Council Work Session on 2026-03-02 1:30 PM - Mar 02, 2026

It's time to call the order of the work session of the Clearwater City Council for March 2, 2026. Move to item 2.1 on the agenda. March service awards. I would like to put on my script here. There we go. So with that, we'll call forward. We have two service awards to present today. We have five-year employee award first. I'd like to call forward Cedric McAfee from the Parks and Recreation Department. Here he comes. Let's see if the city manager agreed. I've got one here. I guess it's my one. Thank you. Here, I've got a letter for you. I appreciate it. Can you get the cup? Yeah. I think that was my fumble. Cedric, appreciate your service to the community. I appreciate it. Yeah. We'll move to the next one, Employee of the Month Award from March 2026. Now, this one we're going to have right up. So I'd like to call forward Justin Colon from the Public Communications Department. Thank you, Justin Colon for his outstanding work and dedication in bringing our new recruitment flyer and hiring video to life. Justin's expertise in filming and photography was instrumental to the success of this project. From capturing compelling visuals to presenting the department in a professional and engaging way, his attention to detail and creative vision helped authentically tell our story. The quality of his work reflects the pride, professionalism, and commitment that the city of Clearwater represents. Because of his expertise and willingness to go above and beyond, we now have high-quality recruitment materials that will help attract future firefighters and paramedics while showcasing what makes our organizational an exceptional place to serve. His contributions played a key role to turning this vision into reality. Efforts like this directly support our commitment to being a high-performing government organization dedicated to superior public service. By investing in professional, thoughtful recruitment tools, we are strengthening our ability to attract top talent, bring a strong workforce, and continue delivering the level of service our community expects and deserves. Thank you, Justin, for your time, your talent, and your commitment to excellence. Your efforts are truly appreciated and do not go unnoticed. You represent the very best of our organization, and it is because of our dedicated employees like you that make Clearwater continue to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Justin. Thank you, Justin, for your great work. That will move to item 3.1 of the year. Leadership briefing on Bloomberg Harbor City Leadership Initiative. Good evening. Actually, good afternoon. Not good evening yet. Mayor and Council. I am incredibly excited to invite our innovation team up here to describe our project and where it's at so far. I know that many of you have participated in a lot of the activities that we've done. But there's a lot that goes into this process. A lot of the team has done. A lot of support that the Bloomberg Harbor team has done for us. And so with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Hunter for our presentation. Excellent. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Hunter Carlson with the Office of the Budget. I'm excited to be joined today by our core team to provide you all with a leadership update on the city's involvement in the Bloomberg Harbor City Leadership Initiative. So to provide you all with some context of our identified challenge, the project topic that our core team chose to undertake surrounds the experience that our customers have with the city's permitting services. The city has more than 20 individual types of permitting services, each with their own unique process and requirements. As a team, we've heard from our customers and staff alike that our permitting processes can often be full of unexpected hurdles. And that's why we're focusing on that experience to identify areas for improvement in support of our strategic priorities of being a high-performing government. We acknowledge that the permitting process isn't just a regulatory one. It's one with a real-life impact and carries emotional consequences for those we serve. Also, we acknowledge that this shapes the impression that our customers as well as our staff have with the city, and that's why we're really focusing on that experience. So the challenge that we as a city experience today is one of increased demand from those we serve. Despite us observing increases in performance in the processing time of many permit requests, we still hear from many customers that experience frustration with our service. Our primary goal is to focus on that experience and to identify pathways for success for both our staff and our customers alike. So, new for this project, the city is guided by our ambitious, impactful mission, or AIM framework, which offers the guiding structure for a desired future state around a policy priority area. And at this time, I'd like to welcome up Allie Chandler to share more about our innovative approach and the research design of our project. Thank you. So my name is Allie Chandler-Bear. I'm the Division Manager of Neighborhoods and Community Engagement. Our aim, which is our ambitious, impactful mission statement, is grounded in measurable improvements that reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and build confidence in local government. So once that direction was clear, the bigger question was, where do we start? How do we even make the greatest impact that we can? We generated and weighed more than 60 potential focus areas before nearing in on processes where residents and businesses must seek permission from the city. And we chose that because it has the greatest operational impact, and it also directly affects the public. With that in mind, we met with the stakeholders and reviewed data to build a shared understanding of barriers, who is affected, and why change is necessary, or even if change is necessary. We conducted in-depth interviews with staff, residents, and business owners to understand how the process operates in practice and how it's experienced, not necessarily just how it's on paper. So from those conversations, our lesson became clear, at least one lesson became clear, was that if we're not speaking to the people who use the systems, we may never truly find what needs to change. So even across different interviews, different perspectives, there were consistent themes. Even if it was a resident, staff, we found that a lot of things correlated. By the end of this process, we'll have hosted five ideation sessions with staff, residents, and peer cities, generating more than 1,200 ideas that we're now refining and trying to actually turn in a practical solution. We also have one more ideation session tomorrow at the Clearwater East Library. If anyone hasn't had the chance to join, we strongly encourage it. It's a great process, good brainstorm. And again, it's at the Clearwater East Library at 5 p.m. So using human-centered design has shifted how we approach our work. It's not just about blending data and technology. We've also gotten a deeper understanding of how people move through our systems. One example is the strategic workshop. It was brought up that could we use the principles and facilitation techniques that we learned with something like this. And that thinking actually shaped the first strategy workshop. And it proves that it's not just this one project. We can apply a lot of these principles and techniques to any project that we have. This innovation approach, this innovative approach, excuse me, we applied, has not only generated new ideas, it's strengthened how we define problems in a very disciplined way. So it reframed our challenges from government versus the problem to residents, staff, and the city, the community together working against the problem. And now Rebecca will share the impact we are beginning to see in the moments that have kind of changed our perspective. Hello. I'm Rebecca Mulder, Assistant Director for Planning and Development. And I'm one of the core members of this team for the Bloomberg Project. And so what I wanted to talk to you guys today is expanding on what has been already told you by Hunter and Allie is to kind of talk about what we found as we did our work. So we met with the core team, identify the problem frame, and then we explored how we were going to evaluate and implement that into some effective and innovative changes. And what we decided and developed was that we needed to reach out with the citizens, talk to not only residents, but staff, as well as business owners. We needed their perspective. We needed to hear their stories so that we could affect change in a new direction. So within that, we sat down, listened to their individual stories, perspectives, and their experiences within our processes. And those could be anything from a construction project to planning an event, like we heard about earlier today. And what those individual experiences are, were they able to be duplicated, how they made them feel while they went through that process, and was it successful? And we gained a lot of insight into those perspectives, and we stopped thinking about it from our process and started thinking about it from an experience. And so if we're going to affect change and implement new innovative ways to assist our residents and users, we need to think about what that experience is for them and not just our procedures. And so within that, we were able to collect a lot of data and gather some clear insights. We, as the team, developed seven clear insights across the hundreds of different perspectives and ideas that were collected from those interviews. And one that I wanted to talk about today was the insight of inconsistence paths eroding confidence. And what we mean with that is that if someone is going through a process with the city, is that process something that feels like they're working with us or against us? And is that process something that could be duplicated again? So if they start a process, they do it one time, and it feels different the next time. Is that, you know, what is that reason? How is that feeling? And looking to really understand their perspectives so that we're not making changes or implementing processes that don't actually address the issues at hand for our residents and our users within the city. And so it kind of changed our mentality of how we're thinking about our processes. Because all the departments are regularly making enhancements and changes to their process. But if it's not being translated back to the individuals that are utilizing those services, then it's a missed opportunity. And we're learning some new tactics and approaches within this program to address those and think more creatively and innovatively. So as I talked about before, we had to change our way of thinking and challenge ourselves to ask a different type of question, both internally with our operations, as well as asking different types of questions with the residents, with staff, and with business owners. And we are finding that we're getting different types of answers, different types of ideas, that is really quite exciting for the team. And we're starting to implement those and evaluate those insights on how might we make an impact? How might we improve this service? And something that was a negative can become something very positive. And so we're working through, we're synthesizing all the data to really make it a dynamic problem that has clear solutions. And we're getting ready to move into those next phases, which is really exciting. And so with that, I'll hand it back to Hunter, who will kind of lay out what these next steps look like. Thank you. So in terms of our next steps, I want to preface this by saying it's important that as we go into our next phases, we're going to be working with some new ways throughout the city. So some of those ways we may observe as being successful, others not. But I think what's really important for us to keep in mind is that we remain committed to our aim statement, as well as that framework that we developed at the onset of it. So by the end of this month, our team will have completed the ideation phase, in which we transform over 1,200 ideas that we've generated with both our staff and our residents into a set of robust prototypes based on the degree of implementability, as well as the potential impact. So later this month, we'll start the prototyping phase, which will carry us all the way through the end of June, in which we will create and prototype and actually implement two innovative solutions with both city staff and residents. These solutions are designed to drive tangible improvements throughout our community, as well as internally among our staff. And then this is a multi-year process, so by the end of it, we'll have developed eight to ten recommendations that, as we go throughout the coming years, we'll assess for the, again, a degree of implementation. And really driving to see how, as a city, we can improve how we deliver our services, as well as the experience of our customers and our staff throughout that process. So our next leadership briefing will be following that prototyping phase in June of 2026. And lastly, I would just like to give a huge shout-out to our team, mayor, to you, council, to our senior leadership, our staff, and our residents. This has been a really great process thus far, and we couldn't have done it without all of you. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. I saw you first. Councilman Robert and John. I don't know how many years we've been talking about this. And I'm glad that this is kind of a thinking-outside-the-box kind of thing. I hope it works because it's tough for the staff and for the people. And as you first, the first slide that you were showing us, that you've got so many types of permits and so many things that are requirements that you're, you know, the city is required from the state and federal, and then our city codes all have to be met. A lot of people don't understand that they are walking into, you know, what they're walking into when they come in for, you know, approvals. But anything to make it easier for the customer. I know a lot of municipalities around us have gone through the same thing. It's not just Clearwater. And I hope this really helps. I'm glad you did it. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. I'm going to sound like Councilman Robin. We've been talking about this for years and years and years. I actually did a, we had a, I was part of a task force about this. So, but I want to thank everyone, and I mean everyone who has and will continue to participate in this initiative. It is thinking outside the box. There's one phrase, or I guess embracing the idea that, like, jumps at me, which is it carries a real-life impact. All this that we're discussing, all these procedures and policies and all that permitting, there is a real-life impact. And I thought that just by starting with embracing that and working ourselves backwards, I think we're in the right direction. Because truly it does, right? The delays causes businesses to, you know, postpone their openings. And it affects employees and the supply chain and increasing costs and, you know, the city economy. So there's a ripple effect. And so embracing that concept, to me, is innovative. And I appreciate, and I'm so thankful for everyone who's involved in this. Okay. That's Member Menino. Mayor, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. City Manager and Mayor, thank you for being so supportive of this program. I know you both of you have participated and been very supportive of this and our city staff doing this. So I thank you for that. I thank the whole core team and all the participants. We've all participated and had a lot of fun. I think eventually you had to, like, get out of here, go on, guys. We have some work to do. But you let us participate. It's been a lot of fun. I took some notes during that because there were so many great things said in that presentation that citizens all over the place would be begging for their governments to say when it comes, especially when it comes to permitting processes and the culture of being not adversarial but partners and collaborative and not that we're not. But so often that's a perspective and a perception of those in the community. We are in the business. You're in the business. Our staff is of customer service, right, and our citizens are our customers. And so often that first introduction to us as a city and customer service representatives is through the permitting processes, right, regardless of what they're doing. And so often, I think one time you said that so many of the residents have a perspective of walking into this process blind, right, and while we have certain expectations, they come into it with different expectations, and sometimes it's hard to get on the same page. But a key thing you said, I thought, is that cultural shift of thinking from focusing on them as processes to putting the valuation into it as an experience. And that's key. Once you start to change that thinking, you truly do evaluate the process differently because you're valuing that experience that that customer is going through. So I greatly appreciate that. The other thing I wrote down was reimagining the permitting process to be more efficient, transparent, and consistent. That's huge. That's a huge goal. And I do agree. I won't pull the Mr. Albritton card and say we've been talking about this for years. But when we go through political campaigns, I think we pulled mailers all the way back to 2015, 16, and look at what some of the political leaders are saying and focus points and buzzwords in our community. And so often it is finding ways to be more business friendly, undoing unneeded burdens and restrictions, navigating the permitting process to be friendly and collaborative versus adversarial. And that's a perspective that's out there. I'm 100% supportive. I absolutely love this culture shift in our community. And kudos to our entire team and staff and leadership for going in this direction. Mr. McCutton. Yes, thank you, sir. You've already had a ton of things, so I'm not going to beat that dead horse. You guys are doing a great job. I think that this is fantastic. You know, I'm one that always sits up here and asks for more data and more efficiencies and asks you all to try and see ways that you can be more innovative, and this is going to be fantastic. You know, I look forward to the 8 to 10 solutions that we have to problems that you guys have recognized or maybe an issue that you recognize, and focusing on the endpoint to see how you can better your service is going to be key to that. So thank you very much for the update. I'm proud of all you guys in going through this program and trying to collectively work across your different divisions, not just being hunkered down in what you know and a wheel in the cog, but reaching out and hopefully realizing we're one team at the end of the day, and we're all going to work better and most effective when we're reaching out to one another and seeing how one process might work for you that they're already doing over here, putting those together to make a best product. So thank you all very much. Well, a couple things. As one, I want to thank the folks at Bloomberg Institute and Harvard for engaging us to participate in all this, choosing our city to participate in this year-long program, getting ready to go to Boston here next month for a follow-up kind of the end of the session on my end, but this has been a critical part of our whole participation. And I told someone the other day who was giving me, we had a little mentoring shift with a former mayor who participated in this program too, and I told her that I want to compliment the city manager and assistant city managers and staff because you really didn't get the right people to serve on this task force. I told her I could not have been more impressed when I walked in that room the first time with the group, and I know it was competitive. Dave, the city manager, shared with me that we had a lot of people really interested, and that was exciting to hear because that means we've had an entire staff of 1,850 employees that want to be the best, that want to improve, that want to serve those customers even better than we're already serving, and we get high compliments. I got three compliments this weekend from citizens who complimented different departments on their interaction that they've had. So that's, you know, the people that we got selected to serve, that's made a huge difference, but I also have told folks that, and it's not just the three of you, but I see other faces here on the slide before us. I couldn't be more impressed with the way you all have embraced this. I've seen several of you, I went to the session at Clearwater Beach the other night, Chapel by the Sea, and you all have really, I mean, I've seen you, you're very talented, and I've seen you step forward and really a number of you blossom in a way to lead this effort, and thank you for doing that because it really, as you can tell from the other council members, it means so much to our citizens in our city. And, you know, while you're in quotes, if you think about it from the customer's perspective, you can be walking into the process blind. I've seen anyone who's participated in our team realize that. It's an epiphany, particularly the other night when you see the citizens making suggestions. It's like, well, yeah, you put yourself in their shoes. So, but the energy you all and your team have brought to this, I know I appreciate it, and the rest of the council and the whole city appreciates it. So, thank you for your report. I have to beat the dead horse and say thank you again because, and there's other of our core team member in here. I know it won't go on TV, but if you'll please stand up. Come on, stand up because it is a team approach. So, the program was very clear that it was going to be extra work, and they anticipated the number of hours, and we went into that knowing it. This team has by far exceeded what those hours are, and it's just purely because of the dedication that they have. It's not out of obligation. It's out of desire and just interest. So, when I tell you it's in excess of an additional 10 hours a week on top of their normal jobs, I would not, I would actually be underestimating. It's a significant amount of work, especially as we continue to move through this. But they're going to get it right. Council Member Albright, and you said you hope this one happens. It will. I guarantee you this one's going to happen because this team is going to make it happen. And while this was not intending to be any kind of a succession planning or anything along those lines, it absolutely has identified some of the leaders and organization. By no means do I mean all of the leaders, but, I mean, this is some of the cream of the crop here, and I could not be more proud of you guys and look forward to what's going to happen. Their learning skills, we all are, that won't just be applied to this project, but that's going to be able to apply to other projects. And we'll give other, I know that because of the attention and the accolades, as well as the improvements this team has made, that other people are going to want to be a part of that. And so we'll continue to have groups and put committees together so that they can participate, and these people will help lead that as well. So thank you so much for all you do. Definitely want to thank the Bloomberg Harbor team. The facilitators that we have for us have certainly just meshed well and pulled and pushed us to be stronger and better together. And so thank you for that. Also, I want to acknowledge the department heads and the other teammates that are supporting to allow these people to be away from those other things and to get ideas. And there's been a lot of participation organization-wide through that, and a shift in that culture occurred to support this. So I just wanted to make sure all that was noted. So thank you guys so much. Thank you very much. Jenna, I'm 4.1. Approved funding of a deferred loan in an amount not to exceed $1,391,938, provided by the City of Clearwater for the development of real property located at 1718 North Betty Lane. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Dylan Mayhew, I'm the housing manager. The item today is requesting approval of home ARP funding for an affordable housing rental development, serving families experiencing or at risk of homelessness. As background, the City of Clearwater received a one-time allocation of $1.6 million in home ARP funding from HUD under the American Rescue Plan. These funds must serve qualifying populations, and this includes individuals and families experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Council approved three substantial amendments to incorporate and reallocate these funds, most recently in June of 2025, when funding was shifted from supportive services and tenant-based rental assistance to affordable housing, in order to expand the City's affordable housing inventory. Following that approval, staff issued a notice of funding availability. The application period closed on August 8, 2025, and the City received one application from Homeless Empowerment Program, better known as HEP. The proposed project includes 35 apartment units for families with minor children who are experiencing homelessness or living in deep poverty. The development will include two- and three-bedroom units at 30%, 50%, and 80% of area median income, along with a centrally located community building and a couple of offices with case managers on site. The site is located approximately a half mile from HEP's main campus. This allows residents direct access to supportive services, such as employment assistance, child care assistance, transportation support, and health services. The total project cost is approximately $10.2 million. HEP has secured over $5.4 million in private donations and is requesting $1,391,938 in home ARP funding from the City. And then, in addition, they will be requesting $1.75 million in penny from Pinellas County. And as a side, we did meet with Pinellas County. They intend to bring this item to their board at the end of March. I believe it's March 24th. Any remaining gap will be covered by additional donations or HEP's endowment. The Neighborhood and Affordable Housing Advisory Board reviewed this proposal on October 14, 2025, and voted to recommend approval to council. Staff has completed a review of the environmental record and subsidy layer analysis and has determined that the project is feasible and compliant. It's important to note that the subsidy layer analysis that's attached shows an amount, the city funding an amount of $1.6 million. HEP understands the city can only contribute a maximum subsidy of $1,391,938, and they intend to fill the additional gap with additional donations or their endowment. I'll be swapping out. I do have an updated SLR that I'll be swapping out, hopefully, by Thursday. And also important to note, all these funds will be verified prior to closing with proof of funds. At closing, staff anticipates execution of a commitment letter, a home ARP funding agreement, 30-year mortgage, a promissory note, and a land use restriction agreement. Staff recommends approval of the home ARP funding contingent upon confirmation of all other funding sources and agreement to city terms, which will include construction timelines, income restrictions, and repayment provisions if contract terms are not met. I do have Ashley, Barb, and Jeff here from HEP, and I'm happy to address any questions. Okay, questions. Thank you, Mayor. No questions, just comment. I think this is a great community use of the allocated HUD funds. I commend and appreciate HEP, their leadership team, to their service in our community and that full circle approach that they do. Definitely a huge asset. Regarding this property specifically, this has been an eyesore for many years, completely overgrown. It's been used as a dumping ground for quite a while. What's even more concerning is that it's so close to the two elementary schools with an eye shot. I couldn't think of a better group to turn this into much-needed affordable housing units. I think what I read was 35 apartments specifically for families with minor children experiencing homelessness or living in deep poverty, and I think this is a great use of those HUD funds. So thank you for bringing it forward. Any other discussion? Not that we have consent. Yes. We have consent on 4.1. Thank you. Chair, not on 5.1. Approve the purchase of excess property insurance, including bridges, boiler, and machinery terrorism, UAV, drone, and docks and care coverages. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Todd Marone, City Risk Manager. Request approval, annual excess property insurance, renewal, and specialty property policies as well. In the amount not to cover the period from April 1, 2026 until April 1, 2027, in the amount not to exceed $5,901,000. A couple items to note for this year's renewal. Last year, I worked with Gallagher to prepare for this year's renewal, requesting a strategy to address expanding our coverage in the needed area for our docs and peers. Partly due to the significant increase in our assets at the beach, which currently is still under construction, but hopefully will be done later this year. And because we are limited to a $2.5 million sublimit in our prior policies, this coverage is going to help us provide needed coverage in some of the most vulnerable areas of our property coverage. With that said, I'm happy to answer any questions that you'd like. Any questions on this agenda? No questions. I just want to make some points for those people who might not know how to access the agenda item. Thank you for going through this and shopping it. Just point out some, you know, reductions that were noted. You know, we've got 18% decrease in property premium, boilers and machinery, 22.8% decrease, bridge decrease of 16.8%. So, you know, it's not like we're just flippantly throwing out big numbers and saying, yes, we're all dedicated in going through this and listening to what you have to say through risk and making sure that we're on the same page. So I appreciate it and just wanted to throw out some of those reductions for anybody who's watching or might have any questions. The general perspective is our guidance to counsel and from our broker to us is when property rates decrease, we should increase our coverage as that opportunity allows. This was a happy occurrence for the city to offset the increase. The difference between marina assets and regular property assets is about a 10-time difference in rate. So it's expensive and will continue to be expensive because we're essentially insuring water. Okay. Any further discussion? If none, do we have consent? We have consent on 4.1. Thank you. Excuse me. 5.1. Yes. Thank you. On item 5.2. Approve a not-to-exceed amount of $265,000 for reconstruction replacement work for the Beach Marina building. My second item today is to request a not-to-exceed amount of $265,000 disreflex for the work done by CERPRO at the Beach Marina building, not the marina itself. This reflects a change order that has to do with fire suppression, sprinkler heads, and some other items that had to be addressed as they were wrapping up. Currently, marina and parking are on fire watch in the building while we wait to get approval so we can move forward with this last piece of the project. Okay. Any discussion? No discussion? Do we have consent? Yes. Consent. We have consent on 5.2. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm 6.1. Authorize to purchase order to 10-8 Fire Equipment, Inc., of Greenton, Florida, for the purchase of one new Pierce Heavy Duty Velocity Platform and one Pierce Heavy Duty Velocity Pumper. Council, good afternoon. Chad Pittman, Fire Chief. Clearwater Fire and Rescue is requesting authorization to purchase one Pierce Heavy Duty Platform, Truck 48, and one Heavy Duty Pumper, Engine 45, at a total discounted cost of $3,497,068.01, reflecting a multi-unit discount of $45,460.98. Upon delivery, the current front-line units will move to the reserve status, and two older reserve units will be retired and declared surplus. The purchase will piggyback off a source well contract through 10-8 Fire and Safety, providing a 5.5% discount. And the city will receive approximately 11.48% reimbursement from Pinellas County for the unincorporated areas we serve. Early authorization is requested due to an estimated 51-month lead time. I'm available for any questions. I do have one. Yes, sir. You know, this kind of purchase, is it just part of a plan that we have over a period of years? That is correct, yes. We have a replacement plan for all of our units. Okay. And this isn't out of, this is right in line with what we had expected. It is, yes, sir. Anybody else? Okay. Do we have consent? Yes. We have consent on 6.1 then. Thank you. 6.2. Authorize the purchase order of Motorola Solutions, Inc. of St. Petersburg, Florida, for the purchase of a mock alert fire station alerting system. Chat in the fire chair. Fire station 45 requires replacement of its original emergency incident alerting equipment with a new mock alert fire station alerting system. It's a multi-channel solution designed to improve response times, enhance firefighter safety, integrated with new computer-aided dispatch, and it meets the National Fire Protection Association standards. The upgraded system improves firefighter safety and efficiency by alerting personnel assigned to the responding unit. It integrates directly with dispatch system for an automated alerting system. The authorization is requested to piggyback source wall contract for a discounted total cost of $108,940.46, which includes the equipment, installation, and an extended one-year warranty. And the project is funded under the capital improvement plan with the partial reimbursement coming from the county for the unincorporated areas we serve. Okay. Discussion on this and do that. Okay. Do we have consent? Yes. Do we have consent on 6.2? Thank you. Thank you. And I'm 7.1. Approved connecting Clearwater, an active transportation plan for the city of Clearwater. Chair, council, city manager, assistant city managers, I'm Rick Hartman, transportation planner, here to request approval of resolution, request adoption of Resolution 26.04, approving the city of Clearwater active transportation plan. Catherine Tellez from our consultant, Farron Pierce, is here today. As you know, this has been over a year in coming, and we have spent that time implementing plans that are up-to-date and replacing the 2006 shifting years. We have a presentation, and you'll see concepts as well as some proposed projects and policies to implement that will improve active transportation in the city. And the concepts, I want to emphasize, are planning-level concepts at this time, and we'll need more detailed analysis. But I'll turn it over to Catherine now to go through the presentation. Thank you so much. I'm used to these things magically happening. All right. So I'm Catherine Tellez, a principal transportation planner with Farron Cares, and I'm very excited to be here before you sharing an overview of connecting Clearwater, an active transportation plan for the city. So we were before you last July with a midpoint check-in, so we'll just start with a brief review. So what is an active transportation plan? It's a comprehensive set of strategies to provide better options for people walking, biking, rolling, including access to transit. It identifies a number of infrastructure projects, some policies, and then some processes based on staff feedback, stakeholder engagement, and public input to achieve the desired goals. So at the project outset, we identified three primary goals. So we wanted to identify a citywide, low-stress, active transportation network. And when we say low-stress, we're really thinking about a street that people would want to walk or bike on, and they feel comfortable because they're not right next to vehicles traveling 40-plus miles per hour. We really want to improve transportation safety outcomes. When we look at the crash data, we see that people walking and biking in Clearwater are disproportionately killed or injured in crashes. So we want to make sure that this infrastructure creates a safer environment for people walking and biking. And then most importantly, we want to have a feasible project list that can be implemented over time. If projects aren't feasible, this will just be a plan on the shelf. That won't get implemented. So we'll go through some of the key project tasks, including the overall plan development, the analysis, some of the community engagement items, and then the overall documentation. So as Rick mentioned, we've been at this for a little while, about 15 months or so, with engagement occurring regularly throughout the entire process, including meetings that we had with a variety of city staff departments about every two months throughout the process because we know it's going to take a collaboration of multiple departments to get projects implemented and then maintained. We had online feedback opportunities. We had a public workshop. And we had three in-person stakeholder meetings from people from the public as well. So all the analysis and feedback from the community was then incorporated into the plan. And I won't go through all of the details because I hope that you've all at least scanned through the report. And so these are really sort of the primary topics that everything is organized around. And what makes this active transportation plan different than some of the others that we've prepared is the inclusion of the concept plan. So really taking sort of the top ten type projects to a higher level. So that way staff can really understand what is it going to take to implement some of these projects. We've identified the potential for drainage conflicts, utility conflicts. So that way when scoping occurs to take these concepts to a plan that can be constructed, we kind of know what we're getting ourselves into in terms of having enough funding budgeted to actually get it constructed. And more importantly, these concept plans can be great to include in grant applications to help on the funding piece. So when we last met back in July, we went through a number of the project types that are included in the plan. So we have trails. These are off-street facilities like the Pinellas Trail. Then we have urban trails or wide sidewalks. So these are like the Druid Trail. So nice wide sidewalk area where you can walk or bike. And then we have retrofitted bike lanes. So these are taking your on-street bike lanes and where it's feasible, making them a little bit wider and even adding a little bit of a buffer. Perhaps in some communities we've even seen concrete buffers between the bike lane and the vehicular travel lane. Again, to make it a little bit more comfortable for people walking and biking. And then lastly, neighborhood greenways. So these are streets that are very low-volume, low-speed streets where it's pretty comfortable to ride a bike. And really, we just need to focus on improvements at those crossing locations so you can get out of your neighborhood into different locations. We also identified a host of different crossing project types. So within the plan, we have a number of standalone crossing improvements. It's also assumed that as corridors are improved, that each individual crossing along each corridor would be looked at in more detail for an appropriate treatment. As I mentioned, we've done a lot of engagement throughout the project. So the last round of engagement, when we shared the draft network, we had over 300 unique visitors to the project website. And based on the feedback that we received, we ended up adding, I think it was 11 additional projects. And then we made refinements to 14 projects that we had already identified. So this engagement, plus the engagement that we did earlier on in the process, we had over 750 people that interacted with the project and provided feedback. Plus people that we met sort of ricked at a number of pop-up events out on the trails and other community events. So we did get feedback from a wide range of people. And so this here is just an example of the feedback that we received on that draft network. And again, that resulted in us making some changes to that initial draft network to create the one that you now see for you. So this here is now our planned network. And you can see that there's a number of new trail facilities, a lot of urban trail facilities. So that's those wider sidewalks. We really heard from people that they really wanted that extra level of separation from vehicular traffic. We do have some new bike lanes and enhanced bike lanes and then those neighborhood greenways, plus a number of sort of intersection improvements. So that way, if you're walking or biking, you can get across the street to your ultimate destination. Overall, there were 79 corridor projects, a number of them that could be developed in phases, and then 49 intersection projects. So that's a lot. We did not expect that to all be implemented in a very short time for any developed prioritization criteria based on feedback from our technical advisory committee, stakeholder committee, and the public. And you can see that safety came out as sort of the top-ranking prioritization criteria. So safety is really a concern of everybody that we talk to throughout this project. So based on the criteria, these here are the top-ten corridor projects. And out of 100, the top-ranked projects scored 88. And you can see that most of these are urban trail or trail facilities. So these rank the highest when we look at all the different prioritization criteria. And then we have here the top-ten-ranked crossing projects. You can see most of these are just installing a high-visibility crosswalk and then a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. So that's where the pedestrian or cyclist would push the button, and you get the flashing lights to alert drivers that there's somebody in the crosswalk. We also did a pretty extensive policy review because we wanted to make sure there weren't going to be policy barriers to getting some of the projects implemented, and specifically getting some of the projects implemented as development projects. So overall, we found that there's broad support in all the policies and documents that we reviewed for walking, biking, micromobility, and transit integration across Clearwater, as well as within Pinellas County and the Fort Pinellas policies. But we did note some opportunities to make some enhancements to the Community Development Code to enhance some of those overall outcomes, some of them including modifying the parking requirements and updating some of the sidewalk standards to better align with some of the other projects that the city has already adopted. Then we developed an implementation plan, and this section of the report provides, well, what are we actually going to measure? What are the details? What's the lead department within the city that's going to take charge of that? In some instances, there are agency partners outside the city, whether it be FDOT or the county or Fort Pinellas. We also came up with sort of what's a reasonable timeline. So some of these might be annual action. Some of these we might aspire to complete within about five years. Others are sort of well beyond that five-year time horizon. And then a relative cost. So here's just a couple of examples. So on an annual basis, ideally we'll come back to you or staff will come back to you once a year to just kind of report what did we do? How many crossing improvements did we make? How many miles of urban trail were we able to obstruct? And then even a high level of some crash reporting of did we move the needle on crashes involving people walking or biking? And then even there's some trail counters out there. So even coming back and noting, did we see an increase or a change in demand? Within five years, you know, updating some of the land development codes, collaborating with some agency partners, constructing some of those lower cost improvements, and then longer term building out that urban trail network. Because we know those projects will take a little bit longer to design and then get the funding together to construct. And then here's just an example of one of the concept plans that we developed. So this is on MLK. And you can see it's a concept plan, but there's enough in there here that we can really start to see, all right, what does this project entail? What might the crossing improvements might be? And this is really intended as a starting point to go to the community and get their feedback and ideas and then refine the plan even. And then here's an example of a standalone crossing improvement that has some independent utility beyond what might happen on the corridor as well. And in this case, the emphasis here was really just improving access to a bus stop. Because right now, if you get off at the bus and want to go to the other side of the street, there's not really a clear way for people to do that. And especially if maybe you're a student going to one of the schools and you want to get across the street, I know I always worry about my kids trying to figure out the best way to cross this. And then in the back of the report, we just included a list of potential grants and then a technical appendix with a lot more details. So with that, happy to answer any questions. Questions? I don't have a question, but I was reading the whole, the two presentations. And I actually called her, I was overwhelmed, when I was trying to look at all your concepts and then try to see if there was any overlapping with your tables. And then looking at the price associated with all of them. This is a tall order, and I'm glad that we have you guys to figure this out because it's extensive. It's a huge wish list. And then, you know, you go down the rabbit hole, right? How are we going to fund this? Who's going to fund this? Who's going to fund the grants? But it's needed, but it's quite a lot of work that you guys are putting in there. So I just wanted to let you know I was overwhelmed with all I saw because there's a lot of things listed there. Councilman, I know. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. This is, it's important and vitally, vitally important to our community. So often we talk about traffic on our roadways and how to move vehicles through our corridors and how to keep them safe. But there's also the whole other side of it of not everyone is in a car and limiting cars and keeping those pedestrians and strollers and wheelchairs and walkers and bicyclists safe on our trail systems or sidewalks. This completely aligns with our regional mobility plans. I know Ford Pinellas at the county level has set this as a priority in moving forward as far as funding mechanisms for this. I know this dais just learned in Tallahassee how important it is that when you go there with plans and priorities, we make sure we have all the work in place and funding mechanisms in line so that they want to see shovel-ready boots-on-the-ground projects, that that's what they want to get behind and invest in. And if we want grants, this is part of that process. I think it's in Clearwater, as we all know, you know, we're kind of geographically spread out pretty far from beach to bay. And our neighborhoods are very clustered, which is a challenge for us. But we do have some beautiful and unbelievable trail systems throughout our communities. And finding creative ways to try to connect those different neighborhoods to our beautiful parks, to our trail systems, through our downtown park and our beach and keeping families safe and not feeling the necessity to get behind a wheel is vitally important. So I appreciate all the work the team put into this. I'm 100% supportive of it. I know, Council Member, all Brenton and I are always discussing and pulling for Clearwater and for these options and for Pinellas, and they're ready to fund opportunities like this. And this is an important step in it. So thank you. Anybody else? Councilman Arcott? Yeah, I have a few questions for you guys, if you might be able to answer them. Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate it. Thank you for the 15 months. So the first one, through this resolution, are we going to be at the City Council committing to any specific facility types, or can engineering recommend alternatives later on? Yes, that's what I was kind of, you know, referencing when I say it's a planning level. The concepts are a planning level that need to be further fleshed out through engineering as part of the design process. You know, the feasibility, we know where utilities are on a two-dimensional level, going underground, other things. You know, every now and then there could be some kind of land use that doesn't, it's not compatible with what we're proposing. And that's the thing about the list. The list is not everything that we want. It's the ranking of a lot of things. So if one pulls out, then we have the next one on the list that we can look at or we can go down, you know, to get something that is feasible, cost-efficient, and such. And I'd also, sorry, Councilman Cotton, to address Councilman Menino's thoughts. We talked to Dunedin. We talked to FDOT. We talked to the county, and part of this is incorporating our neighbors in this process and working together because that really strengthens any kind of grant proposal that we will go and pursue to develop one or more of these projects. Thank you. Thank you for that. Next question, and I'm sure, I hope you guys did this, which brings on the question is, what is the anticipated continuing improvement plan or the exposure of that with implementing those top-ranked products? Did you guys take into account more people moving into the area and how that exposure will probably affect those projects? Or do we understand that those are targets that might move? Yeah, so the plan does sort of anticipate sort of some land use changes throughout time and that neighborhood needs might change. So as new developments come in, there's an opportunity to take a look at the plan and see, oh, there's an apartment complex that's going in here. Can we get them to construct X, Y, or Z project along their frontage and then perhaps connect to something else? Within the implementation plan itself, we also suggest doing sort of a light refresh within five years to kind of take a look. And is this still the right plan for Clearwater? Does it need to adjust what types of funding opportunities might have come available? We've identified there's potential opportunities if there's undergrounding of utilities along the corridor for let's just not build back exactly what's there, but maybe there's an opportunity to widen the sidewalk or do other improvements at that point. So we're really trying to structure the plan to be somewhat opportunistic because, again, it's got a big price tag, and we know there's got to be a lot of different partners to come in and help. Last question is how will the council be brought back in? Is that when a project is chosen and then you guys would fine-tune it and then bring it back just like any other project is? Is that what I would assume? Well, as far as coming back, we'll report just basically on what types of movements. Have things been able to get into the engineering department's budget cycle or at least consideration and such? And then when you hear about a project would be when it's moving forward through, you know, as far as the traffic engineering and our engineering public works department as they are analyzing it. So that would be the next time it would come before you except for the annual update, which would be a more general view. Understood. Now it's time for my Mr. Wonderful hat to go on. So when reviewing this, when reviewing all the documents that go with it, I appreciate your hard work. I really do. But this essentially to me is a complete streets campaign. I'm all for safer crosswalks. I'm all for safer roads. And I'm all for better signaling, timing, and connectivity. But in no way am I for road diets, lane removal, or reducing vehicle capacity. And even in the few examples that were given, you could see it was a wider sidewalk that's already coming into MLK. We just did the MLK parade, and that's already a tight enough road as is. I can imagine putting a bigger, wider sidewalk in there and then reducing that down to one lane and putting different things in there. I get it. It was just an example. But something like that, I'm more for a project-by-project consideration rather than a blanket resolution that binds this city staff and elected officials, both current and future, to any specific standard. I'd rather you guys be implementing what's going forward, seeing what's ranking high and what needs to be done, bringing it to us and letting us go over it at that point and see what's best for our city in the time. Planning is always great, and I will say that we need to continue planning. But in my estimation, I am not for this resolution because of the standards that I laid out. But thank you very much for what you brought forward to us. If I may address that, this is by no means committing the city to these projects at all. And as MLK, these are based on the right-of-way and not reducing lane width whatsoever. The only time we mention lane width reduction would be for some type of bike lane where it would be just enough to put in some kind of vertical or protective barrier. And even that is not being committed by approving this plan. And I just want to note that in other communities where the plan is fully adopted, it then provides some leverage when a developer comes in. And they might conflict with widening a sidewalk or whatnot with their development plans to be able to point to the document and compel them to make some of the improvements along with their project versus needing to acquire right-of-way or do other things in the future. No, I appreciate that. I'm thinking in real-world practical senses, right? Right now, the county is doing 71st Street. I deal with it every third day at the fire department. And when they first initially presented it, we thought that the street was going to be bigger, right? And now we're getting a much larger, much wider sidewalk. Technically, we're getting less room. And trying to fit a 53,800-pound fire engine through two lanes of traffic going north on one of my major arteries creates more disruption than any help, especially when I'm trying to get to somebody in a timely manner. And I know this is nothing to you guys. I'm just trying to say that I would much rather a project hit my feet with what it is, why it is there, let those who are here judge it on its merits, and cast their vote where they may on whether a project goes forward, not simply push forward a resolution that is going to be going solely for what we anticipate. I know not lane reduction, but even when you're widening sidewalks, it's either going to the public rights of way where you have it and then ending where you don't or asking for a property owner to concede some of that right away or going into the street. So, again, this solely comes down to you've got a project, I believe in you guys, bring it to me, let me see the merits of that project and go forward inch by inch, not putting a resolution out there that says this is what we're going to do. I just have a question. If we adopt this resolution, what exactly are we committing to? I guess that needs clarification because I didn't think, in my mind, I wasn't agreeing to the whole plan, just the continuation of looking into it. Am I correct? That is correct. That's why we're calling it a planning level. This is a higher level, you know, before approving any kind of a project. It would definitely need much more in-depth analysis from an engineering standpoint and such. These are potential projects. And I think I might, you know, weigh in. I agree with you, and I know state level left out, there's no appetite for road diets, right? I can tell you, the U.S. Department of Transportation, there's no appetite for funding projects that have road diets. So that's not, and, you know, we talked about this earlier in our terms, the five of us on another street in Clearwater. So I think that that's something, you know, we would not want to focus on if we got a proposed project in front of us. I do think, though, that it's good for us to have an overall active transportation plan for the entire city because we do want to encourage pedestrian and bicycle traffic. We have fantastic trails. We have the Nellis Trail goes through. We have, you know, we have all kinds of trails. We've got several trails going east and west. We've got trails going north, south. And it's an important part of our quality of life. An example, November, they're going to connect the Courtney Campbell Causeway Trail to the north side of the Courtney Campbell, which will open up potentially, expanding the trail up through east part of Clearwater into Safety Harbor. And so I do think we want to nourish and nurture and keep growing our trails because they're a very important part of the quality of life here. And I think this plan overall, you know, gives us a commitment to doing that with the flexibility to change whatever project we want to do and spend however much we want to do. But I think it's important to show the community, yes, we care about alternative forms of transportation, not just for getting to and from work where we're recreational. It's an important part of our quality of life here, and I think it's important that we adopt this plan for that reason. The other thing I'll say in a little bit, what Councilman McCutton, you had said earlier, I want to make sure that, you know, we're putting money where it's going to, when it comes to safety, the things that will actually increase safety. We had a fatality here recently on Court Street in Missouri where, you know, the innocent person was just at, he was where he was supposed to be. He was clearly marked and just happened to be, unfortunately, involved in a collision between two cars, which we know of a number of pedestrian accidents we've had in Clearwater, in Gulf of the Bay primarily. People in dark clothing have been crossing in the middle of the night and, you know, drivers just aren't ever seeing. So we've got some pedestrian behaviors and a lot of driver behaviors. So to the extent we're doing some of these projects to increase safety, I just want to make sure they're going to increase safety. And the 10 you've got priorities, I don't know, I haven't looked at each one of those to see if they're connected to some problem we've had. I know where FDOT landed with Root Street was trying to fix the intersections where they had the most accidents. And hopefully, if we're looking at safety, we're looking at those 10 projects and how they can increase safety. So for me, I just see it as a statement by the city that we care about active transportation and all forms of transportation, not just for getting places but recreationally, and we're trying to encourage that. So that's how I see it, but I understand Castleman Cotton what you're saying. Castleman Cotton. