Millville, Fla -
The Millville community has some major plans for their new waterfront park - from a new parking lot, to an amphitheater. However, there's one feature that is causing some discussion tonight - the status of a proposed fishing pier.
According to the agenda, a bid was set to be awarded on the project at Tuesday night's Community Redevelopment Agency Meeting for the pier project. Before that happened, the Millville Community Alliance brought a big issue to light.
"We didn't want people to come out here and say 'We were told for months that it was going to be this, this and this... and come out here and say 'That's not what we're paying for,'" said Glenn Ravan with the Millville Community Alliance.
The pier is one of the centerpieces of the Millville park project. Panama City Public works director Neil Fravel says there's one problem.
"We can't build what they want for the money that's available," Fravel said.
Fravel says the bids that came in were way over the $265,000 dollar budget for the project, meaning some features, like the composite material used to build the pier, a gazebo, and the length of the pier itself had to be cut.
"That's the source of friction I think with the Millville Alliance, is that a lot of things have been cut out the project," Fravel said.
Ravan says it's not necessarily the project's cuts that have them bothered.
"I guess that's fine, but we should be able to let the people of Millville know," Ravan said. "It'll be one of those things where they say once again we were told a bunch of stories and none of it happened. We can't have that in Millville anymore."
Longtime resident Rufus Newsome says he hopes the project goes through in it's entirety.
"I think they deserve the thing, and have none of it cut back," Newsome said.
Newsome was born and raised in Millville in 1940, and has seen a lot of change over the years. He says this park and the pier would be the next step in Millville's evolution.
"Because of the mill and everything, people think this is the poor section of town," Newsome said. "I think we need a chance to show what we've got."
The alliance plans on meeting with residents to discuss their options. The pier will be discussed again at the next commission meeting.
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