It's April 15th, 2026 at 7 o'clock p.m. Just as an FYI, all meetings are recorded. I also wanted to let everyone know that agendas are available on the back table, so if you did not receive one, you may go ahead and get one. We also ask you to be sure that you silence all of your electronic devices, and if you wish to make any sort of comments during the meeting, please be sure to fill out a comment card if you have not done so already. So at this time, I'll ask all of our committee members to introduce themselves, starting at our left. I'm Marilyn Turman with the Clearwater Urban Leadership Coalition. Good evening, Chancellor Davis with the Mother's Arms. Good evening, Jason Corbett with Let's Go Party. And my name is Kennard Robinson. I am your committee chair. So moving into the first item on our agenda, citizens to be heard regarding any items that are not on the agenda. Do we have any? Okay. All right, well, seeing none, we'll close this public comment part of our meeting. So now we will jump into our new business item agenda. It's for the recommendation of proposal for the redevelopment of 706 North Missouri Avenue from St. Benedict's Holdings. At this time, I'll invite our CRA Director, Jesus Nino, to come up and present. I'm doing it all. Hopefully you can hear me. Do I have to press the button here? No, you're good. They need to increase the gain. Maybe the, yeah, the volume. Again, my name is Jesus Nino, CRA Executive Director for City of Freewater. As far as the CRA, we have two areas under our purview. One is the downtown, and the second one is the North Freewater CRA area. Before I get into my presentation on the actual proposal, I want to give you a brief overview of what CRAs are. So as far as CRAs, there's special districts that are created in municipalities. They're actually separate entities from the city. In this case, the CRA is separate entities from the city of Freewater, the Freewater Community Development Agency. I'm city staff, but we do the work for the agency. Since it has no staff, our city council sits at the CRA board of trustees for the agency. Each area of the downtown and the North Shore area has their own trust fund, basically their own accounts. As far as funding, the funding can't be used from downtown. This is the North Greenwood area. So these areas downtown get more funding than over here, but we've started to grow. And one of the ways that we operate is under increment financing using a tool called tax increment financing. That's how we generate our revenue. That's basically every time that we increase the value of property to set the boundaries, that increase or that increment for property taxes from the city and from the county that goes into our trust fund. And that's what we reinvest that in the community as far as grants, programs, any other type of infrastructure work, capital projects, improvements to housing, stocks, or whatever it may be in compliance with state statute. So I just wanted to give you that quick little overview. Yay! Yay! I'm not going to start over again. No. So if you can't hear me, I have a very low voice, and I'm trying my best. Just let me know. I don't want you to waste people's time. Okay. So just in case, I'm not going to redo the entire thing, but that was the overview of the CRAs, what they do, what they're meant to do. They're meant to eliminate slum and blight. They're meant to improve conditions of communities. And usually items that we do are physical type of work. We don't invest in, for instance, non-profits to do for operations and items like that. It's mostly physical items like improvements to buildings, roads, and items like that we can acquire and sell property. We can do a lot, but we have to be compliant with that state statute. So as far as this particular item that we have before you, today I'm here to provide an overview of the proposal that was submitted by St. Benedict's Podings LLC, which is an affiliate of Yomamas, Inc., which is down the street here. So just to give you a little history to kind of go back a little bit, the property, which is a question right now, is 706 North Missouri Avenue. Which is also known as the Armory, the U.S. National Guard Armory site. So for years that property was owned by the Armory, the military basically. Then they transferred it over to the state. Then the state leased it out to the city around 2005. They used to do parks and recreation so they could use that property for storage of parks and recreation items. And also some light offices for some of the staff members there. But that property has been tax exempt now for decades. So recently, in August of 27, 2025, the state of Florida transferred the ownership of that property over to the city of Clearwater. Then in January of this year, January 26, 2026, the city of Clearwater transferred the ownership of the property over to the community redevelopment agency ownership. So as far as how CRAs operate, everything that we do needs to be in compliance with our redevelopment plan. So if it's not in the state statute, we can't do it. But in addition, if it's not in your community redevelopment area plan, then you can't do it either. So we have those checklists that we have to check off before we even entertain certain items. So in February of this year, the CRA, after we acquired the property from the city, we advertised the property to solicit proposals for adaptive reuse of the site, of the armory site. And we had that window open for 30 days. Then on March 24, 2026, the CRA received one proposal. And that proposal came from St. Benedict's holding LLC, again, an affiliate of the Omama's Foods, which is already headquartered here in the North Greenwood area. So that proposal has been reviewed by city staff and has been found to be responsive to the advertisement that was put out. So at a high level, the proposals includes a $2 million from the Omama's. He's going to kind of go into detail after I'm done with my presentation. I'll start also assist the city manager, city manager, if he has any comment, then we'll give the mic over to David Albea, who's here today. So as far as the proposal that was submitted is for $2 million for the acquisition of the property. And it was advertised that at a minimum, the property would be transferred over to a new owner for $2 million at a minimum. And also that the existing armory would be preserved, as it is now, just kind of clean her up and refurbish it and make it operational for whatever business moves then. In addition, that was to provide us with their financial ability to rehabilitate the building. So the proposal that was submitted, we reviewed it, and now it's coming to the CAC to provide their recommendation, which staff is going to request for them to make a motion, either for or against, or whatever motion they make. And whatever motion they make, we're going to put that on the record. Then right now, for August, for April, the 20th, which is Monday, we have a tenderly put on the CRA trustee's agenda for them to consider the proposal and to also entertain, to enter into negotiations for development and sell and purchase agreement with St. Benedict's Holdings LLC. So the project, it would consolidate the campus because it's headquarters right across the street. And recently, he also acquired contiguous property right next to it, also across the street from the armory site. So again, the property is in alignment with our redevelopment area plan. I'm not going to go into the details of all the proposals. I'm going to leave that to Mr. Habib. But from a high-level economic impact standpoint, the project is we'll generate additional jobs for the area. Again, the property is currently tax-exempt. So that means no property taxes are being collected for any of the taxing authorities, which includes the city, the county, and all the other taxing authorities that are out there. Whenever you get your bill for property taxes, it has a big list of entities that it goes to. So if it is acquired by Yomamos Foods, it'll become a tax-generating property. And again, we operate this tax-exempt finance model. So the property taxes that are generated by the new development and plus bringing it back on the tax rolls, the county ad alarm and the city ad alarm tax quickly come into the trust fund for the CRA here in North Greenwood. It'll have to be by law reinvested back into the North Greenwood area, the property taxes that are generated from the county and the city. So in addition, he's going to rehabilitate the building, kind of bring it back to life as far as visually. He's not going to modify it substantially, basically just signage on the site. In addition, he'll kind of talk about some of the programs that he's already doing in the area. So just for the record, I did want to put on the record here, and I know this is a little bit tedious, but again, we kind of go through our plan to make sure things are in alignment. So we did, when we received the proposal, we quickly went through the plan, which is online if anybody wants to take a look at it, and kind of named out the page numbers, for instance, on page 93, one of the goals is to activate unutilized sites and to continue to reduce the conditions associated with life. Then page 93, it also supports the creation of workforce development and increased access to employment opportunities. Then page 94, which enhances community vitality through reinvestment and improve economic activity. Then page 94, 95, redevelopment policies advances the reuse of properties owned to support economic development and private investment. Then on page 108, there's an area called Area C, which is the CSX and the industrial area and the armory sites specifically spelled out in the plan. That area calls that the armory will be used for parks and recreation and storage, a little bit of light office, but in the event that the property ever stopped being used by the city, then it would be put back. It would be put back into the market to basically increase the light industrial area for that area in addition to create more employment for the area. So that's straight out of the plan, so we check those boxes. In addition, it's also in alignment with the city's strategic plan. From there, I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Battle if he wants to say anything in addition. If not, then we'll give it over to David Habib like we do every other individual that submits proposals for properties. We do the staff report, then we give the mic to the proposer to kind of go over the proposal to the community. I'm going to wait if I have any comments, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I'll provide them at the end or provide any comments that you have in person. So let's go ahead and allow Mr. B to present. Thank you all for having us. Mr. Chair, thank you for hosting this. Let him get your audio first. Sorry about that. Tetsi, Tetsi. You guys got a couple of losers. Sorry. To our neighbors, thank you all for coming. It was a wonderful turnout. To the city staff, thank you for all of your work on this project. And to the advisory committee, thank you for hosting us. And really to everyone who's been part of this project, we greatly appreciate it. I hope that everybody has a blue piece of paper. That's what we will be going through right now. So I would want everyone to