Panama City Beach Sets Legislative Priorities

Panama City Beach, FL.- The 2024 regular session of the Florida Legislature convenes in January and in preparation, the City Council has approved a list of top five priorities for the City’s advocacy to the Legislature. The priorities included input from both the City Council and City staff.

“We are very excited about this list,” said Mayor Mark Sheldon. “We work hard to get grants and funding for our projects. There are a lot of great projects in the works that will improve quality of life, public safety, the attractiveness, and transportation in the City. These are four of our strategic priorities and we never want to lose focus of those elements that our community has helped us identify, as being most important to them. We will continue to fight for additional funding to clean Lullwater Lake and all these projects that are very important to us.”

The City’s top priorities are:

• Pursue any available state aid for the planning, design, and environmental studies related to a pedestrian bridge connecting Aaron Bessant Park and Frank Brown Park.
• Pursue any available state aid for the planning, design, and environmental studies related to expansion of Philip Griffitts Sr. Parkway from North Nautilus Drive to North Pier Park Drive.
• Pursue any additional state aid for the cleaning and de-mucking of Lullwater Lake.
• Pursue available state aid to pursue projects designed to improve the efficiency and safety of the City’s public safety departments including through the funding and purchase of a joint mobile command vehicle.
• Pursue any available state aid for improvements to the City’s stormwater, water and wastewater systems. In particular, the City seeks funding for septic-to-sewer conversions, water redundancy improvements, and offshore stormwater outfalls.