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Did you want to go first? You don't mind. Go ahead. Okay. So to that, I'm not saying planning is not important. I think that we all know planning is extremely important, right? I don't understand why we would have to put a resolution to this, right? I mean, when you read what the resolution says, this will provide a foundation for a balanced transportation system. I mean, I don't understand why we're trying to put ourselves binding ourselves in any way with written document when it just makes sense that we would have a plan, that we want to make sure that it's the safest plan, that we're doing it for the betterment and best of our community moving forward. And, again, I pointed out all the reasons as to why and what this kind of is looking like from my view and standpoint. And, you know, I can count, as Councilmember Nina says when we go forward. But I will be opposing this as a resolution. I think that we continue to plan and make the best plan for the safety of our citizens. But I'm just not going to ever vote to bind city staff or ourselves to a resolution of this is the plan. So that's where I'm coming at it from. Thank you. That's Member Robert. Well, a resolution to me is just stating a fact that we're resolved to moving forward on a plan. That's all it is. It's not like we're not codifying anything. We're just resolving that this council is stating that we want to put a plan together for our transportation plan. And it can be changed. It's not really a code. It's just a stating that we do have something in place. So I'll be supporting it because of that. I know that it can be changed at any time, and it should be. It should be changed as we go, but, you know, it kind of tells the public that we've got something in place. And, I mean, that's the way I look at it. Owen, can you back me up on that or tell me if I'm wrong? A resolution is just an expression of the council. That's all it is. And I believe that the reason that the resolution is before you is so staff knows that the plan has been approved, if I'm not mistaken. That's why you brought the resolution. And I just want to add a number of grants do require that the plan be sort of approved by the governing board. Is that a sign of support for qualifying for the grant funds? Just for a minute. Thank you for saying that was one of my questions regarding grant funding. I just want to bring a little clarity. I appreciate the conversation. I agree with so much what the council member said regarding, you know, road dieting and get us locked into certain things. There is an apprehension with that, and I don't believe this does that. I think what we want to make sure we understand, this is nothing more than a citywide framework, right, a high-level overview of what a micromobility plan, our options and opportunities are within our community, where some of our challenges are. This is dumped in our lap, and now it's on us as a team and as a staff to come together and identify those priorities, what is a need, what isn't. That plan obviously can change, but this is nothing more than just a framework. It doesn't lock us into any certain final projects or authorize even one penny of spending. Am I correct in saying that? Thank you. And I appreciate the detail, too. It seemed like it took me 20 minutes to download the full report, which, Council Member, I'd like to thank you for raising that, because I do want to, before Thursday, read through the entire thing. I summarized it and went through and looked at the slides, but it's a very long report, and I agree with you. I'd like to look at it closer, too. Well, if I may, if not, just make sure we all read the resolution, too, because, I mean, right here, page one. Whereas the Florida Department of Transportation adopted the Complete Streets Policy in 2014 and published the Florida Design Manual in 2017 that was updated in 2025 to support transportation planning and promote safety, quality, life, and economic development in Florida. So I guess I was right. It does kind of go down the Complete Streets Avenue. So let's, again, I know you guys do your homework, just as I do, but let's make sure we read it. So we're not agreeing to the plan that we might not think it is. Yeah. The language of the resolution is important to me, too, so I'll take a look at that. If I may. So internally, we had some very similar conversations, as you guys are having at the dais. And so, you know, the planning department's done a great job in terms of making sure that we had an opportunity to discuss our concerns with some of the projects that were on there. There's team members out there that, you know, were very engaged in some of these projects that just have some hesitation on. And so just know that, you know, the planning department was very receptive to that. And certainly from the feedback that we got, this was not guaranteeing any of these. It was that we would explore these. And so know that, you know, it'll be a collaborative approach. That's how we do things. Before we bring anything forward, they'll be vetted throughout the entire team to make sure that we can, we agree in terms of what we're trying to do and that the cost are understand up front of what the total project would be. So we will bring each individual project forward before anything additional occurs. And like I said, this just gives us the permission to look into these projects to determine if we want to move forward or not. I appreciate that. I really do appreciate that. And I understand that. Like, I understand all of this. And this is not to beat you guys up or any one person here. This is just going into what the language says, right? Like, before I speak, because I'm a council member, I want to make sure I'm articulating the right phrasing and terminology because I believe my words do count when I say something. And I don't want there to be any apprehension or does this mean that. So when we are writing our belief to a plan of the future for the city of Clearwater, that's not my plan. But I'm 105, and I understand my role in this. I'm just conveying to everybody I would never sign my name to this. And I know it's tough. You have five people up here. You guys do tremendous work. I'm not trying to discount any of that. Just what is written, I would not put my name to. Well, some of the language of resolution, you've pointed out that I've got questions about that as well. So I'm well taken. Okay. Anything else? Okay. We'll move on then to agenda item 8.1. Thank you. Approve a three-year maintenance and support agreement with Tyler Technologies. Mayor, council members, Dan Mayer, IT Director. This is a renewal of our agreement with, or further agreement with Tyler Technologies. They provide our financials and our human capital management solution, or our payroll system. And we'll be adding this year time and attendance, which is the time clocks. That'll be replacing Kronos at a modest savings, but a savings. We have to get that done by the end of the year. We happen to take any questions. Any questions on this, Jim? Council Member Cotton. Yeah. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate it and look forward to these upgrades. Again, going through the documents, I saw the different percentages that we were saving. So thank you for going through that. There was just one little cause for concern, and that was the up to 6% increases every year. Like, could you give me – it doesn't say that they will be. It says it's up to and could happen. What would an example of why something would be increased for that calendar year? It can be at the discretion of the vendor. Old contracts used to do a lump sum over a three-year period, which was an old PeopleSoft contract that we worked on. So normally, they try to control costs. They know it's a burden for some of their users to absorb big costs. But increases in inflation, I think they're hedging their bets, and contractually, that's what they were obligated. This year, I think it only went up just under 5%. Okay, perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Okay. Do we have consent? Yep. I have consent on 8.1. Thank you. 9.1. Approval of work authorization with Registered Construction and Engineering for Pre-Construction Technical Services for the Clearwater Executive Airport, North Hanger. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Mayor Braley, Marine and Aviation Division Controller. This item is a work authorization under our existing CMAR Continuing Services Contract to advance the North Hanger Project at Clearwater Executive Airport. Council previously approved the FlyUSA lease agreement. As well as FDOT grant agreements for both the design and construction phases of the Corporate Hanger Project. Under those agreements, FlyUSA is responsible for reimbursing the city for the required local match of 20% for the design. This work authorization and the amount of $63,666 covers pre-construction and technical services necessary to refine the project scope, coordinate permitting, and develop a guaranteed maximum price for the construction. This is the first in a series of agreements that will return to Council as the project advances toward construction. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions on this agenda? I have one. Yes. I seem to be on at these past two meetings, y'all. I don't know what it is. Thank you very much for presenting this. And my questions are probably pretty basic. You just said that this is the first in a series of authorizations to get this work going. I think it's what I'm coming down to is the reimbursement with FlyUSA. What type of a phase is that tied into? Is it we pay and then they'll pay us back within the month, or do we know what that tiered approach looks like? Yes. Yeah. They are – we end up having them sign separate agreements when these come to – when we get the FDOT agreements. FlyUSA signs corresponding agreements stating that after we pay out and invoice them, they pay within a month. Okay. Perfect. I think that's where I just wanted to know because I didn't see where it said – it just said that FlyUSA would be reimbursing it. I didn't know what timeline they have. Is that in a decade? You know, what does that look like? And you did say the $63,666 is just a part of one of these other construction allocations. Is that correct? Yes. That's perfect. Altogether, so far, we have allocated just over $3 million for this entire project. Awesome. Thank you for connecting those dots. I appreciate it. Anything else? This is not a consent to – I was going to ask, can we place it on consent? Do we have consent? Yes. We have consent. Thank you. Jenna, 9.2. Approve a resilient Florida grant program agreements between the City of Clearwater and the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection for $4 million with the construction of resiliency improvements at the Clearwater Beach Marina and its Office Resolution 26-07. Hello. Aaron Braley, Marina and Aviation Division Controller. This item is a $4 million resilient Florida program grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to support resiliency improvements at the Clearwater Beach Marina. The funding will assist with construction of an elevated bulkhead, replacement of the existing overwater fuel facility with a floating system designed to better accommodate changing water levels, and associated pre-construction and resiliency-related activities. These improvements are part of the larger beach marina reconstruction project and are specifically focused on strengthening our infrastructure against storm surge, sea level rise, and long-term coastal impacts. This grant helps offset eligible construction costs and reduces the financial burden on our marine enterprise fund, while advancing the City's commitment to resilient, sustainable waterfront infrastructure. I have to answer any questions. Thank you, Councilman. Your need no. Not a question. Just another example. Kudos to the staff on how hard we've worked on securing these grants. We keep hearing them. They keep coming before us, and they are appreciated. And then the taxpayers at Clearwater appreciate the work that's being done. We're obviously being successful at it. But I think our grants have more than doubled in the past calendar year. Ms. Mercado? I echo the same sentiment to whoever and whomever is working on grants. You know, you guys are doing a bang-up job. This is awesome. $4 million that are going to come into our city to help offset costs and get things done. Fantastic work. Let's not let off the gas in that aspect. So thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. In the agenda, I'm 10.1. Authorized respective agreements between the city of Clearwater and Palm Pavilion Hotel, located at 10 Bay Esplanade, Pier 60 Concessions, and Barefoot Beach House, located at 1 Causeway Boulevard, and 332 South Gulf Way Boulevard, respectively. Early Shepherds, Macon Waves, located at 619 South Gulf View Boulevard, Hilton, located at 400 Mandalay Avenue, Dolphin Sands, located at 655 Gulf View Boulevard, and Hampton Inn and Suites, located at 635 Gulf View Boulevard. Mayor, this is my item. Dan Slaughter is the city manager. So in 2025, the legislator made a modification to statute 161.5A to allow municipalities to enter into agreements so that certain property owners would then be able to utilize certain types of vehicles on the coastal beaches so that they could service some rental equipment. So that's what this item is, the collection of all the agreements that we've done to date and bringing them to you as a package. This includes, of course, all the ones that the clerk mentioned. It provides a permit sticker for the authorized vehicles and a system for us to internally manage it, and there are a few more that will be coming to you. We hope to get those completed and bring them at the next council meeting. There are just a couple other ones that we're having to do some final details on. There's no new service, rental services, on Clearwater Beach. This is all our existing, just making him compliant with the state statute. Mr. Cater's here. His department will manage the agreements and the permit process, and Chief Candy's team would handle it. Any enforcement associated with the statute, we weren't happy to answer any questions. Any questions? Councilman Robert. So I read all the ones that you have on this form here. It says Palm Pavilion Hotel. Is it the Palm Pavilion Hotel, or is it going to be Crabby's Pavilion that actually puts the umbrellas out? So I add that very specific question to them. Now that the property is sold, the restaurant's being managed by one group and the hotel by the other, and the hotel is going to be the owner-operator for the rental equipment. Got it. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Do we have consent? Yes. We have consent on 10.1. And I am going to take just a very short five-minute break. So we'll recess and come back in about five minutes. Turn on the microphone, and we'll go to agenda item 11.1. Reappoint Michael Boussikis to the Community Development Board with a full term expiring February 28, 2030. Council members, Mr. Boussikis has just completed his unexpired term and is eligible to be reappointed. It's reappointed. Any discussion? Any objection? No. Do we have consent? Absolutely. We have consent. Okay. Agenda 9, 11.2. Appoint an individual to the Municipal Code Enforcement Board to fill an unexpired term through November 1, 2028. Council members, Mr. Farrar had to resign from the board. He resigned back in October, and we finally have a couple of applicants for your consideration. Ms. Chelsea Gerd at 407 Pennsylvania Avenue with a sales property management background, and Dr. Mark Michael from 11 Baymont Street, and he's a retired physician. Yeah, Mayor, thank you. I'll nominate Ms. Chelsea Gerd. I know we've all heard her name multiple times. She has applied for multiple board positions and without a doubt is a passionate citizen in our community. We do know how passionate and how hard she works in her neighborhood and her neighborhood association. I think she would be a great fit for the Municipal Code Board. I would recommend Dr. Mark. Chelsea's a great candidate, but that would be a gross representation of 33755. That would be three people in one committee from that zip code. Dr. Mark is very involved in this community, very well respected. He would bring a different perspective. I would recommend Dr. Mark. Okay. Councilman, you've got you. Yeah, I went through the zip codes as well, and there would be three for Ms. Gerd's zip code, and Dr. Michael would be the second for his zip code. So he also has a zip code that's represented. I would be in support of Chelsea due to her property management background, time on the nuisance abatement board. You know, as Councilmember Menino pointed out, she's very involved within her homeowner's community, with the police department. I think everybody around her neighborhood knows who Chelsea is. You know, I think Dr. Michael brings professional leadership, obviously being a doctor, some governance experience when going through his application. But when it comes to actual being involved in the city, it looks like Chelsea's already been active and a part of that. So that's what kind of made my eye. Even though the zip codes, once there's more than one person already represented, in my mind, that just kind of goes away at that point. Because you guys know I always try and find somebody that's outside of that zip code, but both are already represented for our two applicants we have. So that's where I'm at. Who is the other one from 33767 that's on the board now? I do not have that before me, but I can find it. Yeah, he left, but I think that's still 33767. Yeah, I think someone else. It is. Okay. So then Dr. Mark would be the only one from that zip code, is that an accurate thing or no? Does that 667 represent one other member or Mr. Farrar who left? Hold on one second. Because then there would be no representation from that. Yes. Actually, there's only one. So, yes. So that would have been Mr. Farrar's. I'm sorry. I'm for having someone from out there. I stand corrected. So the zip codes that are listed does already include the fact that Mr. Farrar is no longer there. So that's Mr. Plum. Okay. So they all do still have the same. They still have representation. Okay, perfect. I'm trying to see if we have consensus here. I don't have a strong feeling on it. Either one of these would be good for me, so I'm a little on defense. So you'd prefer Chelsea, three of you, so I'll go along. May I place it on case? Vice Mayor? That's fine. Yeah. May I place it on consent with Ms. Gerd? Yes. Yeah, that's on consent. Don't we want it on consent? Yes. That's the question. I mean, we could vote on it, but we might. Yes. Okay. Okay. That will move to item 11.3. Provide direction regarding the August 17, 2026, and November 2, 2026 work session meetings. Council members, due to the upcoming August primary and the November election, the supervisor of elections has informed staff that they need access to chambers earlier. So we would need to be completed by 1 o'clock. So either, A, we can change the work session start time to 830 or just hold council meeting only on those two dates. And then I do have something else after we need some direction there. We have one meeting that week on our work session, whatever the board's comfortable with. For both of these dates? I'm good with that. It would just be just the work session, right? Just that Thursday? Right. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So instead of having the two work sessions in August and November, we would just have, for that one meeting, we would only have the council meetings. No work session that week, just the council meeting. That's fine. And I will try to work with staff to try to manage the length of the agenda. How's that? We'll see how it goes. I'm fine with that. But I've got another request. So this morning I was informed that there is a conflict with the September 3rd council meeting. And so I need direction from council as to what you want to do. The issue we have with changing that meeting date, it is our first hearing for our millage. And we are required by statute to hold the first hearing between September 3rd and September 18th. And so. Oh. So we couldn't back it down. You can't back it out, no. Oh. Because September 4th, from what I understand, there may be, you guys will be traveling to Philly's for the annual meeting. And that is when the county will be holding their first hearing. And this, so. So we could put it the next week? It can be the following week if there are no conflicts. I'll have to double check with the county because we can't also have it with the school board's hearing. So if there is no conflict, I'll work with your assistance to determine or identify if it's possible. And if not, then we'll figure it out. Okay. Let's move forward then. We'll get to it. Ain't no budget. I've always traveled up on Friday mornings. There's a possibility to get there early Friday morning to still make the Friday night game if that's our conflicts. Well, right now it's scheduled for Friday morning, I think. Yeah. And I would like to go on Thursday because I kind of always go on that extra day. Not everybody goes, but that's the only reason I wanted to change that date. I would prefer that myself if we can look at changing it. If not, I understand. So what are we doing? We're going to move it, see if we can move it to the following week. I will work with your assistance to see if there's a potential date because it does need to be held after 6 o'clock because it is a public hearing. So it can't start any sooner than 6 o'clock. So I will see if there's a potential date, and I'll bring that as a separate agenda item if we have consensus with the other two meeting dates. Okay. Coming in, we'll see. Great. Move to agenda item 12.1. Mayor, 12.1, that's a city attorney item. Back in November of 2025, a former city attorney brought forth a legal services agreement with Gray Robinson for the defense of two claims bills involving the city of Clearwater and Gianna Coast, which is the plaintiff. The agreement was to provide for the defense for the two claims bills. In January, there is a special master's hearing. Some of the fees as a result of the hearing exceeded the amount that was allotted. So this increase is to cover all the costs and the fees as a result of the special master's hearing. Do you have to answer any questions? Any questions? None. Move to agenda item 11. Excuse me. 12.2. The remaining are second ordinances, or second reading of ordinances. 12.3 and 12. All the way through 7. All the way through 7. Some of them withdraw. Yeah, so 12.5 through 12.7 are withdrawn, but they've been advertised, so if anybody shows up on Thursday. Okay. Move to agenda item 13, then. City manager reports. Thank you. I just wanted to say one thing. This weekend, we had multiple events that were occurring simultaneously downtown, and while there was some apprehension about how that would work out, it turned out spectacular, and I just wanted to thank the team for their coordination, and there was a lot of our team on hand that night to go around and make sure that the businesses and the events were all doing well, and they did, and it was really outstanding to see so many events occurring at the same time and successfully. So, thank you to all the teams that were responsible for making sure that went off so well. Thank you. Do you have a report, teams? Do you have a report? Nothing, Mayor. Do you have a 15.1? Update on traffic studies? That's you. Absolutely. Thank you. Mayor, appreciate it. Last work session, there was a discussion regarding traffic studies on Clearwater Beach and our partnership with PSTA regarding the trolley during spring break. Just wanted to bring a little bit of clarity because there are multiple traffic studies going on throughout our corridor of 60, so I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. And with Mr. Albritton and I representing us at Ford Pinellas, I thought that was a good time not to do it at that work session or at that agenda item, but to come back this week. The existing one that the gentleman was talking about is regarding our Clearwater Beach mobility and traffic study. That goes from our roundabout and heads towards Sand Key. That is a partnership with Ford Pinellas. Clearwater skin in the game was $50,000. Ford Pinellas put up just under $274,000 on a commitment. To give you an idea of where they are, that study has been completed. Its review and findings and recommendations were presented last week to Whit Blanton and his Ford Pinellas team. That was on February 26th. The next step for that is to come forward. Ford Pinellas will have a meeting with our city staff. They will update them on those findings and recommendations. Followed by we will be updated on that plan, what it looks like, the recommendations, and then it would subsequently be presented to Ford Pinellas. So as a dais, staff will see it first, then us, and then the group at Ford Pinellas. But that has been completed. I know we're all interested in finding out what those recommendations and results are. The second study that's currently concurrently going on at the same time is with the FDOT, Ford Pinellas and Clearwater. The scope is from that roundabout heading directly east over State Road 60 corridor to McMullen Booth. That startup funding was provided by FDOT. Their funding for that project will last through the summer of 26. We are getting pretty close to that. The reason this study is going on, several years ago, the county did a study regarding our Belcher Gulf to Bay intersection. We all know the safety challenges that exist there. They came back with three recommendations. One was an overpass. Another was a U-turn and no left turns. The county did not like any of them. Their concern was why we might address and mitigate safety at this one intersection. They didn't feel any of the studies really told them what that does east and west of that intersection. So, it's back being studied again. There is some gaps in that study because of funding. It is omitting a lot of safety mitigations. It omits neighborhood input and community engagement, which Ford Pinellas, as well as our city staff, would really prefer to see in a study like this. What Ford Pinellas is committing, they're committing an extra $200,000. If the city would match that and put skin into that study, the ask for us as a dais to give that direction of $200,000 match. FDOT has put over $400,000 into it. So, it would be a 200 city, 200 Ford Pinellas, and 400 from FDOT. Ford Pinellas does recognize that this isn't normally how this communication should, and they would prefer to happen. They do have great communication with our city staff. The only reason this has come into the dais in here is because of a timing concern. If we get closer to the summer, FDOT will directly hit a pencils down position, and that's not somewhere, I think, that we want to be when it comes to this study and all the time and energy over the years that's gone into it. So, the ask is direction from the dais for a $200,000 match. I know at one point we were waiting for a state grant, I believe. I know staff could probably talk to where we were with that state grant, Safe Streets. We did commit, depending on that route, upwards of up to $500,000. I think that grant has kind of been on hold at that level. I don't know if staff wants to talk to that at this point or at another time. Dan Slaughter, City Manager, Ann is here, so she could speak to it. It was a federal grant, I believe, and I think it was just on hold during the shutdown, but it is one that we committed based on the scope and compliant with it. I'm also an appellate transportation division manager. So, when we originally approached FDOT with the Safe Streets for All grant, we were just in the stage of having our agreement reviewed with the administration, former administration at the time. And when the administration switched, we were put on hold. Now, we've requested multiple updates from them, and it seems like as soon as things make movement for us to receive the funding, it gets put on hold again. So, we're literally just waiting for them to release the $400,000. I think the grant amount is about $1.4 million with our match. So, we're just waiting on them to give us the green light so we can proceed. But we have an award for about $1 million. Thank you. The fear at the county level is that if we continue to wait and this communication doesn't happen and we do not get this ball rolling, that that funding mechanism will drop. And the last thing the county wants to see, as pencils down again, I just discussed it earlier that when we were in Tallahassee, we did learn how important it is to make sure we have those funding mechanisms in place for these projects. Last thing we want to do is de-centivize the state from funding a project like that. So, again, that is the request, $200,000 match that for Pinellas would also match, and we can discuss that afterwards. The third is a multi-jurisdictional project. That's Pinellas Hillsborough County, City of Clearwater in Tampa, and that's a PD&E study. That's Project Development Environmental Study, and that's the Courtney Campbell Causeway. That's McMullen Booth all the way across the bridge to the Veterans Expressway. That is 100% FDOT funded. Clearwater does not have money in that. However, we do have a lot of interest in it. The legislation recently put into work that anything that's put into a PD&E category automatically must be funded within five years. So there is a lot of excitement about this project because so many take so long to get going, and when we see them as years down the road, this project, because they put it into a PD&E category, we will see things transpire with that one pretty quick. But those are the three traffic studies that are currently going on in our 60 corridor. Again, I'll go back to the roundabout east to McMullen Booth is the one that has a funding