Good evening, and welcome to the December 4th, 2025 City Commission meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order, and we will start with our invocation and pledge of allegiance by our city attorney, Jen. Thank you. Let us begin this meeting by taking a brief moment of silence and reflection. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the right of the United States of America, and to the right of the country, for which it stands, one nation, under God, in the difficult, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. I guess that was called the dual Pledge of Allegiance, but we got this. There's no harm in that. No harm in that. We're going to start out tonight's meeting with presentations. The first one is Intergenerational Week Proclamation 2025, in recognition of the Committee on Aging's Creative Expressions contest winners, and I will turn that over to Nicole Allen and Cindy Cole. Do we have a proclamation, though? Yes, we do. Yes, so, okay. It's a proclamation, so it turns over to you. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Delighted to do this, and I'm not sure if the mayor selected me to do it because I'm the oldest person on the dais or not, but I think there was something to do with it. I selected you because you were involved in the survey, and it's a passion of yours, so it had nothing to do with anything else. And it comes to all. There you go. So it made sense, didn't it? Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, members of the Committee on Aging. Whereas there are patterns to everything in life, the young and the aging live and play in increasingly different worlds, and the young often find little opportunity for meaningful exchanges with older adults. And whereas understanding and communication between generations within families, neighborhoods, communities are critical to meeting individual needs and community challenges. And whereas both young and old have a common basic human need to feel love and compassion, to be intellectually stimulated, to develop self-esteem, to maintain links between past and future, to feel purposeful, to enjoy meaningful relationships, to have a sense of place in society, and to feel competent, worthwhile, and affirmed. And whereas a truly healthy society must be built upon a sense of respect for the perceptions and experiences of all its citizens, and the joys of joining together and celebrating differences, as well as similarities, and whereas the main goal of the Intergenerational Week is to encourage intergenerational bonding on an ongoing basis, to help our youth understand the needs of our elders, and to make an extra effort to engage them in meaningful activities throughout the year, fostering mutual respect, companionship, appreciation, admiration, and a sense of responsibility and belonging, I, therefore, Tom Dugard, by virtue of the authority vested in me from the Mayor of Dunedin, Florida, and on behalf of the entire City Commission, do hereby proclaim December 7th through Saturday, December 13th, as Intergenerational Week 2025 in Dunedin, and encourage all citizens to promote Intergenerational Week, understanding, acceptance, by participating in the various events hosted by the Parks and Recreation Department and Public Library. Thank you. So you guys can make some comments first, and then do the award winners, however you want. It's your show now. I think what we would do is just go right into it, and then afterwards we'll just have all of us get a big picture. Okay. Sounds good. That's what I would think. I like it. So, thank you. I'm honored to be here tonight to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Dunedin Parks and Recreation Department and the Committee on Aging. I'm Nicole Allen. I'm the Recreation Coordinator for the Hale Senior Activity Center and the City Liaison for the Dunedin Committee on Aging. I'm joined here tonight by Cindy Cole, our Chair of the Committee on Aging, and Carrie from the Area Agency on Aging of Pasco Pinellas. To celebrate Intergenerational Week, we have planned a variety of fun and engaging activities that's happening December 7th through the 13th. To kick off, there's a community garden tour and talk this Sunday afternoon, and throughout the week we'll have drum circles, pickleball, cornhole games, our holiday events, and discounts at our driving range. Details can be found on the flyers distributed throughout the city and also on the city's online event calendar. Secondly, as part of Intergenerational Week and the major highlight of this evening, I'm delighted to introduce and turn it over to Cindy, Chair of our Committee on Aging, who will share more about the Creative Expressions Contest and to recognize the winners here tonight. We're doing a good job. Okay. She's wonderful. All right. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Commissioners, and Jennifer Bramley. I'm Cindy Cole, Chair of the City of Dunedin Committee on Aging. We, the Committee on Aging, are so proud that we worked... I'm going to start that over, are so proud of the work we started in June 2025. We had over 80 entries submitted, over 80. Never had that many before. We had a hard time picking out the, choosing the winners. They were all good and fun to read, and the art this year was just amazing. Creative Contest is about the student expressing their favorite older person in art, essay, or a poem. One thing we found interesting was that many wrote about their older brother as their favorite older person. We thought that was amazing and cute. Oh, and another thing that we've never had, we had four schools this year. Dunedin Highland Middle, Our Lady of Lourdes, Academy Da Vinci, and One Home School. We're really proud of all that. Okay. I'm going to recognize key supporters, the Committee on Aging members, schools, principals, teachers, students, parents, and families. And now I'm going to recognition of all donors that helped make this be a successful and wonderful event for our students. We had $10 Amazon gift cards donated by John Oliff, AARP Oates, Senior Planet, and also a member of the Committee on Aging. We have framed certificates donated by Cindy Cole, and those are for the honorable mentions. We have a Teacher's Award for the most students that entered the contest. That's a $100 gift card donated by Touching Hearts Home Care. Student prizes prize. Third place, Earbuds donated by First Light Home Care. Second place, Kindle Fire, donated by Mary Ann Fisher, Arden Courts, and she is a member of the Committee on Aging. First place prize, donated by Sherry Sanburgen. Okay. And is she here, Sherry? Okay. So anyway, I'm going to go on. And then we acknowledge our generous partner friend to the Committee on Aging, Carrie Marcellic, Area Aging of Pasco and Pinellas. First place, $100 Visa card. Second place, $75 Visa card. Third place, $25 Visa card, gift card. Those are their donors. Now, I would like to introduce Carrie, and at this time, I'm going to let you speak about your area of... Thank you. Thank you so much. It's always great to be here. I love coming to Dunedin, both personally, professionally, and certainly with my family. This program is truly a testament to all that Dunedin does. I mean, intergenerational in such a lovely way, and the creative component of this is wonderful. That it's based out of the Hale Center is awesome. So I really, really applaud you all, as well as all the students and the families and the teachers and the schools that participated this year. It's really terrific. And you all really set the bar high for other communities that want to also do a program like this. But it's a pleasure being with you tonight. Okay, so we're going to introduce our first place winner, Sloane Still, Dunedin High School... I mean, Dunedin Highland Middle School, and her grandfather, Mr. Still. Hi, this is my grandfather, John Still. He is 92 years old, and I decided to pick him for my favorite older person. When I was making the painting, he recently went into the hospital, and I really felt like it was a great time to make a painting of him. I used acrylic paints on a portrait, and... Grampy, do you want to say anything? Who's that young guy up there? You know, I'm so excited I lost my voice. It's an honor, privilege to be here. That's why I lost my voice. But I know that life is an exciting