The $2.25 ride to Tampa International starts October 4

DRIP is now open at 4901 38th Avenue North, serving coffee, tea and kava. That is three different reasons to walk in, all handled at the same counter, and it is being billed as a something-for-everyone spot in North St. Pete. Espresso in the morning, tea in the afternoon, kava when you want the room to slow down: same address either way. Add it to the list of new places to try up that way.

Renee Reardon, 21, is a University of South Florida St. Petersburg student pursuing a bachelor of science in biochemistry, and she is building a study platform called ChemPass. She plans to launch it in August 2026, aimed at Organic Chemistry I and II. Planned features include mock exams, lessons with quizzes built in, varied practice exercises, an interactive nomenclature activity, and an AI-powered help tool that accepts photos of molecules. The service runs in a browser, with monthly and per-semester subscriptions planned. Fall semester is a few weeks out, which is about when anyone sitting in that course will be looking for help.

Council gave unanimous tentative approval to a property tax rate of 6.4525 mills for fiscal 2027, unchanged from the current year. A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value, so a flat rate does not mean a flat bill: rising assessments can still push what you owe higher. The rollback rate, the one that would bring in the same revenue as this year, is 6.3854. Citywide taxable value is projected near $39.3 billion, and property tax revenue is projected to rise from about $228.9 million to $243.7 million, an increase of nearly $14.8 million, supporting a proposed General Fund budget of $437.3 million. The rate is tentative until final budget hearings, so the number to watch is whether 6.4525 holds through them.

St. Pete Beach is defending a federal lawsuit filed in July by Plaza Beach Motel LLC and Undertow Beach Bar - St. Pete Beach Inc. over the city's beach sign rules. The ordinance bars permanent stakes, poles and similar structures within 50 feet of the Gulf, while allowing removable A-frame signs outside that buffer under certain conditions. At a public seminar, City Attorney Ralf Brooks explained the city's reading of customary use: a beachfront parcel can be privately titled and still be subject to customary public recreational rights. That is the city attorney's position, not a settled question, and the federal case is pending. If you spend weekends on that sand, the signage is the visible edge of it.

The Catalyst's Community Voices platform ran an open letter this week under a headline that skips the diplomacy: this mayoral race is not it. It opens somewhere every resident will recognize, that hour right after the heat breaks, when the whole city comes back outside and people start walking again, and builds from there into a complaint about how far the campaign feels from that version of St. Petersburg. Agree with the writer or don't; this is the piece your neighbors will be quoting at each other, and it is about the place rather than the horse race.