have a copy of this. I also have our leadership team here. We have Morgan from marketing and Mary from finance and we have Joe from operations. So we are here to answer your questions and make sure that you feel comfortable with the plans that we have proposed here as well. So a little bit about us. Joe Wellness Foods, we're headquartered here in Northern Greenwood. We have been since 2019. Our company is nine years old and we've been here in Clearwater since 2017. We relocated to Northern Greenwood in June of 2019. And we were occupied right on 1125 Eldridge Street. And we just acquired 1143 Eldridge Street. So both sides adjacent to the Army. Our business is focusing on natural packaged foods. So we do natural foods. We ship all throughout the U.S. And everything is really focusing on only using ingredients that mom has in her pantry. So it's all clean and fresh. We do pasta sauces, salad dressings, condiments. We do pizza sauces, white sauces. But really wanted to bring a manufacturing business here to North Greenwood. Very much wanted to create jobs. And that's been our journey throughout the North Greenwood over the past six years. So today we have 30 employees here in North Greenwood. About 10% of our staff on average is from this neighborhood. So specifically the CRA zone. We put over $3.5 million into this neighborhood as far as we have in the Eldridge Street facility. I know all of you have all been here for a long time. Specifically when we moved into 1125, it was an abandoned building. I boarded up windows. It wasn't a very visually appealing building. So part of our job is to welcome people to the neighborhood. And to really make North Greenwood a staple for clear water. So we have buyers throughout the world really come to the North Greenwood area. We have suppliers and we really wanted to make this into a wonderful showcase for our neighborhood. Most importantly, you know, we're here to create jobs for a growing business. And that's very much been our priority within North Greenwood over the past six years. And since our business was founded nine, nine years ago. So if you have a good blue paper, this just really gives you a summary of who we are on the top. We've been working on this argument proposal. And I will also say, you know, it's down in the Eastburg, we're also being here. And the representative of the field as well, we've also been in the audience. Everybody has been very instrumental in this project. We've had a lot of work in this proposal. We've spent over six years on it. So this isn't something that, you know, we've been working on for 30 days. We've had partnerships with the states. We've had partnerships with the county. We've had partnerships with the city to really invest in this neighborhood and to make sure that we're protecting this neighborhood and we're protecting the Armory. There has been some rumors that I've heard today that we plan to demolish the Armory. I can tell you that that is not true. The Armory is a historical building and our plan is to revitalize it. We have no plan to demolish it. We have no plan to touch the actual infrastructure. It's a very important part of the North Greenwood neighborhood and our plan is to restore it and really make this neighborhood be proud of it. And I hope that you can all see that too with our work at 1125 Elder Street and the work that we're also doing at 1143 Elder Street. So our business has invested over $150,000 in pre-development costs. That's legal fees. That's state fees. That's, you know, we have to do a lot of specific projects to make sure that our proposal really fit the bill for the city of Clearwater and most importantly for the CRA. You know, we have to hire an harborage. We have to do traffic studies. There was a lot of investment at times that our team still can ensure that this proposal was well-received and really hit the objectives of the CRA. Personally, I was part of the steering committee with Victoria in Maryland for a short time in 2022. So that was my first involvement in the North Greenwood CRA before it was established to really make sure that we as a business had that community outreach to make sure that we were doing what we can in this neighborhood. We, as I also mentioned, have invested $3.5 million in North Greenwood and we just acquired 1143 Elder Street, which are the two towers, those really tall towers that continue our expansion. So overall, I hope that, you know, all of you can see that we're very serious in our plan. We're a top 10 U.S. brand of pasta sauce now, which is really awesome for North Greenwood and Clearwater to have. And we're going up against a lot of these big corporations like Campbell's Soup Co. and Kraft Foods. So for North Greenwood to have a company of 30 that works very hard here, it's something that we should all be proud of. And I think it's something that I'm very proud of as well. So we should have $25,000 for the United States. Again, we've been in North Greenwood for six years. Our total proposed investment is $5 million for this. So as Jesus was mentioning, all these different factors to use. You're okay. As Jesus mentioned, the $5 million investment has increased the taxable income for the CRA neighborhood. So specifically, the property is not incurring in tax revenue for the city. And within the CRA, that tax revenue is going to be reinvested in the 50 neighborhoods. We propose 20 to 30 jobs. And again, we've already developed a lot of different proposals and have presented this to the city for their review and for your review as well. So some of our awards and recognition, we were small business this year last year with the Tampa Bay Chamber. We've been featured on Good Morning America in July. We'll be back on Good Morning America. We'll be working on that next two times. So we've had a lot of national recognition. We also have Pinellas County Economic Development. We've been actively involved in this project. And the Inc. 5000, we've been on that list as well. So I don't show that to you to boast, but I show that to you as we hope that you can all be proud to have a nationally recognized brand here in North Greenwood. And our plan is to very much keep that investment growing. So again, we established our headquarters in 2019 in North Greenwood. We're not a foreign entity. We're invested here. We all spend a lot of time here. We're not some big corporation that has multiple buildings. This is our home, this is our headquarters, and very much will be planned to keep on growing with all of you. We completed a major expansion. So in December, as I said, we acquired 1143 Eldridge Street. So again, both sides on the back, you can see, are adjacent to the army. And our plan is to actually relocate the facility that we have in Chicago. So Joe can speak a little bit about that, but we'll be relocating that facility here to North Greenwood, and it will be headquartered at the army, which will then create more jobs and allow us to do more distribution here in North Greenwood. So we'll go to page two now. So I wanted to give you a little background on the opportunity zone. So specifically, the city of Clearwater in North Greenwood has a really unique opportunity to present an application to declare this region as a federal opportunity zone. And our goal as part of this project for everyone is that this can be a really good, you know, cornerstone project for the city to show in that application to ultimately incentivize the entire neighborhood. So a federal opportunity zone, I won't read it, but it's a federal designation created by the 2017 Pax Cutting Job Act. And a lot of the governments identify as sort of the underserved census tracts and attract private capital into them to charitable taxes. So in addition to the benefits that we presented as far as job creation and economic development, it is a wonderful opportunity for the North Greenwood neighborhood, really, because there's all benefits from it. And so all businesses in these neighborhoods are also benefits. So how we hope to make that happen, the $5 million in committed private capital to a current tax exempt property, the additional 20 to 30 jobs that we've been adding to this neighborhood on top of our current 30 jobs. Again, we have a six-year operating history here, so we're not a business that's transplanting into the North Greenwood area. We're already here and very much at home. And we're a nationally recognized minority-owned brand. So, again, we ship everywhere, but this is home for us, and that's very much how we want to look at this opportunity. As far as economic impact, I know in Greenwood, so we went through the jobs with a median salary here. These would be focusing on both office positions, warehouse positions, and logistics. Our relocation of Chicago to Clearwater would also be occurring. This is not a pipeline plan or a pipeline dream. This is something that would happen immediately. We would plan to occupy the armory within 24 hours. We can use it. We can utilize it. Again, we're not touching it. It's a beautiful building. We plan to restore it. We plan to preserve it. We plan to make it. We have pictures of it from the 1940s. We want to make this a historical, you know, prize to our neighborhood. And, again, if any of you would like to see some of our work, you all welcome to the headquarter to see how we can help to rehab some of our current building. For this tax-based CRA revenue, then the properties are generally generating $0 for the city. So this would give a new taxable value, some new property taxes. This is all different investments that we've got to do. So local hiring is really important to us. We have partnerships with H&P. We have partnerships with Feeding Tampa Bay, St. Paul, 360. And we also do a lot of work with Pinellas Hope. So most locally here in the North Greenwood area would be H&P. They have a great workforce development program. So part of that and part of our mission in this neighborhood has been working with H&P on creating opportunities for their clients there. As far as our workforce pipeline, you know, we have partnerships with SBC, U.S. at a lot of Florida schools, so specifically for this neighborhood, there's opportunities for additional jobs, and there's a focus as well on this neighborhood. You know, if there's any specific resources that you know, job boards, postings, that we can actively get more involved with, I'd be happy to also learn that as well. As far as giving back, so we've donated to over 52,000 meals just here locally. We do various donations of Feeding Tampa Bay. That's our largest charitable giving. And we're focusing on making sure that everybody has access to clean food. So Feeding Tampa Bay, H&P, again, 360 all here locally in the Tampa Bay area. Send them to 10 Paul as well as our work with Pinellas Hope. And our vision is really, again, the preservation and revitalization of the Armory. The windows are currently boarded up. It's currently occupied by Parks and Rec. So from the beautification of our neighborhood, it won't have its current use, which is a lot of creatures and trash cans. So we want to make it a very beautiful building for the community to be proud of. And that's very much our plan. So we'll bring those windows back to the lights. We have pictures from the 1940s again showing what it used to look like. And we really want the