VENICE — The city’s top two priorities for the 2025 Florida legislative session can be summed up in one word: water.
The Utilities Department has the city’s most extensive list of capital improvement projects, and the Legislature likes to fund ones that are water-related, City Manager Ed Lavallee told the City Council last week.
The city does well when it’s aligned with Tallahassee and poorly when it’s not, he said.
So while most of the legislative priorities the City Council adopted last week say the city is generically asking for “continued support” in several areas, the two for the Utilities Department have a specific number attached.
One is for $375,000, for half the cost of upgrading the city’s reverse-osmosis water production facility.
Enhancing the membranes that filter raw water without chemicals will “increase potable water production by 10%, or 500,000 gallons per day” and “result in an environmental benefit by reducing both the groundwater usage and the waste discharge rate,” the priority says.