This time we'll call to order the December 1, 2025 work session of Clearwater City Council to item 2.1 on the agenda, and that's the presentation of our December service awards. This time I'd like to call forward for our service awards. There are two to present today. I'd like to call forward Sherry Watkins from Planning and Development and ask the city manager to read the letter of award for this recognition for this 25-year employee. Everyone who has been to the Planning and Development Department, whether as a customer or an employee, knows Sherry Watkins. For 25 years, her positive energy and the laugh you can hear from across the room have been a part of the soundtrack of the department. She is everywhere at once, never sits still, and if you are not sure where to start, the rule is simple. Ask Sherry. She knows more about the city of Clearwater and how to find the right person, record, or place than just about anyone, and she has done it all in Allie McBeal skirts and Halle Berry and Jane Fonda worthy hairstyles that people still remember. Sherry joined the city in 2000 and has grown from a development review technician to administrative assistant to her current role as the department's document and record specialist. If a record exists, she either knows where it is or will exhaust every avenue to find it. Her motivation is always to do what's best for the customer, who she reminds colleagues is the reason the department exists. A former department director used to say that if you looked up the definition of customer service, you would see a picture of Sherry. One attorney who has worked with her for more than 20 years has called out her servant heart. That customer-focused lens guides everything that Sherry does, including leading the department to be one of the first in the city to proactively scan and digitize records. She has taken on the daunting task of transforming decades of paper files and microfilm into searchable records, scanning historic plans, and now leading a major project to convert microfiche so information is preserved and easy to find. Her customer service is rooted in patience and empathy. Sherry understands that most people who contact the department are not experts in planning, permitting, or records. She translates technical language into plain terms and helps customers figure out what they really need, no matter how much time it takes. Inside planning and development, Sherry is the person people go to when they have no idea where to start. For many years as administrative assistant, she managed the Development Review Committee and Community Development Board calendars and deadlines, keeping everyone on track and helping applicants navigate the process. She also mentors new, often very young staff members, quietly teaching them how things really work. Many planners will admit that at some point in their careers, they showed up at her desk in a panic over making a mistake or missing a deadline. She is the calm in the storm, listening, pulling out calendars, talking through options, and sending them to their managers with a plan instead of just a problem. Her colleagues describe her as generous and kind with a side of sass. Sherry is known for frequently saying, not a problem, it's what I'm here for. She's a proud mom and grandmother and brings that same care into the workplace. The planning and development department may joke that she secretly runs the place, but there's a lot of truth in that. The city of Clearwater is better because of Sherry Watkins and the positive impact she has had on residents, developers, attorneys, and businesses, helping Clearwater truly thrive from Beta Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's my granddaughter. Thank you. We all wish we had a fan club like Sherry's. Thank you so much, Sherry. 25 years of your commitment, not just to your job, but to the city of Clearwater and our citizens, and we thank you so much for your service and the way you have served our city. Next, we'll call forward for the Employee of the Month Award for November, Raymond Dresch from Public Works. Ray is truly someone who can do it all. He manages his responsibilities in the transportation division with exceptional efficiency and still finds the time to wear multiple hats, supporting development review for other divisions and public works and even other city departments. He does all of this while maintaining a friendly, approachable attitude and never hesitates to assist coworkers with questions or challenges, including frequently helping troubleshoot IT issues. And he's accomplished all of this in just over a year in his role. The city of Clearwater is undoubtedly better because of Ray's contributions, and within transportation, we feel very fortunate to work alongside him. Ray's dedication is also a standard example of high-performing government and superior public service in action. He consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that projects move efficiently, departments stay supported, and employees receive the help they need to succeed. His ability to deliver high-quality results while strengthening collaboration across the organization is exactly the kind of service that elevates our workplace and the community that we serve. Please join us in congratulating Ray, our December Employee of the Month, for his outstanding contributions and well-earned recognition. We will now move to Item 3.1 on the agenda. Opt out of providing the 80% to 120 AMI Missing Middle Property Tax Exemption to development that would otherwise qualify pursuant to the Live Local Act. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Dylan Mayhew, I'm the Housing Manager. I'm here to present an item regarding the city's decision to offer the Missing Middle Property Tax Exemption under a Live Local Act. Section 196.1978 of Florida Statutes allows rental developments with 71 or more units and ad valorem property tax exemption if they provide housing for households earning between 80% and 120% area median income. Beginning with the 2025 tax roll, local governments were given the option to opt out of this exemption if certain conditions were met. To qualify for the opt-out, the most recent annual report from the Schimberg Center for Housing Studies must show the area has a surplus in this style of affordable housing. In this case, the most recent Schimberg report identifies the Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area does indeed have a surplus of affordable and available units for households earning between 80 and 120% of area median income. This implies that there's not a need to incentivize the development of this style of restricted housing. By adopting the resolution, the city will choose not to grant the missing middle tax exemption for the 2026 tax year and will notify the Pinellas County property appraiser accordingly. This resolution applies to tax year 2026 only. It will automatically expire January 1, 2027, unless renewed by Council in accordance with Florida statutes. With that, staff recommends adoption of the resolution, opting out of the missing middle property tax exemption for calendar year 2026. I'd be happy to address any questions. Any questions from the Council? Council Member Menino. Thank you, Mayor. Quick question. Does this opt-out have any effect negatively on current projects like Indigo or anything like that? No. Well, as far as – well, they're all under 80%, but does this have any – let me look into that, and I'll get you an answer for that on Thursday. I want to make sure I answer that accurately. No. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. Chair, item 3.2. Accept the 2025 local housing incentive strategies report. Oh, sorry. Item 3.2 on today's agenda is the request for City Council to approve the 2025 local housing incentive strategy, or better known as the LHIS, as developed and recommended by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. As background, Florida Statute 420.9076 requires that any city or county receiving state housing initiative partnership or SHIP funding to appoint an Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. The committee must include representatives from specific groups and professional fields that work in or alongside the housing industry. For Clearwater, we met this requirement primarily through our Neighborhood and Affordable Housing Advisory Board, and then Council also approved four additional members to ensure full compliance with state statute. The duties of AHAC include reviewing the city's housing-related policies, procedures, land development regulations, and the comprehensive plan. Then they recommend strategies to encourage or remove barriers to affordable housing development. State law requires the committee to evaluate at least 11 incentive areas. That includes expedited permitting for affordable projects, reducing or modifying impact fees, allowing flexible densities, reserving infrastructure capacity for affordable units, allowing accessory dwelling units, reducing parking or setback standards, allowing flexible lot configurations, modifying street requirements, evaluating policies that increase the cost of housing, maintaining an inventory of land suitable for housing, and encouraging development near transit and major employment centers. So in addition to these statutory categories, Clearwater continues to evaluate five additional focus areas. That's adaptive reuse, improvements to the land development code, communication and marketing of affordable housing, financing strategies, and partnerships. Throughout the fall of 2025, staff from the Economic Development and Housing Department and Planning and Development, along with consultant Wade Trim, facilitated four AHAC meetings. The meetings reviewed the previous year's incentives and evaluated whether modifications or strategies were warranted. The committee spent time reaffirming the value of affordable housing in Clearwater, clarifying guiding principles, and refining recommendations in the LHIS. Some of the notable recommendations include updating the expedited permitting review process and shifting points of contact to the housing manager and development services manager, adding pre-approved accessory dwelling unit plans sets to facilitate ADU development, considering accessibility features within the city's affordable housing design standards, and directing developers and residents to the updated and centralized information on the city's website. The LHIS report is due annually and is required to be submitted to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation no later than December 31st, 2025. If approved Thursday, staff will transmit the report and continue working to incorporate council-approved incentives into the local housing assistance plan. Staff recommends the approval of the 2025 local housing incentive strategy. As recommended by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, this action supports Strategic Priority 2.4, supporting equitable housing programs that promote stability and reducing homelessness within Clearwater. I'm happy to address any questions. Any questions? Thank you, Mayor. No question. Just want to make a comment. I had the privilege, this board had the faith in me to serve on the AHAC board, so thank you for that. You and staff did an amazing job navigating the entire process with Wade Trim. I think the board did a great job at some very in-depth conversations on topics very important to affordable housing in Clearwater and the community, and I think the report definitely sums up the process that this board went through. So thank you and staff for your time. Thank you. Any other questions? Do we have consent? Yes. Yes. We have consent on 3.2. Thank you. Agenda item 3.3. Approved the State of Clearwater's fiscal year 2024-25 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. Dylan Mayhew, housing manager. So today I'll walk you through the results of the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, better known as the CAPER. This report provides a comprehensive overview of how we've used federal funds through fiscal year 2024-2025. Thursday's meeting will be the second of two public hearings. There is a 15-day comment period that will end on Wednesday this week, and as of current we've received no comments. If you approve the report on Thursday, housing staff will work to submit the report by the due date, December 29th, 2025. So what is the CAPER? The CAPER primarily pulls data from HUD's Integrated Disbursement and Information System, known as IDIS, which tracks all of our financial and accomplishment information for federal funds. The reports table, this is important to note, the reports tables reflect federal data and matched funds exclusively. State and local funds aren't included in these tables. However, the narrative sections, we include state and local data to give a more complete picture of our work without bringing through the 2024 accomplishments. For housing, combined with SHIP Home CDBG, we assisted 253 individuals with housing-related services. We constructed one rental unit. We rehabbed one existing rental unit. We constructed two homeowner units. However, it's important to note that we also closed Indigo Apartments, which added 208 affordable units to the city's inventory, of which three were restricted under the city's land use restriction agreement and will be counted in next year's CAPER due to the fact that the project funding was not closed out this fiscal year. We rehabbed 13 homeowner units, two with federal funds, 11 with SHIP, 18 down payment assistance loans. That's eight with home, 10 with SHIP. We assisted 42 households with tenant-based rental assistance. And finally, the city provided funding for homeownership and counseling service to 176 households. With regard to our public facility and services work, we expended $1,043,672 in total for public facilities and public services. For facilities, we completed five projects in total, two utilizing CDBG-CV, all of which rolled over from the 2023-2024 fiscal year. These projects included facility improvements to St. Vincent de Paul's campus, the ARC, CNHS's Head Start facility, Directions for Living, and ARC Club Child Care. Total expenditure for projects completed in fiscal year 24-25 include $226,737 in CDBG and $44,274 in CDBG-CVS, COVID relief funds. We also started four facility projects last year, but they were delayed and therefore will be rolled over into the next year's CAPER. Through the support of subrecipients, the city assisted 3,485 special needs persons through public facilities activities. For public services, we funded two with $94,048 in CDBG and two with $44,335 in CDBG-CV. One of those is still open. This includes funding for Metropolitan Ministries' Homelessness Program, West Care's Turning Point Program, Direction for Living's Homelessness Program, and St. Vincent de Paul's Homelessness Program. It's also important to note, we had one additional service that we were going to fund. They had to drop out. Another funding source that they were expecting fell through, so withdrew their application. For economic development, we provided $80,000 for technical assistance services to Hispanic business initiative funds. They do business as Prospera, and we care doing business as Upwards to assist 42 micro-enterprise businesses. Staff is still working on completing the Commercial Facade Program agreements, and therefore no projects were completed. However, there is a pipeline of applications. With regard to our resources and