7/7 City Commission Meeting: 

Nothing of note concerning downtown residents.

2) State money has been successfully appropriated to help finance downtown signal light upgrades ($1.5m) and the Fern Street crossing over the Tri-Rail tracks ($3m).  The idea behind both initiatives is to relieve rush-hour congestion.

3) the business rent tax was eliminated (tax on renting commercial space)

4) student cellphones are effectively banned from classrooms K-12

5) there was a legislative movement to eliminate the property tax, but that went nowhere.

6) there was another legislative movement to eliminate state funding for city CRA's, but that was stopped.  

N.B.: The DDA has $200k to plant 8-12 shade trees in downtown.  Most of those new trees will replace dead / damaged trees, or replacing old, stringy palms with live oaks for better shade.  Hopefully, this is just a beginning.  But keep in mind the approximate price for installing just the infrastructure and "silvicells" to accommodate a new tree: $42k apiece.

Also: Due to DNA lobbying, the CRA has allocated $100k to study the purchase and / or conversion of vacant downtown lots into playgrounds, dog parks, etc. as part of the Downtown Master Plan revision.  Chris Roog at the CRA is in regular contact with the mayor and commissioners to make this happen.  One caveat from Roog: it's not difficult to build a park, but proper maintenance can be mind-blowingly expensive.  So, the strategy that the CRA is pursuing is to retain city ownership of the new parkland and convince developers immediately adjacent to be responsible for the construction & maintenance.  Ideally, developers will have a strong incentive to build and maintain top-quality parks to bolster the value of their adjacent buildings. 

----Schmidt