issue and a gap, and if we could find a way to close that gap without, you know, waiting for a grant with the unknown and uncertainty that we have with that, that would be probably more beneficial to Clearwater. We could certainly take it back, talk to finance, and see if we can find a funding mechanism for you to bring back for you to consider for approval. Absolutely. Any questions or any comments? Thank you. Move to agenda 15.2. Yes, sir, that's my agenda, and that's coming to alignment with our city's tree ordinance. In December, the county updated their ordinance, and that was ordinance number 251822A. It's in regards to their tree permitting, and the reason I'm bringing it up is because when a local jurisdiction or municipality does something that seems to be and provide more efficiencies and ease on their constituents, it's something that I think we should review and look at, and in reviewing their ordinance versus what we have now, it does seem to be more efficient for not only property owners but also ease the burden on staff and reviewing different things. So what I'm asking for us to do now is I brought it to the city manager. I showed her the ordinance list of five or six different things that I noted was different in our curtain ordinance versus theirs. She advised it to be over the eight hours of staff time, so it would need to be brought to this board for approval to start looking at. Currently, we're on an inch-for-inch replacement model, which can be rigid and difficult for property owners or business owners to navigate. The county went to a tiered mitigation structure, and it looks like it has and will help with the expectations and predictabilities of allowing those homeowners or business owners to essentially have more grace, if you will, in proceeding with what trees can come down. I do want to say that this is in no way touching protections and messing with our canopy. It's about refining what we're already doing. We'll continue to protect the specimen trees in which are pointed out by staff as well as historic trees. This is just about easing the unnecessary burdens for routine residential removal, smaller trees that have minimal canopy or any type of growth that impacts anything. I think that in doing these types of things and having the willingness for us to see another municipality change something that it might be working for them and us to review our processes, builds trust with our constituents. It shows that we're always trying to look for those efficiencies and be more reasonable and bring compliance to an easier way that they can understand. So with that, I would like to see that if you guys are comfortable, we can give staff direction to look into the county's ordinance, look into our ordinance, and maybe bring ours more in line. If not, I'll say copy what the county did. Okay. So my question is, how would that affect the CRA decision on the tree thing that just happened? Do we know? You mean the CBA? I mean, I'm sorry, CDB. Or CDB. I'm not sure if we're prepared to answer. I can tell you the county says it's only from this date going forward. It's nothing retroactive. It's nothing retroactive. Okay. And Council Member Cotton did bring this up. We ran it through our team having a conversation in terms of the time that it would take for this, which was in excess of the eight hours, which is why it's coming to the dais to determine if that's something that the council wants to direct our team to do, and then, you know, we'll have to discuss in terms of priorities. Okay. Any other comments? I'm supportive. I thank you for bringing this forward. I followed the county commissioner's multiple discussions on this. I think at the end of the day what they found was they found a pragmatic approach that respects both private property rights and the collective good and pays respect to our environment and the tree canopy in our community that we so desire and need. And I think they did a good job of truly weighing the property rights and administrative inefficiencies against that environmental protection. So I'm supportive of the direction they went for staff to look into it. Anybody else? Sure. If I may. If you're not, you want to finish your conversation on the dais, I was going to just. I guess you're supportive of everybody? Yes. Yeah. I'm supportive of everybody, too. Thank you. I don't think we're going to, you know, there's no intent by any of us to, you know, we want to protect our tree canopy. But it did seem like the county's provisions were sensitive to homeowners that, you know, we've all heard feedback from homeowners at Clearwater. It's, it's, we're pretty tough with folks who are well-intended. They just want to make their home look more beautiful and our, our current rules are pretty tough on folks. So I think, again, protecting the tree canopy for the entire city is incredibly important to our city, but yet finding some, some concessions we can make to make it a little bit easier on property owners. I thought the county did that and I support this as well. So I guess the consensus is to find us is to support that. I appreciate that. Thank you for that clarification. If you'd like, we can start with a kind of a high level presentation at our next opportunity to meet with you with planning department leading the way. There are multiple departments involved, which is why we wanted to kind of understand what the, what the questions were. So we can properly kind of put the conversation together, tell you what we are, what our existing goals are, of course, right? Go over those, tell you some things, because there's some things in process that we're working on staff wise, but also, you know, give you some feedback with respect to that policy and where we think we go forward from there. So I think you're looking for kind of that, all of that information to make a decision or give us further direction on what you want to do. So we can do that at a future, at an upcoming meeting. I don't believe we'd have another meeting this month, but it would be next month if that's right. So we can do that. I mean, yeah, again, I don't know what resources you'll need to invest in it. I just knew it was over the eight hours. So I don't want this to be rushed and, you know, and I don't think that's what you're saying. No, I'm not. I'm just saying we can do something that gives you information. Perfect. And have a conversation and go from there. Awesome. Nope, all for it. I think we're really looking, we're looking really to see if we can mimic or copy. Tell me what they've done because it does seem, like I said, the efficiencies seem to be there. And I don't want to encumber you all in going from scratch. I mean, if something seems to be working and it seems to already be benefiting residents from one angle, I mean, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. You know what I'm saying? And that's the reason for us really giving you kind of an overview of how it works, if you will, and have a discussion about what we may be of recommendation to tweak or what you may see is you're hearing something that we're not doing. So this is a conversation. Awesome. Okay. Thanks, Al. Okay. Thank you all. You know, I'm 15.3. That's mine. And in our weekly meetings, the city manager brought to me a request we had had to, I think, add a link for a group to the construction page or the city website. It wasn't for necessarily a link. That's what I called to clarify. It was a matter of information being provided in any number of ways. There wasn't any one way that the request was made, but just that it would include all construction projects that are occurring in the downtown. And right now it's just those that we have some city involvement. That is currently what is listed. That is correct. So we know there are a number of other projects that they all have commercial realtors and they're all, I just, my feedback to staff was that I just, I didn't really want to deviate on that page, that city government page, official page, from just talking about city government activities. So to the extent we can support all, and we do. We're out there working with community and private property owners and realtors, in this case, you know, downtown. We've got a number of commercial realtors working on different properties, billing those, that we all lean in and we all talk to potential tenants and talk about what's going on downtown. But my concern was to put, you know, I think we're crossing a line a bit when we start deviating from discussing on our official web page what, anything other than things that we have been directly involved in. So the Gotham properties, obviously, that's one that went through our process to select them. The ballot makes sense. The Osceola garage. Certainly we all want to champion growth and development of downtown. My feedback to staff was just that I didn't want to really get into any non, to get into all construction, because that really opens the door for anybody and everybody. And I think for use of other government web pages, you know, I don't know, at what point are we helping folks advertise or helping them, you know, promote their own private businesses with the official web page. Again, for me, it's not about, you know, whether or not we talk to community partners and potential partners and encourage them to invest and take space in downtown Clearwater and have a presence here. For me, it was just about information on our official page, other than those projects that the city has been directly involved. And I just want to clarify, because we've had both requests from the public and then from other developers about other projects that are going on in downtown. And so since we have this construction page, could we not add everything? We've had conversations with some of the outside consultants that we are working with to help rebrand Clearwater, also in terms of discussing what's going on, kind of keeping the excitement as it relates to while we're under construction. And so they provided just different opportunities or different ways that we could show the multiple investments that are being made in downtown without any one kind of type of promotion. It's just a matter of, like, informational purposes only, which is why, like I said, there's no requirement for a link. There's no requirement for anything like that. It was really more so just information so that there is transparency about all the investment that's incurring in downtown. So I kind of understand where you're coming from on it, that we don't want to be giving anybody free advertising and promotional stuff. But I think it's so important to show everything that's going on. We just had a great article in the magazine about what's happening in downtown Clearwater. And it showed all our projects and, you know, things that we're – but there's other things going on. And I think it's important to show that. And even if it's just informational, that we've got this, this, and this, and this going on besides the things that we're with, I think it does generate excitement. And I think you're going to see a lot more of it happening. Yeah, I'm not opposed to that. I mean, this is all kind of high-level talking. So I don't know what I'm envisioning what it would say or not say. I think it's perfectly – we talk about the number of acres or lots or opportunities for retail development or whatever. I don't think it's – I don't – but, you know, our downtown really stretches all the way up to Gulf of the Bay. I mean, it's really – it's a wide area. It's not just downtown in particular. It's a wide group – our downtown is pretty big. So – but I'm not against talking about the number of properties and all these things. I just – I hesitate to get into specific parts of downtown, specific owners, because then it becomes, well, why didn't I get – why didn't you mention – I mean, I just think you also get into a level of fairness, too. Or, you know, are you giving one same attention to the others. But talk about the overall opportunities downtown. I mean, obviously the ones that the city has been directly involved in. But, you know, these folks have got – had no trouble, you know, when I say these folks. I mean, Gotham folks and the hotel and other folks who have developed. We've got the affordable housing that's going up there and the gateway across the nature's food patch. I mean, folks have been able to promote their own properties and to grow their own properties and fill in it. We want to facilitate that. I just think the government website is maybe not the best place to do that. There are other ways to do it. So that was my concern. Well, then how do we – when this comes to fruition, like we're in the stages of Pinellas County master plan and their property. I mean, I think definitely we should be showing what's happening there or linking to it or something because that's something a lot of people aren't familiar with. I mean, a lot of people are familiar with it, but a lot of people aren't. I mean, they don't know. I talked to somebody – it was about a month ago. Oh, yeah, look at 13 acres of, you know, Pinellas County moving out of it, and they were, like, shocked. I guess they don't – well, there's really not a lot of newspapers to read nowadays. But, you know, I know this for a fact, that if you want to get information out, you have to be so redundant with it. You've got to almost be so repetitive with it that you go, how could anybody not know this? Because that's how you reach people, because everybody's in their bubble, and, you know, you've got to get it out to everybody, and it takes a lot to get it out to people. That's all I know. But there again, you know, I understand what you're saying, but there again, that's a government project. I mean, that makes sense that the government – the Pinellas County government is controlling it. So, again, we're talking – I thought there was going to be a link to specific groups that wanted to – I don't know what exactly we're talking about. I'd like to see what, you know, draft proposal there is to talk about it. But I would just encourage us to stay at a high level so that we – and, again, it's not just about, you know, draw – it's partly drawing the line between public and private for just use of a public website to promote private business. And, you know, we all have concerns about that. But some of it is a fairness that, you know, is everybody getting treated equally, too, that if you're not careful, you open the door, and then now you get into those conversations. So, Vice Mayor. So, you're actually – I actually went back to the site just to clarify a couple of things. In order to go along with your, you know, your way of thinking, it would have to be downtown or city of Clearwater construction. Correct. Right? But for me, this is a government webpage to inform and educate our public about all the projects. And when I click on all of them, they have a very nice standardized format for each