investments, with CDBG, we started the year with $2,617,994. We expended $1,043,672. Again, bear in mind, some of the funding from Indigo is not counted in this number. For home, we started the year with $4,897,672. We expended $377,610. Multiple projects are currently underway and not accounted for in this expenditure total. To give you just an idea, we have approximately $4,162 million conceptually budgeted for projects in pre-development. With our SHIP funds, we started the year with $1,898,317. We expended $1,169,975. With regard to our homelessness work, we do a lot of our homeless work with CDBG funds. Utilizing non-profit services, we went on to assist 2,056 people with homelessness services and an additional $739,000 under a separate national objective not reported. The city also budgets $300,000 for homelessness initiative, $300,000 in general fund. This year, the city funded nine organizations for homelessness services using that program. The report also goes into other actions and other activities. So to kind of go over a quick synopsis, our biggest funds that we utilize for activities is our SHIP fund outside of our federal funds. The city received state housing initiative partnership. Again, that's the SHIP program. And utilize the funds for first-time homebuyer assistance, home rehabilitation for low- to moderate-income homeowners, construction of affordable housing units. And we also utilize SHIP to fund our disaster recovery program. We assisted eight households with disaster recovery after the storms last year. Finally, monitoring, the city ensures compliance with federal rules and regulations for agreements administered under its CDBG and home program. This includes advising subrecipients on performance and conducting regular monitoring to assess compliance and address any issues. Monitoring visits are conducted annually, more frequently if the subrecipient is deemed a higher risk. Most notably, no findings were found in 2024. That's the summary of the 2024 CAPER. I have Donya Perez. She was the point person on this year's report. I'd be happy to address any questions. Okay. Councilman Robert. I have a question, but I can tell you, I am real happy with your department. You've done a great job this year. Wow, that's a lot of programs and a lot of people you've helped. So I'm really happy with the report. Thank you. Thank you. It's staff, really. They're fantastic. Any other questions? So this isn't marked in consent. Is this a? It's a public hearing. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for the report. Gen item 3.4. Approve the reimagined Clearwater Library call for development concepts process and authorized staff to implement targeted marketing and outreach strategy. Bring the presentation up, please. Good afternoon again. Jesus Nino, CRA Executive Director for the record. This item is the opportunity to present our updated marketing and communications refinement of the reimagined Clearwater Library initiative. So today I'm bringing forward the request for approval of the reimagined Clearwater Library call for development concepts and authorization for staff to implement a targeted marketing and outreach strategy to support the reissuance of the call for development concepts in January of 2026. So this refined approach incorporates your direction from earlier this year, the results of the 2025 solicitation period, and extensive feedback from other staff members, including city manager's office and stakeholders. So this presentation will cover project overview, lessons learned, industry insights, messaging framework, timeline, projected budget, and next steps and questions. So the updated reimagined Clearwater Main Library strategy builds on insights from the 2024-2025 and reflects the direction provided by the trustees. So the slide highlights three key areas of improvement. First, it's lessons learned. This reflects the feedback from the initial call for development concepts, including the need for clearer messaging, more consistent outreach, and stronger engagement with prospective partners. Then two, a more strategic focus. This section emphasizes a more targeted engagement approach, connecting with cultural institutions, enhancing recruitment through professional support, and using tools such as Blue Dot, which is our customer relationship management or CRM system, to strengthen lead tracking and follow-up. Then three, transparency. We are placing greater emphasis on clarity and openness throughout the process to attract high-quality cultural partners and build public trust. Together, these improvements support a more intentional, strategic approach, which is heading into the next solicitation window. Just to give a little bit of feedback on the background or background to the project. So in late 2024, the Clearwater CRA launched a call for development concepts to repurpose a part of the main library into culture and arts hub. Following trustee direction, staff updated solicitation to advertise that up to the full square footage of the building may be available for redevelopment. During the first solicitation window, 245 contacts were reached, six applications were received, but none were advanced by the city council. So some of the gaps that were identified included marketing clarity, follow-up consistency, CRM, that's customer relationship management tracking, and prospect engagement. So these findings informed a more refined strategy that we are presenting to you today. So as far as some of the lessons learned, from the first solicitation period in our digital market analytics, several lessons emerged. One is clarify the vision and scope, strengthening the message on available space in the library, potential incentives available, the cultural uses, and charter-compliant considerations. Then two, a more targeted engagement, so increasing direct outreach to museums, developers, and institutional partners, including the American Alliance of Museums, which is the AAM, and the American Library Association, or ALA. Then three, improved follow-up and tracking. In the first iteration, we were basically tracking things on a spreadsheet and didn't have all the email information. For instance, we might have had an info at abc.com type of email addresses, so we'll use a more consistent touchpoint and centralized customer relationship management system, which we already have blue dot in place. That's a great tool to start tracking the next round. Four, allow more adequate time. So culture partners typically require six to nine months of communication before they can meaningfully prepare and submit a proposal to be considered by the council or the trustees. So five, leverage professional support if needed, utilizing marketing, public relations, and consultant expertise to elevate project positioning and improve positional quality, proposal quality. So these lessons form the backbone of the updated strategy. So as far as industry insights, to better align with industry standards, staff did engage consultants and reviewed best practices from the culture sector. So Mr. Battle and other staff members did engage some of those consultants. I think it was Joelle from Public Communications. So consultant feedback included that, and these were also other research by staff as well. A 5,000 square foot footprint is considered significant for culture and exhibit programming. Museums and culture institutions typically require six to nine months of advanced communication and relationship building. Then depending on the scope, planning through opening can take anywhere from six to 2.5 years. Then culture partners prioritize early, clear feasibility information. And some of the recommended adjustments include engaging additional consultants to strengthen project feasibility and positioning, building a six to nine month lead time into marketing outreach efforts, expanding recruitment through national cultural networks, such as, again, as the American Alliance of Museums and the American Library Association, including incorporating earlier and clear messaging to support partner planning and decision making. So these insights reinforce the need for a long-range strategic outreach approach. So marketing and communication goals and targeted audiences. Our refined strategy includes four primary goals. One is clarify library uses, available space, including charter-compliant allocations, full ranges of uses, and redevelopment flexibility, if any. And two, create high-quality marketing material and centralized tracking. Our outreach and follow-ups will be logged into Blue Dot to increase transparency and consistency. Three, enhance staff training and communications, ensuring alignment of the project's value proposition, messaging, and inquiry handling. This includes having the right contact information of those prospects. Then four, increase in transparency. So providing accessible material, clear process flow, and monthly updates to the trustees to ensure that you, the trustees, have all the information needed to adapt as prospects start to be engaged by us. If we start to get feedback from them, we can bring it back to you, and we adapt accordingly. So primary target audiences are museums, cultural institutions, arts organizations, developers experiencing culture-adapted reuse. Then the secondary audiences are universities, foundations, tourism and economic development partners, downtown stakeholders, residents, and media, and the like. So as far as our messaging framework, so a stronger messaging framework is essential. Key selling points include a walkable connection to Kaushman Park and the Sound, a prime location in a rapidly transforming downtown district and located by the waterfront, economic and cultural benefits for partners in the broader community, and more clear summaries of available space, potential lease terms, and any incentives. All these materials and outreach mentioning will reinforce these value points. As far as the timeline, our proposed timeline right now is to reissue the call for development concepts in January of 2026 for your direction, unless you say otherwise today. Monthly, provide the trustees with updates, with feedback from the prospective partners, and you also give us feedback, and we adjust accordingly. Then late in 2026, unless things change, start to accept and review proposals. This schedule aligns with the industry expectations for institutional planning and concept development. The next particular slide is to execute a competitive marketing and requirement campaign. This is just here for your information. Staff may pursue, if needed, or even to a lesser extent, support in the following areas. One is marketing consultants. Two, brokerage partners to market space to qualified cultural tenants. Then public relations firms is number three for storytelling and earned media. The number four is engagement specialists for community outreach and tracking support. In total, this can range anywhere from $100,000 to $140,000, or even less if we value engineer it as much as possible. In closing, this refined strategy will help address a lot of your identified issues from the past, and that we can put together a more robust outreach strategy for the next iteration. I'm open for questions, so is staff that's here valuable if I can answer the questions. We're also here to hear your feedback, to listen to your feedback. Start, Vice Mayor. So I have monthly meetings with Jesus, so he's been keeping me very well informed. And so I really appreciate the presentation, and it was no surprise to me the content that was there. The only thing I want to highlight once again is that targeting includes not only identifying the institutions, but the actual appropriate person with the best way to communicate with them, rather than the general avenue, right? So that is included in the targeting, identifying the correct person for that institution and the best way to communicate with them. That's it. Otherwise, I think you did a great job, and we've communicated often. And I realize and I acknowledge, and I thank you for your hard work. Thank you, Mayor. Very retrospective, I would say. I think the Vice Mayor gave us a pretty hefty report last time after round one, and I think you touched on and staff touched on just about every concern and challenge that was on there. I'm supportive of this 100% and moving forward with it. I think the council's idea of dream big, go big with this. This is a great opportunity. I still stick with that. My own, if I had a hesitation, and don't let me scare you yet, Vice Mayor. If I had a hesitation, my only hesitation would be the timing of this. Timing's so important, and we're diving back in so quick. I just have a little hesitation that if this was just paused briefly, that pretty soon there's multiple cranes downtown, and there's a different buzz and vibe. There's three to five new businesses. The doors are open, and you might just have an easier time trying to sell it versus being the first one to the party kind of thing. But, no, I think it's a great report. Staff did an amazing job of dissecting where our pitfalls were, what some of our challenges and hurdles were, and how we're better at the second at bat, and I greatly appreciate that. And if the dais is supportive of moving forward with this as of January in 2026, I'll support it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Jesus. I appreciate the report. I have to give you, your team, credit. I think that you guys do great with, really, all of our staff do on hearing what this dais wants and being able to pivot and then provide those, especially with your meetings that you're having with the vice mayor monthly, just to make sure that you guys are kind of staying on point with where that's going. I, too, would agree that I think that if you have more foot traffic, more hotels, maybe you get a different sense of a sell, if you will. So a pause, if this is what people want to do, I'm not opposed to it. On the other foot, you know, I think that developers have a great mind of the future, and they can see things and see the horizon. So, you know, seeing that permits are pulled, construction's happening, you know, you don't necessarily have to always pause. So I would be interested to see what the rest of my colleagues up here have to say in moving forward. But just I sincerely appreciate you and the team's work on this and being able to be so flexible with the needs that we hit you with when you come up and give a director's report like this. So thank you very much. Mr. Merle, Burton. Yeah, I had concerns with the last go-round. I think we've taken care of a lot of questions and made it better this time. I'm for moving forward now. I think there's enough that's going to be happening after the first of the year. I mean, we've got a lot of things that look like it's happening now. My only concern was giving them enough time to put something together to come to us instead of rushing it. And I think the timeline is good this time. So I'm looking forward to supporting this moving forward now. Well, to echo the remarks already made when we considered the proposals that you brought to us, I just really want the community to think big and think bigger than what was, you know, what we yielded from the last RFP response. So I appreciate the ideas and what we might do differently the next time around. I do share some concern that the vice mayor has that, well, I guess it was customer Menino, that the timing, I think we felt like the last time we didn't get the proposals we thought we would get