neighborhood to be very proud of it. I know it's a very special building to a lot of you. I know many of you also have memories there. And before it was actually used with Parks and Rec, it was a place of gathering. And that's our mission as a company. We bring people back to the table. And that's our mission for this project as well. As far as the increase in local tax revenue, we spoke about that. And I have heard some discussions around a public use of the building as well. And that's something that we've obviously looked at and have considered in six years that we've been working on this proposal and the project. But some opportunities, and I encourage you all to look at the last section here, is we would be creating actual wages and creating jobs, creating factable revenue towards the CRA, the additional 20 to 30 jobs that are directly impacted in the community, the additional CRA revenue, additional payroll, the opportunity zone anchor status really gives a unique opportunity towards the city to then showcase this project. And really it's self-repanied in fact, generating taxes is very important. So when we're looking at what's the true benefit to the community, it comes back to the reinvestment in the community, it comes back to the job creation. It really comes back to making sure that we're a driver of that as well. So, you know, why is this proposal? You know, again, we're ready to activate it immediately. We would occupy the building within 24 hours. There's nothing that would stop us from being able to start our e-commerce operations in there. But we're obviously paying bank finance, so we also work with a local bank here called Hinkoff Whitney. We do have a Canelo's County grant already secured. We have a functioning campus, again, right across the street. We've already spent a significant amount of resources, time, energy, and, you know, really have put our hearts and souls into this and the opportunity to fill in as well. This is a huge opportunity. So hopefully this is a good background of how it's going to be. And I thought it didn't like how it came up as well and how people can answer any questions that you have if that's allowed. The mic is really hot, so... Well, we'll get back to the other. Yeah, this mic is a little hot. Thank you. So thank you, David, for your presentation. Before we open up to questions from the committee, I would like to ask Mr. Battle if there's anything else that you would like to add. Okay. So the order of this right now. So first we're going to have questions from the committee, and then once we finish with questions from the committee, then we'll open up for questions and comments from you all. Now just as a reminder, if there's anything that you would like to say, please be sure to fill out a comment card. Okay. So are there any questions from anyone? Thank you for being here today. Thank you. I do have a couple of questions. One thing that I really wanted to touch on, being another business owner, is employing the residents of Corp Freewood. So you have stated that currently of your 30 employees, 10% of them are Corp Freewood. Why would you say that it is 10%? And how do you think that your company can go about increasing that percentage if you obtain the armory and then add 30 plus more jobs? So our main partnerships right now are with HEP and for local hiring. As far as the opportunities to work jobs, we've absolutely been doing that. When it comes to local job positions to specifically targeting this neighborhood, that's what we would appreciate help with and would very much like to also focus on as well. You know, our work, we're an equal opportunity employer, obviously, so we post everything in Indeed. We work with local schools. We really prioritize hiring here. Just to reiterate, our company of 30 is in the office. We're not a remote company, so everybody comes to the office every single day. So that's our focus. We're looking for local jobs. We're not looking for remote positions. And as far as the opportunities to focus in on this neighborhood, that's our goal. And I, in full transparency, don't know all of the specific resources that North Greenwood has as far as job postings and opportunities to continuously focus on this neighborhood. But Joe can also speak to some of our workforce developments that we've completed with HEP and some of that success. I will say as well, you know, we're about half office and half warehouse environment for our position. So why some of the jobs haven't worked out, it's the same as any other small business, as you know, as well. Sometimes people aren't the right fit, either for them or for the business. So, you know, we, as a business, keep on moving forward. Questions and comments. Congrats on the rapid success. You know, I like that you're, you know, giving back. But I'm more interested in, like, what, so you give to local food banks, right? Is the community aware of where those food banks are? And are you going to be scaling, because you're clearly scaling, those give back opportunities? Like, giving more, because this is clearly an opportunity zone, right? So that comes with a lot of hunger, right? You've got a great source for that. So is there, are you really looking at that? How are you giving back to this community with your great source of, you know, pasta's cheap, sauces not so much, but are you planning on giving, like, do you have a plan on how much you're scaling to give back to the local food banks here? So, I mean, there's no specific dollar amount that I can provide, but it's certainly a goal of ours. Our organization is very large, and I mean, specifically, we focus in on homeless empowerment and food scarcity. Those are our main pillars. So within charitable giving, within our organization, those are directly correlated to our mission and the company. And if there's alignment with any nonprofit, any charity, any sponsorship that we can help with all of you, we're more than happy to do that. So, you know, we give anything for silent auctions. We'll give things for specific events, for specific food drives. But our main pillars, to answer your question, are around food scarcity and homeless empowerment. And those are the main focus areas that our company has focused on and we're focusing on as we keep on expanding. Okay. Just a follow-up to that, because you said you're, like, you've given 52,000 meals, and it sounds like giving Tampa Bay, right? That's... Beating Tampa Bay. Beating Tampa Bay. Yeah. Do you know how much has been given to this area by any chance? So I don't have any stats as far as what they provide to this neighborhood, but it's a follow-up. That's certainly something that I think we'll be looking to do. For those who don't know, Beating Tampa Bay is part of the Beating America organization. They're headquartered in Tampa, and they focus in on the Tampa Bay region. So they're one of the largest food banks in our county and in our area, in Hillbrook County. But I don't have any specific stats as far as how many meals have been done in here. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to quickly go back to the question or your reply in reference to the dogs as well. And you're saying you've been here for the six years, but those that you've had there just didn't qualify. But you don't know, because in these, I know for a fact that's nothing that in this neighborhood they're looking on for dogs. But you're right here across from, like, the aquatic center and right within the area. You don't have anyone that can actually go and find the people or connect with the local organizations or jobs to see who can come in and apply. Because I've never heard of you even having anything out there for a job. Yeah, so I mean, our basic approach is we always publicly post everything, so we use different resources online to try to attract the best talent. As far as locally geared, you know, that's a wonderful idea. If there's a specific job fair that we can host with these opportunities, if there's, you know, anything specific that we can do to make sure that this community knows, especially if you don't have access to Indeed or online, we'd be happy to ultimately do that. You know, our hiring process is, again, we're an equal opportunity employer, so anyone is welcome to employ. And they go through a rigorous application process. We've been able to accomplish a lot of the things that's here. So we're always looking for top talent and very much would, you know, welcome anyone in this community. So if it becomes an accessibility issue with Indeed or not having access to applying online, I hope, any ideas that you have for us to be able to ultimately advertise better? And you don't provide, like, on-the-job training. Because, you know, some people that you're looking for that you're saying that you're talented and things like that, some people need on-the-job training. Yes. Do you provide any of that? I'm going to let my team speak to that because these rock stars behind me do a lot of that. Okay. We have a lot of different internship opportunities. We do a lot of on-the-job training. I know you're all probably tired of hearing from me. Mary, I'd go. Would you like to represent? This is Joseph Smith. And he's our director of operations. Joe really plays a very critical role in our national distribution. I didn't put this much or if it's not here, but we also export for 21 countries. So Joe, I'll come in and do that. Hello. I'm not good. Yes. So BGP, I reach out to them, let them know we have hiring. And I do a lot of on-the-job training, yes, but it's more or less a working interview. Can you call him to the mic? Yes. It's like, hey, here. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. So I work with ATP. I'm going to have a job opening, especially in the warehouse, which is what I'm in charge of. I'll invite people over for a on-the-job working interview and I pay them for the day so that they can see if they can see if the job is right for them and we can see if the job is right for the job as well. So I've taken applications for people who walked up to my door and I've done it in that way. So yeah, good help is our time. So when you're saying ATP, you're talking about the Homeless Empowerment Program over there. Yes, ma'am. Okay, but there's more residents. That's just a program over there. That's one organization. I'm so sorry. Please, please hold your comments for public comment. Are there any other comments or questions from the committee at this time? Okay. I have some as well, but I'm going to hold mine as well. So at this moment, we will open for public comment. Now, with the public comments, I say that I guess the best way to maybe do this is to stay organized if you would like to maybe form a line or on the side over here. So just a couple of housekeeping items. So please be sure that, of course, you have a comment card. When recognized, please approach the podium. State your name for the record. You will have three minutes to speak, and we'll be keeping track of your time. So when your three minutes expires, I ask that you quickly wrap up so that way we can proceed. Sounds good. Can we have the first verse, please? My name is Barbara Sori Love, and I'm the president of Cliffwater African-American Foundation, Inc., and our purpose, our mission is to promote and memorialize African-American places, spaces, landmarks in the water. We are in Cliffwater Florida, and you can go to Cliffwater African-American Foundation dot com and see some of the work that we've been working with or we've accomplished. Now, I am against the sale of the proposal that is presented here tonight. I think I heard somewhere that, Mr. Corby, I've never seen you before. I think you said you hired at least how many people in your company? 