We'll recess the CRA meeting and we'll call the order of the work session of Clearwater City Council. And we'll move to item 2.1 on the agenda, which is September Service Awards. And we have one of them here. We have three we were going to present today. Five-year employee Matthew Gresh from Public Communications is unfortunately not able to make it here today, but we will present his letter of appreciation and cup to him. Jeff Cater, 15-year employee from Utility Customer Service, also could not make it today, but we will present his letter to him as well. But we do have our 20-year employee, Andrew Descartes from CGS Energy. Andrew, would you please come up? And the city manager has something very nice to say about you and your service. Andrew began his career with the city of Clearwater on September 5th of 2006 as a Gas Technician 1 in the Installation Section, serving Northern Pasco County area of CGS. In 2007, he transferred to the Propane Gas Section as a propane delivery driver, continuing to build his technical knowledge and skills. He was promoted to Gas Technician 3 in 2011, where he established natural gas service for residential and commercial customers while specializing in diagnosing and repairing customer-owned gas appliances. Andrew has been recognized for his commitment to teamwork and exceptional service throughout his career. In 2013, he was part of a team nominated for the City's Team of the Year Award after completing an overnight natural gas conversion at the Concord Public Grill in Reddington Beach, allowing the restaurant to remain fully operational without interruption. In 2015, he was a member of the City's Team of the Year for assisting the City of Fort Pierce following a major gas outage affecting approximately 2,400 customers. Working alongside Fort Pierce employees from sunrise to sunset over five days, Andrew helped safely and efficiently restore natural gas service to the community, exemplifying teamwork, high-performing government, and superior public service. Promoted to gas specialist in 2016, Andrew continued to expand his technical expertise while earning the respect of co-workers and customers through his dedication to quality service. In 2023, he was promoted to gas supervisor, where he now leads and mentors employees while helping to ensure the safe, reliable operation of the natural gas system. Throughout his 20-year career, Andrew has demonstrated technical excellence, leadership, and an unwavering commitment to serving others. His dedication to supporting employees, providing exceptional customer service, and ensuring safe, reliable operations has made a lasting impact on CGS Energy, the City of Clearwater, and the residents that we proudly serve. We congratulate Andrew on this well-deserved milestone and thank him for 20 years of outstanding service to the City of Clearwater and its community. Andrew, thank you for bringing your wonderful family here today. I heard your little one back there earlier, and great to have you and your beautiful family here. And thank you for your 20 years of service. With that, we will adjourn the, excuse me, we will recess the work session for September 28th of the City Council, and we'll call back to order the convened work session. This time, we'll call back to order the work session of the Clearwater City Council for September 28th, 2026, and we will move to item 2.2 on the agenda. Plumhouse presentation. Council Member Teixeira. Well, it's not every day that I make this little promenade to the podium, but the Plumhouse Project certainly warrants it. So I'm very excited today with my colleagues to give you all an update on this from up here. So most people look at the Plumhouse, and they see it as a charming, historic house. What they may not know is just how much it's gone through and how many times this house could have simply disappeared. So this is really a story about survival and about the people who, at different moments of its history, decided it's worth giving it another chance. And that story actually begins before there was even a Plumhouse. And that was Jenny. Before we can talk about the building, you have to know about Jenny. More than 150 years ago, she was already helping shape this community as Clearwater's first paid public school teacher. And I love starting with her because suddenly, we're not just talking about a house or preserving an old structure. There's a person behind that name, a strong woman. There's a Clearwater story behind it, and Jenny's story didn't even end with her. This became a family story that continued for three generations. Different people, different times, but all connected by this house and by their place in Clearwater history. And that is the family tree you see before us. So when we talk about preserving the Plumhouse, it's not simply preserving a structure. It's about preserving generations of a Clearwater story. The house itself turned out to have a story of its own. The house has already proven to be adaptable. It always changes, and it always survives. But it began in one place, became a family home in another, and ultimately found its way to Ed C. Wright Park. So apparently, stating put was never part of its character. Every time there were circumstances that endangered it, somebody found a way for the house to keep going, until once again we reached a point where its future was uncertain. This is where sentiment wasn't enough. We understood history, but we needed to know what we were dealing with. And so after several false starts, the house remained empty for many years. And so we had to figure out what to do, and so we had to study. But we needed to know what we were dealing with in terms of what our options were. So we had a professional building condition assessment, and we looked seriously at the choices in front of us. And there were three. They were legitimate. None of them were particularly simple. And none of them were cheap. And because we really didn't know what we were going to face, there was wide ranges about how much it was going to cost us. So it left me with a pretty obvious question. Now what? I understood the three choices. They kind of looked okay on paper. But none of them felt quite right for me. And that's when the conversation changed in my mind. So instead of asking which one of these three options I was going to choose, I started asking a completely different question. There had to be an option four. What was it? And this is where having three type A women involved became very useful. Because telling three type A women those are your only choices is apparently not a particularly effective way to end a conversation. It's actually motivational. We certainly weren't ready to give up on this house. So instead of accepting the choices we had been given, we started looking for another one. But option four needed a little help. Fortunately, we weren't starting from zero. We had already pre-allocated ARPA funds that gave us a foundation. Then the community stepped up with a lot of donations. And volunteers gave up their time, their talent, their energy, and a lot of scrapes. Everybody brought something very different to the table. The money helped, but it was the people that brought this building to life. So each of us, Allison and Sherry and I, we came to the Plum House from a different place. Allison brought the historical knowledge, the preservation expertise, and the resources to understand what this house represented and what it would take to protect that history and the structure. Sherry saw the potential in the house. She followed her dream, invested in that vision, and made the Plum House part of it. And as for me, my role was to bring us three together. When city staff presented me with these three options, I just couldn't accept that those were the only choices. Losing the house was bad enough. Having taxpayers pay to lose it just added insult to injury. So three different perspectives, three different strengths, one shared purpose. And the cherry on top, we saved the house, brought the community together, and saved the city money in the process. So after three generations, three locations, and three stubborn women, the legacy continues. And now I'm going to pass it over to Allison, and she's going to show you the process that we went through. How are you doing? So we had to make decisions on this house. Oops, there we go. Is mine a different place? Yes. It should be downloaded there. Okay, good. You only came up with one GMI. I sent the this morning. I received it this morning, and I sent it to Christy. I can pull it up on my computer and just show you the 16-inch screen if you want. You can do that. Can we find it? No. Do we have Sherry's as well or no? Do we have Sherry's? I have a line. You can put her down. Okay. We have a 20-inch. I promise it's not worth all this night. Hold her. Now we can go back? Okay. Right here? Yeah. Okay. I'll usually do it. Okay. So the decisions had to be made when I get the frantic phone call that this might, you know, might have to lose the house. So the board of directors, my board of directors are like, we've got to save it. We've got to find the best use for it. We knew that we couldn't have another museum with so few volunteers. We couldn't do both. So after the house was moved in 1983, the city did actually have their offices downstairs, and the historical society was upstairs, and then eventually they moved out and went on. So here's some pictures of when it was a house museum in our headquarters. You can see there's a lot of stuff. They would get there on Saturday mornings, and the porch would be full because somebody just moved their mother into an ACL, and they had nothing else to do with the stuff, so that they would just drop it off. So we started kind of busting at the seams. So in 2014, we decided this was such a good idea to get five acres and six buildings in the former South Ward School and moved everything over there. Now what do we do with 40 years of stuff? So we moved that all over there, did all that. We started with the neighborhood. What do you all want to see here? At the time, the city was paying for the neighborhood to kind of go through the whole what do they want to see. They started with a library. Their third choice was performing arts. So we found actually a performing arts center that was going to go in there. They did all the work that they were going to do there, and unfortunately they were going to open up April 1st of 2020. They hung in as long as they could, and they finally ran out of money. So we had another group step forward. They were trying to get some grants and some ARPA funds. That's where the $40,000 came from. But during all this time, so this is a good time from 2014 until this, the house was deteriorating. A little bit further every single day. While it was made not to have air conditioning and things like that, it was falling apart. The neighbors thought it was haunted. The kids thought it was a great place to knock out their stuff. So we took the $40,000, and Jennifer very nicely said we had 90 days to do something. And I had a friend of mine's husband who was making her crazy, so he became my helper. And we put this house together. We found someone that actually made the boards to match that, and we did it with the $40,000. So you can see where we replaced all the wood that was kind of falling to just repair. Then we actually, the exciting thing of putting in new electrical boxes. It had the original 1983 box, as you can see. It's very pretty, but we put in a brand new one because we knew whatever we did, we were going to need electricity. And so I do want to thank, I call him Electrician Jimmy. He came in there and did all that for us. Then we had to paint it. So we went to the Plum family and said, okay, what color was the house? I mean, we only have black and white photos. They're like, well, it was white, and sometimes it was yellow, sometimes it was this. So we kind of went with the yellow. We went through Benjamin Moore, found out what colors were during 1901 when this was turned into a house. We did a darker color only because it covered up some of the flaws. If we did white, you'd see it way too much. One of our renters actually painted the interior. They were not supposed to, but they did. One was a lime green room, the other one was black and yellow. So, you know, it was really nice. So then we're like, okay, so we've got it painted, we've got the wood, we've got electric going in there. So I called a friend of mine who does historic wood windows. He's over in Tampa, and I said, okay, this is what I need. Just tell me how much each window is going to be. He goes, $3,000 a piece. So I would have come to you all and said, hey, Jennifer, do you want to, like, sponsor a window for $3,000? I'll give you a brass black. And he was going to come and pick them out that way. So then we're sitting there looking at the windows, and he goes, how about I have a workshop? So what he did was have a 10-day workshop where he taught new people how to do historic wood windows because these were the wood windows. All it cost me was I had to buy them lunch every day. So I thought that was a good plan. So I got all windows but six done. And you can see they were all out there. They had two one-day shops, and then they had the other ones. And thank you to Hampton Inn. They let all of them stay there for next to nothing. So these people put all brand-new windows in there, and they painted all the windows for us too. So one of the joys of being one of my friends or my children is that I make you do stuff you don't want to do. So twice we had them come in and clean up the house, and I'm sure it was a Saturday morning they wanted to do. So after cleaning up after two constructions, we got it all done. The floors looked wonderful. So then the Historical Society was doing their strategic plan. So we're like, okay, now we've got the house. What are we going to do with it? What's the best use? We decided we wanted to really kind of focus on arts and culture in the neighborhood, in the city itself. And so we were going to house artist studios. So we had the three rooms upstairs that they would have been, and then downstairs we had somebody who was going to build us movable walls so that we could make different size artists' colonies. And then the front room was going to be like a gallery where y'all could come in and buy their stuff and then have events and things like that. Sadly, there was no air