because of the timing. We didn't have any construction going on next door. That should start here soon. Definitely the Gotham property will be started by January 1. So I feel like a little time to get going on that would help us. And then I think it was the vice mayor told us last time that some, and it's in your report, that some of the people who might have responded said they didn't have enough time to do it. So my only concern is that maybe in this case we need to kind of till the ground before we put it out again. I don't think there's anything to prevent us from marketing, bouncing the idea. You said the museum association trying to cultivate some interest in it before we put the RFP out again. I think that would buy us a little time to maybe have to get more activity going. So whoever might be interested, hopefully some big organizations around the country, around the world, might be interested to bring something. And my point would be, and my point was last time, what I really want us to see us get is something here that you can't find anywhere else in Tampa already or going forward. Something so unique that we are the draw for whatever it is here, that throughout the region, this is the only place you can find it. And if we find something where Clearwater is the only place in the state of Florida that has whatever we are able to put in here, that's even better. But definitely something that, and we've already got other cities within the region that are known for certain things. St. Petersburg has a glass art collection, several museums in that way. They have the Dali. They have things that I don't want to be a second location for something that's already established here. I feel like we owe it to our citizens to think really big and to find something unique. And I don't know if we find that just by putting out an RFP too quickly before we have, like, as you said, networked with this museum association to try to get some pre-RFP distribution interest in it, just to make folks aware that this is coming. And then I think the other thing is every time I'm at a concert at the Sound, I see it full of people. I look at the back side of the library and I say, wow, some way to connect it. Because it sits there visually from everyone in attendance at a concert at the Sound for them to see the back side of it or maybe experience a concert from the back side of it in a way that would enhance the concert experience for folks at the Baycare Sound but also bring attention to whatever goes in there too. So that's part of the conversation we were doing. But that's my only concern. Last time, I think, Vice Mayor, you're the one that said, some folks you had spoken with said that somebody who's going to bring something really dynamic, they need more than six to nine months, that if we haven't already engaged potential ones like that in conversation, putting it out right now might be too early to allow them to respond. So in terms of timing, the only concern that I have is the actual duration of each institution to respond to the proposal. So I would be open to extending it even longer. In terms of timing of when to start, I don't share those concerns. In a couple of weeks, we're going to have the hotel being built. Beginning of next year, we're going to have the Gotham and then the garage. Next year, our city hall is going to be finished. So there's no lack of activity. In terms of being effective in marketing, I actually think that the reaching out to these institutions should be part of that proposal process. Because there's going to be a lot of noise. If they understand that there's plenty of time, there's going to be more interest. And the marketing should actually be part of the conversation. If you want to delay it by one month or two, that's, I mean, okay. But there is a lot going on. It's going to be very evident if they ever visit. There are going to be cranes. But we need to, like, keep on this momentum. That's my thing. That's my two cents. Councilman Wilburton. And I could be a little clearer, maybe, what I said. I think it's okay to start this process now. My concern before was not having enough time for them to respond with a really good plan. And I would be okay with extending that time frame a little longer. Because, to me, that's kind of part of marketing it, putting it out there. And I want to, if we're looking to get some really big plans here, let's give them a chance to really come back with some really great plans. And not be rushed. So stick to this schedule and have the proposal nine months? Or are you talking about more than that? No. No. I just think a little longer, maybe. When is it, July? Is that when you're? Towards the end of the year. We'll just start the process of contacting individuals in January. The window to actually accept proposals wouldn't be towards the end of the year. But those monthly meetings where we discuss what's going on with our engagement, we can adjust and move it out more if we needed to. That window to actually start to accept proposals. Okay. All right. I'm for that. I don't think that would hurt any ideas. And it would give them, people are going to consider this, maybe are listening to what we're saying, and maybe give it a little bit extra when they come back to us. Just for clarity, when would the RFP go out? So it would be advertised similar to last time. And Mr. Morgos can help out if he needs to. He helped. His team was very instrumental in putting that together. We advertised a call for development concepts that there would be a window that would open up at a certain time. But during that time, we were giving tours. We were just talking to these prospects, doing that contact as much as possible. Of course, it's a refined strategy now. But that similar process as far as advertised, we're going to have a window open. Yeah, but I'm still confused. When would the RFP prop? It's a call for development concepts. So when does the RFP close out, and then that window is nine months. Is that what I'm understanding that we're talking about? It's not an RFP. We called it a call for development concepts, very similar. Okay. And this is where I needed the help as far as how we structured it. It was called a call for development concepts. But we also were advertising the window that we were going to have, a 30-day window at that time, which if we would have had a little bit more engagement, we could have said, hey, we need more time than 30 days. What Jesus is saying, he's responding to what you're asking him to do, and that is start the marketing now. He's using the term call for concepts as the marketing initiation point. You're giving us feedback, and you're okay with us doing that now. We will officially start that, announcing that through, quote, unquote, we want to reopen the call for concepts. We will not accept proposals until 30 days before the September deadline that you're asking him about, or sometime after that. The hope is, is that if we start the marketing, the call for concept conversation as early as possible, that those monthly check-ins with you, or however frequently need to do, we may need to pivot in terms of extending the time frame or do something a little bit different. So we're trying to build in enough time to cultivate the types of folks who you think we want to target, who we want to target, who will respond, who have expressed interest, but may also give us feedback that makes us tweak what we're doing a little bit as we're going forward. So the schedule that he gave you is feedback directly, is in response to the feedback from the last conversation in which it was expressly stated from several of you that there probably wasn't enough time, right? So we want to build it out so there's enough time to do tilling of the field, I think, as you said, cultivating the marketplace and doing it in a way that meets the expectations of the council. And at the same time, we're going to announce on a certain date that you've got a certain amount of days in terms of giving us a proposal. At this point, we think it will be nine months out at the latter end. It could be longer, it could be shorter, or it could be something different. But we're giving you, this is where we think we want to be. Once we check in with you, you may say, let's do it differently, or better yet, we hear you. Let's pivot in a slightly different direction. That's what we're sharing with you today. Thank you. That's helpful. That's helpful. Yeah. Okay. Any further discussion? If not, do we have consent? Yes. Yes. We have consent on 3.4. Genedad 4.1. Thank you. Approve, affirm, transportation service agreement with Florida gas transmission. Good afternoon, Council. My name is Alex Leon. I'm the Assistant Director for CJS Energy. This item is looking for your approval for an agreement between CJS Energy and Florida gas transmissions to allow us to nominate our gas or reserve our annual gas capacity with FGT for the next 10 years. I'll take any questions. Okay. Any questions? If not, do we have consent on 4.1? Yep. We have consent. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Genedad 5.1. I approve Supplemental Work Order 2 to Atkins Realis, USA, for Lower Spring Branch Stormwater Improvements. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council. My name is Kelly Petrich. I'm the Engineering Division Manager here at the City of Clearwater in the Public Works Department. Today I'd like to present Supplemental Work Order 2. This is for the Lower Spring Branch Project. It's in the amount of $177,052. It's for Atkins Engineering. We'll be delivering the final design elements required to advance the project to construction. This includes an updated survey verification after the 2024 impacts the hurricane. This will also mitigate the risk during construction. Update design based on the survey and refine the northeast embankment slopes of Springtime Avenue. This is a city-acquired property. Also, we will be including a decorative traffic-rated bridge, railing design for Overbrook and Springtime Bridge. This was previously designed as a pedestrian-rated bridge. This will be for the improved safety and also neighborhood character with the removal of the old bridges. Tree mitigation is also part of this. Tree mitigation plans outside the right-of-way to meet permitting and aesthetic requirements. And also, we will work on final specifications for the project. We plan on maintaining compliance with the regulatory partners. This supplement includes continuity of both the SWIFT MUD and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits. Service is not included in the original scope, but is essential for the construction of this project. The ERP permit will also expire next year, and this will facilitate the turnover to operations. We also plan on adding construction support in this phase of the project. Limited construction-based services provide necessary support, shop drawing review, RFIs, coordination with utilities and agencies. Site visits and project closeout are not included in the original work order. We anticipate a construction timeline of 18 to 24 months. It's also noted that we do have an additional $23,360,000 as allocated as an allowance for additional RFIs, only if needed, of course. We're also very happy to say that during proposal negotiation, the engineering department was able to save the city of Clearwater $31,230. This is a 15% savings back to the city. Right now, we estimate that construction will start in the spring or summer of 2026, and the completion of this project should be in the spring-summer of 2028. We're very excited because this will advance a major flood initiative that will remove approximately 11 homes from the 100-year floodplain. Any questions? Any questions? Do we have consent? I believe we have consent from Councilmember Menino, too. We'll confirm that when it comes back, so thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Agenda Item 5.2. Approve a purchase order of Park Mobile for a reimbursement of transaction fees for mobile parking. Good afternoon. Excuse me. Good afternoon, Mayor. Councilmembers, I'm Mike Chalet. I am the parking manager in Public Works. The agenda item before you today is a request to approve a purchase order with Park Mobile LLC so that we can continue offering citizens and visitors the ability to pay for parking using the Park Mobile app. The service continues to grow in popularity and apparently accounts for approximately 48% of all paid parking sessions in city-owned parking facilities. This purchase order is being issued as a piggyback on the OMIA cooperative purchasing contract, consistent with Section 25631C of the City Clearwater Code of Ordinances. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions on 5.2? Do we have consent? Do we have consent on 5.2? Councilmember Menino, do we have consent on 5.1? Absolutely. Thank you. General item 5.3. Approve the request to convey a perpetual easement over city-owned land to the Florida Department of Transportation. Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilmembers, Robert Kazimer, Public Works Real Estate Coordinator. In brief, the item before you today is to convey a perpetual easement over city-owned property to the Florida Department of Transportation in support of the pedestrian overpass on State Road 55, US 19, to include a portion of Northside Drive. City staff have reviewed and approved this request. This is just a rendering of what we're asking. Any questions, please? Any questions on this agenda? No questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. General item 6.1. Authorize an increase in Communications International of Arrow Beach for a city-wide two-way radio maintenance. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, and City Leadership. Brandi Calendria, General Services Director. General Services Radio Communications Division is requesting to increase a previously approved contract by City Council on April 3rd of 2025 in the amount not to exceed a 426, 941, and also extend the term through September 30th of 2026. The increase is for the fiscal year 26 annual maintenance agreement, in addition to the fiscal year 26 net new and replacement purchases, and also parts and accessories, such as shoulder mics and batteries. And I'm available if you have any questions. If there are any questions on this agenda, I don't know. We have no questions. Do we have consent? Yes. We have consent on agenda item 6.1. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Agenda item 7.1. Authorize the purchase order to Municipal Emergency Services in Pinellas Park for the purchase of self-contained breathing apparatus. Mr. Mayor, Council, good afternoon. Chad Pimmons, Fire Chief. Clearwater Fire and Rescue request approval to purchase the Scott AirPak X3 Pro self-contained breathing apparatus to replace our aging 2015 units and meet the latest NMDA standards. The purchase includes 110 airpaks, required cylinders, hoses, face pieces, adapters, two compressors for filling the cylinders, and a new respiratory fit testing system. The manufacturer provides a comprehensive lifetime warranty covering all major components, and I am available for questions. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? If you have no questions, do we have consent? Yes. We have consent on 7.1. Thank you, Chief. Agenda item 8.1. Authorize purchase orders to JPI Barrel Project Engineering, Wilden Engineering, and CAP Government, Inc. for emergency services related to inspection plan and review services. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Kevin Garrett with the Planning and Development Department, and we are in the 1st of December, so we have made it through a hurricane season uneventful this year. Yay. Congratulations to us. So what happened last year was we had to do a lot of extra inspections, and we had a lot of extra permits. To date, right now, we have done about 2,500 storm-related permits only, in addition to all the other ones. So we were lucky that last year we tagged on to another contract that the city had for extra inspectors because we have not only our normal construction going on and having inspections go on and plan review go on, but we have all of these storm damage that we have to go, and we basically went almost house to house in the damaged areas, and we had a company by the name of Tetra Tech that helped us on that. And we had them on contract, I think, for about a year. And so what you see here that I'm asking for is emergency help in case of a storm event only. This is not our normal day-to-day inspections. Back in July, we put out for bids. We asked for bids, and we got these eight companies here. Can we see them here? And so we analyzed what they provided us, and we asked for plans review, and we asked for inspections. And so after looking at the companies, we come up with the best three in each, and so we're asking for purchase orders for JPI on inspections, and we'll go one, two, three. And what happens is sometimes we'll call JPI and we'll ask for help. Maybe they don't have enough or they don't have anybody. And so then we go to the next one, and we go to the next one. So we have those three companies for inspection, JPI, Beryl, and Willden. And the same thing for plan review services, JPI, CAP government, and Willden for that. So that's what we're asking for, for approval for purchase orders for these emergency inspection and plan review services. Any questions? Any questions on this agenda? No questions. Do we have consent? Yep. Consent on 8.1. Thank you, sir. To end of that, agenda item 8.2. Provide updated information related to roof repairs and property appraisal at North Ford Elementary School, including a proposed pre-marketing and disposition strategy. Good afternoon, Lauren Matzky, Atlantic and Development. So back in September, staff brought forward the summaries of the different efforts and studies that have been taking place on behalf of the city for the North Ford School since we purchased the property in 2019. So today's update will focus on everything that we've done since receiving your direction at that meeting. And we have members from CRA, from Economic Development and Housing, and public communications that have been part of everything that we're putting together. So I'll start with just a quick review of this site. This is also from the past slides that we've used. The North Ford, portions of the North Ford building are registered on the National Register of Historic Places and locally designated. The campus has numerous buildings, which shows how its needs evolved over time. So the National Register listing identifies three of the structures as contributing or designated as historic, and that's the 1915 original building, the 1926 two-story addition, and then the portion that's outlined in red with 1945 on it includes cafeteria addition as well as a later renovation to that, which included the library and kitchen. So those are all the pieces that are designated historic. Additionally, on the site, there are several non-contributing structures, which include the former auto dealership, which was used as a classroom annex. It was constructed in about 1926. And then the pavilion, which was actually from 1996, which was used for mechanical buildings. So in September, we talked through and had Rowe Architects talk through their assessment, which documented the existing conditions, identified potential grant funding, outlined recommended pre-development improvements, and some cost estimates at that planning level. At that time, council affirmed the importance of maintaining this as historic and provided direction for looking into redevelopment partners. This was the conceptual example that was the one that everyone's there seems to be consensus on moving forward with, which is to say that we would look for partners for a mixed-use development or someone that can help with the preservation but also reuse of the historic school buildings. So in this one, you'll see the contributing structures are retained and adapted for new uses, while the non-contributing buildings that are on the north end of the property are demolished and residential development is in that place. So locating that new development on the north end has a few different benefits also because it keeps the front lawn open, which is also kind of part of the history of the site. It honors how the campus functioned while also providing some additional open space along Fort Harrison. But, of course, it's not a final design. This was for illustrating what could be only. So at City Council's direction, we sought some – well, the importance was to make sure that the building is watertight and no additional damage was being done to the structure, which we want to make sure we're preserving. So General Services came to our rescue – or my rescue, I don't look for quotes for anything like that – and they went out in October and visited the site. They, of course, also noted the evidence of prior leaks but also gave us the history that repairs had been completed in 2021 and 2022. So on the day they visited, the ceilings were dry. Thermal scans were shown as dry. But they also reiterated that these roofs are near the end of their lifespan. So they developed or worked with quality roofing to get us some cost estimates for different scenarios, one being to replace the roof with asphalt shingles, which was Council's direction from work session. And those costs are shown there, both to just do new roofs for the three historically significant buildings or on all the buildings, and then also to provide what could be a shrink wrap, so to speak, temporarily covering the structures as a short-term stabilization option. And then we had some funding set aside up to $200,000 for initial stabilization efforts that could be used for this. To help frame the future decisions, we also requested two independent property appraisals for the North Ward building. So two firms submitted written reports, James Millslaw and Associates, concluded with a value of approximately $1.6 million, and the second firm was Urban Realty Solutions, and theirs was approximately $2.7 million. So the Millslaw report was attached as supplemental information to your agenda item. The Urban Realty Solutions report was received after the agendas were published, so if that hasn't been sent to you, it will be sent to you separately. And given the variance between the two numbers, staff will probably be reviewing both reports and in more detail to understand and reconcile any differences, but this is also not my area of expertise. Fortunately, I have economic development here to answer any detailed questions you may have on that component of our work. So, you know, before we move into the marketing and disposal strategy, I want to pause and connect this back to City Council's strategic priorities, because by stabilizing and preserving North Ward's historic school complex, we're directly supporting Council's goal of maintaining key public assets and historic features, rather than allowing them to further deteriorate. By preparing the site for possible sale to qualified private partners who will reinvest, add new uses, and bring residents and activity back, we're advancing your focus on strong public-private initiatives and targeted revitalization. And then last, and most importantly, in my opinion, the value isn't just for the eventual sale price, it's preserving and repurposing this land market. That provides the long-term cultural and neighborhood value. I also want to note that this effort has been embedded in the City Council, the city's policy direction, for several years. So the Downtown Redevelopment Plan, which was updated in 2018, just before the city purchased the school, specifically calls for pursuing the historic designation, which we've achieved, and coordinating with the school district to repurpose it. So our goal has always been to use this building for some function or use. So today's discussion is a direct continuation of that. And then more recently, the North Greenwood CRA, which this building is within, emphasizes preserving and expanding the community's historic and cultural resources. And it identifies this area and the surrounding vacant properties is providing opportunity for a potential catalytic project. So, again, this moves us towards that vision. And with that, I can hand off to Assistant City Manager Battle to discuss marketing. Thank you, Lauren, for framing the issues or, at a minimum, providing a little bit of context of why we're here this afternoon. So after our last conversation back in September, you asked us to do a number of things. I think we've done that in terms of bringing you additional information to help guide what happens next. So what do we do? How do we get there? And what's the process, right? So I'm here to propose to you kind of a multifaceted approach to it. Some of them run in tandem. Some of them can be independent. But all to, at the end of the day, get interest in development, redevelop the site, get into productive use, and, most importantly, get it out of our hands into private development hands. So what are some of the reuse parameters and goals? I think it is to identify developers or help identify and also make available to the development community that we seek partners that have historic preservation as a part of their mission in terms of the reutilization of this property. So we need to curate what that audience looks like, similar to the conversation about the library. We need to initially market. We need to make people aware that this property is available. And we want to use a similar approach in terms of a long lead time before we actually announce that we are ready to accept proposals. So we assume a pre-marketing approach of the next five to six months. So that would put us, starting beginning of 2026, around May or June of 2026, to put together, use the feedback that we get to put together a development package, you know, development brochure, whatever the case may be, in terms of putting our best foot forward from a marketing standpoint. But also utilize that opportunity to identify all of the benefits that the site provides from a redevelopment standpoint. What are the rules of engagement from a land use, zoning, and capacity standpoint? And does it exist? As Lauren said, this kind of sits in the boundary of two different areas, downtown and North Ringwood, and what are the benefits of being in both of those areas from a redevelopment standpoint. Also providing some market information data. So moving into May of 2026, there will be a lot of construction activity happening in Clearwater and just around the area in general. That will be helpful, I think, in terms of building the case that this is an area primed for redevelopment. And also, as the North Ward redevelopment plan mentioned, that this could be the part of a catalytic development opportunity. This site sits in the middle of a lot of different vacant properties around its immediate vicinity. So we want to play into the opportunities that that provides, just from a global standpoint, in helping to sell the opportunity. Talking about incentives, whatever they may be, use that as a platform, and use those marketing brochures as a platform to say that we're a willing participant. Not only do we own the property, but we realize that these types of projects are hard to do, and sometimes that is the way to get from A to B in terms of a redevelopment opportunity. And similar to other projects that you've seen us do, site tours, the marketing collateral, of course, websites, social media, any type of advertising opportunities. We want to take advantage over the next five to six months to just put as much top-of-mind content out there about this being a great opportunity to participate in another part of the urban renaissance that's occurring in the city of Clearwater. So how do we try to prescribe that in a much more detailed or direct fashion? We can take the approach of issuing an RFQ to try to pre-qualify developers. From the feedback that we get, that may not be necessary, but we want to put that at top of mind that we may use that process to at least set the bar high in terms of the folks who can officially provide and participate in any type of submitting redevelopment proposals that we would then vet and bring to you for consideration. Also talk about what the minimum content that would be utilized in terms of the solicitation process. So as we build that package, we would bring it back to you to share it with you, get your feedback, get your comments, but definitely make sure that what we're seeing and what we're putting out there is something that you get an opportunity to see and give us feedback about and make sure it includes all of the points that we've talked about. There's been a lot of great discussion about downtown today, and I think we want to make sure we capture that in everything that we start to put out about development and redevelopment, and this site sets up well to make this a great test case of how to do it and do it right. Lastly, proposals will be evaluated and reviewed before presenting them to you. The hope is to drum up all of that interest, get a great response in terms of development projects. We have been getting interest in this site, so it's not to say that unlike any other site that we have and that we own and are willing to offer for development, this has been a unique one because there's been interest from particularly folks who participate in the art space, in the art development of artists' lofts. There's a lot of adaptive reuse projects around the country, and many of those developers are in this area, in the state of Florida, and there are several projects around the state of Florida that they find the site to be attractive about. There are also affordable housing development or developers who have expressed interest in the project as a mixed-use development, just in general folks who have just expressed interest to learn more. Some of them don't have a development project per se, but they want to know more about Clearwater and want to use this project and this property as an opportunity to bring them further in and to talk more about what Clearwater has to offer. So in earnest, we will start the process after whatever your conversation is today about in response to what we presented and look forward to coming back in about the May to June timeframe to specifically kick off an actual solicitation period for the receipt of development proposals at that time. So that's what we're here to give you that response to our September meeting. You asked for some information, hopefully provided some great feedback for you to think about, but in earnest to tell you how we will pursue a redevelopment opportunity going forward. So I'm here to answer any questions as well as staff from Economic Development Planning and others who may participate in the conversation. Ms. Member Albrighton. So I guess my concern is we talked about the roof repairs before, and then we decided maybe we could just repair