30 people. Yeah. From my research, there are 7,000 people in the North Greenwood CRA. That would be equivalent to 700 people. So your hiring is way short according to my information. Now, for Jesus, on your advertising, the bid or the proposal or whatever the proper name is, I'm suggesting you get a different way to advertise because if you advertise for all of these people in here, we will not be in here tonight. We are in here because we want to know what's going on. We understand there's only one proposal, but I don't think that's appropriate for the North Greenwood CRA. You have other methods of advertising. You have a community media specialist that does a great job. I have an online paper, the Book of the News, that you could have advertised this in, and I think you fell short on this. We attended the CRA meetings, the council meetings, and excuse me, y'all, I'm 75 on this. We attended several council meetings, and Ms. LaJulla Jenkins voiced her concern about the property being sold. And those are my comments. Of course, it's my bad that you need to hire at least 670 more people to satisfy the 10% in the North Greenwood area. Okay? So for the sake and importance of the topic, I will allow responses from Mr. David Habib. So after your comments are finished, David will have a few minutes to respond. So I will give him some time to, yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate your question. We are a business. I can't hire 700 people. That would make us go out of business. So how our business works is we have a revenue per employee. That's our target. We cannot hire 700 people. So I do appreciate that question. Our goal is to someday employ 700 people. I started this out of my parents' dining room. Again, I'm a small business just like you. So I hope that you can appreciate that. But to state that I need to hire 700 people, our goal is mutual, and we would love to do that in North Greenwood. That's not something that I can do today. Raise a percentage. Just please hold comments. Can you please state your name for the record? Ms. Lillard Jenkins. I think I started this. I'm a city council leader. I'm very passionate about the National Guard Army. Everyone in here has a minimum in the National Guard Army. And what I heard you saying about this community, there's doctors, lawyers, educators, scientists. There's all that came out of this area. What I also heard you saying in the picture like this area is devastated this job. There's still working class children in college. I'm a retired educator. I ran the Head Start, Ms. Icy Belly, on North Greenwood. The problem you're trying to acquire, I ran the Clearwater Center that has been named Peter Hamilton. Utilized the National Guard Army in a gas leak in that center. And the National Guard Army was open for the Head Start, 150 children, and 35 staff who evacuated. You have a factory over there. You've been in this community forever. You only named one organization that you have ties with. The Help Center does very well because we as a community, we support that. I knew how the Help Center started. I know Ms. Green. I knew her father. Mr. Green, I mean, Mr. Mack, that was his name. He walked around in the community and he sold mullet fish. And if a single mother or a single father didn't have it, he gave it. That's how that Help Center began. We have a love for this community. You didn't come up in this community. And for you to talk about what you're going to do for it, to see our way, we can do it with the other organizations, the AFTA, NAACP. We can take care of ourselves like we've always taken care of the North Greenwood. See, you all call it North Greenwood, but I call it the Grover. Oh, Amy. And I can tell you, the history about the Grover. I'm all about moving forward with progress. But don't remove the people that have been here forever. I'm 69. That National Guard Army, that's how I learned how to take checkers and cards and all of that. We felt safe and secure when the storms came, when the National Guard men would be over there. The CRA and my organization that I'm affiliated with and everybody else, we can take care of the Army. Thank you. And as a quick update, so after a quick conversation with Mr. Battle, so David, we will allow you to respond once all of the comments have been completed for the sake of time. I'm a resident of 70 years, and I'm really passionate. It used to be even a center for the hurricane that we got started. We've been here, but this is my first time ever hearing about you, your mom. How many African-Americans do you have presently working in your family? Ten. Ten. Ten. One percent. I would not burn. Four. Three. Four. Okay. Also, what you're going to have to do, especially in this community, everybody here is not on this community. Everybody's not here in the community. Everybody doesn't go to here. So you might want to try and do another way. And like I said, we have many different people that live and work in this community. I'm a retired educator, 37 and a half, and right across the street at St. John Permanent, we have a pantry, and every Tuesday morning at 6 o'clock, we have people coming, need food. As a matter of fact, we even provide clothes, because we have some people that come out of prison, and they're looking for clothes, or they're looking for clothes. We also have Bethany on Springdale that does Feed America the first two days a million months. And sometimes, we don't even get meat to feed them. So if you come in, you might need to come to some of these communities around, some of these places around. And we have churches that you can go and leave the people in church. So you're going to have to do a little bit to do it. Also, too, when you have people come, and they want jobs, they may not be able to do it right there, but if they've got gut and grit, they're willing to learn. But if you don't give them the opportunity to show what they can do, you have missed out on a very good opportunity. I sit here and I think about it, we do need jobs, but we need people with open minds, open opportunities. And we don't need you to do like some of these people come over here. And that's a warehouse, and it looks awful. And I guess I'm being a problem. But anyway, I want you to think about everything that I said. All right. Thank you for your comments. You have invested in the area for six years, nine total, and you have invested $3.5 million. My question is, other than your warehouse, the food banks, and the towers, I think you said, what other areas in the North Greenwood have you invested in? So we just have our headquarter building, the towers, that's one of the main facilities that our company has invested in. So within the six years, you didn't know that's your stuff on this area, right? Correct. Right off of the helpers. Right. So as far as the North Greenwood community, you haven't done this. Between? Okay. $3.5 million. I mean, digital businesses and stuff like that. Good evening, everyone. Excuse me. My name is Melissa Perry. My family has a long history in the North Greenwood area. One of the questions that I have for you is summer jobs, after school jobs. That's what our kids need. You say you have about 30 employees. Ten percent of that is from the North Greenwood area. Okay, that's three. That's a very small amount. If you've been in this area for six years, and you haven't figured out by now that there's a church right there, there's a church down the street that you can go to, to reach out to, to how to reach the community, there's something a little off by that. The other thing is, same question the young lady before me asked, the $3.5 million put into the North Greenwood area, where is that? I write down the street every day. I want to know what that $3.5 million is. I have another question. Do you actually reside in the North Greenwood area? I reside in the city of Greenwood. Okay, and my other question is, on Google, you advertise yourself as a black-owned business. That's not true. Okay. We're a minority-owned business, and that certificate comes from the state of Florida. You do not advertise that as a black-owned business. Okay, I really wanted to know about that because I didn't see that, too. So I just want to see how you plan to reach out back into the community. And just like Madrilla said, everyone else in the community, I have strong, strong memories of that national armory. That armory builds confidence that I have today to stand up in here to talk to you. And I don't want to see it go anywhere except back into this community to do something with this community, if it's only just a shelter for us to go to when there's a hurricane or something. But you coming in here and telling us what you're going to do with your business, it doesn't sound like you're doing anything with this community. That's all I have to say. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your comments. Now, again, just to try and keep things in order and to keep things in a timely fashion, I ask that you make your comments more general. If you have questions for David, he will not be addressing them until the end. But please be sure to keep your comments very succinct and straightforward. And then we'll get David's responses at the end. Okay, thank you. My name is David. I work at Yolama in the finance department. But I've heard a lot about giving the opportunity to people who get a job at Yolama. That's a little bit of a mystery about myself. I was an elementary school teacher for nine years here in New York County. And shout out to the educators I heard here. And for real. And last summer I started working in the warehouse. And that's one of the most amazing people. Kids on summer break working for the summer. College students coming through the summer. And some of them came back for spring break, Christmas break. We'd love to see them supporting and coming back to work for us. But what an easy way you can hear at the rec center to put a job application for Yolama to work wherever Yolama is here, right? Something that everybody has said is, you know, how better we can reach this specific area. And I think we're in. And, you know, so I just wanted to share that I had on-the-job training. I was given a chance by Yolama. And hopefully you can see that even an elementary school educator, which all respect to all of us educators, maybe don't get all the chances, but Yolama took a chance on me. So thank you. Well, I am a permanent resident of this community. There were two things that I kind of heard and that concerned me. Because when we started with this mission for the CRNA in this area, we were told about another big building that we were going to benefit from. But nothing had happened for us regarding the North Ward element. Now you say this building is going to, whatever we've got going on, we would benefit from that as far as an economic development. But how do we know this? Because