and every single one. So, I don't have a problem with including all the projects because I think it does convey a positive message as long as we're consistent and it's standardized. So, whatever format we do for Osceola Parking Garage is the same one as we do for Gotham, and they are. So, if we can keep it standardized, therefore we don't, you know, endorse anyone, then I don't have a problem with it. I believe the more the better, as long as it's just by project or by address, it's completely neutral. Thank you. I was waiting for the green light. Mayor, thank you for putting this forward. It's an important conversation to have. I understand where you're coming from. I think, you know, you identify things that really highlight the importance of neutrality, the importance of consistency, the importance of fairness, and I agree with all that. I think there probably is a common ground that we can find that strikes a key with both sides. You know, Clearwater is undoubtedly in an exciting period of time and change down here. And whether it's been called an urban renaissance or a downtown reboot, these are exciting times with a lot of good things going on. I think we've all identified the vital importance of us as council members and staff to continue to tell that story of hope and optimism and growth. And we've committed, you know, not just this dais and many groups before us and leadership teams have committed a lot of resources and dollar amounts to truly try to shift and change those perceptions in our community. I think this is a way that we can. I think it's a way to tell that story. To me, you know, not just listing our public projects that are downtown, but the private projects, the public-private partnerships, maybe finding an equilibrium for you is let's identify what is in what category, what's public, what's private, what's a partnership. I think when we start to do that, we're contributing to the transparency of what we're doing down there. I think it has the ability to reduce confusion, prevents misinformation. I think it does away with some redundant questions to staff or to us of what's going on and who's this and who's that. You know, when we're talking our downtown, I don't, let's be transparent. Let's, it's, we're talking about the Church of Scientology in downtown buildings. I think there's a lot of, you know, discussions over the years have been please develop, please activate. Regardless of what partnership it is, I think when groups develop and activate downtown, we should find a way to tell that story and not, you know, we keep moving the goalposts sometimes. I think, you know, finding that way to improve that communication to our citizens, to our visitors. I think the message that we send to the real estate market of positive, of growth, of growing, of activity, I think that's important. I think it encourages collaboration, it increases visibility, it ensures that information that's out there is accurate and factual that's being presented. So I think there is a lot of key points. I do understand where you're coming from and the fairness, keeping it consistent. The perceived endorsement of something is, I can see where that could be a concern. So maybe if we find a way to separate public-private, public-private partnerships and identify what they are, keep them all neutral and consistent, as well as even, you know, put a disclaimer on there above some of the private developments that, you know, although these are permitted through the city of Clearwater, that's no more than a permitting process and it's not an endorsement of, you know, what they're doing. There's something that gives some comfort to it, but I do think, I do think it's a positive for transparency and to move this city forward to tell that story of those downtown projects. Mr. McCutton? Yes, sir, thank you. I just want to, is this what we're talking about? Is this the map? We can pull it up if you want. There's a page that talks about it. Joelle, will you please put it up just so it's clear what we're talking about? I think, so did the request come from the Cleveland Street Alliance? I've had the request, I mean, I've had requests in terms of what's going on on downtown about multiple properties from a lot of different people, so no. To actually be mentioned. There was no request to mention the Cleveland Street Alliance, no. That was an option in terms of a way to communicate the information would be to refer to the Cleveland Street Alliance webpage because it's listed there. But there was not a request that it be that. It was more of a request to communicate all the projects that are going on, the construction projects in downtown. I get the request from media. I mean, I have a current request from the media about the projects in downtown. So, you know, but to my point, again, look, I'm not saying we don't talk about growth and opportunities in downtown for everybody. But, you know, if one of them is Cleveland Street Alliance, and that's a for-profit LLC, and Scott Dobbins, a commercial realtor, is listed on Sunbiz as the manager of an LLC, which is fine. But I just, I think, you know, I think we need to be careful that we're not, you know, are we using it to help commercial realtors? Are we using it, and again, I don't know what the description is going to be. I have a misunderstanding about what we're going to do with the information. And if I knew more about what we're trying to do, I might feel differently about it. But it doesn't prevent us from doing all kinds of things. And I even tried to call Mr. Dobbins years, not years ago, months ago, offer my assistance to talk to potential tenants that he might have for his space. I wasn't able to get in touch with him to have that conversation. But certainly we all do that to promote. I've been on a meeting here recently talking about that. I did a thing for local news down there on Cleveland Street to promote all the business and business opportunities. So maybe I just need to learn more about what the proposal is here because it doesn't sound like it's what I thought it was. But I kind of need to know more. And all I want to do is express to the other four of you what my concerns are. Well, again, I just. I think it's important that we give you direction on what is appropriate and what's not. Because in my mind, it could be done in a way that I don't know that is appropriate use of the government. Sure. No, and I appreciate that. Again, I want to be clear. There was never a request from anybody to put the Cleveland Street Alliance on the website. There was a request to include all. And I've gotten it from information requests from residents, from business owners, from media. And yes, from the Church of Scientology to include all of them. So that's what it was. Yes, in terms of the content that we put on the website, that's something that we discuss. I brought it up in our one-on-ones to make sure that we were all on the same page in terms of we're in the process of rebranding. It's a conversation we've had a lot at the DDB. We've hired a company to help us assist with that. And it's a way to keep that information ongoing about the investment that's going on in downtown, as well as communicating traffic and things like that. So this was just more of an updating the council in terms of what staff was looking to do. Thanks, Pam. Again, so if we look at being fair and have it standardized, so each project would be by the address, not by which LLC is owned, because there are different people or organizations that own different properties that are being renovated right now. So if we would just put their address versus who they belong to and then describe them in the same standardized format that we are doing with Osceola Garage, then I don't think there's any – then we would maintain neutrality if each project was just given an address instead of lumping them with who owns them. That's one way, to me, we would ensure neutrality and continue to have a public trust. I'd agree with that. Yes, thank you. So essentially, you know, each crane, once you click on that, takes you to the bottom of the page, which is the project that's ongoing. And, I mean, I would – just hearing the thoughts, it sounds like we're in agreement that, you know, government doesn't pick winners and choosers that – or winners and losers, that we are here to ensure the betterment of the city as a whole and inform in a transparent way which projects are ongoing downtown. Because I would look at the Ballad Hotel and the Bluffs Apartment Development Deal that, from one lens of what I'm hearing be said, that those should be removed because once the city signed over everything to them, we're essentially out of that from now on. Versus I think we are on the precipice of something great for Clearwater that we've never seen before, not bringing in the county properties and the acreage that's there. So if we're able to show more cranes, even if we want to do a scale of different colors that are public, public-private, and private, I mean, that might even be one way of doing it. And then color coding at the bottom of that page to match the color of the crane, too. And it does. It just shows the developers. It shows people that want to move to this area and be a part of a vibrant downtown that, okay, this isn't what it has been, right? We get the CRA updates, but not everybody goes to Facebook and listens to CRA updates or sees the spotlight or sees the growth that is downtown. They might not have been down here for two years. And they know it as the paper mache in the windows, you know, which that's not happening like it was. Things have definitely changed. And I think that giving credit where credit's due and letting people see that, hey, maybe your Friday night you do want to go downtown Clearwater now just to enjoy the vibrancy that is there. Maybe you run into three events you didn't even know were happening, and now you're stuck in one of them and having a great time. You want to come back next weekend. And so I would be for continuing what we're doing here and promoting everything that's ongoing in here for everybody to know, right, with the way that even the vice mayor has put out there. I think that it shows we are grown. I mean, goodness, when you just drive down Osceola and you see all the cranes, that's exciting in and of itself. So this is my two cents on now understanding what I think the question may or may not have been. So, you know, I think another distinguish between what I see on there now is we know what's going in the Ballot Hotel. It's a hotel. I mean, they're not looking for a tenant. It's the hotel. It's being developed for a purpose with something in there. And even the Goffin property, it's apartment buildings. They're going to put apartments in there. So there's a business already dedicated to go in a couple of those. I think that's another way, that things that are being, you know, buildings being renovated or built and they don't have, you know, anything in them yet. And, again, I'm not opposed to, you know, I've worked with anybody to try to help attract tenants for their buildings. But I think that's another way to distinguish those two at least is, you know, they have somebody in them now. In addition to them being a project which we initiated, I think that's one other way. And so I don't want to keep going on all day. We're already getting close to 5 o'clock. But I think if I could just learn more about what we're proposing to put on there, maybe I'm more comfortable with it. I'm looking for directions from the council. Well, may I say something really quick because I might be confused. But aren't the Ballot Hotel and the Gotham Project, I believe they do have, like, 10,000, 9,000 square feet of retail space, right? But they have their main, their main focus. So that's where you're making the discussion there. So is the consensus to move forward? Is there a consensus you want a presentation on what it's going to look like? I want to make sure we're meeting expectations on this. I think the consensus is to move forward. But I don't know if everybody's really clear on what we're proposing. So because the mayor, I think what he'd like to see is a presentation of what it's going to look like. I think everybody wants to move forward on it. So if you could do that and bring it back to us, we can get moving. For me, it doesn't have to be a formal presentation. Maybe just give me an example. I'd like to see what we're doing. So, for example, like what Vice Mayor stated and showed in terms of what the website has now, is there a consensus you want to just replicate that for every project, every project that has major construction? That would be my opinion. And I think that's the direction that you're looking for is what does this presentation need to look like? And, you know, I see it as what Vice Mayor has pointed out and as well as Council Member Menino, maybe color coding and keeping it as is with the addresses and what may or may not be going to be available for offering, right? Like that's what I'm hearing. And what constitutes major construction? We can define that. And also, you know, with active permits and things like that, we did submit so that you all could see the active permits that are currently ongoing. So you all should have that. But we will define what a major construction project is, and we can discuss that in our one-on-ones and be ready to either have an example or show what that looks like at our next meeting. So we move to agenda item 15.4. Okay. So I just had my last meeting with the opioid abatement funding board, and we're still finalizing our big long-term plan, but we're almost done. But I did want to share some, I would say, some positive news, some positive trends. So Pinellas County as a whole continues to see a decline in both fatal and non-fatal overdoses, with 2024 trends approaching pre-2019 levels. However, fentanyl purity has dropped significantly, and certain dangerous drug combinations have decreased, though methamphetamine use appears to be rising. So what it suggests is that the lower purity and broader supply changes may be what's contributing to lower overdose deaths rather than decreased utilization. And the task force recommends strengthening recovery supports, expanding prevention efforts, and increasing access to medication-assisted treatment to sustain progress and address emerging substance use trends. So I've included several graphs that show us how we're doing, and you can see, even visually, it's nice to see it declining over the last five years. That's it. Well, thank you. Looks like we're making some progress. Yeah. That's good news. That's good news. Okay. With that, we'll move to item 16. Is there any new business that you'd like to put on? If not, we'll move to item 17. Council comments? None. None. Move to item 18, closing comments by mayor, and I have none. So with that, we'll adjourn the March 2, 2025 work session of Clearwater City Council.