the roof instead of putting a whole new roof on it. And then you're bringing this thing about shrink wrap. I don't really know what that is. What exactly does that mean? I would call it a temporary cover similar to what you probably see on residential properties when they've identified. Like a blue tarp. Like a blue tarp type of approach. Yes, sir. The shrink wrap thing just kind of threw me there a little bit. There's some companies that do it in a lot more, how can I say, a better way than the blue tarp approach. In the state, they actually recover it. So my question would be, how long would a roof tarp last? Would it last through all this that we're going to do, or do you think that it's not going to last? I don't know. We didn't get into the longevity of it, but we can provide some feedback on that as well if that's an approach you want to take. But I don't have a response to that particular question off the top of my head. Because I know that polypropylene or whatever they use doesn't last a long time in the hot sun. Right. So if we're thinking it's going to last, like, through next summer, it probably will have to be reapplied or something. But I really don't want to spend $300-something thousand on a new roof if we're going to be putting this out for sale or for development. But I do want something that will last through that period. Okay. We'll get more information, and we can definitely report that. Thank you. That's number of many, though. The roof shrink wrap would have their feelings hurt if you called it a blue tarp. It is a thicker mill, and it is a much better project. It's composed better. It lasts longer. It looks better. It would be offended if you called it a blue tarp. So it is not a blue tarp. But I do think that is an important question. I mean, spending $83,000 for how long of a time frame does that give us? Absolutely. In protection versus $372,000, about a third of a difference. But I think that time frame is important. Quick question regarding the appraisal process, the 1.6 and the 2.7. Do they appraise that for highest and best use, or do they appraise that in protecting the historic value of those three buildings and then put a value to it? It's my understanding they did both or attempted to do both. I think a lot of – you see such a – I'm not going to call it a wide variation, but a variation of value. There isn't a building to compare this to to be able to provide, I think, an appraisal that you can say it's this or that. So we had several conversations with both appraisers about the types of opportunities that they could see to help them determine a proper evaluation from the property. So as Lauren mentioned and even as our staff has noted, the discrepancy isn't something that we thought we would see. But at the same time, both appraisers identified that this is going to be a difficult building to provide values that may sink, that may be very similar just because of the unique nature of the property. Yeah, I can see that. So just for – sorry. No, no. Just for clarity, the direction you're looking for from us today is a decision on how we're protecting that roof to move forward? Two things. Well, maybe three. I don't know if it's a decision on how to move forward with the roof until we get an answer to the question about the longevity of the quote-unquote shrink wrap. That may be a table discussion for another meeting. But definitely if you agree with the process of, A, disposing of the property, and then second of which is the process that we would employ to market, then make it available for development, those are kind of the things that we're asking for your feedback and approval for today. Yes, thank you. I'm going to throw out the unpopular opinion again. I think that we should obviously open this up for the historic adaptive reuse experience, but also open it up for development in general. So just throwing that out there for anybody to ponder as we continue this discussion going forward for however long it lasts. But I think it would be worth just exploring what comes back and seeing do both instead of just one and be fixed on just that. So when I saw the first appraisal, I was a bit taken aback, 1.6, when we acquired it for 1.8. But then there's a big discrepancy between that one and the next one, 2.7. I think we've invested a lot already on this property, so I have reservations about investing more and less. There's a real likelihood of an active leak, which would damage the property. So I do want to know what that product would do and what that timeline would, like, can it be a safe alternative for two, three years or six months? You know what I mean? And that way I can evaluate if $83,000 is something that I can be comfortable with. In terms of direction, I approve the direction, and I think we also include it in the county buildings, right? Yeah. So let's see what happens. Okay. Just a reminder, if you may remember, Lauren said that at this point when they did the roof evaluation, they did not see any active leaks. So at this point, there may be, depending on how substantially strong the shrink wrap is, it may help you determine when you want us to deploy that. If we start to notice something versus just spending the dollars now, do something while it's in our ownership if we're asking so or if we notice that there is damage to the property. But at this point, we're not recommending to do anything at the moment, but we do recognize that we have some dollars that we can spend if we need to spend if the roof gets in a poor condition. When they made the report last, though, I think we asked the gentleman whether there was currently any damage, and I think he said no. That's correct. Yeah. So it's not immediate. It's not immediate. His recommendation was that, and Lauren said this as well, it's just a roof. It's getting to the end of life. So patching it, repairing it, you can only do so much before you really need to explore either total replacement or some type of temporary structure cover. Yeah. Well, I would say it's time to do something. I think we've been letting, as a city, we've been letting it sit there for arguably too long. So I think it is important that we do something. And so hopefully, you know, temporary fixes, and I wouldn't want to spend more money than we need to just to preserve it for somebody else who's going to do something else with it. And I did want to comment, Council Member Cutton, I understand what your argument is. And I certainly don't want to see whatever is done with this property be a burden to taxpayers. I don't want to – I wouldn't want to see us operate in a way that we have to subsidize whatever goes on there. So I do want to see what public-private partnerships we can get on it. I would say, though, I would be cautious to just put it on the market and just sell it for whatever it's worth without some kind of control. Because the reality is we just don't have enough property in downtown Clearwater that we have control over to really drive economic development and incentivize folks to activate those properties. So I would like to find some type of public-private partnership where it's not a burden to the taxpayers, but yet we maintain enough control that we can really – Prescribe these. Yeah, we can motivate somebody to develop it in a way that activates the public and brings people in. So that would be my only thoughts, but I don't have anything else to share. Okay. We'll come back with some more information about the roof, and also we can give some more feedback about a process that we think can work to meet what your objectives are. Thank you. Thank you. Jim, 9.1. I have a professional service agreement with our Dura Group of Tampa, Florida, as the Water Reclamation Facilities Maintenance and Repair Program. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Glenn and I'm the Utilities Interim Director. I'm here today to request approval for the WRF maintenance and repair program with our Dura Incorporated, in an amount not to exceed $11.1 million across the five-year term. We're really looking to bridge the gap to our consolidation. So we need them to be able to help us maintain the facilities so we can get to consolidation. It's tied to high-performing government and environmental stewardship, and I'm open to answering any questions that you may have. Okay. Any questions on this agenda item? I don't have any questions, Mr. Mayor, but I want to just emphasize what was just reiterated. You know, it's to help us get towards consolidation. It's not to exceed. I mean, that's a giant number, right, for facilities that we're essentially trying to get away from. However, I do understand, and I hope the public understands, that these facilities have to be up and online and running efficiently for us to get to that consolidation goal where everything's nice and seamless. So not to exceed $11.1 million, and this is also to maintain our way of life. So thank you very much. Absolutely, and I just want to add to what you said there. So this is really for condition assessments, for the point repair, contract, and development, and design and construction oversight. So this is more of the engineering piece of it. We'll have to bring on a construction company, or we'll have to be able to utilize our staff to do some of the work that will need to be done to make sure that we bridge that gap. Okay. Anything else on 9.1? If not, do we have consent? We have consent on 9.1. Thank you. Thank you. And Adam, 10.1. Amend Clearwater Code of War to Section 2.063, 2.411, 2.412, 2.413, and 2.425 relating to the Clearwater Employees Pension Plan. Council members, as part of staff's review of the advisory boards, last year's process change involving the PAC, where they no longer hear the disability hearings, has now basically become a very ministerial in nature. And so one of the things after reviewing the process and hopefully to reduce that redundancy of them recommending that change, the ordinance in front of you does propose to eliminate the PAC, but then now all that goes to pension trustees. So, yes, to the pension trustees. Legal reviewed it, that there is no impact in terms of the plan's soundness, the ability for contributions. There's really nothing just eliminates that ministerial duty that now they're only approving minutes and making recommendations to the pension trustees to approve anyway. Okay. Any discussion? If not, thank you. We'll move to the agenda item 11.1. Mayor, 11.1 and 11.2 are my items. They do involve active litigation. These are two slip and fall cases. Just for a brief context, you know, we have historically insourced about 90% of our litigation. However, with Mr. Fuino's departure, we are outsourcing our cases during this interim period until we are able to fill his position. 11.1 and 11.2 are to that effect. Banker Lopez is the firm that has handled all of our workers' comp. They have been handling that for many, many years preceding my time as city attorney, but they also have a very strong practice in relation to tort defense. So that's why they've been recommended for this case. Okay. Or both. Do we have consent on our questions first? Yeah. Do we have any questions? If not, do we have consent on 11.1 and 11.2? Yep. We have consent. 11.3. Okay. 11.3 is a renewal. I'm with a law firm of a Widener PA. So Matt Widener is the attorney who handles our lien foreclosure cases. This also predated my time as city attorney, but I'm okay with it. He is outside counsel. This agreement is a master agreement, meaning that he does not get paid anything. He only gets paid when we actually do a foreclosure case. He takes them on contingency fees. It is important to emphasize that, number one, there is no cost to this except when the city authorizes a foreclosure. Number two, Mr. Widener does not get to choose the cases or even recommend the cases that come before the council as it relates to foreclosure. If there is a recommendation for that, because it is a sensitive topic, it gets vetted through staff and then comes to council on a case-by-case basis or at a very minimum on a batch basis. But Mr. Widener, for important, I think, ethics reasons as well as public perception reasons, does not participate in that process at all because we don't want to incentivize him to be trying to bring more foreclosure cases than what we as a city deem are appropriate. The final point I will make on this is that, just as a reminder, I know that some of the code enforcement cases that tend to be most problematic, meaning the properties that tend to be in some of the worst shape, are sometimes residential properties. But just as a reminder to the public, we cannot foreclose homestead. And so that is going to be true regardless of the state of the property. We do put liens on those properties. Sometimes those properties can be moved into stronger hands because a prospective buyer will come in and then we could potentially negotiate something like a lien reduction. But this is only for non-homesteaded properties as a concept. That said, happy to answer any questions. Any questions on 11.3? If not, do we have consent? We have consent on 11.3. 11.4. Mayor, 11.4. I have a bunch of items today. So if I had a greater sequence than I've had in my recent memory. So 11.4 relates to Gotham. So as a kind of brief recap for the public, I know council is aware of this, part of our development agreement with Gotham says that the city will contribute $17 million out of the parking fund to the project. That money has already been committed. That was already decided years ago back in 2022. All of that is done. The development agreement and purchase and sale agreement with Gotham as it relates to the old city hall parcel say that the $17 million from the city will be contributed at closing. We're still working out a little bit of the detail as to whether that's a closing credit and how you manage that. But the gist of it is $17 million was already set aside, and it's to be handled at closing as far as the timing. Gotham has approached us and asked to convert that into a loan. The city manager and I met with Gotham to discuss that. They would like to do that for tax reasons. I don't see any harm to the city in this. It is crucial to emphasize that there is no additional funding request, so the amount of the funding is not changing. It is also important to emphasize that the timing of the funding is not changing, so it will be a loan that is issued at closing. We are, if this gets approved, essentially doing Gotham a favor to help their project be on stronger footing financially. But I do think that's beneficial to the city, especially because they have agreed that we will get a promissory note. So if the council converts the parking fund grant into a loan, we will be holding a promissory note. No payments will be due on that loan, but that promissory note will secure the funding so that until the project is finished, there will be a security interest that we will hold. So if anything, it is more protective for the city than what we currently have. So for those reasons, I'm supportive of it. I don't know if the manager has any additional comments, but that's essentially what this is. Okay. Questions? Okay. Good. We have consent. Yep. We have consent 11.4, 11.5. 