SEMINOLE – City councilors voted unanimously Aug. 26 to authorize City Manager Frank Edmunds to issue 10 nonmember recreation membership cards to the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College.
The college will pay the full nonresident fee of $120 for each card and use them on a rotating basis for students and faculty members interested in using the facilities at the Holland G. Mangum Recreation Complex, 9100 113th St. N.
“This has been 18 months in the works,” said Edmunds. “After some discussion (with SPC officials) we came up with the concept of a multi-use card for use by college faculty and students.”
In an August 7, 2008 letter to Edmunds, Seminole campus Provost James Olliver suggested extending the college’s partnership with the city to include the recreation center.
The college and the city already partner on the operation of the Seminole Community Library on the campus of St. Petersburg College.
“For some time, representatives from the campus and recreation center have been exploring ways to extend the partnership by seeking a way to give students, faculty and staff who are not residents of the city of Seminole the opportunity to use the (recreation) center while on campus,” Olliver wrote in the letter. “We believe we have come up with a mutually agreeable solution and request consideration by City Council to an agreement which would allow the campus to purchase a number of memberships that could be ‘checked out’ to students and campus personnel.”
The 10 cards would be good for one year from the date of purchase.
In other action, the council:
- Unanimously passed an ordinance on first reading that amends the city codes to regulate the permitting, design and construction of driveways in the public right of way. It calls for concrete driveway approaches to be at least 6 inches thick, not exceeding 14 feet wide on single-car driveways and 20 feet on double driveways. Burden of maintaining the approaches falls on the property owner.
- Unanimously approved a one-day permit to serve alcohol at the Seminole Chamber of Commerce annual golf tournament Oct. 23 at Seminole Lake Country Club.
- Directed Edmunds to revise the proposed 2008-09 city budget to reflect no training funds for Councilors Dan Hester and Peter Hofstra and appropriate a $5,000 donation to Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg for Pinellas Hope. Hester and Hofstra each requested their $2,500 travel allotment be deducted for this purpose during an earlier workshop.
- Appointed Bob Lima to the city’s Recreation Advisory Board to fill the unexpired term of Mike Masem through December.