conditioner in the house. And also the inside needed to be painted because, again, one room was lined green, and the other one was black and pink, and the other one was perfect. So the air conditioners we had were put in in 1983. The one on the left-hand side, that one was the one for upstairs. That stopped working in 2001. The one on the other side stopped working in 2009. So in comes Ricardo. He came in and put in a whole brand-new system. One of our supporters paid for a new air conditioner because they're like, we want to do this. So they paid for the brand-new air conditioner, so I can never thank them enough. And Ricardo came in and said, I will give you a good deal. So it worked out really well. And then we also had Seaview come back, and our deal with him is he got to have a tax write-off. We still paid him, but he paid us a half a price. He got a tax write-off, and we let him do videos of him painting the house. So it worked out well for all of us. So then we were like, oh, great, now we're going to have these artist studios. So the last ones, you're okay. We can have these artist studios. And what happened was we got two artists in there, one of them being Sherry, one being Lena. They were all ready, and we're all sitting down there going, this is going to be really bad. This is such a nice setting. What are we going to do? So once you get two artists in there and somebody who has crazy ideas, everything changes. So now we'll let you know Sherry about how she turned this into her dream. And I did not read one. Hello, everybody. I think I pretty much met everybody here at one point or another. My name is Sherry Aquilar. I've been here in the city of Clearwater for just over 25 years. I'm very excited to present today. I don't think I've – I'll do your pictures. I'll do your pictures. Can everybody hear me okay? I'm not sure how this works. Okay. What started as a simple conversation with Allison and Lena about creating an art studio quickly turned into something far more special. After touring the space and taking in the beautiful view from every room in the house, I knew this place was meant to become something more, a place where people could gather, celebrate, connect, and create memories. This is where the tea room at Lake Bellevue came in. That afternoon, we decided that if we're going to do this, we're going to commit. We picked a date, set a goal, and gave ourselves just six weeks to bring the first event to life. Okay. The very next week, we began the afternoon of thrifting, and from there, everything seemed to fall into place. Treasures came from Hobby Lobby, Amazon, estate sales, thrift shops, friends and family donating pieces, while Allison brought in beautiful tea sets from the Historical Society. Jason and I spent countless days, nights, arranging, hanging, and creating, slowly transforming the house into the tea room we had envisioned. You never know what you will treasure you will find throughout the tea room. So the picture on the left of the Victorian woman, that was the inspiration for the entire tea room. So that's the first piece that I have found. We kind of just put everything around the tea room. From the beginning, we knew we wanted this project to give back, with the goal of helping support the upkeep of the historic Plum House, Lena poured her heart into creating a parlor boutique, carefully searching for unique treasures and special finds. The upstairs has become art studios, with pieces also on display for sale, and all the proceeds of the boutique go back to the Plum House. Along the way, we had the privilege of meeting and talking with so many people who are excited to see what has become of the Plum House. Some have shared treasured tea sets in China dating back to 1925. And when I start to think about that, that's 101 years old. So it's pretty amazing. Each piece has a story, and each donation has made this journey even more meaningful. Jason and I are truly honored to be partners with Allison and Lena in bringing this vision to life. The tea room at Lake Bellevue is such more than a tea room. It is a place where we can give back, celebrate special occasions, share stories, make new friends, and create memories that will last for years to come. I want to thank Allison for all her hard work, knowledge, and the love of our city. This project could not have come to where it is today without her, and to Lena and Frank for everything that they have done to restore the Plum House. So, yes, I shamelessly put some of our artwork in some of the presentation. It's just been amazing. There's so many treasures that you find throughout. We are doing afternoon tea twice a month right now, on the first and the third Saturday. We're going to be doing some other events now that the weather is getting better. Really wanting to do some things for the community. So, you know, during Halloween, we want to do some things. During the Christmas holiday, we're going to do a little tree lighting, and I think it's great. It's a great future for the tea room and for the historic Plum House. So, thank you so much for your time. Now you all know we spend our money wisely. Oh, and by the way, that mannequin in the bathtub, her name is Daphne. She's having tea in the bathtub. That's it. I'd just like to thank you for all that you've invested. Time is money, we all know, and so the countless hours you've put into making this successful, and Allison keeping alive the history of Clearwater, this, you know, having been in there, I mean, and before we cut the ribbon on it, I researched the Plum House and how it's been moved from location to location, but it, you know, it was built about the time that our city was first established, not as a city but as a town, believe it or not. We were a town before we were a city, but it's just a unique piece of property for our entire city. So, thank you for getting in there and saving it. It's a really important part of our history, and thank you, you know, Sherry, for your participation with Councilmember Tashada to pull in volunteers and to make this a private investment by our community. Yeah, that's so important. We'll continue to be important going forward, but the willingness of folks like yourself to invest in our community, thank you for that. I heard that. Jason didn't tell me that, Tim, but I heard he's put a lot of time in, too. So, appreciate both of you and what you've done. Anybody else? I just forgot to, I wanted to thank Councilmember Menino and Rosemary Paul. Both of them came and helped us clean out that place, and I appreciate your help. Councilmember Menino? Thank you. Yes, I was voluntold that I had to take part and clean up. They handed me a mop and some plastic gloves and said, go get them. I had an enjoyable time. But just to credit the three or four of you, your passion, your creativity, and obviously your resourcefulness, which we just witnessed. I don't know how you made a dollar stretch as far as you did, but you and your team definitely did. So, I found discomfort in three options and losing that historic gem in our city and the story behind it. And I'm glad we threw you four at it and said, go wild and go to town and saved it. So, I wish you nothing but the best on your future endeavors in there as a tea room and for artists and ghost tours and whatever else is next. But thank you for saving that piece of history. Thank you. I'm obviously sleep-deprived. I forgot to also include two very important people, our managers, Jennifer, who has also been very helpful. And I can't believe I forgot my husband. He was there almost every weekend for months. So, sleep-deprived. I apologize for any other omission. And it looks fantastic. It really does look. So, thank you for all your work. And thank you for coming. The council moved to Item 3.1 on the agenda. Approve a first amendment to the City of Clearwater State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program Local Housing Assistance Plan covering fiscal years 2024 through 2027 and adopt Resolution 26-17. Good afternoon, Council Mayor. My name is Dylan Mayhew. I'm the housing manager. This item is to approve the first amendment to the City's SHIP Local Housing Assistance Plan for fiscal years 2024 through 2027 and adopt Resolution 26-17. Council previously considered this amendment, but it's being brought back because formal adoption by resolution is required. In addition, the state provided updated direction regarding certain required loan terms, guidance that came out after the item was last approved. And that's been incorporated into the new amendment. The amendment, just to remind you, includes changes required by Senate Bill 594 related to manufactured housing, including relocation assistance due to mobile home park closures, lot rent assistance, and the removal of the previous 20% funding cap. These changes ensure the City's plan remains consistent with current state requirements while preserving flexibility in how our SHIP funds are used. With that, I'm happy to address any questions. Any questions on this agenda? Thank you. Move to Agenda Item 3.2. Approved the State Housing Initiative Partnership Program Annual Report and Local Housing Incentive Certification. Dylan Mayhew with the Housing Department. This item is the City's Annual Report for the State Housing Initiative Partnership or the SHIP Program for fiscal years 2023 through 2024. SHIP provides the City with an annual allocation of state funding to support affordable housing activity. Through SHIP, the City provides assistance for programs including down payment assistance and closing cost assistance. We also provide owner-occupied rehabilitation, ADA accessibility improvements, disaster assistance, new construction, and affordable rental housing development. Each year, local governments receiving SHIP funds are required to submit an annual report to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. The report identifies how SHIP funds were expended and encumbered, the number of households assisted, the strategies funded, and the demographic information regarding the households served. For fiscal year 2023-2024, the City received approximately $1.4 million in its allocation, approximately $938,000 in program income and interest, and approximately $8,000 in prior year carryover. During the year, the City assisted 29 families through its approved housing strategies. This included approximately $653,000 in purchase assistance, $281,000 for owner-occupied rehabilitation, $9,300 for disaster relief, and approximately $44,000 for ADA accessibility improvements. And then additionally, an $806,000 for construction of four new single-family homes and $305,000 toward the development of an 81-unit affordable rental housing development, which included three SHIP-restricted units. That would be Clearwater Gardens. One of the benefits of the SHIP program is its ability to leverage additional public and private investment. And during this closeout year, approximately $2.16 million in SHIP strategy expenditures help leverage an additional $2.24 million in other funding. One correction to the agenda narrative that will be made prior to Thursday's meeting is the agenda currently provides $153,000 for administration. However, the admin plus the homebuyer counseling funding are equal $179,557. Like I said, that will be updated before Thursday's meeting. Following the closeout, the program reflects a minor negative balance of $322.46. That will carry into fiscal year 2024-2025. Upon approval, staff will submit the annual report electronically to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation as required. Staff recommends the approval of fiscal year 2023-2024 annual report. I'm happy to address any questions. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? If not, do we have consent? Okay. We have consent on 3.2. Thank you. Agenda Item 3.3. Approve funding to Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County for the construction of an affordable single-family housing unit. Dillon Mayhew, Housing Division. This item is requesting approval of $204,100 in home program funding for Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County and approval of Habitat's designation as a Community Housing Development Organization, or CHDO. Staff reviewed Habitat's application and has determined that the organization meets the federal requirements for a CHDO certification. The funding will support the construction of a new affordable single-family home located at 908 Engman Street in the North Greenwood Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area. Of the total funding, $202,100 will be provided as a construction loan and $2,000 as a grant for property inspections. This property will create an additional affordable housing opportunity for an income-qualified household. Staff recommends approval. I'm happy to address any questions. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? If not, do we have consent? Yeah. We have consent on 3.3. Thank you. Appreciate your time today. Agenda Item 4.1. Approve an agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office for Forensic Crime Scene Processing, Latent Prints, and Property and Evidence Storage. Good afternoon, Council Member, Mike Wallach, Deputy Chief. The Item 4 is to approve an annual agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in the amount not to exceed $515,725.50 for Forensic Crime Scene Processing, Latent Fingerprints, Property and Evidence Storage, and Pinellas County Juvenile Assessment Center Security Services during the one-year agreement period, which begins October 1, 2026 and concludes September 30, 2027. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the Clearwater Police Department began an annual agreement for ancillary services in 1994 that include Forensic Crime Scene Processing, Latent Fingerprints, Property and Evidence Storage, and shared security costs, like I mentioned earlier. After careful evaluation of the projected numbers for the fiscal year as follows, Forensic Crime Scene Processing, 750 cases at $347.17 each, Latent Fingerprint Examination, 400 cases at $127.62 each, Property and Evidence Storage, 10,000 items at $17.91 each, and Juvenile Assessment Center costs, 300 juveniles at $84 each. Funding for this item is included in the Police Department's fiscal year, 2027 operating budget, and any funds remaining for unused services will be refunded to the city. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions on this agenda item? My only question is how is this compared to the prior year agreement? Is there any increase in... It increased a little bit. I don't have the exact number, but it did increase a little bit. But we do get the money back that's for any unused portions. Any other questions? If not, do we have consent? Yes. We have consent on 4.1. Thank you. Agenda item 4.2. Approve an agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office for two co-responder crisis response specialists as part of the mental health co-responder program. Good afternoon, Council Member Mayor Michael Walski and the Colorado Police Department. The item before you is approval of a one-year agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in the amount of $242,260 for two crisis response specialists as part of the mental health co-responder program. The specials will partner with two Clearwater Police Department officers to respond to mental health crisis-related calls. The agreement period is from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. The Clearwater Police Department responds to approximately 1,600 calls related to mental health each year. The program, established in 2021, connects individuals to experience a mental health crisis with appropriate services and follow-up. So far in 2026, MHU has responded to approximately 1,007 calls for service and conducted 936 follow-ups. The city will pay the Sheriff's Office $242,260 for the two special salaries and benefits. Funding is included in the general fund budget and supported by opiate settlement funds. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions on this agenda? Hearing none, do we have consent? Yes. Okay. You have consent on 4.2. Thank you. Agenda item 5.1. I'm authorized to purchase order to kill America, doing business as Flowbird, for the purchase and installation of Europay credit card services for tap-to-pay parking kiosks. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Mike Shillay. I'm the parking division manager with the Public Works Department. The item requesting approval today is to upgrade the city's 94 Flowbird parking kiosks. They're located throughout downtown in Clearwater Beach. The $234,812 capital purchase will replace the existing card readers with EMF-certified tap-to-pay readers and integrated 5G technology. This will provide customers with faster and more convenient contact lists, payment options, improve payment security, and extend the useful life of our current kiosks. $184,898 of that purchase is based on a Sourcewell piggyback cooperative agreement, with the remaining $49,914 being proprietary equipment that must be purchased from Flowbird to maintain compatibility with our existing system. We are also requesting $15,792 to increase our existing Flowbird purchase order for secure gateway services. This covers payment security and transaction processing services for the upgraded kiosks for 21 months. Flowbird is a proprietary provider for our existing kiosk system, which the city has operated since 2008. The 94 kiosks currently process about 50% of our revenues. The capital purchase is ongoing to be funded entirely by parking deck. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Vice Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Just one quick question for these new kiosks that I assume will go out on the beach. Are they going to be removable or anything? Should a storm be coming our way or something to preserve that asset? So, great question. The kiosks are removable. We also can remove batteries, but we're just replacing the actual reader. Oh, just the actual reader. So, instead of replacing all 94 machines, we're just going to replace the reader. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Mr. Murmanino. Thank you, Mayor. My only question was reoccurring operating expense. Is that $15,000 in change? Is that a monthly, a yearly? How is that? That's $8 per meter times 94 for 21 months. So, I'm not... So, every 21 months kind of thing? Yes. Gotcha. Thank you. Yeah, it's $15 for 21 months. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Do we have consent? Do we have consent on 5.1? Thank you. And I'm 5.2. Approved the fourth renewed and restated Clearwater Beach route funding agreement between Pinellas and Coast Transit Authority and the city. Well, again, Mike Chalet with the Parking Department or Public Works Department. This agenda item is a request to approve renewed funding for agreement with Pinellas Sun Coast Transit Authority for continued Jolly Trolley service through September of 2028. The service contract connects downtown Clearwater, Island Estates, Clearwater Beach, and Sand Key. The total agreement will not exceed $689,57 for fiscal years 2027 and 2028. The agreement also includes a contingency provision allowing the city and PSTA to reconsider the funding following the November 2026 homestead exemption ballot measure. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions on this? Do we have consent on 5.2? We have consent. Thank you, sir. Jedi, I'm 5.3. Approve a contract increase to CPH Consulting LLC for professional services related to the Public Works Department Program Consulting Services Project. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Anna Hull and Transportation Division Manager for Public Works. We're requesting Council's approval to increase the CPH Consulting Contract by $850,000, bringing the total not to exceed amount to $1.1 million for Public Works Program Consulting Services. The $1.2 million is a spending ceiling, not an automatic expenditure. Work will only be authorized to proceed as needed and when sufficient funding is available in the applicable project or operating budget. CPH was competitively selective through RFQ 3724 and provides specialized engineering and technical support as project needs arise. The existing contract has supported key initiatives including North Beach stormwater support, Osceola Corridor improvements, airpark generator project, drainage improvements at the sound, and Pier 60 bathymetric surveying after the 2024 hurricane season. The additional capacity will help provide technical support to keep major capital projects moving. Additionally, CPH also has a capability to provide engineering and technical support for hurricane recovery efforts if needed. Any questions? Any questions on this agenda? Vice Mayor? No questions. Thank you very much for the detailed explanation because I did have a few on here, but you did hit on there that this is a not-to-exceed amount. Correct. I do appreciate it because I think that, you know, not everybody understands what's happening here, but to be able to protect taxpayers and make sure that we're getting the most out of our contractors is important. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Do we have consent? We have consent on 5.3. Thank you. Jenna, I'm 6.1. Approve amendments to the Clearwater Comprehensive Plan to establish a new planned redevelopment district, overlay future land use category with associated bonuses, incorporate policies for a new North Greenwood community, overlay district, and the comprehensive plan policy. Good afternoon. Marcy Stenmark, Planning and Development Department. I'm presenting two companion amendments for the second reading in the North Greenwood area, and I'm requesting approval of the Comprehensive Plan Amendment Ordinance 9860-26 upon second reading. The first reading was on March the 30th. Since that time, staff has transmitted the amendment to the state agencies as required by statutes, including the Florida Department of Commerce, and we did not receive any objections. This is the first step in a four-step process to add an overlay to most of the North Greenwood CRA area. The overlay is one of many implementation strategies from the North Greenwood Community Redevelopment Area Plan adopted in 2024, and the strategies are intended to implement the community's vision. In late spring of 2027, we will return with steps three and four, and these will be amendments to the Community Development Code and the Zoning Atlas. All of these steps work together, and it will become effective after step four is complete in the spring. This comprehensive plan amendment establishes the plan redevelopment district overlay as a future land use category. It adds a new PRD overlay bonus for density and intensity and updates North Greenwood policies, adding language also for non-conforming use policies. Here is a map of the North Greenwood CRA boundary, and here is a map of the North Greenwood future land use map. This ordinance provides density and intensity bonuses to allow for a wider variety of housing options, and also the maximum bonus density is 40 units per acre. There are floor area ratio bonuses for non-residential development and mixed-use development, as well as an impervious surface ratio bonus. The maximum bonus established by the overlay is carried over into the future land use categories in North Greenwood. Pages three and four of the ordinance adds the proposed North Greenwood Community Overlay District, which would later be created in the Community Development Code, and there is policy direction to allow unincorporated properties to be designated with the overlay upon voluntary annexation. There are also a couple of policies with regard to non-conforming structures. The Community Development Code has long provided property owners the ability to request a termination of their status as a non-conformity. The proposed policy addresses residential properties that may be too small to officially allow for a single family dwelling to be built. The code permits this, and this amendment lays the policy foundation to be consistent with the code. The second policy item addresses structures that may be non-conforming and allows for certain improvements to be made to have the status terminated. In your backup, you will see in Section 6 that there were some modifications regarding the effective date. The City Attorney's Office had requested this to make this consistent with statutory requirements. We're going to have a third reading on October the 14th. I have a couple of items that I've also discovered while preparing to present to you that I'd like to share on the projector. For general commercial teacher land use, we would like to change the maximum floor area ratio to 1.5 for non-residential and mixed use for the bonus. And this is because in the plan development district overlay language. Can you speak to the mic? So sorry about that. Thank you. I'll bring this over. Thank you. Okay. I'll go back. Well, I'll start with this one. So in the plan development read a district overlay that we're creating, we have maximum densities and intensities. We found out that we inadvertently had put floor area ratio as part of the residential bonus because we were considering it early on but did not include it. So we need to strike this language on the third reading. Also, we found that for consistency, we would like to change the non-residential bonus to 1.5 floor area ratio. And this is correlating to the commercial general future land use classification where we already have a mixed use bonus and we'd like to make that 1.5 floor area ratio based on the PRD overlay. So you'll see that in the ordinance upon third reading. And that concludes staff's presentation. On this particular item, I have a second companion item after your discussion. So any questions on this? Okay. Mayor, not a question, just a comment. Ford Pinellas showed up for a meeting not too long ago and we were surprised to see it looked like a Clearwater City Council meeting because they were lined out the door to get in. Fortunately, we heard that it was a Clearwater item, so we got a little nervous. But to find out that it was this overlay, I just wanted to commend staff on how they approached that and truly went out into the community and fully engaged to help them bring clarity to what the overlay truly was, what it meant, and so they could understand what the changes going forward were. So thank you to staff for really getting in the community and making sure those fears and concerns were addressed. I'd like to echo that. I think there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what was happening. So I appreciate staff working with the community to help them understand. Okay. Any other questions on that? If not, then we'll move to Agenda Item 6.2. Approved Ordinance 9861-26 on second reading, approving a city-initiated future land use map amendment to apply the plan redevelopment district overlay within the North Greenwood Community Redevelopment Area. Thank you. So next I will present the companion amendment for future land use map amendments. And the first reading on this was March the 30th. And since the first reading, as required by the countywide rules, the city submitted a companion countywide map amendment that was approved by the countywide planning authority on August the 11th. This is the second step in a four-step process that I had previously mentioned. Here is the future land use map for North Greenwood. And I'm going to show you the areas that were excluded from the overlay next. So we started with the CRA boundary, and then we excluded the central business district because this area is subject to the downtown redevelopment plan. It's called the Old Bay Character District, and it already has code requirements and design standards. We're also excluding water, preservation, recreation, open space, industrial limit future land use, transportation utility, and then parcels that are in unincorporated Pinellas County. Between the first reading and the second reading, we removed the parcels that were in unincorporated Pinellas County. So we modified the numbers to decrease the acreage somewhat to 458 acres that will be part of the overlay. And the area of the overlay is shown in red patching. So this is a list of the future land use categories that will be subject to the overlay. And these are the changes in the ordinance. So we also changed Section 3 regarding the effective date language, and we made a couple of changes in the opening paragraph that excludes the industrial limited and transportation utility future land use classifications in the ordinance. And we found that this further implements and is consistent with Clearwater 2045, it's consistent with the countywide rules, will not adversely impact the use of property in the area or natural resources, and there are sufficient public facilities. And that concludes the staff presentations. I'm available for any questions or comments. Thank you. Any questions on this agenda? And we'll move on to, well, thank you, and we'll move on to agenda item 7.1. Approve a work order to McKim and Creed for professional engineering services for the recovery and retreatment of flush drinking water for conservation project 24-007A-U2. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Fred Hemrick. I'm a public utilities manager for water production. And so today I'm asking for your approval of a $294,000 work order to McKim and Creed, who's one of our engineers of record. This work order will fund a feasibility study to determine whether we can recover and retreat drinking water that is currently flushed from the water distribution system in southwest Clearwater. So I'm going to put something up on the overhead that just kind of shows where this area is. So in 2025, we flushed more than 207 million gallons across the city. It's a lot of water. And we do this flushing so that we can maintain chlorine residuals throughout the city and keep the water safe to drink. So of that 207 million gallons that we flushed, 89% of that was in this area in southwest Clearwater, down near the corner of Bel Air Road and south Fort Harrison. So why do we flush so much water in that area? It kind of has to do with the water age. It's unlike electricity. It takes time for water to get places. And while it's heading there, it loses its chlorine residuals. It just reacts with pipelines along the way. So this particular area has always been the worst, and it's been like that for decades. And it's been a problem that we've tried to dedicate resources to and get better with, but we haven't really made a lot of progress. So starting about a year ago, we engaged with Pinellas County Utilities. We tried to get an interconnect in that area with them because we purchased some water from them. They have good chlorine residuals. The outcome of that was is that hydraulically it wasn't going to work. Their pressures were lower than ours, so it wasn't going to flow without adding pumps and doing crazy things. So as we continued to kind of grind away on it, we came across a pretty unique opportunity to address it in a different way. We have raw water mains that collect water from our wells that run through that area right down MLK, and then it works its way over to Bel Air Road. And so we asked the question, why can't we put our flushed water that normally it just goes into ditches and stormwater ponds and down the streets? And, you know, it's quite a waste, but it's a necessary waste. So we want to study if we can put the drinking water back into the raw water main, which allows us to recover it back at the treatment plant. We can retreat it, redistribute it. So there's two big benefits that we're going to get. One is water conservation, that this water is going to get recovered, and this is a water conservation project as much as anything we've done. The other is there's quite a bit of economic benefit to the city and public utilities because the water that we flush is non-revenue water. It never gets metered, and as you guys may know, we purchase a fair amount of water from the county. We believe that anything that we don't flush offsets our purchase water costs. So there's a couple of things about this that I did want to mention. In addition, is that we feel pretty confident that we're going to learn something out of this, and we may get a really great innovative project. It's not a surefire thing that these two waters that we're going to blend, they're very different, and we may get negative side effects of the plant. That's why we're doing a feasibility study first, make sure we understand what effect this is going to have on our drinking water system. Regarding construction, there's no construction associated with this work order, but there may be construction down the road. It may not be significant construction because we may just be connecting two pipes that are fairly close together, and we already have existing contracts. And until we know the scope of construction, we're not going to bring any forward until we know what that is. But we'll continue to communicate on this project what the outcome is. One final thing, we are applying for some grants related to this, AWS alternative water supply, so hopefully that may offset some of this cost. So we'll see what questions you all have about this. Okay. Questions? Councilman Merrill written. Okay. So what you're doing basically with this now is you're just blowing off the water into the street? That's correct. And then it picks up the street drains and then goes to wherever they go. Yep, stormwater ponds. Sometimes it's just in the grassy areas and will percolate back into shallow groundwater. I know a lot of the dead-end streets. We have one on Island Stage. I see you blow that off a lot because it never gets the proper circulation. I think it's a good thing. I think it's to try it and see if it's feasible to recover that water. Water is expensive. That's from the needle. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the outside-the-box thought process on finding a solution to water conservation and finding ways we can be more efficient with our resources. Also, kudos to the staff for pursuing grant opportunities, which I know staff has really worked hard all over the city on pursuing grants, and every time we're successful with that, we save the taxpayer money, and I know they appreciate that as well. So thank you. Vice Mayor? Yeah, echo the sentiments. Beat me to the punch. My one question is, it says the study is going to take approximately 250 days. Is that due to taking the testing or samples when you all do your flushing? So we have a lot of data already because, you know, we've been flushing. We have to record how much we flush. We file every year, we file this thing called the public supply annual report with SWIFT mud. That's almost like taxes for water treatment systems. We measure our water loss. There is a fair amount of what they call hydraulic modeling associated with this, which is software modeling. So there may be some detailed data that we have to collect in the field through pressure loggers. There may be some additional water quality samples so that we understand what we're going to be blending. That stuff does take some time. You know, I think 250 days is a lot of time. There's a pretty good chance this will be ahead of schedule. Thank you very much. And, again, I want to echo the sentiments of being ingenuitive and coming up with different ways to save money and, you know, conserve that water. So huge. Thank you very much. Thank you. Two hundred and seven million gallons is a lot. And, you know, we benefit here in Clearwater having our own wells. A lot of our neighboring municipalities do not. And so they're completely reliant upon Pinales County to supply that water. So anything we can do to prove our independence in that area, it's certainly important as we grow. And, you know, there continue to be more and more pressure on the water supply throughout Tampa Bay. So I think this is a great idea. Okay. Do we have consent? Do we have consent on 7.1? Thank you. Do you know, I'm 7.2. Authorize the award of a construction contract to Odyssey Manufacturing for the RO1 Chemical Storage and Speed System Improvements. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. My name is Fred Hemrick. I'm Public Utilities Water Production Manager. For this item, we're asking you to authorize the award of a construction contract to Odyssey Manufacturing for the RO1 Chemical Storage and Feed Improvements Project in the amount of $426,548.10 pursuant to invitation to bid 23-0051-UT. In addition, we're asking you to authorize $153,281.10 in construction-based services under the existing work order with the project's engineer, Mead, and Hunt. Council approved that work order back in November 2024 for design and bidding services. As the project got designed, some of the scope in that project was replaced and removed and is no longer needed. So we are not increasing the work order's original ceiling of $495,731. So what is this project? This project does three things at the RO1 treatment plant. First off, it adds leak detection and improves our bulk chemical storage containments at RO1. Second, it rehabilitates our ammonia feed system, and we're converting from ammonium hydroxide to ammonium sulfate. Ammonium hydroxide is an extremely harsh, stinky chemical. Our neighbors that also feed ammonia, such as Pinellas County Utilities, Hillsborough County, St. Pete, nearly all of them have switched off of ammonium hydroxide to ammonium sulfate. Third, we are relocating the injection for sodium hydroxide and caustic soda. The injection point right now is overhead, and you walk under it every day, and if it was to form a leak, that would not be good. So we're going to move that downstream into a dedicated section of pipe. So when the project was put out to bid, Odyssey Manufacturing was the lowest responsive bidder. We expect construction to take about 270 days. See if any questions you have about this project. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? Any questions do we have consent? We have consent on this agenda item. Thank you. Thank you. We will move to agenda item 8.1. Approve a grant agreement between Florida Wildflower Foundation, Inc., and the City of Clearwater for new native plantings at the Moccasin Lake Nature Park. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council Members, Art Taylor, Parks and Recreation Director. The item before you is the approval of a grant. We go after big ones and little ones. This is for $923 for the replacement and renovations of the Pollinator Garden at Moccasin Lake Park. The Pollinator Garden at Moccasin is an important resource for native plantings, for hands-on learning, and community building through volunteer workdays. The agreement is being brought to the council for approval as it contains an indemnification clause. With that, I can answer any other questions. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? We have consent. We have consent on 8.1. 8.2. Authorized guaranteed maximum price proposal to Bandit's Construction Company for field improvements to Carpenter Complex Carlton Field. The item before you, Art Cater, Parks and Recreation Director. The item before you now is the renovation of the Carlton Field at Carpenter Complex. The Carpenter Complex was first constructed in 1967 to accommodate the Phillies' spring training. It was constructed on a landfill at that time. Sixty years later, it is still being used for spring training, but a whole lot more. It's basically a year-round operation for the Phillies, for their development leagues, their rehabilitation, their site for developing future Major League ballplayers. Being constructed on a landfill obviously causes a lot of issues and problems. And for the first 20 to 25 years, every off-season, we're talking about spring training, it is just for two months. So the rest of the time, we basically, we being the city, had to fill in all the holes when everything's rotting, those types of things. And so we did that for almost 25 years. Now, the last 30 years, it has kind of ceased to go into the ground. However, it's now in need of some major renovations. There is, on this field, Carlton Field, there's ponding. The drainage is not good. The outfield undulates. There's dips in it. It does not meet Major League standards. Therefore, what we're coming for you to meet the current Major League facility standards, this field, and perhaps maybe one more that's on site, if the new development goes through, there will be three major fields left, will need to be completely replaced. This contract will, in essence, provide for the removal of the current sod, regrading, putting in new sod, new irrigation systems, and also drainage systems. If approved, the project's going to take 101 days and will be completed prior to spring season 2027. With that, I'm available to answer any questions. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? If not, do we have consent? Sure. We have consent on 8.2. Okay. Gen. Item 8.3. Provide direction on continuing revenue-generating amusement activities, authorized through RFP 35-25. Staff seeking direction, our caterer, Parks and Recreation director. Staff is seeking direction regarding the continuation of the Ferris wheel and the amusements on Clearwater Beach and Coachman Park. In fiscal year 24-25, Parks and Recreation issued an RFP to see if there were some type of new, innovative, temporary type of attractions or activities that we could garner and help the public and the visitors experience and also to make some revenue for the city. We entered into an agreement with a kayak company entitled Get Up and Go Kayak to provide kayak tours, and we also entered into a contract with Interstate Amusements to provide a Ferris wheel at Coachman Park and most of the time at Clearwater Beach. The kayak company has yielded $5,000, while we have generated almost $95,000 in revenue from the operations of the Ferris wheel. This is in about an eight-month period, and we project that over $135,000 will be made from the Ferris wheel within a yearly period, 12 months. During these eight months, we've received very few negative comments from the public, businesses, hotels, or resorts on Clearwater Beach concerning the Ferris wheel operations. During the original procurement process, one of the responders to the RFP, because it was so wide open, Astro Zodiac, was concerned about the scope of the RFP being so broad, and there was concerns that he wanted it to be more specific. And so we basically looked at this as just a trial basis, a trial period, to see whether or not it was going to work, to see whether or not the council felt it was a good idea and the community felt it was a good idea. So we selected the vendor primarily due to their location. One of the vendors was in Canada, and the other one was from Orlando, Florida. And they basically were giving the city 20% of the gross revenue. So they were both identical in that regard. So that's why we chose the one we did. We entered into this trial period to see if the Ferris wheel would be successful, and if it was, we could enter into a new RFP service or continue with the service we have now. What we're seeking today is council direction regarding the