Remarks by Cassidy Santaguida
28 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 37:23
“Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to follow up on the question about short-term rentals and that feedback from the surrounding neighborhood. Is that a condition that you all are willing to adhere to, to not have short-term rentals?”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:02:35
“Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess I want to say first to our staff and consultants, thanks for all the work that you've put into this. I don't know how you found all the hours in the day, but you did. So thanks for putting this together so quickly. What did you say, 54 days? That's pretty quick. Is that right? Did I get it right? That's right, 54. Just checking that I was paying attention. So I do, I guess, have a number of questions. I will start with the options that Wilmington came up with for the bridges. Could the federal grant funds be used for those options? I'm just curious why that…”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:04:19
“My next couple questions I think are going to be for Susan. When you were talking about the traffic analysis and the way that that was done, it sounded like there was one type of analysis done for the no build option and then the estimates from there used a different methodology for options A and B in the EA. I'm just curious. because I'm not a traffic engineer. What are the best practices when doing that kind of analysis? It seemed like there was maybe something missing, and I just didn't understand what the miss was from best practices.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:06:08
“And neither of those were present. A growth factor, it sounds like, was present, but we just don't know how they got that.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:06:37
“And then my next question, I think, is also for you. This is from an education. You were talking about mitigation costs not being included. Can you give an example of what those costs would be, or some examples of what those are?”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:07:46
“Thank you. My last question is about tolling, so I don't know who that's for. So if I'm reading this table about the economic impact of a toll correctly, it looks like with option B, there could be a $28 million a year economic impact in Wilmington for a toll facility. I also want to add that this project is estimated to cost a billion or more dollars. We have this $242 million federal grant, $85 million from the state. There's a lot to make up there, which is why a toll facility is being considered. I think everybody in this room follows the news. I have been following the fact that the…”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:32:10
“Thank you. I have a very detailed question. I'm looking at, in our agenda packet, appendix A. I'm on page, what page am I on? Hang on. This is the Appendix B detailed results of the economic impact. Are you tracking with me? It looks like under the category of commuter and visitor spending, the projections show that we would be losing just over $9 million a year Do you have a ballpark? Does anybody in this room know what the economic impact is annually? So what would that $9 million be subtracted from?”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:34:21
“pretty modest uh reduction even in uh commuters and visitors who are going to downtown i appreciate that explanation thank you my i think my question is that's nine million dollars of how much so i understand that we would be losing nine million dollars but what is what is the num what is the total number the denominator yeah that's an annual figure that's nine million dollars annually I don't think my question is, I don't think I'm asking this the right way. Are you going to help me, Dennis?”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:35:10
“Right. How much are we generating in that category annually right now is maybe a better way to phrase that.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:36:34
“Yeah, I appreciate that. Maybe we can just have that as a follow-up, but what is the economic output downtown? Yes, we'll work on that. Okay, thanks. I said downtown, I meant in the city, sorry.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 16:20
“So I know that we saw that list when we were having our budget conversations, but I probably don't have that piece of paper anymore. Can we get a copy of that? Okay, great. That was magical. Thank you for having that ready.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 22:47
“I have a question about the strategies slide and the choice to focus on recreation and neighborhood services. How do we hone in on those two categories? Just glancing at this list, there are a number of organizations that don't fall into one of these buckets. These categories tend to be well supported by other funding organizations in our regional ecosystem. And so I'm just curious why we landed on these two.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 23:48
“Yeah, I think I understand for school, I'm thinking about Maybe some of the other organizations on here that work with families and crisis with people facing addiction with like how I just don't see them fitting into these categories, and I know, as I said it, I think there's been a lot of interest from large funders and recreation and i'm just wondering. we're piling money on top of big money if that's really, if we're really going to get what we want from the city support in terms of what we know we need in the city and what our residents are asking us to address locally.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 25:37
“I understand we don't have a social services department. I understand that that's a county function. I also, trying to think about how to frame this. I don't feel great about walking away from the commitment that we've made to some of the programs that serve the people in our city. And I'm not, and I apologize if my memory just isn't finding it, but I'm not aware of us having that conversation and that shift in strategy and direction. And I just, I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. I just don't, I just, we haven't had the conversation. And I wanna be very intentional about where we put the…”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 27:01
“Are there concerns about the legality of where we're putting dollars where we have previously? I will refer to our legal counsel.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 27:18
“I just, I mean, I don't want to blow up the whole presentation. I just think that this is, if this is where we're starting, I'm not sure that we've had a conversation as a council to say this is the direction that we want to go.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 35:00
“I agree. I think this process is great. My question was not about the process. My question was about the priorities. And I don't think this council has had a conversation about what categories are our priorities. And I think that's what I'm pushing for and asking for.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 36:08
“Yeah, and I want to be clear. I'm not opposed to the city supporting recreation and neighborhood services. It just feels like choices have already been made about priorities. So things like support for social programs, food programs, some of the housing, it looks like. And I understand that that can go somewhere else. Those categories are not on this slide. So those choices have been... I'm assuming that those choices have been made. And I'm not saying it's the wrong choice. I just don't think the people at this table participated in that conversation. And as the body that's responsible for…”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 52:03
“um that we're looking for feedback from y'all i think something in the middle we definitely need another conversation yeah and maybe some more buckets yeah i think it would also be helpful um i don't want to go through and like pick and choose agencies like you were talking about like i definitely think we need to have a contract in our fp and it needs to be competitive but it would be interesting to see what the category of organizations we've supported in the past to understand what the buckets have been um so that we can make a choice about what buckets to support moving forward uh my…”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 53:13
“Yes. I would prefer this time over like a 10 o'clock on a Tuesday or something. There's no great time.”
City Council · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 2:30:11
“Thank you. Thank you both for the great presentation. Two questions. First, I just want to clarify that this funding isn't, we're not pulling this funding from any other capital improvement projects. This is, we've found, what, 550,000 that was already dedicated to Thalian, and then now we have this additional that we're looking at. Yes. And then my second question is, what is the timeline for the completion of these projects? I guess particularly the Princess Portico.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:30:56
“And this came from... And I guess while you're pulling this up, I just want to clarify, these are all, like, these are critical projects that need to happen. None of these are nice to have.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:31:22
“And the longer we wait, the worse it gets and the more it costs. Yes. Okay, thank you.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:31:32
“No, I was just looking at the timeline for the projects that you're coming to us for tonight.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:32:50
“I'm sorry. I think I missed the answer on the timeline question. Like I know that we need to start, but how long is it going to take to complete the portico improvements, um, updating the fire suppression system? What are we looking at in terms of timeline for, for all of the projects that we're looking to fund tonight?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026