11.5 relates to private-public partnerships. So Florida law creates what I think is a pretty good framework for how we can, although we are not required to, lease public property for revenue-generating projects. That is not the exact statutory language, but the gist of it is that the legislature wanted to create a framework by which local governments could put out solicitations for things like leases of government-owned real estate, particularly when there is a lot of private sector interest. This typically will come up in the context of revenue-generating projects because if you're a private developer, you probably don't have much interest in funding a new city hall or a new police station because they make no money. And so if you're a developer, though, you might be interested in anything from a golf course to a marina, an air park, parking garages, concert venues. These are things that may be publicly owned at the air park. Like, all of these things are publicly owned, but the private sector is able to monetize them. So the legislature has created a mechanism that is optional for local governments to essentially solicit and procure private sector partners. Clearwater has an ordinance in place that essentially duplicates or mirrors state law. There's nothing wrong with that. I have no objection to that. The problem, however, with duplicating state law in our own ordinance is that our ordinance can become obsolete. So when state law changes, now our old ordinance is on the books that is misaligned with state law, and that is what has happened here. The legislature has recently modified the P3 process, but our ordinance has not been updated to match it. So we really have two options. Either we change the ordinance to start matching up with state law, which could be something we might have to do every year or every couple years, or we just repeal it altogether. My recommendation is just repeal it altogether, because the statute still exists, we can still use the P3 framework, and we won't have a potential mismatch between our local ordinance and state law. So essentially my recommendation is to repeal the ordinance, again, not because I'm opposed to P3s, but because state law has already set up the framework for that, and that framework could change and has changed. So happy to answer any questions. I know ACM has also been part of that conversation. Any questions? Okay, no questions. Thank you. Move to agenda item 11.6. Mayor, 11.6 and 11.7 are second readings, but happy to answer any questions. Okay. Any questions 11.6 and 11.7? Not doing the elaborate on what I'm concerned on those two items. So we'll move to agenda item 12, city manager reports. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank our teams. It was a really busy Thanksgiving weekend with multiple events, the big one being the turkey trot, of which I think our teams did an outstanding job. I know that was a Herculean effort from a lot of different departments and organizations, and so certainly wanted to extend the gratitude to them. And also the Christmas tree lighting, the holiday tree lighting last night, was also a really fantastic event, and just want to thank our teams for that. That's it. Thank you. Item 13, city attorney reports. Nothing at this time, Mayor. It's an item 14.1. Council Member Cotter. Yes, Mayor. Thank you. This is to bring up this body's thoughts on reinstituting public comment for items not on the agenda for our Thursday meetings. In the summary, you could see that I was keeping the three minutes for citizens to be heard, not allowing for one-minute additions, and a max allotted time frame for that portion of the meeting to be 30 minutes. So essentially allowing 10 citizens to be heard if they want to be heard, it would be first-come, first-serve. The not sharing of the one minute would only pertain to this portion of the agenda. It wouldn't pertain to any other portions of our agenda. But just seeing what the temperature is, I think that we're starting to see people come to DDB meetings and CRA meetings and use their citizens to be heard comment in an area where it doesn't belong. We've also had people request that citizens to be heard be put back on and or town halls be made available. I just think now would probably be a good time to get that reinstated. I think that bringing up this discussion with the parameters in which I've put forward, it may be palatable to each of you. But just seeing where everybody stands on that so that we can see where this ball goes. Do Council members have thoughts? Well, I'll chime in on it. I think it may be time to bring it back. We haven't seemed to have the disruptions. It's been nice not to have that. But I do think there are people that really would like to come and speak their mind to Council. And I think, you know, having the three minutes is good. Not being able to piggyback on top of that for people that want to create a scene or a commotion is good. And the 30-minute limit, didn't we have that before? Did we have a 30-minute limit? No? It was 60 minutes. I don't know how often that really came up in practice, but the rule did say 60. Yeah. So, anyway, I'm for it if, you know, everybody else is before bringing it back. Mayor, I thank you. I can ask the Council member, just for clarity, when you say 10 citizens in kind of a first-come-first basis, I'm just wondering what it looks like when there's more than 10 that may not be directly from our community but want to speak to an issue, but they're here, say, before residents are. Do we have a plan on how we may handle that? The unfortunate thing is I don't think we can handle that, right? And it's not. I think that would be too much work on the clerk's office to try and vet who's a citizen and who isn't. It would just be a first-come, first-served basis. And, yeah, I mean, there's no way to really combat that. And I'm not trying to put more work on their office to, you know, look through every person. My hope is that our citizens would get preference, you know, but it's not a perfect world, unfortunately. Gotcha. I appreciate you bringing the discussion back. I know everybody on this dais, the last thing we ever want to do is not hear from our citizens. It means a lot to all of us, whether it's an email, whether it's a phone call, whether it's in here. It was not an easy decision when we went down that path, and it was a prescription. We kind of felt that when safety was at question, you know, not just the dais, but residents were discussing it, even staff had some questions on it. That was a prescription at the time, not the best path. It was what we felt was the only path, and we went that way. Many would probably say that it's helped, and it's been a bit of a deterrent. I'm okay and supportive if that's the direction this dais wants to go back. I think we just have to be aware the burden of enforcement becomes a heavy lift back to the gavel on our decorum rules, and I think that's vitally important that we understand that. And then that's also putting our PD in that role of enforcement as well from the gavel to him. I'm supportive of it if the council wants to go back in that direction. It is unfortunate there's not a way, and I totally agree with you on making sure that the citizens and the community voices can be heard first and foremost, but not possible, and I recognize that. But I'm interested to see what the rest of the council thinks on it. I'm conflicted. And when I realized that this was going to be on the consent agenda item, I purposely engaged in the community. I know that was easy because we had so many events. And I heard both sides. And I dug in deeper a little bit with those who feel that email, when I present the argument, you can communicate with me. You can email, call, text. We can meet for coffee. You can come to the city hall. They actually clarified for me what was different, and they put value in being seen, recorded in a public setting. That's important to them. And so now I'm left with the decision, okay, how important is that versus those citizens who've told me that they now feel safer coming to the meetings because it's less disruptive. That business is being conducted versus having a circus atmosphere, that those who are disruptive are not even from Clearwater. So I'm conflicted. I'm going to keep hearing what citizens are going to say, but this is not an easy decision for me because I also want to put value on the first responders and how difficult this will be if we reinstate it. Number two, if we go back, how hard is it going to be if we recognize it's a mistake, so maybe have an expiry time. I'm not quite sure. But it's not clear cut for me because I'm hearing many different opinions. So I'm looking forward to hearing more before I make my stance. So my thoughts are I'm not opposed to it. I think we have to ask ourselves, and when we last debated it, I asked this, is I don't know, how long is this, had that been on the agenda, 30 years? We've had it forever, right? Yeah. I mean, Mayor, do you mean the portion of the meeting? Yeah. I mean, I defer to the clerk, but a long time, right? Before I started working with the city, so it's been a while. So my point then was, and my point is now, is having it on the agenda the same way today, serving the same purpose it was intended to serve years ago when it first started being on the air, when we didn't have social media, when we didn't have YouTube, when we didn't have all this stuff that invites people who come in, like the comedian Alex Stein got, I don't know how many clicks, but he came to the Community Development Board and put on a comedy routine. I don't think that was the purpose of having it on our art years ago. And that's what I've seen it being distorted to. There are people from our community, we've seen them, they come in, and they genuinely are residents here, and they have something they want to communicate to the Five Eyes Club. But that's been a very small portion of it. Many of the folks that come in, and many of the folks that drive from long distances to get here, they're not coming in to help give us an idea that's going to better the community. They're coming in to use it as a media platform to generate, I guess, if you have a YouTube channel, I guess, subscribers, and turn it into something that it was never intended to be. And we had the experience in the last year where, because we had that part of our agenda, we had citizens coming in on legitimate agenda items, business directly before the city, who were made to feel uncomfortable in coming out to speak on an agenda item because of the atmosphere that these folks created. I know that, you know, certainly I've invited folks to run for mayor, and if you want to sit up here and hold the gavel and try to make a judgment call on whether or not somebody's out or not, with the advice I've gotten from the city attorney, it's not that easy, folks. And I'm telling you, I certainly have not done a perfect job in doing that, but it is very difficult to sit there and make judgment calls on all kinds of folks. So I would, I'm not against having it back. I would ask us to think about how can we do it in a way that protects the right of folks to come out and talk on agenda items, that they don't have to sit through, they don't feel like they're in an atmosphere where they're uncomfortable coming out to present or speak on an agenda item. And then if there's some way to narrow it to at least discourage these folks like Alex Stein to come in from making a mockery of it, really, to use it to promote your own business or whatever enterprise you have, but to do something that's really not, to put on a performance that's not furthering our citizens' best interest, not helping our city. Folks have a right to speak, for sure, but they don't have a right to speak on our platform, our media platform. They've got all kinds of opportunities to do that through social media and YouTube and all other. If you want to speak out to the public, there are a gazillion better ways to speak to the public rather than coming to a meeting here and doing it. If you're speaking to us, that's a different story. We encourage that. So I know other cities have approached in different ways. We had a separate town hall, a separate location. That did not work very well. I think we all recognize that. I think people were even more uncomfortable that came out to speak on a legitimate city item. So if there's a way to separate it from the meeting somewhat, it could be the same night, same day. If there's a way to, you know, I heard somebody say, you know, we had Zoom meetings at one time that allowed people to speak to the council, but it took out the security concerns that people would have. And I know there are other communities doing it different ways, too, to just recognize the reality that the purpose of the meeting, that item agenda, agenda item, is to let people come out and speak to five of us about their concerns on something concerning the city. And if there's a way to make sure it stays to that and not just this open mic night at the improvisation comedy club, that's what I think is in the best interest of our citizens to do. So, again, I'm not opposed to it. I would just ask us to think about a way forward that kind of limits the theatrics that we've witnessed. So I have a question for the city attorney. You know, what I've seen over the years is the thing that makes it a circus atmosphere is that these people come in with cameras on their chest, on their head. They pull cameras. They put cameras up on the – I mean, why do they need cameras? Why does anybody coming here need a camera? Because this is all videotaped and is for the public. When they come in with their cameras, it's easier to edit certain things and snippets and the way they want to do it, just to put it on YouTube for their specific thing that they want to get across. Can we eliminate recording devices in here? I mean, it is being recorded. It's being made to the public. Personal recording devices, if we took that away? Certainly I understand the question. This is a topic that has been litigated fairly extensively. A lot of communities have gone through that question as well. Generally speaking, the courts have held that there is an individual personal constitutional right to record public meetings. However, that does not mean it is unlimited. So, for example, if someone is using it in a manner that is particularly disruptive, if something could be confused with a weapon, if it's causing extreme distraction that is preventing the business from being conducted, I do believe that we could look at potential decorum-related rules for how, when, where they're used within the room. I have seen cities defend lawsuits successfully on those grounds. I do not, however, believe we could pass a blanket ban that would tell citizens that they are prohibited from filming their government when we are conducting a public meeting like this. Yes, thank you, sir. I appreciate each one of your all's inputs and back and forth with this. You know, I think that it's important because it's the one time where you get everyone in the same room. You have all five of us. You have the assistant city managers, the city manager, the clerk, the city attorney. They can say their piece for three minutes right from that podium to say exactly what they need to all of us, right? I've even seen us, at times, go back down into the audience after a meeting and meet with that person because we wanted further information to get with them. I think everybody here knows they have a tiny supercomputer in their pocket or purse that they can find our email or whatever information they want about us and reach out to us. You know, I had the ability to come here and do that. I chose to do something different, and now I'm sitting here. So when it comes back to