future of the procurement of this service and the operational strategy. We've offered up three options. There may be more. But the first is to continue with the current contract, with the current vendor that is providing that. The second is to issue a new targeted solicitation, RFP, for all comers to come. We don't know whether it will be good or bad, whether we get more money or not. And then, of course, the third is to simply discontinue the program as it is. With that, welcome to your discussion. Thanks, Mayor. Yes, thank you. Mr. Cater, thank you very much. I mean, it looks like it's worked out. We're going to bring in almost $91,000 from the Ferris wheel alone. I would stay, just for direction purposes and to start the conversation, keeping it on the beach looks to be the most advantageous, seeing as how it's almost doubled in revenue since it's been there. One of my questions, if you have the number, I didn't see it, or maybe I missed it, what was the gross revenue for both the city and interstate amusements over the period of time? Do we know what that was? It would be five times whatever the number I just gave you. So I don't have it in my – That's perfect. Let's just figure $100,000. It's $500,000. Perfect. Okay, no problem. Thank you very much for that. Half a million. I would definitely – so here's my raw thoughts about that. I think that it's obviously a outside-of-the-box thinking. I appreciate you all for bringing revenue options to the city, and it looks like it's favorable, and our visitors enjoy it. And my kids have even been on the Ferris wheel at my wife's dismay. Okay, I would say I like clean-looking equipment. So when we have a beautiful beach, having maybe a nice white-looking Ferris wheel seems perfect, but beggars can't be choosers. However, for discussion's sake, we are at the point of where we can choose to put this out for a new RFP. So to that point, I would lean on you and staff with a new RFP, since we do have data, would it be more advantageous to structure the solicitation with vendors competing on the percentage of revenue like we're doing coming into the city or going to something like a guaranteed minimum payment plus revenue sharing? I don't know what we think the dais or staff would think would be more advantageous for us there, but I do think we should keep it on the beach. So those are my comments, and I look forward to seeing where we go. I would simply, to answer that, that would certainly be an option of a new RFP. The one we did, we didn't ask for that, did we? No, we didn't. Chris Cook, Parks and Recreation, City Manager, or Parks and Recreation. That's okay. I don't want to say that. One point to clarify on the location being Clearwater Beach. We know that the slower time on the beach is November, December, January. And so we use that as an opportunity when we have more concerts in Coachman Park to try to draw additional people into the area, give them something else to do when they're coming in for some of the events. So that was a little bit of the thought process. And having a vendor that was open to moving locations based on the needs of the city was good. Another benefit that we know now is the utilities purpose is we've been investigating if it makes sense for us to add in utilities. And this operator that we've had has been paying all their own diesel fuel costs and all their own, you know, costs to operate it, which is a benefit to us as well. But in the next scope, if we were to go that direction, we could do things from an equipment perspective, seeing a list of equipment that somebody could offer so we could have the look and feel that the council might be looking for. And, of course, go from who would offer the best deal structurally and financially. Awesome. Thank you very much, Ben. I want to go ahead. I think I'm the one up here who drives past it the most and walks past it the most. In fact, yesterday, I walked all the way around the two gentlemen working on the Ferris wheel. I don't know if they thought I was with the CIA or whatever I was doing, going around taking pictures, but they didn't have any customers. But I was walking around taking pictures of it up close. And, you know, my feedback from folks who live out there, businesses, is that, you know, the Ferris wheel and other activities, certainly during sugar sand, has been good. It's the look of the Ferris wheel that's there. My feeling, a lot of, you know, a number of folks, it's not representative of the look you would have on one of the TripAdvisor best beaches rated in the world. Granted, you know, we've got the inflatables behind it, and, you know, they're getting pretty ragged back there, too. A lot of wear and tear and weather and all those things. But this sits right there at the roundabout where it's kind of the first thing you see as you come through. So I've had a number of folks say, Ferris wheel, another activity, great, but it looks like a cheap carnival Ferris wheel at that spot. And that's not necessarily the first impression we want folks to have coming on to Clearwater Beach, which, again, you know, we, one of the best beaches in the world. And, you know, so to Vice Mayor's point, you know, something looks like the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel or something that's more consistent with definitely a national destination or, you know, in our case, a worldwide destination. I understand that, you know, that's not what many owners of Ferris wheels maybe have to offer, but I'd like to at least have us take a look at that if we're going to keep it there. That's one. And I do agree with you that, you know, the other is the placement, you know, that the placement of it where it doesn't take up the entire Pier 60 park, but it does take up some space for we've had fitness events out there and other things. I think there's a desire of definitely the beach merchants to have more events and activities out there in the park or around the park to give folks visiting something to do. So I'm not sure about the placement of it where it's at now if that's something we can't think through as well. So not against having the Ferris wheel there does give sometimes during spring is very busy. It's just the what type of structures there. And, and I do agree with you that during those shoulder months where it's not very busy out on the beach, it did get a lot of control, a lot of activity to coach them in part. So there's some way to put it out to that too. And I don't know if there's some way for us to, you know, continue it, our relationship with this group that has it now while we're seeking other ideas or not, but I would be open to that if we, if we could. So that's where I'm going to know. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for bringing this forward. Obviously this pilot program worked, worked for us, worked for staff, worked for the vendor, generated money, which is a beautiful thing for the taxpayers. There's, I don't know the fair or circus apparatus market, but a cleaner and classier one, I don't know that market, but I'm, I'm in favor of it. I kind of agree if we market the, one of the world's best beaches and that image of it, should we have a circus or fair apparatus, you know, highlighting the bulk of what any picture or video would be when they watch Monday night football. And that's the camera angle they show that's not Tampa, it's Clearwater Beach, especially with our pier not fully done yet. So yeah, cleaner, crisper, I'm all for that. I think one of our neighboring cities just put one in their downtown, and unfortunately it's bigger and nicer than ours. So the competitive side of me says, let's, let's go a little bigger and better. We're, we're, we're Clearwater. I think we can go that route. My, my, my direction would be option two, issue a new targeted solicitation. Let's see if, what that generates on a bigger, better, cleaner, crisper fits our image opportunity and continue to move forward with it because it's, it's worked and it's been a good revenue generator down there, as well as an attraction for tourists, visitors, as well as our residents. Thank you. First, Councilor Albritton. I agree. I'm not going to repeat everything everybody said, but bigger and better, it's nicer. I, I've talked to people on the beach, and some people on North Beach don't like it. Some, some people on South Beach love it. You know, they say they love coming over the bridge and seeing that it lit up. But when they first brought it there, I did take my grandkids there, and it was kind of small for me and the two grandkids to get in the seats. So something a little better that maybe goes a little higher would be nice. It's something that looks a little, a little bit nicer. But I, I think it's a good thing. I think the hotels and I think the tourists that come would love it. That's more tissue. Just to add, I, everything that's been said, I agree. I just want a couple comments. I really appreciate the fact that you changed locations to respond to the demand. That's awesome. But if we do go for a bigger, better Ferris wheel, will our ability to change its location be hindered? That's just something to keep in mind, not a deal breaker or anything like that, but something to keep in mind. In terms of the RFN, it is my opinion, you need to write it so that it encourages as many applicants, even from those that we might not expect, and ideas that are a little bit outside the box. So in that way, my direction would be RFN, pretty wide net. Sounds like it's unanimous on two, but can't the assistant city manager. If you don't mind, I just want to maybe throw one other thing on the table. So he kind of alluded to it when he said utilities, but what he's talking about is electrical. And currently the device that's running out there is one that had to be run independent through generator. And if I think we're going bigger, better, larger, with less footprint, it might require an investment a little bit. So I just want to know what the council's tolerance is for that. I mean, certainly there could be a recapture on how we negotiate it, but there might be kind of an up-front electrical cost. I just wonder what the tolerance is for you to accept that. What was it, $500,000 for Coachman for the electrical? Or not for, that was for the ice rink, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't really have. We've been looking at Coachman Park, and basically what we found is, of course, you have to build it up, the power source. So that's increased the cost quite a bit. But, yes, it's at least a half a million dollars. We were looking at that for various reasons, for skating parks, for all of the events that we have. We don't have enough power out there. Everything can be done, but it can be done with generators, and we all know how that is. And the beach is a little different. We actually have the power out there. We just haven't run it to that distance. It would cost to do that. I'm not quite sure what the cost. We can get it back to you, though. We could vet through all that. I just wanted to know what tolerance. Obviously, one location is totally different than the other, but we might have to just make potentially a little bit of investment to get maybe something a little newer, greater, beautiful. Okay. So I just want to know. Yeah, the power is back there by where the shelter was, right? At the beach, you mean? Yeah. Yes, it's where the old pavilion that we took down. And there's a pad there. It's near the sand, and obviously we put concrete there. That's an option, too, to look at moving the ferris wheel at that location closer to the sand by the power. Could be done if we do another R&D. I think the consensus is that we put it up to two and see what we get and see what the possibilities are. All right. Okay. Thank you. I think I wanted to say something. Something else? Yeah, it's nothing – I was going to say in regards to your question, I think that, you know, I mean, the return on investments of $500,000, we're getting roughly $100,000, we'll be able to pay for itself in five years and then still just continue to generate that revenue over increased time. And maybe Duke wants to partner with that. Can we just reach out to them? We certainly don't want it to be a carnival look. We want it to look nice. We want it to be something enjoyable. We have found that it's very popular with the beach goers. They're always looking for something to do. This is just another something to do. And, actually, the first vendor that did not get this contract wanted to put in a merry-go-round, a very small merry-go-round. And, of course, we had the little trackless train out there, and that was very profitable as well. We just had that during Sugar Sand. It can be moved, that to Coachman Park and those types of things. So a new RFP would probably include additional amusements if that's acceptable. Okay. Thank you for your time today. Thanks for the direction. Yeah. Okay. We're going to take a short five-minute recess. It's time we'll call the work session back to order, and we will move to item 9.1. Approve additional expenditures of $330,000 with Clearwater Vehicle Towing Service for Vehicle Towing Service. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, City Leadership, Brandy Colandrea, Director of General Support Services. Before you is a request for additional $330,000 in spending authority under the City's Vehicle Towing Contract, awarded through RFP 5324. The contract supports fleet maintenance and the police department with towing, recovery, storage, and related services. The City previously authorized $200,000. Approval would bring the cumulative not-to-exceed amount to $530,000 through September 30th of 2028. This is authority for the full contract term, not an annual amount. The request does not change the contract's pricing, scope, or terms. Funding is available in the Fiscal Year 27 fleet maintenance and police departments' budgets. Spending in future years remains subject to adopted budgets. Staff recommends approval, and I'm happy to address any questions or concerns you may have. Any questions on this agenda? If none, do we have consent? Yeah. We have consent on 9.1. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda Item 9.2. Approve a purchase order in AmeriCompany, Inc. for services provided under the Certain Connected Services Agreement. Good afternoon again, Mayor, City Council, City Leadership. Brandi Clondrea, Director of General Support Services. Before you is a request to approve a $196,496 purchase order to AmeriCompany for the final renewal term of the City's Connected Service Agreement from October 1, 2026 through September 30th, 2027. Of that amount, $158,496 covers services under the agreement, including maintenance and monitoring of fire alarm systems. The remaining $38,000 covers additional services outside of the agreement, such as general cellular service, library patron counting, fire drills, fire alarms, resets, and so forth. Mayor's equipment is installed throughout city facilities. Using another provider for this additional service would require replacing the equipment and would result in significant cost to the city. The purchase order is therefore requested under the city's non-competitive purchase provisioning. Staff recommends approval, and I'm happy to address any questions or concerns you may have. Okay. Any questions on this agenda? If not, do we have consent on 9.2? Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. Gen. Item 10.1. 10.1. City Attorney Item. Adopt Ordinance 9889-26 on the second reading to approve the right-of-way vacation request from Roto Development. City rights-of-way, more particularly described as Laura Street, a 15-foot-platted alley, and North Street, also known as Grove Street. Again, we had the first reading occur on September the 17th, and I'm open for questions. Okay. Any questions or comments on this? Mayor, can I add one to this item? I just wanted to clarify, during the CRA trustees' meeting, Trustee DeShade, I made some comments or questions about the post office, and I spoke about a letter. There is no letter in the application. What I was referring to or what I was recalling was some reference in the traffic study, and at the previous meeting, there was a discussion by the applicant's engineer where he discussed having a conversation with the Postal Service, and the Postal Service at that time indicated that they would be adaptable around it. They're here if she has any other questions, but I just wanted to clarify that in case it was relevant. Well, that aged well. But seriously, thank you so much. I really appreciate your clarification and it being on record. That was my recollection as well. There was mentioning of it, but I did not see the physical response. So, thank you so much for putting that on the record. I appreciate it. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Move to agenda item 10.3. Adopt ordinance 9939-26 on the second reading. It's amending the city's fiscal operating budget. Anything else to add? Okay. Agenda item 10.4. Adopt ordinance 9940-26 on the second reading, amending the city's fiscal year capital improvement budget. Okay. Anything? Nope. Agenda item 11. Nothing, sir. Okay. Agenda item 12. Nothing, sir. Agenda item 13.1. That's a member to shade up. Hold on. I got sidetracked here for a second. I apologize. I wanted to bring this to talk about on the dice because I thought it was important that we have a dialogue and I gauge what you guys have to think about. But I brought this specifically, this item forward because of what happened in our last few high interest meetings. And because of the concerns that I've heard from my constituents and members of the community since then. People have been lining up for as long as nine hours simply for the opportunity to speak. And there are many people in this community who simply cannot do that, particularly, especially outside, right? With the rain, exposed heat, and other weather conditions. They work. They care for children or family members. Some are elderly. Some have physical limitations. And others simply cannot give up an entire day waiting to speak. So I also heard from some residents who simply decided not to try at all because they've been hearing about those lineups. So when people begin to feel that access to their local government is effectively restricted by the demands of the process itself, I think that it's something we should take seriously. I think we should be mindful that we do not unintentionally create a system where physical endurance becomes a requirement for participation. This is why I brought the discussion forward. I had suggested pre-printed numbered bracelets as one possible way to create a more objective first-come, first-served process. That proposal was not adopted. I acknowledge it was not the perfect solution. It was simply my attempt to create some kind of structure while keeping the process simple and inexpensive. The bracelets were about $20 for 500 bracelets, and it would alleviate the staff from all the monitoring because it would have been clearly established. However, it was not adopted. I'm okay with that. I hope my colleagues come up with better ideas. I also feel, as I'm sure everyone does, that any change in procedure should be discussed openly from the dais before it is implemented. And I absolutely agree that we should respect the staff and the staff time. But even a perfectly managed first-come, first-served process does not address the larger issue of requiring people to wait eight or nine hours simply for the opportunity to participate. That is a different concern. And it's one that's mind-boggling to figure out how to maneuver around there. But I'll take this opportunity now. I want to thank the staff. From the bottom of my heart, I see you all out there, and you're dealing with unusual situations that are continuously evolving, and I appreciate the way that you've always responded as those circumstances change and always professionally, and I appreciate that. Going forward, maybe a part of the solution may simply be making the process as clear and as predictable as possible. If first-come and first-served is going to remain our process after our discussion today, then I think the public should clearly understand how it works, where the line begins, how places in the line are handled, and what the expectations are. Not that it necessarily needs to be corrected, but just discussed and communicated effectively. For me, this is not about finding fault, and it's not about insisting on one solution. It's about recognizing that we encountered a challenge and listening to the concerns that followed and asking whether are there reasonable improvements that we can make. We might not have the perfect answer. It's going to be really hard to overcome all these challenges, and we might not even get it right the first time. But we owe it to our residents to try, and so I just wanted to hear from my peers what your thoughts are, if you have any. Okay. Yeah. Vice Mayor, can you go ahead? For sure. Thank you for bringing this up. You know, I think it is important so that we can get some clarity in going in the right direction. For me, and after talking with city manager and our one-on-ones and stuff like that, maybe something that we can get the city attorney to work on is drafting a resolution that would allow for the online sign-ups, because I believe the way that it's currently written, you have to be in person. Is that correct? Please correct me where I'm wrong. Maybe it's a draft of the new rule, but to where we could allow some type of an electronic sign-up at a certain time, and people can click and queue their place in line. So the rules, I don't know what rule number it is. It really just talks about the card system, so you would have to add something about an electronic sign-up. And then I think if people come here the day of the meeting, they could still do the card system, but the people that signed up the day before would have priority, if I'm not mistaken. So the city manager did direct me to draft a policy statement, so the idea would be that if we do require the online registration, each registrant would have a time stamp, so I would receive it in the order, and they would be called in that order. And I'm sensitive to those who may not be able or not willing to do the online registration. They would be able to sign up inside or at the meeting, but they would be called and queued up in the order that they register after the online registrants. And so the way the system would work, it would be one hour prior to the meeting. The five hours prior to the meeting, we will close the registration, but the registration will be active as soon as the agenda is published. And I promise that it would be no less than 48 hours prior to a meeting that allow individuals to sign up. They'll get queued in around that time. They would have up to an hour before the meeting to cancel the registration. So if something were to come up and they weren't able to, they can cancel their registration to speak but can still submit an email because by then, right now, the online e-comments closes 5 o'clock the day before. So this would close at 1 p.m. If individuals who sign up, they would have to come to the meeting venue, to Chambers, and check in. So we make sure that the individuals who are actually registering prior to are actually going to be at the meeting. And if you do not check in before the meeting, then basically you would not be called in to speak. We would go through everybody who has checked in, then go to those who have signed up, and those individuals who came late but could not check in prior to, they would have to follow the written sign-up process. And it gives us a better, actually, the online registration, and I know that there are some concerns regarding requiring it. But I think it's a fair way for those to provide the online, still continue the ability to show up at the meeting, but it also provides public communications and PD to the understanding of how many are actually coming so everybody can plan better in terms of overflow and for security needs. Thank you for looking into that and directing that. I would definitely be for that. But also, I want to say to anybody that's engaged civically, no matter what you're trying to do, don't ever show up because of a line. Like, show up. If you have seen the back of the room, there are tens of cameras from news agencies, and if you didn't get a place in here, they're definitely going to go get your picture and do want interviews from you outside, no matter what your stance is. So especially if you're passionate about something, you know? I was passionate about sitting in the seat. I got frustrated with government and ended up here, so by 600 votes. So you never know what can happen, and you always want to get your voice out there. And numbers, you know, don't lie. If you're going to have people show up, do that, and let the media work its magic for you. So please, never don't show up to anything because of lines forming. Please, always have your civic engagement and civic right there. So I would be all for trying to work with that new rule change and allowing the electronic measure going forward as well as the written sign-ups. That's for Auburn. Okay, so let me just understand. I like the electronic sign-up, but it's got to be something simple that everybody can do from their phone. I mean, they don't have to have an app or anything, but they could go right online. They go straight to the agenda. Actually, it's part of the e-comment process, so nothing different. They would have to register prior to, so that way if council or staff needed to contact the individuals, I would be able to provide that information. But they can go on to the agenda. Once the agenda is published, when they go on to the agenda, it's going to give you a little cloud to submit a comment or to register to speak. And then that's all they do. They just click a button. And then when they click the box that says register to speak on this agenda item, then that's how they get queued in. So I know we had discussed this before. I can't remember when. It's been probably years. But we talked about public comment that gets put online, that we don't read that. No, we do not. Not since COVID. So that has changed. We used to read the comments online. Or rather, the comments that were submitted online were read into the record as part of the meeting, but that was during COVID. It still goes in the record, but it doesn't. It goes into the record, if you will notice that some of our minutes actually have attachments. And so that's where it goes. So I still provide it and include it as part of the record. In the minutes, it will say X number of individuals submitted an e-comment in support or an opposition. And then I refer individuals to what page that comment can be read. So when we were discussing this on our one-on-ones, especially with the city attorney, there are certain ways we have to do this because we can't be pro or we can't be con about something. We can't say, well, we have a bunch of people that are for it, but a couple of people, we can't designate that. We just have to let it happen. And I guess that's not only us, but isn't that state law as well? I mean, we can't interfere into knowing what people, one way or another, but we just need to have everybody come as they, you know, whether they're pro or against. But my question is this. For the timing, you said something about 5 o'clock the day before. So e-comments currently by council rule, it closes off at 5 o'clock the day before. So that's e-comments. That's something different. It's not the register to speak. So if individuals were to submit e-mails, like even e-mails to you, in order for it to be part of the record, it needs to be submitted before 5 o'clock the day before the meeting. The day before. But what if people are signing up to speak? They have until 1 o'clock that day to sign up. 1 o'clock. Okay. Gotcha. I think that would solve a lot of the issues that we have. I don't want to see anybody standing out in the hot sun like has happened. And it doesn't happen that much. But when it happens, you know, we've got to come up with a better way that we can get people to come and speak either way about the issues. Do you have something you want to share? Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for putting this as an agenda item. I think we all felt the pain of hearing that residents were sitting outside for over 12 hours and the elements of whether it's sun, rain, lightning, whatever it may be. I didn't like the fact of putting any of our residents, young, old, it doesn't matter. Through that, this is a challenge. Anytime you have a higher demand than you do supply, we're going to have an issue. No process that we can come up with and put in place is going to create more seats in this building. And our first responders are going to tell us we can fill more people. So I don't know if we'll find a perfect solution. I do think that our normal process obviously works. I don't think we need to make changes to that. But I think what we're discussing is creating a second protocol so when we do believe that there is a high attendance meeting coming, maybe we're shifting into a protocol B or are we shifting everything into always this is how we're operating? This would be the process because you can't, you can never dictate or predict. I mean, you can sometimes predict. Some items are going to be more, but that would be too unpredictable, I believe. And I think it's not going to be consistent. So I think the importance is making it consistent and transparent for the public and then they know this is the way. And I think that's what the public really prefers is to make sure that the process is always consistent. Because what may be important to a group of individuals, no matter the size, may not always be predictable. And so I don't think it's fair to the public if you were to say, oh, this rule only applies on X, Y, Z. You wouldn't be able to know that. And it's not fair to staff as well in terms of trying to prepare, making sure the overflow areas or even security needs are being met if we don't know what that process is. Because by one o'clock, I'll have an idea as to how many individuals have signed up. Yeah. I just had a question. A follow-up question for that. For me, else was it a second time? I'd like to say something. I wasn't quite finished, but you go ahead. Yeah, I'm not sure I agree wholeheartedly. I have heard from residents that I speak to quite often. I'm fine whether we create. I think a lot of cities around the country have similar challenges sometimes. And if we do our research, they do shift into a protocol B. I don't think any of us would be blindsided in knowing that we're going to have a high attendance meeting when we've had a high attendance meeting. I think all of us in this room could have probably identified over the last several months when one of those meetings would occur and weeks in advance without an issue. I think whatever we come up with, we do have to make sure we prioritize safety, fairness, and the integrity of the process, and that's what is most important in it. Whether we put caps on the registration, whether they're checking in with a QR code, you do have to put cutoff times for people entering the building. And if they're not here in time and they registered, their seat's given away. I don't know if our online system that we're currently talking about using, can you have 1,000 people jump on and try to register at one time without crashing our system? Our policy would actually implement the check-in process so that if individuals do sign up and then give us the impression that 500 people are going to show up and only 50 people show up, if they're not checked in, then they don't count. And are they given, like, a QR code for registration for when they come to the door and staff checks them? We'll have a kiosk. I'll work with IT to figure out in terms of the best way to get the people checked in. Okay. Yeah, I'm for finding another system, just, again, finding something that doesn't keep people out in the sun for 12 hours, that's fair, has a level of transparency to it, consistency, I think we would all agree, is important. I mean, some cities even, to make more of a level of fairness, it's not a first-come, first-term time basis. It's 166 seats that you have. They register for it, and then there's a lottery system that almost randomizes who's speaking. So you avoid pros and cons. You also add a level of transparency, not to say I'm questioning your timestamps. But if the public doesn't see a timestamp or know how to write, the transparency would be that lottery system on speaking. But, yeah, I look forward to finishing the conversation. I do think that switching to an online system is probably our best bet. Yeah, I guess. Thank you. A couple things. One is, Robert's rules of order allows the chair of the meeting to take, to alternate arguments for and against a motion. So we're allowed to do that. So it's just this question is whether or not we can identify people outside the building. Yeah. Excuse me. I think the issue is because we limit the speaking time to an hour. So, for instance, if you didn't limit public comment to an hour, then you could have to support and against because everybody speaks. I think that's where the issue is, is that if it's limited to an hour, that it's just really the first however many you get to in the hour and then reevaluate it. So we could just eliminate the hour and then any council member can move to end debate and call vote, correct? You could, yeah. Okay. Well, that's one question. The second thing I just want to say, I don't think any of the five of us wants to see, and it's not about any issue we've had to this point, but I think we've all recognized that, you know, in the next two years, a couple of you, you know, are rotating off, but three of us are going to be here for another two years. And there are lots of big, powerful groups with a lot of employees that come before, could come before the council wanting something or not wanting something, that having seen the size of this room and that could see the possibility they can manipulate it to keep opposing views out. So I think that that's, you know, our concern. We don't want that to happen. We don't want any big group to come in going forward and to feel like they can keep out those folks who don't agree with them. And then, and I don't think any of us want it to be a competitive process. We don't want it that single mom with two kids and you've got to get them to school the next day to feel like she's got to come in here and compete for time to speak. So I think we all agree on that. It's just a matter of how to arrange our rules just to prevent both those things from happening. And I would, I agree. That's my concern about some of the things we're doing. I don't know if it eliminates that. But the electronic part, anybody that's looked online for Tampa Bay Rays playoff tickets know that they went very fast through the regular sale. But amazingly, a lot of resale tickets popped up on Ticketmaster, like immediately after they were bought. And so there's still, with that kind of thing, there's an opportunity for somebody to manipulate that, to get their people to jump in and swarm the system to sign up to. So I don't know. I think it's going to come down to whatever we do with the rules. We just have to make a judgment call that comes in. Are folks who want to speak, are they going to be given that fair opportunity? And just trying to prevent any big group from coming in, big company, big developer, going forward to see it as an opportunity to manipulate public comment to try to keep voices out. So for me, I think this is worth a try. I don't know if it's going to completely eliminate groups that come in in the future that want to try to steer it their way. But I think it's worth a try, and we'll see what we can do. I do have one other thing to talk about after we talk about this part. So my question would be now, since we're talking about it, it sounds like we may go to something. How long will it take to implement this? Because, you know, it should be fairly quick because we've got a lot of important things coming up. So, I mean, it's not going to be ready by Thursday because we have to amend the rules. But we could bring it back in two weeks, the 12th and the 14th, and we can look at doing it then, potentially. We already have it, so it's already available to us through our current agenda management system. So there's no additional costs. It's already built in. And I've been playing with it, and so has IT, so it's something that we can just go ahead. So if we're going to do this, it's really important, and we have to be very redundant to get it out to the public so they understand what they can do. It can't just be something mentioned on the website. I think we need to really put it out there in a bunch of different ways so all different people can pick it up. I'll work with public communications to make sure the word is out. Okay. Okay. Councilman, I appreciate it. Just to clarify, all the sign-ups electronically, will there be a cutoff number or no? No. Okay. And then will there have in-person will still be an option? Yes. And will they have a reserved amount or no? No. So there's still two options? Still two options. Instead of coming to a meeting and taking the chance of not being able to enter chambers, you can register online. But if you decide not to do the online registration, you come in person, you sign up, and then in the order that you sign up is how, if there's, you know, after all those online registrants, then we would go to the in-person. Thank you. Just perfect. Thank you so much. And then, when we're talking about council rules, the other thing, and thank the folks in the back for moving to the area where we have recommended for media and cameras today. Appreciate you voluntarily going back there to do that. But we've had some meetings where we've had all the Tampa Bay media affiliates here. And then we have had other meetings where we've had folks who claim they're social media journalists kind of setting up tripods in the aisle and moving around that I would like to see us designate an area. We're going to have new chambers here soon. But an area just for the media, for cameras. Certainly it's not going to restrict anybody's right to film it from their seat. But I think it's best if we keep all the big cameras in one area. It helps cut down on the distractions during the meeting, and we don't allow folks to roam the room taking photographs. That includes everybody, including, you know, folks who may come in. I haven't been here for a while, but may come back in again at some point. But for me, it's best to conduct the meeting with folks who want to film or photograph from the media all in one area. And that way we're fair to everybody. There's no competition between the media to try to get a closer spot to the dais than the other ones. So I would like to see us consider a rule to have a designated media area and to limit moving around during the meeting. And certainly by media, if you've got a tripod or anything you want to set up, then you need to be in the designated media area. So I'd like to see what thoughts are from the rest of the council on that. Yeah, I agree with you. We've talked about that a handful of months ago, I think, under the last city attorney's office was a discussion. I don't want to change the subject, but I still wanted a little clarity on this new process moving forward. Did you say that there's no cutoff? So, like, if somebody registers and they're number 500? Just like it is now. So with 160 that we hold, 161 through 500, do they know they're 161 through 500? Or are they just showing up early, not knowing if they're getting in? No. I mean, that would really be in terms of just like right now. You have 150 people show up to a meeting, and then council decides whether or not they're going to waive the 60-minute rule. So it's the same process. The only difference is that they get to register beforehand. And not have to wait outside, I guess. I mean, they're still kind of waiting outside to get into the building. But how does somebody that's number 400, when do they show up and not know if they're getting in or not? Do they wait in line and then told they didn't register early enough? That's why you have the 1 p.m. cutoff, because then I'd have to share it with PD to see how is that going to be managed. That's a security question. Because right now you can have all those individuals show up. I don't know if I'm comfortable. The question is more about when you register, Rose, because I know you were messing around with it. I know IT was as well, in terms of does it show the person who's registering what number they are? Currently it does not. Okay. But I think that's a fair point to see if that's something that we could look into to see if, you know, when you register, it's like thank you for your registration, you are number, so that they understand what number they are. Visually you could see it in a sign-up. You can see what number you are. So I think we'll certainly look into that. It's a good question. Yeah, if I'm number 400, I probably don't need to come sit up front of the library for an hour and a half to get in the door to then be told by staff that scans my ticket and says, oh, sorry, you're number 400, you can't get in. We should have a process that's a little more transparent. We know how many seats we have. When you reach that limit, there should be a cutoff, and whether anything after that maybe goes to a waiting list, or if people don't check in 10 minutes before the meeting, you go to the waiting list or who's sitting outside. But I think we're still putting ourselves in a place of making people wait, not knowing what their number is or if they're getting in, without identifying when they registered what number they are. Nice, ma'am. To that end, even though they register, like you said, they still have to check in. So, I mean, regardless, maybe they're number 400, as has been stated, but that doesn't mean they're going to stay necessarily number 400, correct? Correct. Because they still have to come in and check in, and maybe other people didn't check in. Those types of things, right? So, I just wanted to point that out, too, right? So, like, you go in, you say, I want to speak, and say, congratulations, you're number 350. We'll see you at the meeting. But then when you get to the meeting, and you go to the kiosk, and you sign in to speak, are you still number 350? Or at that point, you would be allotted? No, because if you didn't pre-check in, then obviously the individuals will bump up. Right, yeah. So, just because you registered prior, that 1 p.m. cutoff at 350, you could be number 100 by the time you come in, or number one. But we're not fixing the challenge of having people standing outside for hours. They're still, if they just registered, and we're telling them 1,000 people can pre-register, they don't know their number, they don't know if they're speaking or not, it's first come, first serve. That's what we're doing now. So, how do we fix the system of not having first come, first serve, standing outside of the library, so they know