we could accommodate our problem down there by using the other four stories.
I hope that this commission continues to move forward.
But they certainly address all the issues.
Not just that we are a bedroom community and we only want to support our residents that come home to sleep.
We've got to look at the other aspects of a city as well.
And the business community, specifically the triangle, should be our number one priority.
I've lived in Indian Rock Beach since 2002 and I just love it here.
We've got great neighbors. The community is just absolutely awesome.
They have a lot of activities.
And basically my husband has to just tug me away to go somewhere from here because I just really love it.
The only thing that ticks me off is that the speed limit here at Indian Rocks, they dropped it to 30 when everybody else up and down the beach is 35.
And you know, it should be 35. That's one of the things that ticks me off.
Plus the increase in property taxes and sewer fees, et cetera, all the time for somebody that's retired, you know, it keeps going up, up, up.
I've lived in Indian Rock Beach for the past eight years with my wife and we enjoy living here immensely.
It's a beautiful place to live. It's a beautiful city. It has a lot going for it.
And we certainly have beautiful waterfront all around us.
A few things I'd like the commission to consider would be to, number one, forge a consensus on what we want Indian Rock Beach to be.
Do we want Indian Rock Beach to be a tourist mecca? Do we want Indian Rock Beach to not change at all?
A lot of comments I hear from people are, we don't want to change the feel of Indian Rock Beach.
We want to maintain the small city character. To me, that doesn't mean we can't do anything.
It means that we have to carefully plan what we want to do to make sure that we both make progress and maintain the small city feel.
What I'd like to see changed is not too much growth, but to keep the growth under control and have a good plan for continued growth.
I've lived here since 1996 and I love living in Indian Rock Beach. It's like a little piece of paradise.
One thing that's very important, as far as I'm concerned, is we obviously keep our height restrictions on. That's what makes us different than everybody else up and down the beach.
Also, as far as I'm concerned, the property taxes, insurance, it just continues to go up and up.
Also, we have that business triangle down there that I think we need to work on and get some kind of businesses in there because it seems like it's just sitting there with nothing going on.
We need some business in there to get some revenue off of it.
I've lived here only for nine years and there's been a huge difference in the town in those years.
It has become increasingly more developed, not high rises, but we're working on it.
When I see Indian Shores and I come back here, I pray that we don't go the route that Indian Shores has.
I like to see the development. It's inevitable that property is going to be developed, but to have Gulf Boulevard look attractive, have the properties recessed from the road instead of having all of the free space on the Gulf side for the property owner and nothing for the townspeople as they drive by.
I really hope that we retain height levels, especially all throughout the city.
I wish any new development would be set farther back from Gulf Boulevard, but even more, I hope the local politicians would not try to direct the development, the direction that Indian Rocks Beach takes.
The economy will direct how things develop here.
I would like to see Indian Rocks Beach get a lot more aggressive on its front door of what Gulf Boulevard is to be, how it should look, and then people will know, and developers and others will know, here's what we have to meet, here's our standards, here's what we have to do.
And that to me is a pragmatic approach that, in my view, our government in Indian Rocks Beach needs to tackle, and tackle sooner rather than later.
I'm also troubled by the governance, the way the city had been governed in the past.
What I mean by this is that Indian Rocks Beach, in my view, is way too small not to know, by the hour almost, with today's technology, where your budget is, how much you've spent, how much is left, what is the history, and so forth.
An example that I'm sure all residents are quite upset about is how we wound up in the physical mess that we're now in with regard to the water and sewer.
In my view, modern technology and the leadership behind that technology should have known way before that we were in trouble, that we could have taken action, that the citizens would have known what to do, and what I call a pragmatic and responsible governance seems to be lacking.
What should go are things that are well thought out, that within our budget means, and that have a future meaning that we look downstream about what that action may lead to.
Now we're not always 100% right on everything we do, but at a batting average in Indian Rocks Beach with regard to governance, must improve.
And those who cannot, in my view, help with this pragmatic approach need to step aside and make room for those who are willing to invest in Indian Rocks Beach for its future.
I think there were some great observations, and even though you may or may not agree with what everyone said, it is a great place to start.
There are three fine candidates running for two City Commission seats. I certainly hope that you'll support me, but in any event, please exercise your right to vote.
Every vote counts, and your vote counts with me.
