Candidate: Lisa Logan

LISA LOGAN

Mexico Beach City Council Group 2

850-829-6747

mexicobeach2018@yahoomail.com

KNOWLEDGE / COMMUNICATION / EXPERIENCE / TRANSPARENCY

“For the good of the town, not personal agendas”

Our beloved Mexico Beach has been through the worst that can be thrown at us, and we have come out battered, but surviving. Now, just over 4 years later, we have made a great deal of progress, but still face challenges that need our immediate and focused attention.

Since Michael, I have repeatedly asked the council to halt new development (anything that did not exist pre-storm) until our original town is rebuilt and we can create a citywide development plan to look at undeveloped land and how it affects the entire town, not just as an isolated project. The city has never had such a plan, which has led to landlocked isolated properties that now create citywide logistical problems. New development does NOT include single family homes on individual lots. 

The top 3 issues I plan to address:

• controlling overdevelopment, which includes overextension of resources and infrastructure
• loss of basic services/necessities for residents
• inequality of enforcement of city regulations, especially in Building Department and Code Enforcement

Perhaps the most important thing is to prevent the loss of Mexico Beach as the unique community we residents and citizens have stated we want in our city comprehensive plan: to maintain our unique, small town character by preventing overdevelopment, preserving our wide-open spaces and beach, and preserving our established neighborhoods and tiny city streets, which were never designed to accommodate the amount of traffic (pedestrian, vehicular and housing) we are seeing.

I have repeatedly asked the council to stop allowing residential to be built in commercial zoning. Using almost all our commercial land for residential has created a void for services/businesses for residents. We have lost almost all of our services that we had 20 years ago, putting our fulltime residents in difficult circumstances. City officials must recognize that basic services for residents also serve tourists. Our fulltime residents are the backbone of our town, but have been thrust to the back of city priorities for the last 20 years. Mexico Beach is not just a “tourist destination,” it is our home, and tourists are guests in our home. Those boundaries and expectations must be observed.

New development since the storm has created an overextension of basic city infrastructure, especially roads, beach parking, pedestrian traffic ways, beach trash, police/fire support. Since Michael, we have not even discussed how our infrastructure will support the growing population and vehicle traffic, or how we will handle the related increase in beach trash or fire/law enforcement needs, all which require additional city employees/equipment. This must be solved before we build any more new developments. 

We have no affordable workforce housing – no workers are willing to come to Mexico Beach because they cannot afford to live in town or drive back and forth. Without workers, no businesses are willing to return. Yet the city has not had any public meetings with businesses and the community to discuss the issues, or publicly presented any plan to do so.

New housing developments have not, in my opinion, met our comprehensive plan's requirement for controlled growth. We only have 4 square miles in which to build and live, with small streets, more than 40 of which empty into Hwy 98, our only main road. We cannot widen our existing streets. Traffic is already maxed out, yet each new development since Michael has added vehicles, boats/trailers, and people our town was never designed to accommodate. Looking at a map of Mexico Beach, one can see that our unique physical layout and distinct physical boundaries lock us into a pre-determined amount of growth. Somehow, we must find a workable solution.

Overdevelopment since Michael has also paved over much of our wetlands/flood plains. We had a large drainage/flooding issue pre-storm – now it’s much larger, and most sections of town are underwater after a moderate rain. We cannot continue allowing developers to fill in/cover wetlands/flood plains, nor can we continue to allow individuals to cover more than the allowed percentage of lots with impervious materials.

These are some of the issues we must solve, or we will become another South Walton 30A district/Panama City Beach scene. I have ideas/potential solutions to offer on these issues. The ideas may be unusual, even radical, but at least I am bringing ideas that can be used to begin discussions in the effort to find solutions. It will take the entire community – particularly the fulltime residents – to deal with this. There must be more opportunities for the community to hear council ideas, and present their own. I am asking for your support to win the City Council Group 2 seat.

Contact me at mexicobeach2018@yahoo.com, or 850-829-6747 with questions or comments.