everything is going smoothly. And when the field was done, everything changed. So that's my concern. Because the broken promises, we don't need those anymore. I was coming here from Cleveland, and it breaks my heart when I come through a little. I call it Hispanic Zone. Because we had that here. We had that connectivity in our community. And to rise in there and see how they assess it, they got all decorated, you know, to their letters release. So when you come to Greenwood, and even going down where you were talking about the Omri, so if you're going in there and you're telling us that you're going to help us out, and then once you get in there and things change, I just feel sorry for us because, frankly, I'm tired of the broken promises in our community. We can hear you. Just keep it close. Close. Keep it close. I promised myself when I came in. How many of you believe that? Well, I don't speak just to hear myself talk. I speak when I think it's important that I think. So if you all will allow me to submit it. First of all, hats off to you that wanted to come in. Expand. I'm sorry, Ms. Kelly. Can you please just state your name for the record? Oh, my name is S-A-Y-Gowell. I think it was something missing. Why is so much of frustration in here now about you're coming, or you're ignoring this building? Because so many people didn't know anything. And we have a CRA here. And when you have people that believe in channels that we entrusted the city to use them to help inform us, but if they don't know, they can't reach. So I just want to make that clear, because before I came, I wanted to know if the CRA knew about this. Because there were too many people saying, what kind of music? We don't know anything about it. When it's something this big, we don't take this light. Okay, I used to do job creation, and, you know, but anyway, that's not about you tonight. But your collaborative approach, utilizing just one organization for job creation, I was bothered by that. I'm talking about ICE. I was bothered by that, because everyone looking for a job is not at the homeless center. Okay, some of the people may be working now, and because of transportation, gas prices, and things, they may want to work closed down. I'm not knocking Barbara Green's program. I know her, she knows me. So it's not about an individual. It's about what's right. There are other organizations that collect just to help if you should get this award. Don't lean to just one because maybe you know that person, but expand your wings and try to get to know others. We've got a ministerial alliance. We've got a lot of churches that have networking to start with also. And my other question mainly, are you willing to hire an outreach person? You didn't have one before, but you weren't looking to get this building. That means so much to us. And I live in the suburb of the right here. So if you're darn right, I'm going to come and say something. One part of my question. No more. All right. I don't like cutting your shrubs, don't do it. We must have done that. We must have done that. One minute at a time. We don't know. Can I get one minute? Can I get a minute? Give her one. Give her one. Yes, Ms. Brown. Please go. Okay. I want to take a minute. If you house yourself, are you going to be making your product there? We manufacture it on the east coast of the United States. Okay. Will there be any kind of manufacturing in there, any kind of machinery or anything in that building? Yes. So we take finished goods and we have an e-commerce facility. We have a retail facility. So we ship anything from pallets to certain customers and we ship e-commerce orders. So each day we're managing about 800 to 1,000 online orders that are prepackaged in there. Okay, we won't be, no machinery is gone. All right. We're going to not have to cut that short. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ms. Golly. Yes. We got to keep going. My name is Kimberly Brown. And again, behind this icy going point, I think the community is so shocked by this because we do nothing about it. I know you said for six years you've been working on this. We have a North Greenwood CRA. None of us knew. None of us knew about this, which is completely shocking. And so it's disheartening, actually, to say the least, that something is going on literally right in our CRA area and we have not a clue. You probably have the best intention. And I don't know if it's personal, but again, this is shocking and disheartening that we had no clue about this. And the CRA has asked about that building. We have asked. The coalition, the ULC has asked for that building. And we were told no. The city has their equipment in there. So, again, it's very shocking. Nothing against you personally, but it's disheartening. I don't know how else to put it. The second thing is, how are we guaranteed that you're going to do what you say you do? Some of us have been part of other CRAs in gentrification cabinet. We have been promised success for many things. And then on a dime, you decide, you know what, it's too expensive. We're going to sell this or do something else. What are the guarantees that this will inflict for a profit or for someone else? And how do we stop the gentrification? This is our area, and we don't want that. So, those are my questions. How do we put in guarantee that the use is going to be what the use is, and that the hiring is going to be the hiring? I have one question for your company, and I have a statement for the city. I said, I don't really need a mark, to be honest. I really talk about, I don't need a mark. The first thing I have for your company, you said that you're going to hire 10% of 30. That's three people from our community. Unacceptable. I said that you're going to hire 20 to 30 new jobs, and I said that you're going to hire 30. But you have to get 10%. So, pause, pause, please, pause, please. Just try and keep it. Okay, I'm not being hostile. It's not about the hostility. It's just about timing and going back and forth. So, I just want to. I'm not going to go back and forth. He answered me, he says, made a statement, so I was responding. Okay, and David, as a reminder, you'll have your time after all the comments to respond. That is a part of my time, but all I was saying is, you did say 10%, and it's on that paper, too, 10%. And for the city, we have to come in here and fight for everything. You all have closed all our community centers, where we have our children, that they, for years, for 20 to 30 years, you have never replaced it, you have never given it back, given us an alternative, or given us something else. But we have to come in here and fight for it. But this, this is unacceptable to me. That's all I got. My name is Tony Bradley. We've actually met before. I did a tour of your warehouse, but the only thing I knew about it is because I was part of another organization, my business partner and I, and I actually can see your warehouse from my, front dog, and what I'm going to say next, I'm going to take off my community path, and I'll simply put on a business path, and try to make sure I articulate it in a way that you can have, if your community engagement is what I would call passive and not active, these are what I would also call words on a paper that's not supposed to any type of emotion or ability at all, simply because there's not been any emotion for the life of my community. I think there would have been a lot more respect from the people sitting in the booth if it would have been a simple business proposal and all of the things that you would like to do and tell me how to do it so that's all, and not put on the community glasses, tell you how to recruit anything. So I think that's where some of the frustration is coming. So the active participation, the active participation, there's no devotion of emotion for anyone to say, hey, this is good for our community, because it's words on, because there's not going to be in action. And one of the questions that I know you cannot have an answer right now, but I would like to pose, you would like to have an answer later, is you say a lot about the North Korean community. I want to know what is your favorite memory, favorite thing actually about the North Korean community other than where it's designed, your business is designed. So all respect, and I'm happy, you know, how great this business is doing. I think that you've garnered a lot more respect in this room if you would have just said, hey, this is my business plan, versus coming with, hey, this is what we want to do for the community, when it's not real, it's not actually, when it's being impartial, that's just some strategy. Thank you for your time. My name is Gloria Campbell, and I am the highly paid executive director of the Hillwater Urban Leadership Coalition. And my comments do not center around New Zealand, but around the city. And the disappointment that I have in the fact that we found out about this at a council meeting on 330. We have worked, when I say we, I mean the community, I mean the coalition, for seven years to build the trust of the community. When we started this, we had people say to us, you can't trust the city. You can't believe what they say. We've been through it, and we said, we believe that it's different. We believe we have different people at the table. We believe we have people who understand the importance of what is happening. We are working hard. We are putting in the effort. We have a CRA, not because the city did it, but because the coalition did it. We did all the work, the outreach, we did everything, the first CRA that was ever designated with community outreach. So we really felt like we had a relationship with the city. When people are saying to us now, didn't we tell you this is how it was going to end? And so, David, I'm not mad with you, but I am mad with the way this is turned out and why we're here today. I want to give you a day-to-conversation we've had with the city about the Army. On 5-21-2022, we requested through Jim Hellio, who was then the Parks and Rec director, a tour of the Army. On 10-24-2022, we met with John Jennings, then the city manager. We shared our ideas and how we were interested in the Army. On 11-22-2022, we met with John Jennings again regarding using Arquifon for the Army. On 1-23-2023, we met with interim city manager Jennifer Poirier, and we have an agenda here where we talked about the Army. On 5-27-2023, we emailed a letter to our representative, Kim Burfield, regarding the Army. So there have been everyone except maybe Mr. Vowell and maybe Jesus, who may have not known that we had expressed an interest in the Army. Everybody else on city staff knew that. And so, for this to come to be an item that just showed up and my time is up, I'm disappointed. To be honest with you, my heart is broken over this situation and the fact that the community had to show up here tonight to fight for a community resource. And sitting here, and sitting here, and this means Mr. Menos, and then this don't mean influence. It's a smack of the systemic history of groundwater when it comes from this specific community. We're never asked, and then they play this game. Now, he just talked about so many years of preparation for something, and then it's put out for 30 days and kept a darn secret. Like it's something we all should have been