allowing people to redress us, all of us that sit up here, I just think it's important to give them time to do that, and it's three minutes. If we can't just sit through three minutes of a theatric, if we can't sit through three minutes of something that's important to one of these people out here or to a Clearwater business owner, I don't know. Maybe we need to instill more discipline in ourselves. That's why I eliminated the additional minutes that give people up to 15 minutes. That's why I've eliminated it to 30 minutes. Citizens are just going to have to understand. If they had something they wanted to say and they didn't get it in as one of those 10 people, and we had some circus attend, that's not on us. We empathize with them, right? But going forward, there's two weeks from now you can maybe be earlier or try and get your name back in and let us hear what you have to say. So I'm still going to stick with what I've put here. I would like to see if there's any further. I mean, back when we were trying to fix the rules when we actually had it, we thought about trying to limit it to just Clearwater. Clearwater businesses, Clearwater stakeholders, Clearwater residents. There was no true legal way to try and get that done. And then, well, what about regionally? We started trying all these different options. It just wouldn't work. So that's why I think that, as we've noted, sentiment has come down. I do think that there are residents that want to be able to come up here and speak to us about things that are important to them. I think that that is important to me to hear them, aside from an email and or a phone call, because it gets everybody in on it, right? It's not just me, then, getting one thing because of Sunshine. I can't bring it to Mike if it's closer to him or, you know, to Lena if it's closer to her downtown or to you, Mayor, or you, Council Member Albrighton on the beach. I have to go to either the city manager or one of the assistant city managers or the city attorney and try and figure this out and help the one person. When they could just come here, tell us their issue, and we know what it is, nine times out of ten, the city attorney's already taken notes, the clerk's taken notes, and one of the city manager or ACM has taken notes. I've seen ACM Slaughter get up after meetings or during a meeting to help those citizens and get further information. So I think that is the importance, you know, and I think Lena saying that she's had citizens give her that more in-depth information kind of hits that nail on the head of what I'm trying to convey. And I understand there's other people that don't feel that way. I'm not trying to negate them or what's going on there. I just think it's an important part, especially a local government, and it comes back to just give the people their three minutes and move on, right? Max of 30 minutes, we've got max of ten people every meeting. Some important things will come out of it, and there's going to be some clowns that show up to the circus, and I think that we just have to be ready for it and move on. So thank you for the time. If we have any more discussion, I welcome it, absolutely. Yeah, I was going to say, this isn't about thick skin. It's about people coming in and being so over the top that they are dissuading citizens from coming in. And, you know, I get it. You know, that's why we have police officers here, but I had to testify at a criminal trial with a police officer. I mean, it takes time out when we ejected some. We asked someone, because they violated the rules, to leave, and they came back in, so they trespassed. So our officers tried to control the situation. And I see that time that our police officers are spending, trying to deal with all that, that I think is unnecessary if we just put in some guardrails. I agree with you. And I said earlier, we have gotten good feedback from time to time from some folks who didn't know how to reach it if they show up. I haven't heard anybody say they're against that. I just wonder if you have some ideas on how we can do it a little differently or try doing it a little differently than what we did before to see if we can minimize the dampening effect that some folks would have on other folks coming in to speak. Not against it. Not about tough skin. And it's about, are there some ways that we can maybe put it different places on the agenda, have it a different time, in addition to limiting it? My only concern about the 10 people is now we get into who got in line first and we get into this, you know, the 11th person feels like they haven't been treated fairly if we cut it off in that. You know, some communities have a sign-up. You don't speak on public comment unless you sign in and register ahead of the meeting. And I guess you could do that, but you would need some mechanism, I think, to limit it before the meeting to no more than 10. City Attorney, do you have something? Yeah. Which part to take first? So I guess to take the easiest part first, yes, the council can decide what portion of the agenda you'd like to have this on if you decide to bring it back. So whether you'd like to have that at the end, the beginning, the middle, is completely up to the council's prerogative. So I think that's the easy part of this. As far as the sign-up, I think that probably would be a good way to track, you know, who was here first because people would sign up and it would just be numbered 1 through 10. And, you know, you wouldn't have the fighting in the sense that once someone's signature is on there, then they're on there. Could you have a fight as people are trying to sign? Maybe. But at least once it's on there, you would have number 1 through 10. And so I think that would at least solve the administrative problem for the clerk. To Council Member Menino's point, I strongly suspect what will happen is that it probably will be a lot of folks who are from outside of our area, probably a lot of folks who come out repeatedly. So you're probably going to get a lot of that, but that's okay. That's not really good or bad. That's just an observation. To the mayor's point about how we might kind of, I'll say, guide that process so it's a little bit more orderly, I do not believe under Florida law that we could necessarily regulate or limit in terms of residency relating to people who comment on agenda items. So, in other words, for agenda items, I do think that anyone in the public has a right to comment on them, regardless of where they live, whether they're a stakeholder in our community or not. However, when it relates to non-agenda items, in other words, if we are reinstituting a portion of the meeting that citizens do be heard for items not on the agenda, at least when I last look at this, it was my opinion that the city has the right, if the city chooses, to limit that to people who are local stakeholders. That could be defined within reason. It may not just be Clearwater residents. Perhaps it's Pinellas County residents. It's how do we account for things like their water gas customers and things of that nature. But to the mayor's point, we may have options to ensure that the people who are commenting, number one, actually have some kind of connection and some kind of stake in the local community. And number two, you know, that way it doesn't drown out if there's the same 10 people who are just monetizing their YouTube channel every week. It doesn't drown out those actual residents who want to be heard. So at least when I last researched this, which has been a while, I did believe at the time that we could put a residency requirement for non-agenda items only. So if that is something the council wants me to update and look back at, I can certainly look at that. How would you feel about that? I would actually really appreciate it. So maybe what I was going to say is we picked this discussion back up in the new year at our January 15th meeting or that Monday council session. I still agree to the three minutes not allowing extra time in that 30-minute time frame. And one of the reasons I say that is because I think that if you want to talk to us, you should be able to get up and talk to us. You know, say what you need to say to us and don't be scared. I understand it's something interesting. I mean, it's another thing sitting up here and talking to everybody, too. But we want to hear you. I mean, I think that everybody genuinely does. So I would totally be for that. And one of my concerns, though, would be for our elderly. You know, we've got some people that just do not know how to use technology. So signing up beforehand might be a problem. Maybe a workaround to that is good old-fashioned clipboard and ten slots with a signature verified by the security guard that goes through the metal detector with signage. If you'd like public comment, please let security know. Shows your ID that you're a Clearwater resident if we get that okayed. And then they sign their name to 1 through 10, whoever the first 10 were. And then anybody else who asks, sorry, it's been full. So maybe that's a workaround to ensure that it is a Clearwater resident stakeholder or something like that. That's good. Any comments? So you want to? Oh, that's my memory now. I appreciate the discussion. I think we already did all this homework kind of on that. What we found was somebody rented a room to somebody for a dollar for a month, and now they're a tenant. Somebody registered for a one-credit online course at St. Pete College for $79, and now they're a student. And, like, we're opening doors to I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze in going down those routes. But I'm open to whatever the dais decides. I see the balance. It is we all value the importance with respect to the public in hearing their thoughts. But there is a balance there, too, of capitalizing on a meeting and ruining a business meeting just for personal gain and things like that. So trying to strike that balance has been the challenge in this discussion. We're going on a year and a half now. I don't know if we found that answer yet. I can see Pinellas County residents. I mean, we've got so much that's unincorporated in Clearwater that it's, you know, we can extend it to Pinellas County residents. And by residents, you just have to show a driver's license or something that shows your issue. Okay. So we want to put it on the first meeting, council meeting in January. Yeah, move it to work session. Give staff time to kind of research it, get more into the weeds, and make sure that we've, you know, crossed our T's, dotted our I's. Thank you all. I appreciate it. So what I'm taking as my homework is to kind of go back to that topic of residency requirements, you know, things of that nature, and see what we can do. Again, when I last looked at this, I felt pretty confident in the answer, but it's been a while since we've looked at this. So I'd like to, you know, look at that again, see if that's changed. Thank you. Okay. We're going to item 14.2, Attorney General Letter of November 14, 2025. This is my agenda item, and I just want to first say to Council Member Olbermann, I have the deepest respect for you. You've served this council, this city, as a council member for seven years, going on completing your second term. Beyond that, you've been a lifelong resident of Clearwater and a community contributor to making this community and this city great. And I have the deepest respect for you, not just as a colleague, but as a person. And I don't want anything that I said at the last meeting or anything I say today to not reflect that, because that is my sincere feeling, and I thank you for all you've done for this city over the years. And I just want to also narrow that my concern over this, and I've had feedback from the citizens talk about whether, you know, the decision to vacate the street. There's no application pending right now, by any way, to vacate Garden Avenue. We don't have a – we're not talking about vacating the street. The only question right now is the question that you asked the attorney general, and I understand we got – you got a letter back today, which I haven't had a chance to read, that came in while we're meeting here. At least I've got it while we're meeting here. I don't know what that says. But the issue is simply about the letter, and for me it was understanding how the process came to be that we requested the letter from the attorney general. When we clearly have a legal dispute over the ownership of the real property, and the dispute is between one property owner, the city of Clearwater, which is not the five of us, it's the citizens. It's the taxpayers, and another property owner, which is – I looked it up today just to make sure I knew exactly who owned the property that's in dispute that claims that they own the street, and that is the Church of Scientology Flag Organization, Inc., which is a Florida nonprofit corporation, tax-exempt, and it's simply a question of – and the question in your letter was, does the city own the street, the citizens, or does the nonprofit organization own – it's a property to speak. And it's in the best interest, obviously, of the citizens of Clearwater, who we represent, that it be determined that the city owns the property. And it's in the best interest of the nonprofit that it owns the property. So – and it's not a question that hasn't already been asked and answered by our city attorney and their attorney. You know, in this legal dispute we have, the citizens of the city are represented by our city attorney and our legal department. We've got a couple of those folks who are board-certified in real estate. They know what they're talking about, putting together the opinion. The flag organization is represented by a very competent real estate attorney here in Clearwater, and he's making a great argument that they own the property. But it's clear that it's in the best interest of the citizens that it be determined that the city owns the street, because it's a big – it's a big number. The appraisals came back over a million dollars. So it's important to our taxpayers and to our citizens that we argue for them, that they own – and if you have two sides that don't agree on a legal interpretation of something, we don't ask the attorney general, who doesn't, to my knowledge, have any title lawyers or ever – I haven't read this letter to see if he gave a title opinion, but I'm not aware of them ever doing that before. I don't think they have any real estate lawyers on staff. I don't think they have anybody on the attorney general staff that's board-certified in real estate. So it was just a strange request. And that's what I just wanted to get to the bottom of, how that evolved, full transparency. We know in this community this whole street's been a very controversial thing. I think the public wants to know, just full transparency, how did the letter of the request transpire? So I was really wanting to have this on the council agenda Thursday night, but the clerk pointed out to me that we agreed that we would put on a work session agenda. So I would like for it to be on the agenda Thursday night. And in that time, I'll be able to read the attorney general letter and see what it says, anticipating because the nonprofit organization wanted him to write it, that it's favorable to them, but I haven't read it, so I haven't seen what it says. But also, you know, give us a chance, and if there's anything we want to share about how it evolved, we'll have the opportunity to do that. But I think it's important that