PANAMA CITY BEACH — Spring breakers should notice beefed up security on the beach this year.
The Panama City Beach City Council on Thursday is scheduled to take what could be the last of many steps it has taken since last Spring Break to make that come to fruition.
The Tourist Development Council has approved and forwarded $150,000 to the city for additional security during Spring Break.
“This is to help with added security, public relations on the sandy portion of the beach, and the congested areas in our city during the month of March,” Police Chief Drew Whitman wrote Feb. 18 in a letter to the council.
The resolution the council is being asked to approve at the 2 p.m. meeting states the budget amendment is necessary to provide additional funds to the city’s Public-Safety-Beach Patrol/Special Events account.
The funds are in addition to the $120,000 the council had approved spending in this fiscal year’s budget for Spring Break mutual aid assistance from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Highway Patrol, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Panama City Police Department.
For years, a group of residents has pleaded with the City Council to do something to tone down Spring Break, but this year the council took action, adopting a comprehensive plan to take some of the rowdiness out of Spring Break. They approved 17 steps in the form of policy changes and ordinances to address the issue on the heels of an unflattering Fox News report on Spring Break 2014.
The laws regulate a wide range of activities common during Spring Break — everything from riding scooters to digging large holes in the sand to shutting down bars early in March.
City Manager Mario Gisbert said he, along with Mayor Gayle Oberst and Whitman, gave a presentation earlier this week to the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association about the steps the city has taken to tone down the upcoming Spring Break.
“We were getting buy-in from probably 350 bartenders and bar maids and restaurateurs,” Gisbert said. ‘We’ve got a buy-in from retailers helping with parking lot security. We’re getting buy-in from the general community, and of course, all the special event permit applications that have been coming through, we’re processing those with the extra security and everything else that goes with those.”
Oberst said she believes the city is prepared for this year’s Spring Break.
“The chief said yesterday that we’re as ready as we can be,” she said Wednesday.
This year will see four drug-sniffing K-9 dogs on the Beach as opposed to one last year. Oberst said the dogs have been adequately trained and are ready to do their job come the first week of March.
“They have to stay with the officer all the time, so they go home with them,” Oberst said. “If they go somewhere personally, and don’t take the dog, they have to secure the dog.”
The council Thursday also is scheduled to discuss refinancing more than $43.5 million in Community Redevelopment Agency bonds with a private bank loan. Refinancing would save the city $4.1 million in interest costs during the next 16 years, and city officials say the savings could be used to speed up the improvements planned for the 8-mile stretch of Front Beach Road that is getting transportation and beautification improvements.
The council at its last meeting unanimously approved a motion to refinance the bonds but also asked its financial adviser to check with a few more financial institutions to see whether they can offer a better interest rate than the 2.75 percent fixed rate offered by Regions Bank. The current interest rates on the bonds fluctuate between 4 and 5 percent. Gisbert said Wednesday the adviser checked other rates, but Regions Bank still is offering the best one.