aware of, when they didn't utilize all the resources available to make the information available to other people. And I can tell you, being part of the 3C Society and learning about grants and dealing with the state and the city, and this snacks of this good old boyism, that for some reason we cannot seem to put behind us in order to move forward. Your idea sounds great, but it sucks! In terms of how they close together, it's not fair to us, and I... Freeze, freeze, freeze. Go ahead, go ahead. Freeze, yeah. Clearwater has to do better. Yeah, yeah. And then, oh well, they checked every box. I find it amazing that they knew what boxes to check. Yeah! Yeah! Good evening, everyone. My name is, let me spell that B with a bravo, R, Romeo, E, like that goes, W and Williams. He is in Tango, or is an Oscar, and is in November. All right, all right. I have some questions I need to ask, and number one, I need to know, how many students out of this neighborhood have you hired out of our neighborhood? Number two, how many African-Americans are in management in your company? Number three, I need to ask this question. It's an elephant for me. Are you a part of the, your company is part of the model 2025 that was executed waiting back to 2020? Wow. That's just a question, please. That I need to have addressed. All three. Are you familiar with the model? David. Oh, well. Would you like to clarify? Mrs. Bruton. Mrs. Bruton. Really? Can you clarify, can you come and clarify real quick your final question, the 2025, just so that he can address it afterwards? Can you clarify your final question about the 2025? One, it's set up for visual, the models come in beneath the bottom, you're not realizing that it's being taken from the list directly to the top of the list. Open the list, nothing at the bottom. Okay, thank you for your comments. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. I said thank you for the clarification. It's really, really appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My name is . That's going to impact your forecast and just eliminate some of those jobs. Second, regarding jobs, are all those jobs in your plant or your facility, or are there going to be jobs in finance, admin, executive levels, management? Because I heard someone share the opinion of highly educated people in this community. Exactly. And there's an opportunity as well. And so that may impact your salary scale to have those persons apply. That may be something you want to consider if you're going to have those numbers. Again, for the city, what will be the plan should this proposal not go forward? I think the revenue will want to know how can others submit an opportunity that will allow some opportunities for RFPs from others to come forward. And those are my questions. Thank you. My name is . And I live here in the Northern Fleetwood area. Eric, can you please hold your mic closer? Yep. If you go around this street, thank you for bringing me business here. But if you go out here and drive down this street, all the way down to the Marshall Street. Everything down that street is busy. One business went down to the building. All the way down. You got fences around our neighborhood. You got a neighborhood used to call an avenue on the building. Then in Cleveland, you end up all the way to the court court. And all over the building. Then you promised money to the CRI every week to go down Cleveland Street. And it's all beautified. You promised what? Five million dollars for the Greenwood area? I don't see nothing you have done to the Greenwood area. You got fences all of our areas. We can't walk from the private to the stadium. I'll turn it on. You got to go all the way around. Yeah. My mother came to come up a ceiling room. To go to your corner. They got a fist. It's this one I saw. But they knew I took a phone. That's kind of nice. You know? Down there. A floor is the biggest enemy black people have done. That's right. We have done everything. We can't even play baseball. A baseball. Can't come to the swimming pool. We're going to have a little fun in the middle. A floor is the floor. You build it. Brian Beckman? Can you hear me again? Brian. Yes. Mr. Hindney, it sounds like you worked a long time on a business proposal. Six years, I think I heard. You can hear here from the community how blindsided they feel. And I feel like you have not made that same investment that you've obviously made in your business of meeting people in the interview. There are so many people here that work tirelessly in terms of the CRA, forming the CRA, like Ms. Gloria said. And I'm surprised with the time that you think that you haven't gotten to know folks as individuals. And that you have not been at different meetings that are open to the public, where they talk about improving the community. And so I encourage you going forward to make that kind of investment. It's obviously important here that people want to be part of the decision making and not feel like they're blindsided. And so I'd also ask the city to clarify here for folks the timing. I know some of that stuff is written on one of the sheets of paper here. But I didn't hear it in the introduction of walking through the timing of when proposals were able to be made and viewed and why. Like in the last Clearwater Earth and Leadership Coalition meeting that nothing was brought up in there about this. Again, people were wrong excited about it. In the last night, so I was worried about after this. To say, since you had already spoken and forgot to mention it, open this up to other proposals, is what she said. Right? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank all of you for all of your comments, all of your thoughts, all of your emotion. It's definitely appreciated and well. So now we will give Mr. Habib an opportunity to respond to some of the questions that were asked of him. Thank you for your question. I hope to address most of the comments that they know. So the first question, I'm not a North Greenwood resident. I am raised here in Clearwater, Florida. Clearwater, Florida is my home. I'm not, you know, because I'm not part of this community, I've been welcomed in this community. And I see that you're all, you know, certainly passionate about it too. And that you're evaluating us as your neighbor. I hope you also see us as your neighbor. And as someone who has invested a lot of time, money, and created a lot of jobs community. And I think that... Please, please, please keep your comments down. If you are a business owner, I hope it's appreciated that you would understand. Creating jobs, learning a business. So, you know, in all genuine approach here, you know, creating a business in my community. And I started this from my parents' pantry. I started a dining room table. My first headquarters was a storage unit on the US-19th nursery. The city has, you know, economic development specifically. It's helped take us from a storage unit to where we are today. So, again, I understand that there's a lot of concern today. I understand that there's a lot of upset, you know, people here too. But I would also encourage you to look towards the future. We're invested here. We've been here for six years. We're not some foreign entity. I'm not someone that didn't grow up in Clearwater building. I certainly hope that you can appreciate that. When it comes to the question around gentrification, you know, that's a completely understandable question. We're not a developer. We're not here to tear down the armory. We're not building apartment homes. Not building expensive housing that's not accessible for this community. So, I'll leave it at that. When it comes to workforce development, there's absolutely an opportunity and something that we have to do as a business in this community to increase our efforts within workforce development and make sure that our jobs and positions are absolutely heard by your community. I heard that very clearly. And you have my commitment that we will do that. And so, that was a very clear message that I heard today is that you want to know exactly what are the opportunities, what are the summer opportunities, why don't all the local churches understand what we're trying to do. I heard that message loud and clear today. So, I hope that you understand that you have my commitment that we will be doing that in this day when we move forward. When it came to the question of creating a position around workforce development, once again, I can't, you know, promise that I would create a full-time position on that. But part of our hiring team and all of our department leads, we can certainly make that to a requirement. I would like to remind everyone as well, the site has been occupied by Parks and Recs 2005. We're coming in with a proposal to benefit this community. There's no current benefit of that facility sitting there for Parks and Rec department for the next year, for the next five years, for the next 25 years. So, I encourage you to have an open mind on that. You know, I suffer as a local business here just as much as all of you because my North Greenwood is not the area that I envision it for, for what we all want to be built here, right? So, I see a vacant property over there. I see something that's not utilized properly by the community. I see something that has bleachers and trash cans and it's medically not pleasing. And there's a huge opportunity here to take something and to honor history and to create jobs. When it comes to development and my involvement, I was part of the CRA Steering Committee in 2022. I apologize if some of you don't know me. I'm growing a business. That's the honest answer. I'm heads down. I work seven days a week. So, I would love to get to know more of you. I very much love all of the passion here and I will say that I appreciate that. I think it's wonderful to have the courage to act on that and, you know, I would like to get to know more of you. So, I hope that you can see this proposal as an opportunity to get to know a lot of you as well. Once again, the site is not currently being utilized. So, by proceeding with this proposal, it would create tax revenue for the city. It would create jobs. I can't reiterate again that this has been a lot of work for the community. It's been a tremendous amount of work for the city. It's been a tremendous amount of work for all of you. But if this proposal, you know, were to not proceed, then the building is going to maintain the parks and recs. And it will not have any specific benefit where we can ultimately honor that and give it an immediate benefit to the community by putting in some use. Words on a nice piece of paper. Appreciate that feedback. Again, you know, always appreciate feedback. Not growing up here, I did address that. Model 2025, thank you for bringing that up. I've never heard of that. That was the first time. Just to reiterate, you know, St. Benedict's Holdings is the building that, the LLC, we run into the LLC. The property was positioned to have a separate LLC and that's strictly for a liability for people. We're not planning to lease the facility. And those are the protective measures that the city of Clearwater has been very, very adamant about in making sure that this is protected for the community. And that this is not something that's going to turn into a development project. It's not