we better understand why the request was made, how it came about, and then we'll see what the result was from the letter. But that's the reason I want to talk about it Thursday night. Okay. Well, if you insist on bringing it up Thursday night, that's your prerogative, Mayor. But my question is simple. I know this is going to come up again. The door hasn't closed, as Lena says, on the whole subject. They're going to come at it again. I want to know why our attorney says that we own that street by fee simple. This is my question because our attorney says Clearwater owns the title to that property, fee simple. Their attorney says, no, you don't. It's a vacation of right-of-way. And I want to know why other vacations that we've done, for instance, 1086 El Dorado, we didn't own that fee simple, but we gave it a vacation of right-of-way. Grace Way, which is called Pine Street, in early 2000, we gave that to the Episcopal Church of Ascension. That wasn't fee simple owned by Clearwater. The parcel owned by Calvary Church was owned by the city, not fee simple. We gave that to Calvary Church. That was a couple of years ago. I was on the council for that. I think Pierce Street was given to IMR, which was now Frank Crum, because they built the big building there, and that wasn't owned fee simple. I just see all these other vacations that we do that all of a sudden we own this one fee simple. I want to know, I want to have somebody tell me why or give me an opinion that we don't or we do, because I've got two opinions, one that we do and one that we don't. And that is the crux of my whole, is try to understand why this is different than every other street we've ever done in Clearwater. Okay? I don't agree with our attorney that we own it fee simple. I've heard from other attorneys, and I'm not advocating one way or another. I'm advocating for the best interest of Clearwater here, and I'm not saying how I'm going to vote on this. But I need to know to be for myself, not for anybody else. I kind of know what everybody else's opinion is, but I'm having a hard time with this. I need to know some kind of more information to know whether, or we just should go to court and have a judge decide it. I mean, maybe that's how we go. But anyway, that's where I stand, and I mean, I hope that answers your question. If you still want to bring it up Thursday night and have me repeat this again, I'll do that. But for me, and I didn't even know we had a letter from the attorney general, so I'd like to read that and see what it says. But that's where I stand. I haven't made any decision on this. I'm not doing it for one side or the other. I'm doing it for the betterment of Clearwater, and I need to know that before I make a decision. Now, the decision isn't being asked of me right now, but I've got enough brains to know that I'm going to be asked that in the next two or three months when another application gets here, because they're going to go at it at us again. They want to build this auditorium, and as far as I understand, they own both sides of the road. It's a platted right-of-way. I've seen the plat. I don't know why we own it fee simple, but if they can answer me that, it'll make my decision-making a lot easier. And that's all I have to say about it right now. First of all, I want to clarify, when I meant the door has closed, I wasn't referring to the application or any of that. I meant the conversation regarding the correspondence we had received from the attorney general. That's what I meant. The conversation was closed. We had moved on. We had made a decision. That's what I was referring to. I do understand how this raised concern, especially when it's a topic that generates great public interest. Media's involved. There's citizens doing a petition. It's that much more important that we're careful. And what I mean by careful is I'm not saying that something was wrong or right, but we are a team. And so I would have preferred that if anything is communicated with a city letter, especially when it's a topic so important like this, I would have appreciated a conversation. So that we can be transparent and be a one body and sort of be aware of what's going on. This is an important topic. Your concerns, your discomfort with this. I would love to have heard that. But because of the Sunshine Law, I didn't know. So if we had discussed it, I would have known. And so if we're going to be a team that's going to be effective, I would like to have a discussion on how can we proceed? Should we, you know, talk about the process? If you're going to communicate with the letterhead, and it's something that is very important, it's a big issue, and the response is going to affect all of us, I would have appreciated a discussion. I would have loved to hear what you were thinking. Well, you just heard it. Yes, but after the fact. And that letter didn't have your name on it, Lena. I know that. It had my name on it. I know that. And we talked about this before everybody else, you and I were on council, and I have, you know, as of last February, we talked about stationary and how we were going to proceed on that. And it was just as explosive last time, wasn't it? Well, but we agreed, the council agreed that we could use stationary with our name and the city logo if it was a city business not involving anybody else. So I didn't like that I was accused of doing something illegal when it was a legal thing that I did. And, you know, this has been hard for me because I've lost a lot of friends that I had, close friends, that accused me of taking money from Scientology. I would never, ever, I mean, I would never, ever think about doing that. And I know what the public thinks about this. I know what the Save the Garden Avenue people think about it. But I just, if I'm going to be asked to decide, I need to know, I need to know the facts. Or if the facts don't come through this letter that evidently came today, I may throw it, you know, up to a judge and say, you decide. I want to say nobody, I mean, I got brought up. I didn't hear anybody accuse anybody of doing any of that illegal in our last meeting. Nobody said, and I even said that at the last meeting. I would just share with you that there's some question about why are we weighing in or why are any one of the five of us trying to make a decision on whether or not we have a legal right? You know, one of the best advice I got when I first started practicing law was the old saying that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. I'm not trying to form my own legal opinion here. I'm relying on our collective and our citizens' attorney to make that decision, to advocate for the citizens. And it is in the best interest of the citizens of Clearwater that it be determined that the city owns the street. It's been appraised at over a million dollars. And so he's laid out at least a legal question, and we've said all along, I think our last direction, the city attorney collectively, was to tell the opposing party here to, for a judge, ask, you know, file a quiet title action. Let the judge decide. Somebody who's going to not be influenced by outside influences, just look at the facts, look at the law, and make a decision. I mean, we've even, the city attorney wrote to them, Mr. Potter, and invited them to do that. But that's the judge's role. That's not our file beside that. Our job is to represent the citizens and to advocate for what's in their best interest. So that's all. But to go back, I never accused anybody doing that illegal. I just had questions about it. I was surprised, like the vice mayor was, came out of nowhere for me. And so that's why I, and part of the reason I raised it the other night was the reason why we evidently just got a letter today. I didn't think we could wait to at least bring to the attorney general's attention that it wasn't a collective decision to send that letter. It was something you did on your own. So with that, you know, we'll put it on the agenda for Thursday night, unless somebody else has got something. Councilman Menino. Mayor, thank you. First of all, I appreciate you opening the discussion sincerely and letting the gentleman know how fond you are of him and his service, because I know we aren't the only ones in this community that feel that way. David's loved in our community and Mary Helen as well, and deservedly so. Their family and generations before them have done a lot for this Clearwater community. There's been a lot of discussion about in the best interest of Clearwater, and I've heard it kind of thrown out multiple times. And in my opinion, and I'm not going to be long-winded with this, in the best interest of Clearwater, and I think our best interest is to not continue this discussion. I don't know where this is going to go, what we're going to get out of it. This is the second bite of the apple that we've had this discussion. And there's been no new revealing information, no mind-blowing answers. We know the gentleman's thoughts. We know his heart. We know what he wanted and how he was conflicted. The letter's been sent. An answer and a response has been given. Again, in the best interest of Clearwater, it's my thought that the best interest is to put this to bed, to move forward in the next time that we have this on an agenda to make a decision regarding whether it's an application or not or the discussion of another letter or opinion that needs to be addressed, then we address it. But for me, in the best interest of Clearwater, I don't feel that having this same discussion on Thursday is going to bring anything fruitful that this discussion obviously didn't do already, and that's just my thoughts. Yes, thank you. I agree with that. I think that this is the time and place to have had this discussion. I think that this allows you to ask your questions. I think that you did a very good job about conveying what you were trying to do instead of putting one of us in the court of public opinion. And I want you to know that I would have stood up for any one of you had that have happened, even you, Mayor. So I wasn't going to say anything until Council Member Menino went, because I agree with that. I don't know what taking this to Thursday night does for the betterment of Clearwater. I think that you've said your piece. We clearly have another letter we've got to go through and see what that says. And like you stated in the very beginning of this, there's no petition right now. So why are we trying to bring it up? I think it just takes the team, as Lena pointed out, and I think we all refer to ourselves as that, and starts to put a black eye on us. And then it starts trickling down into our community and so forth. So I would just be curious as to why you wanted to convey again to Thursday night, just to repeat what you have said. I mean, I can see that we have an audience of citizens. We have a reporter in the back. Colby, thank you for being here. I mean, I just don't know what we're trying to get at that people can't go to this meeting that's recorded and understand for themselves to see why it is you wanted to bring it back up and see there. So that's my only curiosity. I appreciate this discussion. I think it's healthy. I really do. So I'll end with that. Well, what I would hope is we keep it level we're keeping it now as a professional. Well, again, Councilman Robert, you have done more probably for this community than four of us, but you left this community, the community you lived. And I hearken back to what Councilman Menino said when the Garden Avenue issue first came up, that because of the nature of and how controversial this entire topic is, you said, which I agree with, we can't afford to not be completely transparent with everything regarding history. And on this thing, I would just encourage us to, I'll review the letter, I'll see what it says, and maybe I'll have a different look at it than what I do here today. I have not read the letter. I just saw that it came in, and I don't have time in the middle of a meeting to read it. But I would encourage us to be completely transparent about how the letter got requested and why we did it completely. That that, to the extent we are, I think that that helps keep people from drawing their own conclusions about how it did. So particularly after we just got the letter from the Attorney General, I want it on for Thursday night. We'll have it on, and hopefully we can keep any further discussion like we have today, keep it at a high level, and we'll, after that, we'll move on. Yes, well, thank you for getting, for the acknowledgement. And I can't agree more with you. I think that that's one of the main things that I ran on is making sure that the people know what's happening. And here, if we go back to the very beginning of certain things, I reached out for an Attorney General's, or just reached out to the office to speak to the Chief of Staff, because it was reported in the media that the letter to you, sir, was a nothing burger and things like that, and that it wasn't big. I like to follow up and get data and facts, so I made a call to the seven-digit Google number you can find at the Department of Justice and the AG's office. And here, it turned out to be something. And so further with that, I took my findings to allow people to hear, hey, listen, I've done a little bit of due diligence. I reached out. This is what I found. And then I followed the same procedure you went. I put it on an agenda. This is what I found. Just want to discuss it, right? Just like we did here. Attorney General, I think yours was something 29th. I don't know why 29th sticks in my mind, but the month doesn't. Discussion of AG letter. And I think two meetings later, I was lambasted by being cryptic and not putting enough information and blindsiding people. Well, I felt blindsided on Thursday, and that's probably why people got the reaction they did, because it was frustrating to see you treat another council member the way you were doing. And I would hope nobody would treat you that way, and nobody else would treat one another with that, with the kind of just disrespect that happened. With that, this has gone tremendously, right? I think that this is how we would like to see all these meetings go. But here with this, during my lambasting, we agreed that because it was cryptic and there was no summary, we would at least put in the discussion what is going to be discussed. Well, there wasn't anything in the summary that you wanted to discuss. So that was cryptic. I just don't think that we should, on one foot, say, oh, well, now is the time to be transparent. It's either we're going to be transparent the whole time, like I try to be, or we're not. So to sit there, I'm going to call a spade a spade, and that's just how I see it. And I'm sure there's a future YouTube video coming through about how I'm a terrible person, bought and paid for, and hate you, which I don't. I want you to know that. I think that we get along pretty well, actually, but can't wait to see what they have to say this time. Okay. Well, I don't hate you either. We'll talk about it Thursday. It'll be on the agenda. Give me time to read the letter. I don't know what the leave letter says. But it'll give me time to look at that, and we'll put it on the agenda for Thursday. Okay. With that, we'll move to item 15. Is there any new business? If there's no new business, council comment. Item 17, closing comments by mayor. I don't have any today. So with that, we will adjourn the work session of Clearwater City Council for December 1, 2025. Thank you.