Nov. 15, 1970: City incorporates at a meeting at
Seminole Mall by a vote of
823 to 72.
1973: City builds first recreation facility: eight horseshoe courts.
1974: City buys land at 7464 Ridge Road for $200,000 for city, park, lake and new City
Hall.
April 1, 1984: Seminole tops 5,000 residents.
April 1985: Seminole buys 9.6 acres on 113th Street for $520,000. Land later becomes site
of post office and city library.
June 1985: City annexes Seminole Gardens apartments, adding 1,000 residents.
Dec. 12, 1989: Seminole attempts to annex 4,000 people. It gets only a fraction of that
number. The city does not hold another referendum on annexation until 1999.
Oct. 9, 1991: City agrees to buy former church on 113th Street as a future recreational
complex. Cost is $1.5 million. City later spends an additional $1 million to increase the
size of the property to 15 acres.
Aug. 16, 1992: Seminole opens a $1.5 million library.
Sept. 8, 1994: Seminole voters decide to change from a strong mayor form of government to
a city manager form.
May 1995: City hires Frank Edmunds of Newmarket, N.H., as its first city manager. He
begins work in July.
Oct. 1, 1995: City absorbes the independent Seminole Fire Rescue, tripling its budget from
about $3.5 million to $11 million and increasing its number of employees from 40 to 140.
January 1996: Seminole hires new fire chief, Vicki L. Murphy, the first female
fire chief in Pinellas County and only the seventh woman in the country to be
a paid fire chief. She resigns July 1, 2000.
Sept. 14, 1999: Votors approve spending $5.8 million to expand and renovate the recreation
center at 9100 113th St. N. It is the largest capital project in the city's history. The
cost later increases to $6.1 million.
June 13, 2000: Voters in three unincorporated neighborhoods overwhelmingly approve joining
the city, nearly doubling its size and substantially adding to its tax base. The city's
population jumps from 9,000 to 14,000.
September 2000: City enters into an agreement with St. Petersburg Junior College to build
a $6.8 million joint use library, scheduled for completion in
2003, on the school's Seminole campus.
Nov. 15, 2004 City of Seminole Florida
celebrates its 34th anniversary.
Seminole Chamber of Commerce |
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Pinellas County, of which greater Seminole is a part, is a vibrant and growing community
unto itself with a population of 921,482, an 8.2% increase through the 1990's. Seminole is
one of 24 communities within Pinellas County, is 24 miles west of Tampa, 12 miles
northwest of St. Petersburg, and 8 miles south of Clearwater.
The City of Seminole is a unique community characterized by a small, hometown atmosphere
attractively located within a greater metropolitan area.
The 2000 census proved Greater Seminole was a thriving, growing community. 73,293 live in
Seminole and the surrounding unincorporated areas, which include Bay Pines to the south
and neighborhoods west and east of the city. Within city limits, the census counted 10,890
residents. However, the surveying was done before recent annexations that have boosted the
population to almost 17,100.
While Greater Seminole is popular with retirees, the number of younger people and families
attracted by the climate and growing business opportunities it provides is growing. The
profile of the new resident is a younger, well-educated, employed individual, with a big
level of income. According to the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business
Research, the 25 to 44 age bracket is the fastest growing population in the county. |