something that's going to get bought. So I do hope that if there's anything that I can give you today that the city absolutely cares about this community and that they put a lot of work into this specific building. And I say that with true honesty because when it comes to the purchase and sale agreement, all of these details that you're bringing up are outlined in that agreement. So there's commitment that we have to uphold as a business and that's very much our goal. So when it comes to that question of how are we going to make sure that what our plan is stated, all of that is in the purchase and sale agreement. And all of those are the specific details that we are working on to ultimately make sure that you all see. When it comes to jobs and automation and AI, we're a very manual business. Every retailer wants something different. Some retailers want six packs. Some retailers want 12 packs. We do business with TV and Macs and Marshalls. They want jars and hand stickers. There's no automation that we can do on that type of packaging position because everything that we do is very manual. There are certain machines that we've invested on to ultimately shred cardboard and to help us. But when it comes to threatening potential jobs, that's not something that we see in our future. When it comes to how many jobs are created that are office positions versus warehouse positions, it's a 50-50 split. And that's how we are now. We have about 15 positions in the office and 15 positions in the warehouse. And to answer the question, the additional 20 to 30 positions that we've been building would be that 50-50 split as well. As far as my involvement in the community, I sit on the board of Amplified Carewaters. That's something that I've been on for three years now. So locally, I am plugged in. We are locally involved again in all of the different community endeavors. We have a question around how many African-Americans are employed and how many are in leadership positions. We have one team leader civil in our leadership and there's a difference of 25. So we have one African-American leadership board within our company. Future site, again, I hope, just trying to make sure I read all of the questions. Is there anything that didn't mention? Are you going to do this again sometime, too? Well, so I'm sorry, David. This is not an open forum for more people to ask questions. That time has ended. So once you've completed that, then that's it. I will give some closing remarks. Again, I appreciate everyone here. I appreciate all of the questions that you brought. I appreciate your passion. And I certainly hope that you put a lot of work into this. And again, we've been here for six years. We're not some companies that were committed to North Greenwood. We're very much committed to local hiring. Within the CRA plan that this community has brought up, economic development is that forefront job creation is at the forefront, so this is really an opportunity for this community to support a business that's committed or that has been committed to doing that for the last few years. So if I can't have your support today, I certainly hope to earn it. And we look forward to continuing and hopefully having the opportunity to meet and to all of you. Thank you, David. Alright, so that concludes the presentation portion. Do you still have any remarks that you would like to make before we move to a vote? First, thank everybody who came today. Do you have any understanding for this? For those of you who don't know, back in 2014, I believe it was, Mills County recognized that they were spending $2.5 billion on poverty in Pinellas County and not making an impact. They didn't. They didn't. Then they studied and identified the seven pockets of poverty in Pinellas County. North Greenwood was identified as the highest concentration in the entire county. How many of you all knew that? I'm just curious. Many of you may not have known that. That set a fire in some members here in the community when we learned of that information. One of the things that we did when we realized that was the case for this community, and you can look at the community and tell how it's like a deserted island. And so it's heartbreaking. Harry, I heard you. I heard you, Harry. I heard you. I felt you, Harry. I felt all of you who talked about the things that we used to have. The fact that people, they think it's just, with David, Mr. Happy, he talks about, with Amplify, I've done this, I've done that, I'm an ATP. And that's all good, David. But here's the problem. They tell you to do this is a cookie cutter, but you've got to do it with the community. You can't do it and not include the community. And not just jobs. We've known each other now since you started on the steering committee when we first began this journey with creating the CRA. You knew us. You knew who the Blue and Water Urban Leadership Coalition was. We've been meeting every Tuesday for almost seven years now. Almost seven years. We've not seen you. You came to one virtual meeting. I'm going to give you that. You came to one virtual meeting. But when you have those job opportunities, I hope that you will reach out to me since you invited me to come to your warehouse sometime back. And that way we could make certain that we were including the community. As we began to pursue the creation of the CRA, what we didn't do is we didn't do it behind the community's back. We invited everybody in this community, all of the pastors. We met with every single pastor in this community. We put the word out to every single community organization to come and be a part of one to learn about what a CRA was, how it was going to benefit this community to resolve the issue that we were dealing with being the highest concentration of poverty in the entire county. And I want you all to know that we have worked for seven years tirelessly. This is not easy work for community. I have given up myself. You can always make more money. You can never get your time back is what I always tell people, right? But we do this because we care. We do this because when you hear the story that Harry said and he talked about the way things used to be. It used to be a hustling, bustling business district on MLK when I moved here. I've been here 50 years now, so I wasn't born here. But I did get a chance to see all of those businesses. David, you're not a bad person. You're a businessman. You're doing what business people do. But you just didn't include the community. And those who were directing you and worrying your steps, what they did is they didn't tell you that you should have included the community. So that is not your fault, David. I just want you to know that. That is not your fault. And we are disappointed and we are heartbroken that the fact that this community has worked so hard for seven years to really revitalize this community. And it is very heartbreaking. And so what I say to everybody, please, whatever you do, stay engaged. You all know I always say this, if you're not at the table, you're going to be on the menu. So you've got to show up. You've got to show up at these places. It's only when we show up like this is when they hear us. I don't know what's going to happen after today. Regardless of how we decide to vote on this, I don't know what's going to happen. But I tell everybody to stay engaged. Stay engaged and don't sit back and just allow it to happen. Yes, there are some benefits that go with this. We want development, but we want to be included in it, right? We don't want to be excluded. I don't care if you have 50 jobs. It's got to be more than just that. Because if you want it to be ongoing, we have a project we've been working on with the container project that we've been working on. And that was just one of several that we've identified. As Ms. Gloria Campbell mentioned, we had made inquiry about the armory. And we were told, we were blocked every time. No, it's not. We don't have access to it. No, you can't come and do those things. No, no, this is for somebody else. And this has been going on for a while. We've heard that. So, however. God, help me. Help me, God. I just got so much I want to say for what I'm going to do for the sake of time. Again, thank you, everybody, for coming. And please stay engaged. Please show up. And those of you who work for the city of Cliffwater, I just say to you, I pray that God will touch your hearts and help you to see that we are just as important as everybody knows. It doesn't matter that we live in this community. We want our families to live in places that are safe. We want great schools. We want great businesses. We want all of those things. We do. We do. Every year, we do this annual event. And I have to mention this. We do this annual community family fun night. Last year, 2025, we had almost 5,000 people that showed up at that event on the football field here. And the reason I'm mentioning that is because that was a very diverse event. And that's what we're doing is we're bringing people from all over who see, we're dispelling the myth that there's something bad about North Greenwood. If there's something toxic, you don't want to go there. Those are bad people. Right? So all the people who control the money at the top and can position you, David, for all of these things. But unless you include the community, you're always going to run against this issue. So that's all I want to say. I wanted to say my comments as well. I have to say, generally speaking, I was disappointed and disheartened to find out about your proposal, David, as late in the game as we did. I truly believe that had this been a more community focused effort, there might have been a little bit of a better response. And one of the things that I know that has always been taught to me is that to whom much is given, much is required. And ultimately speaking, I feel that as a fellow business owner, when you're in a situation to benefit, because let's make no mistake, as your business being headquartered in the CRA, there are some benefits that you'll receive that you wouldn't receive anywhere else because of the focus on business growth and economic development. It's not okay to just say, I'm a business owner, I can't afford to do that. No, let's figure this out and how some of these things can be done in order to truly benefit the community. It's not enough to simply say, oh, we're going to create 30 jobs. Okay, well, how are we creating those 30 jobs? And how are we ensuring that the people that live in this community can get those jobs? And then for whatever reason, they're not qualified to get those jobs, how can we make sure that we're training them up to get those jobs and keep those jobs? So I think that those are very important things that if for whatever reason, whatever we decide here today, if this does go through, that it's not okay to just say, this is what we're going to do. It's going to be, I need to roll my sleeves up, I need to be here, and I need to make sure that I'm giving this community the time, effort, attention, and money that it needs to be successful, not just grow my business here. So that's just my perspective to you in general. Now, as it pertains to the city, I really strongly feel that we need to do better about communication. I was looking back through our calendar, and I was looking at some of the