You may have noticed two new individuals dressed in bright green DIB "Clean Ambassador" shirts and jackets. Lori and Jeremy are diligently working along downtown sidewalks and streets, stopping often to assist visitors (and injured baby birds, just ask Lori).

Friends of Downtown will award two tickets for Repast 2019 to one lucky winner in a new contest that launched May 5. To enter, post a photo of your favorite piece of Downtown Pensacola history on Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #RepastAndPresent. At the end of the contest period, one winner will be randomly picked and awarded two tickets for the third annual Repast farm-to-table dinner on May 19 in beautiful downtown Pensacola, a $250 value.

Pensacola was recently named one of the 25 best small cities in the country to start a business in 2019. Go.Verizon.com compiled its annual list based on data and qualifying factors that include education, travel time to work, population, income per capita, broadband access, loans per capita and tax scores. The Go.Verizon.com team gathered data from nearly 300 cities across the country, focusing on certain factors that would categorize them as “small." These elements also indicated the financial climate of each city and an overview of its demographics.

On Friday, Feb. 1, 2019, the Downtown Improvement Board (DIB) will launch a new mobile app, Passport Parking, for downtown parkers, along with improved parking signs, sidewalk decals, printed info cards and a street team ready to assist drivers at DIB-managed parking spaces. They are all part of a long list of customer-driven improvements that began last fall when the DIB moved away from paying an out-of-state company to manage its parking system.

The DIB has been working closely with its new parking vendor, Passport, to roll-out a new and improved digital parking platform. The Passport app, used in cities across the U.S. and around the world, will be available for download in the new year. Until then, the Premium Parking app, any pay machine or parking meter may be used to pay to park at DIB-managed lots, on-street parking and the Jefferson Street Garage.