A word from Mayor Bob Warters

The next year is going to be a very busy one and will bring some much-needed improvements and changes in the City. Nassau Bay is nearing sixty years of age and some of our infrastructure needs major improvements, repair, or replacement.

Drainage of the southern portion of Upper Bay Road has been a problem for years and now the situation has been greatly improved by installing 12 pumps. Reliability of the pumps will be increased by the installation of an alternate power source along the roadway.

CenterPoint will begin work installing the new power lines soon. CenterPoint is also going to raise their power poles by about 15 feet to get them above most trees and will trim other tree limbs falling on the power lines that have been causing us to have many power outages.

A total of 42 houses that have flooded in several storms have been raised and 19 more will be raised within the next two years.

We will be replacing 34,800 feet (6.7 miles) of our water and sewer lines starting this year.

The east end of San Sebastian will be replaced and at least one other street will also be replaced with construction beginning within the next two years.

New playground equipment will replace the old equipment in David Braun Park.

The recent harsh winter has done great damage to our city landscaping and plans are being developed to make the needed improvements. Many of the palm trees along the NASA Parkway are dead and more are severely damaged and will have to be removed.

All this construction will cause some inconveniences but will result in long time improvements and fewer disruptions of critical services.

We still have many problems to solve. Street parking causes one way traffic on some of our streets and this is exacerbated by some short-term rentals (STR’s) where as many as ten or more automobiles are parked on the streets, especially on the weekends. The State Legislature has severely limited what we can do to address these issues, but City legislation is being prepared as an attempt to somewhat restrict STR’s from opening in Nassau Bay, and to place more stringent requirements on these properties. Write to your State Legislators and tell them your opinion on this subject.

Loud noise from boaters on our lagoon has largely been repressed by patrol boats manned by firefighters and police officers. These patrols will continue throughout the summer, but the police department is short of personnel and every patrol may not have a police officer on board.

Please let me and the other City Council members hear from you about your concerns and what you want the City to do.