dates here. So we had meetings on December 3rd and March 4th. The last RMP that was sent out was sent out on February 22nd. At no time was anything mentioned during our CRA meeting. And that is something that, again, I was very disappointed to find out because how is that possible? How is it possible that we have a beacon in our community? I went to the Head Start across the street. Like, I have memories of going to the Harborville. So, like, this is something that touches me very closely. And to know that a conversation was being had without our knowledge during our process, again, is disappointing. And I'll also say that I hope this city council is listening and making sure that we are being heard and making sure that our history is being preserved. David, you mentioned a lot about history, and again, I'm not trying to attack you. I'm just trying to inform you. There's a ton of history through the generations. And I was curious to find out how is it that you can preserve the history when you don't know the history. So, I think it's extremely important to be sure that as you continue to grow your business in this community that you make sure that you ingrain yourself in the community and you're understanding who the people are in the community, where they come from, and how things have been done so that way you can continue to enrich the community that we've been growing and thriving in for years. Okay? So, go for it. This question is for the CRA director or Mr. Bell. Can you tell the community, since they're all here today, what is the role of the North Freewood Citizens Advisory Committee? Because I want them to hear it. Because if our role is what I think that it is, and we didn't know about this, I just need you all to know, I don't want anybody to think for one minute that we knew we didn't settle down. I just want to be, and maybe Mr. Bell is going to speak about that, I'm not sure, but I'll pass the mic. First, the CAC to me is extremely valuable. It's an asset, and I'm happy that the North Freewood area actually has one. So, your role is to give you recommendations on extremely important topics in the CRA boundaries. Even if it's not particularly CRA exactly, let's say there's a road or some type of project, the staff should be giving you that information, bringing it to you to see if the chair wants to put it on the agenda so that the CAC can review those topics and those items and those projects, and then you can give that insight from the community perspective to the city council if it goes that far, certain items. Or just to give your feedback, which is extremely critical because you are hyperlocal. This is your community. You know your community. So, I agree with you. I'm not sure exactly why I didn't come to you. All we can say is that it's just a very short time that's been owned by CRA. Before that, it was the state of Florida. And I do want to give a comment as far as promises, as far as if he's going to change his mind if he were to be part of the property. The state statutes dictates that whoever takes the property from the CRA, they have to continue to operate. Even their successors in accordance with CRA plans are in place. So, good evening. I know that many of you, many of you, I don't know. Some of you are probably like, why isn't this guy at this table saying anything? So, I'm going to say something now. And hopefully it will be helpful because it's really to answer your question, but also to reiterate something that Jesus has said. I've been out now assistant city manager for the city of Clearwater. North Greenwood CAC is a volunteer group that works with the city of Clearwater's community redevelopment agency, North Greenwood specific. By advising on plans, budgets, and programs in the neighborhood is gathered to ensure local voices. So, that is from our website. So, the purpose of the committee. So, we take full responsibility. I take responsibility. We come to you earlier. Yeah, I did earlier. So, we take responsibility. I just want to put that out there. I'm admitting that we're in here. But I will say the lesson. Once we were headed down this path, I needed the CRA staff to get with the conversation. So, while we missed it on the front end, we said, let's go back and make sure that they're in the loop as the process moves forward. So, the fact that we have a special meeting. The advisory that the committee meets quarterly. So, their next meeting would not have been until June. This is a special meeting because it is outside of their known schedule. And it's for a purpose that I think we all would agree is very important. And in the event we have to have additional special meeting as well. Something that Jesus said earlier. I'm going to the statute board. But part of selling and the property in accordance with the CRA plans is also to the business on notice that if we negotiate agreement, we enter into a development and purchase and sell agreement for the purposes of the use that is in accordance with the CRA plan, we're going to make sure we have requirements as well as performance metrics that the business needs to hit. So, whenever, if ever this comes, we'll provide the opportunity for you to see exactly what that performance, those performance metrics looks like. And if it includes, and if it includes, and I pray and I know David is also, he's heard you, that we can come back with something that you can really feel comfortable with and feel proud of in terms of what the CRA is doing to protect the interest and to encourage job development. So, I want to tell you that we hear you too. Just like many members today. We do. We're not here not having any emotions involved in this. We represent your interest and we want to do our darndest to make sure that they're represented by you. So, I appreciate the question. Hopefully that helps to answer the point of view that I have and do staff share as well. So, I just want to thank David for making the investment in the North Greenwood area. I'm also another business owner within the North Greenwood. I also do our brewing company. And I just feel that it's very important with different businesses to make investments in the North Greenwood area to show other business owners and investors the potential of North Greenwood. And it's not just from a business standpoint, but it's also from a community standpoint. I have the pleasure of meeting a lot of you in this room. I love each and everyone of you. And so, with that said, one of our core values is that you're only as strong as your community. Right? So, although you may not be able to hire a full-time position for an outreach coordinator, I do feel that it is detrimental to your business. Do your business to maybe do a dual position where somebody, part of the time, that is their focus. And the other part is doing something that you also need done in your business. You can make it make sense from a revenue standpoint. Right? I also would recommend that this person that you hire is from the North Greenwood area. Has the contacts with the North Greenwood and can help your business to better give back to the community. Right? Because that's what I heard time and time again tonight. And I appreciate all of your passions and everything you guys shared. So, I think this is a huge learning opportunity, not just for the city, but also for David in New York and also for the CRA. Right? And then also for the community. So, I just hope that, you know, I just hope that, you know, we can figure out how to not have this happen again where the community is blindsided. Right? Right. And again, I just thank you very well for your time. And thank you, David, for your presentation. And David for your comment. Thank you. All right. So, for the interest of time and trying to reach inclusion to our meeting, I think it's important for us to make a decision on what we believe should happen at the April 20th meeting. So, ultimately, I mean, I would like to just hear any general discussion from the committee, but also more importantly, a motion as to if we would like to see this move forward or if we would like to not see this move forward. So, to my understanding, nothing is under contract. What is scheduled to take place, well, intended to be scheduled to take place on the 20th is the discussion to essentially recognize the proposal and then to enter into negotiations for that proposal to ultimately lead to the sale. So, that's, that's, that's what is on the table right now for city council board. So, so the question is, can this be tabled? So, I will leave that to city staff to make sure that we are aware of what, if we did decide to either table it or not want to see it go through, what would those, what would those next steps potentially look like? No, sir. I'm sorry. If your action you take tonight, if your action is motion to ask the council to defer or table item, you can do that. The council can act differently, of course. So, we will take forward whatever the result is of this evening. They'll have plenty of time to have it before Monday's meeting. So, whatever your action is here tonight, that's what we'll get to the other side of the court. Alright, this is, here's, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of the regular meeting. Thank you. Work session. It is part of the work session with the afternoon meeting, new to our process. So, sometimes I say stuff out of order. Our normal council meetings on Thursday at 6pm. However, the CRA meeting is during the afternoon and starts at work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I got you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, tabling is on the table. I also heard someone in the comments recommend that possibly opening it up again for proposals, if that is a possibility. Again, the decision is up to us as to what motion we would like to put forward. So, if there are any other thoughts or questions, we can definitely discuss that now. And then, you know, if there are any thoughts on what is the best course of action from this body, we'll move on with that motion. I feel like it should be opened up again. I feel like it should be opened up again because nobody knew anything about it to even put proposals forward. So, I think other people should have the opportunity to do that before they try to move forward in anything, not anything against you. You know, you could potentially bring, you know, progress here, but other people should have the chance to put forth their proposals as well. Thank you for that. Any other discussion from the rest of the committee? Is that something that we would all agree with? Yes? So, can you make a formal motion, please? Thank you. We have a motion to allow the proposals to be opened back up again for other people to be able to have the chance to put one in. Thank you. We have a motion active by Chairperson Davis. Do I have a second? I second that. Okay. It's been properly motioned and seconded by Chairperson Turman. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. All those opposed? Okay. So, one more time. For all those in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Seeing none. Motion carries. So, you have it. The motion is to re-advertise and accept other potential. Well, that concludes our meeting, ladies and gentlemen. So, we are moving to adjournment at 9-1-1. Thank you very much.