Overheard at the April 6 Gulfport City Council Meeting

By Ryan McGahan

“I had to come here to publicly acknowledge what [Joe Guenther] did for Gulfport Little League and youth baseball in Gulfport. I wanted to thank you, Mayor, and Mr. O’Reilly, you watched me grow into baseball, he used to be my coach when I was a young kid... and he had a hand in stirring my pot to get me where I needed to go… I just had to come back here publicly to thank all you guys in the City of Gulfport. The support that we get from the local businesses here is tremendous.” – Trevor Mallory, President of Gulfport Little League and former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, accepting a $5,600 check from the recent St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser hosted by O’Maddy’s

“Last year, the [LGBTQ Read Out Festival] was about 145 participants at the library; this year we did an entirely virtual event and we drew nearly 1,000 registrants who participated in the event across two and a half days...We are also particularly excited to tell you that our registrants were not just from the United States, or even from Florida, but came from 21 other countries, including Tanzania, Ukraine, Canada, India, Ireland, Belize, the UK, Australia, and more.” –Milton Wendland, as part of a presentation on the LGBTQ Resource Center’s recent “Read Out” Festival of Lesbian Literature

“Currently our noise ordinance is set at 65 decibels between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m....the ordinance is meant

to cover both residential and commercial. As far as I understand it, it does not adequately serve the restaurants and bars at 65 decibels. For example, a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer registers at 75 decibels. Normal conversation, ambient noise, in fact tonight, in this room, before the meeting began, was around 70 decibels.” – Kelly Wright, owner of the North End Tap House, requesting an increase in the noise ordinance so bands can play without violating it.

“I have a request for the council as far as the Shore Boulevard building between Caddy’s and Salty’s with all the plywood up. There’s a lot of concern in this town about buildings and the way they look and how they’re built, and if we’re being gentrified or not. The plywood on those buildings looks like Asbury Park during the crack epidemic… Can we please do something? We have a ton of artists in this town that could paint those plywoods to make them look nice.” – Dawn Ingianni. Mayor Sam Henderson replied that since the building is privately owned the city is limited in what it can do.

“I don’t know how many of y’all were here at the time when the Casino had a restaurant in it, Bahama Bill’s? I just wanted to let everybody know that does remember that great restaurant that Bahama Bill has passed away and there is a service coming up for him.” – Councilmember Christine Brown