if they're 160 and they're getting in the building or they're not? It's alternating. I mean, alternating fixes that. We can get rid of the time limit and alternate. And that solves any one big group, any group. You know, we've had some big companies come in here. It's not any one group that's been before us recently. There's, by alternating it, it disincentivizes folks who might try to manipulate it. And if the time limit is the problem with us doing that, I mean, I think that that's a possible solution to get rid of the 60-minute. We have regularly kind of gotten over that anyway. We've increased the time for folks to present anyway. So, maybe the solution is to get rid of the 60-minute time limit. And then, again, you know, anybody can make a motion under Robert's rules to end debate and call the question. So, that's our option if we feel like it's going on too long. The challenge is we don't – we have other agenda items. We don't have a split house 50-50 to say alternate. I mean, some may come speak to the Greenwood overlay district. Some may want to come in and speak to Clearwater Villages. Some are really excited about Carpenter Fields upgrades. How do you keep them out, keep them in, or alternate? I don't know how that works. I'm okay on a ticketing system, but you're still making them first come, first serve, go stand outside if you want to get in the building and be number one through 160. We're not solving that challenge. And the only way you solve that challenge is if you're issued a number when you register. You identify what their number is. 160 knows that they're going to get into the building. Anything else knows that they're on an overflow list, and they have a chance of maybe getting in. But to have somebody at number 500 register, thinks they're going to come, sit outside for three hours, and not get in the building, we're not solving our challenge. I'm okay with what we're closing. I don't know if it's going to – I mean, it's – I think it's worth trying to see. I understand what you're saying on, you know, if you're 400. And, you know, I don't think the council chamber in the new city hall seats any more than what we can see in here. It's actually less. Yeah, less. That's what I thought. So, I mean, it's going to be – the admission of the building is going to be an ongoing thing. So, I'm okay with trying this, and it just is what it is. I mean, same – Can we number it? Can we number? Sign a number. I will have – I know the report will give me a number, and then I'll know who they are based on that number. I don't know when you sign up because when I signed up, it just says you're registered. It didn't send me an e-mail saying this is your number, but I would have that once. Now, the other option is to close it off more than close it off, you know, just like e-commons, at 5 o'clock the day before, and then see if the system can then e-mail the individuals who registered during that 24-hour time frame and see if it will send them an e-mail, you are X number on this, or – I think we're overthinking this. As Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks figured this out a long time ago, you have X amount of seats in a building, and you only have X amount of seats, and you know that you're getting into the concert or you're not, and you're not sitting out there not knowing. I think that if – and this isn't a takeaway. You've done a lot of work, and I appreciate it. If your system isn't adequate, then we need to find a system and a ticketing system that probably works better to solve our needs. But I think just to shift to an online system because we feel we need to make a change, we're still making people sit outside for hours on a first-come, first-served basis that have no idea if they're going to get in or not, which is incentivizing them to show up earlier and to sit out there, which is the problem we're trying to solve. So I think if we're truly going to shift to process, it needs to make sense. And a ticketing system makes sense, but people need to know, congratulations, you're 1, you're 20, you're 50, you're 160, you're in the building, you're speaking, or you're not, in an overflow after that. But just to throw us an online system and people have no idea, I don't think we're solving our problem. Okay. Vice Mayor. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, maybe we don't solve that problem because people are going to be passionate about issues regardless of what their number is. And I can tell you right now, I'm one of those people. If I was number 161 and I know that I may or may not get in, I'm still coming down here to let everybody know that I'm either pissed or for something. So I agree with trying to find a solution to work to the end of this first-come, first-served issue, but I don't necessarily know that we're going to be able to stop people from gathering outside of City Hall when issues arise that they're passionate about because of even the entry time and getting a car. So I just wanted to throw that out there. That's more to Shane. It might be as simple as calling a software company and finding out if there's something that's to be added because you're literally just putting a sequence to whoever signs up. And if this software company can't do it, what are our options? So I guess the next couple of days is a recon mission, right, figuring out what our options are. But I'm sure they can number it. There are systems that do have it numbered specifically with what we have working in those confines so that it's not an additional cost. It does not, to the best of my knowledge, it does not, but I'll find out. Okay. Because they update their software all the time. So, okay. All right. Okay. It may not be perfect, but consensus is to give it a try. To give what a try? To give what? The electronic. I'm just going to go look into it. There's hundreds of ticketing systems out there that you put a cap on it, can't sell or reserve more tickets than you can see, but the rest in an overflow. So I think we're really overthinking this, but if that's the direction from the dais. Okay. And then on the media, too, the consensus to come up with a rule to get up the media designation area. Okay. I just wanted to clarify on the direction as it relates to the electronic. Like, yes, we're going to look into it, and I'll be able to tell you guys in our one-on-ones if our system does it and or give pricing in front of the other stuff, so we can work on that in the meantime. But the direction is to create the rule simultaneously, or do you want the feedback first? Because I heard a little bit of both. Create the rule. I would say create the rule. Create the rule. Okay. To allow electronic sign-ups. Okay. And that's it? That's the rule? Well, in accordance with what we already have. We're going to change the council rules for electronic sign-ups. Okay. I mean, it would be nice to have the data and the information and then make the appropriate decision and rule accordingly. Well, I can draft it, and I'll have to bring it back. And it wouldn't have to be approved until you look at everything. The question is, do you want me to go ahead and start working on the drafting? Yes. It's a multi-pronging name. Do more than one thing at a time. I say yes. Yes. I also say yes. Yes. It says yes. You can find two when you find them. Good. I'm good. Okay. You seem like I'm the outcast on this one. Okay. Now, I do have a question. Okay. Don't you start. Now, I do have a question about the media thing. In regards to somebody having, like, their own little tripod with, like, a fisheye stick on it, I mean, are we able to limit those people of where they can take their device from? Yeah. I mean, I think Banshee County has cameras only at a certain area. Okay. So they can't attach them to the podium or set them on the podium? I can look into it. Banshee County did something like that. Yeah. I'll double check. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Okay. We'll move on to 13.2. I would like to continue with that for the next one. Okay. Thank you. Jim, I have a 13.3. That's more than all. Well, I didn't really need to get this on the agenda, but here's what I had said earlier. So I'm coming up on the end of my career as a councilman in November, and I also serve on the PSTA board. I'm on the planning committee. I'm on the legislative committee. I'm on Ford Pinellas. These are great boards, and one of the things we did this year, Mike serves on with me because this year we, because of the population, the reorganization of the members, Clearwater gets two members from representing Clearwater. So Mike Benito asked to come on board with me, but when I leave, I thought maybe before I go that I should ask, you know, if there was interest in somebody taking my seat on both Ford Pinellas and PSTA. However, I think when I talked to the city manager about that, she said maybe we ought to wait until the new council comes in and give everybody a – is that kind of the – Yeah, so we checked with the clerk's office, and what typically occurs is that is done in November. So there's – I guess there's two times. Our council rules is that it's – we have the conversation in April about boards, but then it's also done after the change of council potentially when there's a change in November. So – but several of you have had questions about board appointments, and the rule is not clear in that you can only have this conversation at this time, and since council can put anything on the agenda at any time, wanted to give you all a correct – That is why it is on there for conversation. So it's something that, you know, council can ask to have the conversation now, or you can – you know, council can decide to wait and do it with the new council. Those are the options for council. So I'll put it out there. What are your thoughts? Yeah, well, my thought is there are a couple other things where we haven't taken into account how we moved our elections back, decisions that had traditionally been made in April, May. Right. That now probably need to be made or things need to be done in November or December. And I think that that's been the tradition that the new council is seated, that we make these decisions on assignments. Not everybody stays necessarily where they have been assigned or served the previous council term, but I think it's one of these things where we need to change our approach to start doing it November, December, after the elections. I can tell you this – I'll just add this to the conversation. PSC does not have a board meeting in November, and probably – I'm not sure. I haven't looked at Fort Pinnell's calendar, but because that's the election time, that becomes – it's just an odd time. I think they just said, well, we'll have it in December. Right. And that could be a good time for making a transition for new people. Yeah. I understand. That's what we need to know. Thank you, sir. I was waiting. Thank you for bringing that up. I guess if this is something that you're not going to be a part of a discussion going forward, that you should probably be thanked for your many years of service on especially those two important regional boards. You didn't just show up and serve. I know on PSTA, which is a very important regional board, you sit on two subcommittees, an executive committee, I think, as well as a legislative committee, and you have your normal advisory board appointment. So that's not just one meeting a month. That's three. So somebody filling that regional board is important. So thank you. You also on Fort Pinnell's signed everyone's checks. We're an important payroll person in there. So you did a lot on those two boards, but they're very important regional boards that, you know, our diocese will have to make an important decision on who represents us, but it's not just a local Clearwater board. It truly is an important regional board that are far greater than showing up for one meeting a month. A PSTA, like I said, for you is three meetings a month. So thank you for doing that month in, month out. And it is something that is time-consuming, and we have the same meetings toward the end of the fiscal year as we do here. We got, you know, we have the budget meetings, and so it's a constant running back. So I guess you have to take that in consideration if you're thinking about coming on this board. It is a time, you know, allotment. So I'll just leave it to the council to decide what they want to do. I'm fine with, I guess, later I'll, after November 3rd, probably in December, I'll come back to the board to get recognized with PSJA and Fort Pinnell's and possibly here. So we can wait until that time. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Oh, one other thing while I'm talking about PSJA. I found this in my notes. This Thursday, October the 8th, at Tampa International Airport, PSJA is starting a new 727 bus service. I've been talking, we've been talking about this for a long time, about getting bus from, you know, we do have it on the grouper coming from St. Pete Clearwater Airport to the beach. But this new 727 bus will go from Tampa International to downtown St. Pete, and it'll bring people from the airport back and forth. Eventually we'll get it into Clearwater now that we have a nice new intermodal center. Possibly it'll stop there, but if anybody's interested in it, Thursday, October 8th, at Tampa, at 10 a.m., by the way, we're having the ribbon cutting for that. Okay. Okay. Move to item 14. Any new business? Seeing none. Item 15, council comments. Council members have comments? Okay. Everybody said enough? Okay. Item 16, I did want to say yesterday, you know, it was a different operator. Frank Chivas has helped organize the Clearwater Offshore Nationals for a long time, and still a lot of the events were at his places, so I know Frank was involved. I appreciate all he's done to make that event successful over the years. And so with different folks taking it over, kind of wondering how that would go this year, but they had over 90 teams interested in participating. And I think they were in the 40s, a number of teams, previous year. So it was a great event with a lot of activity, and the awards ceremony last night was packed over at Marina Cantina, and they bring a lot of business and tourism to Clearwater and to Pinellas County. So another congratulations to them on a successful event. And with that, we will adjourn the work session of the Clearwater City Council for September 28, 2026. Thank you.