business, but most exciting when it's lived for others. And this little lady here, great lady, is one of those persons that lives for others. She's very talented. I'm proud of her. Not only am I talented of her, but her parents. And there's a whole row of people up here that I'm just an independent living. I have more people here than I had in my home before I left. But this is my family that came to visit me. I didn't know this was going to happen today. We have my brothers and sisters. Not my brothers and sisters, but I have Christopher Still and his wife Kelly Still. We have a granddaughter, Kelsey, Esther. And we have a visitor here, Ralph. I think I got all your names right. Kelly, did I get you right? Yeah. And you're not my brothers and sisters. You're my sons and daughters. And I really like that young guy up there. It makes me look good. But I'm so proud of you. You're such a talented. All these people are talented. So I just encourage you to remember that life is an exciting business, but most exciting when lived for others. And you stay longer, longer, live longer if you live for others. Like this beautiful young lady does here. So I think we ought to give her a big hand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are we getting a picture? If I have it. Sue, are we getting pictures? Okay. I mean, as one at a time or come up later? All together? All together? Okay. Got it. Just want to make sure. Okay. And now for second place from Academy Da Vinci, Jules Samuels. I was inspired to make this artwork on my Nana, who had just passed away last year. But she was really special to me and was a really important person in my life. I used my choreography. So I used a bunch of small little words all mushed together. I used words that described her. So sweet, kind, loving, all of that. And this is a really big honor to me. So thank you. Okay. In third place is Nola Costa from Dunedin Highland Middle School. Yeah. Thank you. So I made this, and it's my mom. And I feel like sometimes I don't show her how much I appreciate her every day. So I wanted to draw her because I love her so much. And she's, like, my best friend that I can just tell everything and anything to. So, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And, yeah. And her mom is here tonight, too. All right. Okay. And now we, she's not here tonight, but we do give award to a teacher who brings in the most student entries, Ms. Kayla from Our Lady of Lords. And five of her students were the honorable mention. And Mary Ann will be delivering that to Our Lady of Lords. She couldn't make it tonight. Okay. And now we're going to go into the honorable mentions, the 10 students. And if you're here, just stand up. And then we'll reward your stuff to you out in the lobby. Okay. Daphne Golden, Eli Cooper, Alana Pappas, Natalie Metler, Madison Kalen, Gabri Gardito, Shane Oh, Jenna Alisa Perez, Riley Dodds, and Aurora Newell. Each of these will receive a framed certificate and a $10 Amazon gift card. And thank you, they were all wonderful, everyone. Okay. Thank you to all the individuals, organization, donors, and the participants. We are truly grateful for your continuing support and generosity. Your contribution helps make this event meaningful and encourages creative and connection across generations in our community. I want to just last remind everybody, IG Week is going to be fun. I'm going to go to four of these events, and I'm definitely going to do the drum circle, cornhole, and the garden, and Santa's calling. So there you go. And I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to get some pictures. If everybody could come up. We want to get some pictures. So Sloan and your grandfather, and let's see, is it Nola and your mother, and all the award people? Can you come up? Yeah. Everybody who won something, even the honorable mentions, we won all of you. Okay. Okay. We have to. All right. Okay. You've got to get your baby. Yeah. It was Sloan. Yeah. Yeah. Does Jewel's mom want to come up as well? Nola's mom? No, it's Nola's mom. Nola's mom. No, you're right. It is for sure. Okay. I think we do. Yeah. Come on up. We'll be right back. Come on up. Yeah. Come on up. We'll be right back there. We'll be right back there. Yeah. Go that window. All right. There you go. Find a window. One, two, three. Someone that's okay. All right. I hate this table here. Okay. All right. There you go. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you all. Thank you, Cindy. Thanks to the whole committee. You're welcome. Nicole. You're welcome. Especially the parents and the award recipients and the teachers. And one more thing I forgot to say. Everything is displayed. All the artwork and essay at the health center all week long. Go in there and check it all out. Thank you, Cindy. Okay. Well, we might want to close the doors once everybody's out there. Just, okay. So, tree lighting and some great pictures. Awesome. So, we're going to go now to citizens' input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda? Come forward and just give your name and address for the record. And you get three minutes. Hi. Don't start it yet. Yes. Madam Mayor, commissioners and city employees and leadership, thank you. My name is Ray Alger and I live at 376 Perth Court in the city of Dunedin. I'm the president of a 55-plus condominium, Scottsdale Cluster 3, and I'm speaking for our association as well as six other associations in our community. In October, Dunedin increased the cost of reclaimed water we are using for irrigation to a point that exceeds an 800% increase in the costs we have experienced over the past eight years. More specifically, the average monthly cost of the reclaimed water we have used year-to-date, August 2025, is $64. The 12-month average for 2024 was $53 per month. The October 2025 bill for reclaimed water was a shock to us at $523, $523. I have already reached out to utility billing to confirm their billing, had the water department check our reclaimed water meter, and had a very nice meeting with your director of utilities, Mr. Clayton Watkins, and a representative from the water division. I also reached out to our state lobbyists for directions and our state representative, Mrs. Kimberly Burfield, on this matter. We were notified in September of the year to expect an increase in all utility fees, and they are specifically itemized. Shame on us not to have tried to estimate what the increase in the reclaimed water would be, but due to the previous eight years' rate, we anticipated that maybe it would go up as much as 100%. Not so. It has gone up over 800%. All condominium associations go through the yearly budget process, as we had done in August and completed in September. The bottom line is that we are looking at an estimated $6,300 extra cost for reclaimed water in fiscal year 2026, which will give us an estimated $5,500 over budget cost. As a note, we are not allowed to increase our HOA fees to our owners any more than 15% per state statute, other than for a natural disaster and the resulting insurance costs, etc. Being given a 30-day notice for an 800% increase in reclaimed water has put us all in a tenuous position. Do we not water our beautiful communities, or do we just suffer the monetary loss? We have already made adjustments to watering days, length of cycle time, and educating owners. We understand you needing to increase the cost of reclaimed water and understand the process you have undergone to arrive at your new fee structure. All we are asking is that you consider the timing of this unbelievable increase taking place all at once with only a 30-day lead time. Would it be possible for you to reconsider and implement this new charging method over a two- to three-year period? The previous low billing was consistent for at least eight years I have been in office. You should not attempt to recoup your losses in one fell swoop. Thank you for your consideration in helping us as we all live in this beautiful city. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. We don't really clap, and a lot of times that's just because we're not trying to intimidate either side. But we appreciate your comments. I know you're probably all here for this, and we understand that you'd clap every time. But if you wouldn't clap, we'd appreciate it. And name and address for the record in three minutes. James Blackburn. I live at 361 Berwick Court. Madam Mayor, Council Members, thank you for taking a few minutes to listen to our concerns. I'm here for the reclaimed water increase. Ray Alger did a wonderful job explaining what our concerns are, and I fully support his viewpoints on this. Now, I have to tell you why I'm particularly concerned about this. I'm newly retired, and I recently moved to Dunedin and became a Florida resident earlier this year. So leading up to that, I painstakingly saved throughout my adult life, so I'd be able to retire. And unfortunately, during those times, inflation was very low, and our work pay was at a very level, stagnant amount. Well, I picked a very bad time to retire, because inflation right now is going up, particularly with our utility bill and the reclaimed water. We can't absorb this. I should also tell you I'm a third generation to move from Michigan down here to Dunedin. My mother and my grandmother also retired here. When I would come down to visit, I fell in love with Dunedin and decided this is where I wanted to retire. So I wish I would have been here earlier this year when you discussed the rate increases. Unfortunately, I wasn't, and I can't go back in time. But with your help, I think what we can do is review this and possibly restructure that. So thank you for taking a few minutes, and I hope you consider this. Thank you very much. Does anyone else in the audience wish to speak? Yeah, come forward. Name and address for the record in three minutes. Hi. My name is Marcella Markley-Legar at 1307 Stonehaven Lane. I just became a board member at Scottsdale Cluster 2. And I, too, spent quite a bit of time reviewing a lot of the expenditures of and budget of the city of Dunedin. I particularly spent some time reviewing Ruff Telly's water and wastewater utility revenue sufficiency study. Found a couple things of concern there, which I actually reached out to them to see if they could explain them to me, since I figured I should go to them first for the explanation on some of the budget that I think were some errors. Nevertheless, I did want to just bring up, or at least ask, based on what I read, even in your proposed budget, will we be seeing a $2 and more increase per year as proposed in your budget on this reclaimed water? Because we're at $1.50 per 1,000 gallon now, and it looked like the budget says you were going to go up to $2 in 2026, I think, and $2.15 in 2027 or something like that. So I don't know if that's something you can answer right now, but I was just wondering. Yeah, I'll write down questions, and then our city manager will answer them at the very end, or one of our staff will answer all questions together. Okay, great. All right, thank you for your time. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate your input. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward to speak on an item that's not on the agenda? So name and address for the record in three minutes. Hi. Patrick Stout, 608 South Keystone Avenue, Clearwater, Florida. As I said, my name is Patrick Stout. I am a full-time freebie driver, so I'm here to talk about Operation Safe Freebie. I have been authorized to make some following statements. We did $30,000 in ride volume in 2025. We had an 89% increase since switching to on-demand in early 2025. We at Freebie recommend that you charge $3 per person per ride for non-residents and tourists. And we have some new marking strategies to increase the ride volume to $50,000, absorbing a large portion of the $219,000, taking a lot of the burden off of the city. This cost-sharing plan is a win-win for both parties. I work in St. Pete Beach every Wednesday, and they have done that same thing down there. And in my perspective, it has not affected anything at all down there. Our marketing plan can include tents at parades, events, and I can guarantee that I am willing to go to every business that we are not in as of yet with our cards, every Airbnb. Airbnb, I will make sure that everybody is aware of what Freebie is and how it works. I will make sure to keep those businesses, Airbnbs, and everything stocked, and I will be willing to give out my number to them, say, hey, you know, we're out of your freebie cards or the flyers or the map. Then I will be more than happy to go there, and I will literally make sure that they have them. So that way, more people know about our wonderful service. We all know that, obviously, we have the ride volume to keep Freebie, but unfortunately, as everybody knows, it does come down to the money situation. So by implementing this $3 fee for non-residents and tourists, I really think it would help take a lot of burden off of you guys. So we're asking, or I'm asking, excuse me, for at least six months extension, and then revisit that at the end of six months to give us the opportunity to make these changes and make the effect to where we can keep this wonderful service. I love Dunedin. I come here, when I'm not working on Thursday through Sunday, I'm here in Dunedin. I'm either at the Hanu, enjoying the music, or I go to Crown & Bull, or just walk the streets. Like I said, I love Dunedin, so please just reconsider. Thank you. Thank you. Patrick, just to be clear, you work for Freebie, but you're not representing Freebie here tonight, right? I'm here as a full-time Freebie employee and representing Freebie. I'm also here, we have another driver, Wanda, is here, and we have our manager, Christian. And then we have some other people out in the audience that are from, like, different businesses that are here to support us as well. So thank you. No, thank you. I just want to be clear. Thank you very much for your comments. Anyone else in the audience wish to speak on an item that is not on the agenda? Yeah, come forward, just name and address in three minutes. Welcome. My name is Lynn Paraset. I live at 1051 Summer Isle Court. I'm part of the Scottsdale community. I just think it's ironic that we just had this generational event, and I feel I'm here for the reclaimed water and the increase that it's going to bring. Fortunately for me, I'm recently retired, so I'm not in the situation where a lot of my neighbors are that are at least 20 years older than I am are on fixed incomes. And to have the HOAs go up as steeply as they have been recently between, well, the price of everything going up, and then to have this additional reclaimed water to go up again, we already have some residents that are having to rethink moving because they can't afford the raises or the increases that we've had recently. So I can't imagine how they're going to handle next year with another sizable increase to the HOAs. And I can remember my parents lived here for a number of years, and hence my coming down here. And the HOAs at that time were not like almost like a rent. So you've purchased your home, and then you're paying an additional rent, and it keeps going up every year. So I personally can handle it. My feeling is there are so many that can't, and a lot of my elderly neighbors can't. And I think that it's important that we remember that they're near the end of their lives, and we shouldn't put that kind of stress on them. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. Appreciate your comments. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak on an item that's not on the agenda? So name and address for the record, three minutes. Hi. Sorry, I'm late. Plus, I see the fairy hair over here. I wish I could get fairy hair, but it won't stick. They keep trying. Duct tape is next, right? Exactly. All right. So I'm here to speak on behalf of Freebie. As a business owner, I'm Toby Seavey from Svalbard down at the marina. And our customers use it all the time. They pick up the corner and they go back up to this end of town to support the businesses up here after they've had a cocktail at Bon Appetit or just finishing dinner to get up here. So those of us that live here and love Dunedin, we see the challenges, the day-to-day challenges, and the chaos that might affect all of us from time to time. And I understand that. I think we all do. But I think Freebie, from a visitor's standpoint, they see the pier not being finished. They see the marina not finished yet. And I understand there's challenges there. I'm not arguing that point at all. But if they see trips for tips go away, which I believe it's for sale or possibly go away, then the freebie go away. From a visitor's standpoint, that's Dunedin failing versus progressing. So I'm here, and I'm not going to take up my three minutes, I'm just here to say that I think, and I know it's an expense, I know it's not cheap, but I think that particularly because of the years after the hurricanes, the last thing we can do is take stuff away. Because people will be saying, uh, maybe Dunedin isn't where it's at. And Dunedin has been the envy of all of the west coast of Florida for years. And you guys, we've all worked to make it that way. And I just feel that if we start, if we keep taking stuff away, then what do we look like? And that's my perspective. Anyway. No, thank you. Appreciate your comments. Oh, was it? Spoiler run? Yeah, spoiler run. Yep. Okay. Um, anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak on an item that's not on the agenda? Okay. Um, so city manager, can you, first of all, there was a question about whether there's going to be more increases with reclaimed water. Um, and also, and maybe you can, I'm not sure the best way to handle it. I mean, it might be good to actually, for staff to meet since it's several condominium groups and just analyze. I know sometimes when you analyze the numbers, there's other ways to help the impact of it. Um, sure. So I'm not sure. You, you have any suggestions? Yeah, I have some ideas, Mayor. Yeah. And so, and I know, um, that, that Mr. Alter, I believe, met with, with Clay this afternoon. And, and it was a very courteous and respectful discussion. And we very much appreciate that. So thank you for that. And thank all of you for your comments. They are. They are. We're very proud of them. Thank you for that. And best quality water, too. Right. Right. Right. And so, as, as you know, because you did a lot of your research, uh, and the city commission certainly knows the reptiles rate study, uh, for water and wastewater, uh, uh, took quite a bit to put together. Uh, went through the board of finance, went through the city commission several times at a workshop and then two public readings. Um, and it was something that the city commission considered, um, along with the board of finance staff and reptiles, uh, very seriously and in depth. Um, the, the reclaimed water was discussed, uh, quite a bit. And, and it was, as you know, um, previously, as you, or you may not know, we were under market as far as the reclaimed water went, vastly under market as far as the cost of reclaimed water goes. And it was originally, um, under market on purpose so that we could grow our system, um, to, and get more accounts under our system. The, the idea being that eventually there'd be a great deal of cost sharing going on for reclaimed water and the way and sustainability matters as far as reclaimed water goes. It's better to use reclaimed water any old day than potable water on, on your lawns. And so, um, that said, it was 50 cents for 1,000 gallons for the first 15,000 gallons and then 25 cents per 1,000 gallons for 16 to 20, 125,000 and then 10 cents thereafter for 1,000 gallons to 125,000 gallons. And then our new flat rate went in at $1.50. Um, and my understanding is, um, is that, uh, Scottsdale Cluster 3, uh, you use about, uh, 200,000 to 400,000 gallons of reclaimed water per month. And so, um, that is quite a bit of reclaimed water. Um, and one of the things we talked about with the city commission, because they were very concerned about this rate increase, and so one of the things we talked about with the city commission is, is, uh, getting with subdivisions, getting with individual property owners to discuss ways to decrease your use on reclaimed water. I know that you said that you've decreased your use, but in terms of, uh, uh, using, uh, Florida friendly, uh, native materials when you plant, xeroscape and so on and so forth, when you plant to decrease your footprint, uh, decrease your use of reclaimed water. As far as, uh, phasing it in, um, I, that would be very difficult for us to do because we have a number of different accounts, a number of different subdivisions, a number of different, and if we do it for one, we must do it for all. Um, that said, uh, I would be more than happy to sit with you, uh, with staff and you to go over your bill to talk about ways that we can address this, um, this particular issue. I understand that this is a huge increase for you, um, and, and it is a great concern, I'm sure, to the city commission and administration as well in terms of, uh, of being retirees and how you, how you manage your budgets, both in the HOA and personally. So, um, let's sit, if you wouldn't mind, uh, Mr. Elder and Larry Lash, I think, was in on the, uh, on our staff, was in on the meeting as well, but let's, let's talk about it and let's see what we can do to help you. Okay? Thank you. Yeah. I would just add, I mean, obviously we're concerned and part of the discussion, of course, was, you know, people that have reclaimed water, you're kind of in the lucky group. And I mean, I was around, not to date myself, but I was around when we were trying to get people to, we were ready to give anything for people to get reclaimed and you could use all you wanted and it was endless, but of course it's not an endless and it got to the point that a lot of places, a lot of neighborhoods could not get on it. Um, I'm in one of those neighborhoods. And so you have to use potable and of course potable is like, what are the, 10 times what reclaimed is. Right. And so, um, so keeping that perspective. But that being said, I, I think it'd be good to have a talk because I know when, when residents contact my office a lot of times about, uh, some of the increases when they walk through their actual bill and sometimes there's some creative solutions that aren't as impactful. So, um, but cause we do care. I mean, we really do. Uh, we're just trying to, you know, keep, keep the businesses of reclaimed water and wastewater where they need to be. But at the same time, we certainly care about the residents and the impact. So I think that's a great way to go, Jennifer. Very good. Okay. All right. Anyway, thank you for all your input on it and we'll look at that. Okay. I'm going to move on to the consent agenda. Uh, so consent agenda is 2A, approve the minutes for the 10-9-20-25 regular meeting and 10-23-20-25 regular meeting. 2B, boards and committee appointments for a committee on environmental quality sustainability and firefighter pension trust fund board of trustees. 2C is ratification of an emergency purchase order issued to Kiketic Utilities LLC. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that for emergency. Thank you all for coming. Appreciate it. Uh, emergency repairs to a 20-inch diameter water main located within the right of way of Causeway Boulevard, west of the Tide Relief Bridge in the amount of $88,567.04. 2D, approval to issue an emergency purchase order to Augustine construction of Tarpon Springs to repair a 15-inch diameter stormwater pipe located between $236 and $246 Garden Circle North in the amount of $62,194.45. Um, is there, is there anybody that wants anything pulled from the consent agenda? 2D. Okay. So we'll pull 2D. Anything else? 2C. Okay. Okay. So, uh, then if I could have a motion for 2A and 2B. So moved. Second. Okay. Okay. And is there any public input on any of the consent items that we're approving? If so, please come forward. Seeing no one, um, I will close the public input and all in favor of 2A and 2B. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Okay. So we'll go to, I'm going to go with 2D since you asked for it first. Um, and, uh, Commissioner Walker, did you want a presentation or you have some questions or? Not so much. Microphone, please. Sorry. So, um, what I think, uh, what we need to do is just summarize, um, basically, let's start with the scope of what's entailed right now. Because I know when this was identified, uh, after the storms last year, um, uh, it, it looked to be fairly, and so I'm, I'm summarizing my understanding. Is, does it look to be fairly localized? But since then, upon further investigation, this was more prolific than, than the original assumption there. Is that correct? Correct. Well, it's more complex than, correct. It's not necessarily so much greater in scope, but yes. Um, so, Sue Bartlett, Public Works Director, um, this area did develop a depression and when we did the initial investigation, we, um, we had a pipelining contract and, um, based on what we saw, thought that we could do a temporary repair and then line the pipe. And so we proceeded down that direction. So yes, um, when, before any pipelining, um, is, occurs actually, lining the pipe itself, um, a process is used to investigate and go down the pipe with a camera, um, and at that time we didn't have our camera truck, but that's part of the contract. And then when they went to, to make sure that the pipe is clean and that they can put the liner in, we found in a, you know, that there was a, about eight feet missing of pipe completely. And then you cannot line that whole pipe because there's a big gap missing. Also, um, this is, process is just done underground. There's no discharge, which is why we, one of the reasons we use it. This pipe goes between houses, um, and it was relatively close, about a foot away from one of the driveways in the house foundation. So it's a very good solution to be able to line it. We're still going to need to line it, but, um, it doesn't disturb any right-of-way or anything. But the gap in the pipe creates this complexity where you have to go and dig it out and then put a patch in there. Our in-house resources are, you know, staff did patch and try to repair, and to make it hold several times. But again, it's beyond the capability, really, for a small, minor repair. It's major restoration, digging it up, putting the pipe in there, and then to add additional complexity, there's no, there was no easement over that pipe. It's been there for many, many years. And then we find this often now in different areas, and we're working on those areas to get easements. But again, if we went underneath, we wouldn't have a problem. But now we have to go onto those properties. So we have to ask for the easement so that we have the right to go on there, as well as we have a right of entry for during construction, because it's going to, you know, could take a little bit further. So we can restore the right-of-way from that construction. So it became more complex, because now it's not on the contract. We have to go out and find someone who would bid it, and at that time, it was right after the storm. We had a lot of difficulty getting anybody to even look at it for that short piece of pipe. But eventually, we did do that, and with purchasing assistance, we just kept trying to get it done quickly. But unfortunately, that's not what happened. I mean, it just took try after try after try until we finally were able to come up with this contractor that could do the work. And now that's where we are. Basically we have provided draft agreements to the two citizens on each household so they could look at it and compare it. We haven't given them the right entry. We do have that with us if the citizens are here, so we can provide that for the construction. But we must have that easement executed in order to go and authorize the work to our contractor. First step now is if the Commission approves it. The City Manager approved the emergency and understood, but purchasing waived the 60,000. It's a 50,000, the repairs a little over 60, but waived that part of the purchasing process. So it can be approved here versus going out to bid, which is a longer process, because we did follow a competitive process getting quotes. And so with the approval, then we would be able to proceed, issue a PO, ask for the easement to be signed, and then the right of entries would get signed for construction and go repair the pipe. Okay. Can you just describe the easement exactly and what's entailed with that? So attached to the agenda item should be on the two draft easements, along with a picture that shows that a seven-foot easement on each side of the pipe, on each property line, is what is depicted there and what we're asking for as a permanent easement. Once we complete this repair, the easement would remain in place. And then everybody is aware that that pipe is under there. We all are aware of that. And then we would maintain that pipe. And if we need to come in and do some work, which we're planning to line it, like I said, that liner, you know, approximately between 50 and 100 years should be last, that liner. But the repair has to be made first. But if we had to come in and dig up that what the easement says basically is, whatever you put on top of that easement, and this is pretty standard, that you know and you're responsible then if we have to come in to remove it. It belongs to you. And often when we have maintenance that has to happen like that, we're Dunedin. We go and we work with our citizens. And we talk at that time, what kind of extent is it? And you know, would be, you know, if we're going to disrupt it, what kind of restoration? This particular restoration for this project right now, once we get the easements, we get this temporary right, we'll restore what's there back to existing. That's what we do. But if you go and put a bunch of ornate wall, a wall on there, City of Dunedin wouldn't be able to go back and replace that wall. May I just? Yeah. Sure. Go ahead. So an easement, then, is an area that you grant to an entity, either local government or a franchise utility, for a specific purpose. The property owner still owns it. Right. There's a specific purpose for drainage, you know, water, wastewater, stormwater. And what the easement language says is that if you were to build a wall within that easement, then, and we had to go repair the pipe, and we needed to essentially dismantle that wall, then the city would not be responsible for rebuilding it within that easement. Easements in newer cities in South Florida are very common. They don't build infrastructure without an easement. And what we find here, because the city is so much older, that we'll get into like a stormwater pipe. In this case. And it's outside of an easement. It needs to be protected in order for us to construct the stormwater, you know, and that's in the general public interest. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that explanation. So you know, obviously, I think, you know, the good news was is we didn't have any large storms this year, you know, because I think it would have significantly exasperated that situation. And so I guess, you know, and I do understand what you're saying, Sue, with regards to the scope and contracting and the timing of all of this. But it took a long time. And, you know, I just, you know, and I don't really know what to say about that except for that, you know, we, and it sounds to me like y'all did, you know, you did what you could to move it along as quickly as possible. But so let's talk just about next steps now. Obviously, the residents need to approve the easements, and then basically you can do the repairs and just the repairs are pretty straightforward, right, is what I understand? That's correct. And what does that entail? I mean, like a hole and? Yeah, they'll excavate and then replace that pipe and then patch it in. Okay. All right. We'll come back up, then we'll come back after it's all restored, and then line it. Okay. And once easements are in place, then essentially we're approving the contract award tonight, so essentially the contractor can get started, you know, pretty quickly. What's the timeline for that? Trevor, do you have any idea when they would be able to start once we get the executed agreement? I spoke to Augustine Construction, and they said that he was going, the field foreman, supervisor, superintendent, he said that he was going to speak with the owners. They're on a FDOT contract right now for two miles of sidewalk. They were, when initial talks, talking to them, they were chomping at the bit to get started with, you know, to do that work. He was going to work us in for that repair knowing that it is a priority for us. So they understand the urgency and the priority on this? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, I have no further questions. Thank you. Any other questions on this? No. I'm glad you pulled it, though. It's good to get that clarified. Okay. So do I have a motion for 2D? So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Okay. So let's get it done. Okay. 2C, ratification of emergency purchase order. And this is regarding to the, let's see, within the right-of-way of Causeway Boulevard, west of the title relief bridge. So I think, Commissioner Dugard, do you want presentation, or do you have questions? I don't think I need a full presentation. I just have a couple of questions I think I'd like to get answered. Great. Okay. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to confine these questions to two groups. First, situational, and then the topic of our water mains in general. In this particular case, I'm very impressed with what I saw relative to a fix in a very difficult place. I'd like to get a little bit of a greater understanding around it, because it does appear to be a very complicated fix. So if you give me a general understanding of this fix. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission staff. My name is Alejandro Gonzalez. I was the engineer on site helping our water distribution team. And you are correct. This was a very tricky spot. It is just west of our last subaqueous crossing on the Causeway Boulevard with a 20-inch HTEP pipe, where it then goes into a ductile iron gate valve, which can close. And then it goes down to a 18-inch PVC. So right there is three different materials of all different sizes. They each require a specialty fitting between all those three to make it all happen. And the leak was found early Monday morning by our distribution staff right at the iron and HTEP fitting, which is probably the worst location it could have been. So knowing that it's all specialty fittings, we have none of it in stock. They're all places that you have to call around and see, you know, what warehouse can dust off the back warehouse and see what they have. We called a contractor locally, Roland. And they arrived Monday afternoon, knowing that was priority with the city. But unfortunately, they informed us that they didn't have the manpower readily available to do such a big job. So we, you know, we professionally declined, and they realized that as such. But thankfully, we also have another contractor, one of a few, actually, that's fully mobilized in the town, Casica Utilities. They are performing the Virginia water main replacement going on right now, right in front of the fire station and fleet. So we called them over. They showed up at 6.30 or 6 o'clock p.m. on that same Monday. And they were very ready, willing to assist. They were out there the next Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. They fully exposed it. They called around all throughout the state of Florida. They found each of the specialty fittings, each of them in a different city. So Casica Utilities had guys in trucks. They loaded out three guys in three different directions, got specialty fittings back to Dunedin on Wednesday. And I think they made the repair all day Thursday. That's when we did the precautionary water, boil water notice. And we had to shut off just for a little bit amount of time. And they were able to complete repairs before Friday and the weekend. And that's it in a nutshell. Thank you. That is amazing, particularly for this price when you're having to scavenge through the state to find the product that you need. This leads me to my second question, though. I'm thinking of the systemic issues of where our water system is, our mains, where we are right now. Lightning seems to have struck twice here on two different issues. I would ask you, where are we if we were to rank ourselves on an A, B, C, D basis on our water system as far as water mains and distribution system? And I know that's a tough one for you, but we've got to have that because we've got to know if this is going to happen to us a lot in the future. This particular, where you said we're lighting struck twice, this is a 20 inch HTTP line. And that matters because HTTP is very different than, you know, like an iron pipe or a PVC pipe. HTTP you have to put out into the field and you have to weld it in place in the field conditions. Where this water main failed in January and where it failed today were at particular, they were transition seams. So these seams do eventually give away after, you know, 20, 30 years. And that is just a issue of the older HTTP pipe. Current day HTTP pipe you can get, you know, from the factory, but it still has to be welded in place in the field. I personally, and Clay and Nan already came back me up, I would give our water main system an A. But unfortunately, it seems at this particular crossing that we had some seams failure. HTTP pipe is not the most used throughout the city. It's only used for, you know, long drills like under the causeway where you have to go a few thousand feet in one big push because of the, you know, the, has more structural integrity, this mother pipe, and can bend to go under the water and then back up. But, you know, I am, but we're also going to keep an eye on the Spain in the, in the future as well. This is, you know, we have looked at it from the, from the first time. Unfortunately, we can't, you know, it's not a pipe easy to replace. It is a big undertaking, especially when there's, you know, a lot going on in the causeway. You know, Pinellas County comes here quite regularly and gives us updates on the causeway. It, it is a, so it's just this particular stretch we know that is something to keep our eye on. Yeah, I think to add to that, I think the system in general is, is pretty good. We do have some problem areas that we know with older pipes. But that's sort of why we, you know, we review the CIP to try to find those and, and replace those. As, as Alex was saying, Casicki was in town working on our Virginia Street water main, which was a problem child. And that, you know, we're, we're, we're fixing that one as, as we speak, so. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Any other questions on this item? Just, yeah, just real quick. Sure. You sure? I had this question. What time of the, was this discovered in the morning? Is that what you said? Our water distribution team arrived Monday morning at 8 a.m. And because the fuel maintenance for the apartments right there called, called in, you know, hey, there's a big puddle over here. You know, you gotta go check it out. Yeah. So our distribution team was there Monday morning, bright and early, 7 a.m., 8 a.m. I'm not sure exactly when. I personally was out there by the afternoon. So was Nan. Uh, so it was, yeah, it, yeah, it was, it was caught first thing Monday morning. Do we have any pipes attached underneath that bridge? Or does every, is everything underground? Everything along the causeway is a sub-aqueous crossing. So it goes under, yeah, under the water. There's no, uh, there is some pipes attached to the bridge, but it's closer to the inland. I'm not sure how to explain it. Uh-huh. It's like right, the first bridge right after, we'll call it, like, Marina 1 or whatever. There's, like, a pipe under, like, on the bridge off to the side. But, uh, after that, it's all subaqueous. Are, all those utilities, are they marked out there? It's so, you know, there's construction, there's damage. Um, uh, you know, are they marked so that contractors out there know where? You know, I mean, some of this stuff's gotta be 60, 70 years old. So, in general, it's not marked where anybody can find it day to day. If anybody is supposed to do work, that's when they're supposed to call the 811 number. Okay. We do a utility relocate. Our guys go out water and wastewater and mark their utilities before they start to dig. And lastly, did that affect those residents out on that end of the day? Yes. Okay. Yeah, we had, they were, we turned down the pressure on the water. We were still delivering a little bit of water. Okay. Um, but then once we started construction, they were, we, we shut them off from water. Yes. Thank you, you guys. That's all I had. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Anyone else have any questions about this item? Okay. So, um, I will ask for a motion on 2C. So moved. Uh, second? Second. Okay. Okay. All in favor? Um, let's see. Oh. Public comment. I'm sorry. Is there any public comment on this particular item? Um, if anyone would like to come and speak on it? And seeing no one, I will close the public input. Thank you. And, uh, okay. So, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Okay. We're going to move to action items. And it is, you know, drum roll. Annual selection of vice mayor. Um, and, uh, do you want me to review the rules, Michelle? Or? Okay. Yeah. I'm happy to do it. Okay. Sounds good. Um, let's see. Is there a resolution to read? Okay. I didn't think so. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right. Okay. Um, so I just need to work through. Per the charter, the commission shall select a new vice mayor at the first meeting in December. The following nomination and selection process shall be used for the annual selection of the vice mayor. And I'm going to read through this just so we all know. The nomination process shall be explained to the commission and to the public by the mayor or parliamentarian. The chair will open the floor for nomination. Each member of the commission upon recognition by the chair shall have a right to place in nomination for the honorary office of vice mayor the name of any other commissioner before nominations are closed. Nominations do not require a second. When all nominations have been made, the chair will so announce and declare nominations closed. If only one commissioner is nominated, that person will be declared by the chair to be elected and shall serve until a successor is elected. If more than one nomination has been made, selection of vice mayor will be accomplished by written ballot. Balloting shall continue until one nominee receives a simple majority of votes, whereupon the chair shall declare that nominee, that nominee is being elected. If no nominations are made or if no nominee is elected by majority vote after three ballots have been taken, the commissioner with the longest term of continuous service, shall be deemed selected. In the event there are two or more commissioners of equal continuous service, then the selection shall be by lot. So I will jump in. Historically, this is really a rotation factor. So it's really kind of the only time I've ever seen it be anything different was, you know, I always used to say you had to do a major crime or something to be argued up here. So it's always kind of been a rotation by seniority. I do know that the longest serving commissioner who has not been the vice mayor is Commissioner Walker. So I just make that as a lead. And I think then the following year, of course, we'll have more of a challenge because we'll have two people elected at the same time. But at this point, I will open it up for nomination. Based on his experience and his leadership, I would like to nominate Commissioner Robert Walker, the vice mayor. Okay. So Commissioner Walker, any other nominations? Okay. Well, I think that based on that, we don't even have to vote on it. Right, Michelle? Okay. Good. And let me open it up for public comment. Does anybody in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Man, I heard a sigh of relief over here that nobody wanted to come forward. Okay. I'll close public input. I'll ask for, actually, it is here, so I'll ask for a motion to approve vice mayor as Commissioner Walker. So moved. Second. Okay. And any commission comments? There's a place for commission comments. I'll start with vice mayor. Which, sorry, I'm going to have to remove that, but we'll wait. That will be ceremonial. Looking at the agenda and reviewing for tonight, I couldn't help but it somehow reminded me of Mary Poppins and when Mr. Banks has to go and has his carnation, the loom pulled off and punched his hat and I don't know. We should all watch more Mary Poppins. Anything? Okay. No. No. I think Rob is a wonderful choice. He's the appropriate choice. And he'll do a fabulous job. Thank you. Commissioner Sandbergen? No. Like I said, his experience and his leadership, there's no question in my mind he's the right person for this. Commissioner Degard? Comments? Just look at his outfit. I mean, he's the most conservative guy up here. Yeah. You must have dressed for this tonight. I'm trying to impress the system. He was campaigning all over the man. I do want to say one thing, though, before we move on with this issue. I want to thank the current Vice Mayor for all of his service. He has been an inspiration and a guide throughout my first year, and I've been very grateful to work with him. Thank you. And I'm going to give you the floor after I say a couple comments. And thank you for that, because I agree. You know, Vice Mayor, truthfully, when you're termed out, I don't even know what we're going to do. You cover so many bases for us. It's just unbelievable. People in the public just have no idea how many bases you cover. And now you're working full-time, and you still cover so many bases for us. So very appreciative of your service as Vice Mayor. I mean, you're awesome, and you know that. I do know that. Yeah. But it's still... Am I supposed to do this? You told me to do this, by the way. But you know now the magnet went down. Anybody have any singles? I'm just kidding. That just seemed cruel. He asked me to do it, so I'm just saying right here. I didn't do it again. Anyway, and of course, Commissioner Walker. I mean, I think you'll pick up the baton, and you'll be amazing. I mean, you know, just like today when you pulled the item off the agenda. I knew why you did, because the residents have been through a lot with that. And it was important to put a focus on that. And you always put a good focus on citizenry, and you'll make a great Vice Mayor. So I turn the mic to you. Well, I just want to say thank you, Mayor, and thank you to my esteemed colleagues. You know, first of all, Jeff, I just have so much admiration for you in terms of, you know, your commitment and your passion to the city. You have set the bar. You have set the standard. And if, you know, if I'm able to live up to a fraction of that, I will feel good. You know, you've just been amazing. The, you know, when I, you know, I think, and I'm not, you know, I'm not singular in this. I think we all, you know, had a, made a commitment to the city. And, you know, the thing is, is we did it because, you know, we just love this town. And, and with each and everything we do, you know, that, that just grows. It grows by leaps and bounds. You know, I'm just, I'm just proud to be part of this group. I mean, we have an exceptional commission. And it's just, I have so much admiration and respect for my colleagues. You know, it's because it's, and we've, we've, we've had a pretty tough year together. You know, but it's been, it's, it's, it's been always collaborative. It's always been constructive. And, you know, and we together, even if we didn't agree, had to make some very tough decisions. And, you know, we're not done yet. We've got still a lot more work to do. But it is my honor and my privilege to be the vice mayor for the next year. So thank you. All right. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Just kidding. I was pausing. Well. Motion passes unanimously. You had it out. You had it out. Okay. Now we're going to go through our, we're going to take a break. And then there's a swapping of these two seats. And as far as I know, no one else has to swap seats because they stay. So this, these two do. So we'll, we'll make that happen. Okay. Let's take a break. Colorful down on this end. And we're going to go to item 3b, annual review of the travel policy and travel reimbursement policies for both the elected and charter officials. Um, and I'm going to turn to Michelle for staff presentation. Thank you, mayor. So in the past, Les Tyler did this, but he asked me to take over this year. So staff recommends discussing regarding the travel policy and the travel reimbursement policies for the elected and charter officials. Resolution 2401 identifies the travel policy and travel reimbursement policies for both elected and charter officials. This item is the annual review. At the January 11th, 2024 city commission work session, the commission adopted resolution 2401 amending the travel policy. Staff has reviewed the travel and reimbursement policies and have no recommended changes for this year. At the back of the staffing section 12 of the resolution mentions to, for staff to provide quarterly updates to the commission on travel and training expenses. Exhibit B in the staffing has the most recent quarterly recap memo, including information from finance, community services, and other departments. Page two of that memo shows the city commission travel and training budget actual costs tracked throughout the year, and that is shared with the commission. And that is no recommended changes, just based on what you all think. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Michelle or Jennifer, either Jennifer? Start with the vice mayor. No questions. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen. I guess that was just an explanation how Commissioner Dugart is out of money. I mean, because I went to things you were supposed to be at. I'm staying out of that one. Okay. Any other questions? Have you done enough damage? That's all, Mayor. Thank you. He put me in my place. Commissioner Gao? No comments. Okay. And questions, actually. More questions. Commissioner Dugard? I should at least get a rebuttal. No comments. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Great. Okay. So I would like to open this for public input. Would anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Seeing no one coming forward, I will close public input. I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Who did second? Okay. It says, a resolution be brought back for approval at a meeting in January if changes are requested. Okay. So how does that work? Microphone, please. Okay. So, yeah. Basically, we're leaving it alone. Okay. So we're approving our existing one. Okay. Well, we've got a motion and we've got a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passed unanimously. So anybody want to make comments or we'll move on? Yep. Okay. Let's go to review of City Commission's rules of procedure. And I'll do staff presentation to City Manager, I think. City Manager, Jennifer, or City Attorney, Jennifer? Yeah. Actually, if we could, I'm going to hand it over to Jennifer. And she has a couple of items that she'd like to change. And then I just want to discuss workshops with you. Okay. Sounds good. So, you have a mayor and mayor. Oh, sorry. You have mayor and vice mayor. We want to make sure that it's clear that in the mayor's absence, the vice mayor can sign. And then also to clarify that it's the mayor and vice mayor are also the chair and vice chair of the CRA and can serve in the absence, you know, the vice chair can serve in the absence of the chair. So, these are little changes that would be made to the rules and then brought back to you in January. There was also a clarification we might want to make with regard to the nomination process that just happened this evening, which is if we're going to go ahead and have a motion, let's just go ahead and put it in the nomination process so there's no question as to that. And then last is a question for you all, which is regarding the workshop. So, previously you had work sessions. This year you switched to workshops. Normally, you would approve your agenda at the prior meeting, like for the Thursday meeting that's upcoming, you'll have that. And then if there was anything that needed to be added, it would come in as a start item. And during your meetings, you can make motions and to approve the start item and have it added to the agenda. If we leave, if we have the workshop agendas come before you and you approve them, if there was something you wanted to add as a start item, you can't take action at a workshop. So, you couldn't make a motion to approve that start item. So, my question is, do you want to approve the workshop agendas or do you want to just have it where the workshop agendas are presented as an informational item? So, you know what's upcoming, but then you could have flexibility if something needed to be added. And I'm asking this because the rules right now say you approve the agendas. For the information? Well, I like them being flexible, but I do, they're, you know, and there's a community, another community where I think things get on the agenda too easily. And it, like, it surprises commissioners and it puts them in a bad spot because they haven't really even agreed to talk about it, let alone. So, I just, that's my only concern. I like the flexibility, but I don't want, yeah, I don't want to, you know, ask for a problem that we don't need. Okay. I mean, there's nobody up here like that now, but. Right. And, and actually, and it's happened once in my eight years here during an agenda briefing where I was questioned by a commissioner who's not on the dais right now, why was that placed on the workshop agenda? I didn't agree with it. And so, and so when staff places things on the workshop agenda, they're usually, you know, of utility to the city commission information that you need to know. But, but at, at, at this point, it was a controversial item and this commissioner took umbrage to the fact that it was on, on the workshop. And so, um, it, it, it actually, it, it's good for staff that you all at least informally approve that workshop and say, yes, I agree that these are the items that we'll discuss. But I do get exactly what Jennifer is saying, which I didn't have an opportunity to discuss with you during agenda briefing, is that if we add something, if you've already approved it, right, the workshop agenda, and we add something, you can't vote on the supplement because you can't vote in a workshop. So. Well, can't we just have consensus approval to do another item? I mean. Maybe we could say. It seems like the rules are. Consensus direction to approve the item. Right. Can't we do that? Well. I. So if you're. You know too much. Yeah. I, I think that if you're approving the items that are on, so I guess my question to you is more of this. If, if you approve the agenda, then you've set the agenda. Right. And so I don't know how you would add to the agenda without making the motion. Unless we want, or you want me to adopt something extra in the rules that says that for workshop agendas, if, you know, everybody's open to hearing it, we can continue with that. The other thing with a workshop is it's not normally as critical as like a regular agenda where something you need, you know, like there's a time constraint and you've got to hear this. So adding to a workshop agenda may not come up, or it may be fine to push it to the next meeting. You know, those generally aren't as time sensitive as like your action items on an agenda. So approving them may not be a problem. Unless we can figure out a way to formally agree to add an item, I'd prefer to leave it with approving. The agenda. I just, to me, it's a safeguard. If I could pose. Go ahead. I think that we should be able to add an item to the agenda if there is no exception by a member of the commission. I mean, that just strikes me. No objection? No objection. That's a good, that's great. A way of saying consensus, I like it. Very good, actually. Can't you work with that? Mm-hmm. Attorney? I'll work with something and come back to you. Attorney extraordinaire? Make me look good. I actually like that. Yeah, that way one person says, hey, no, I want that on a, you know, I want to, that has to be approved on an agenda. Cool. I just maybe want to thank the city attorney for her patience as I tried to grasp what she was trying to tell me. But all is well that ends well. Thank you. I'll believe you, too. Okay, so, oh, you know, the other thing that I saw that I just saw, because it actually has something to do with what we used to do, and so our commission meetings say, well, I'm sorry, I'm jumping ahead of everybody else. Does anybody else have any, I'll start with Commissioner Gow. Do you have anything else that you think we should add or change? City manager, did that take care of your issues? Yes. Well, you're good. Okay, so Commissioner Gow, do you have anything? Yeah, just to be a pain. Okay. Special meetings, which is page four, number three. Just for clarification, Jennifer, you'll probably need to chime in, because I'm just curious. It says, may be scheduled by the mayor as an elected official, not as chair. The city manager or any two members of the commission may call. This is for calling a special session, a special meeting. And my question is, is if the mayor is not chair, she's just, they are just a commissioner? Why does it acknowledge they're not chair? So it puts them in this special category of being able to call a meeting, but it acknowledges they're not chair. So is that, so I don't understand the phrasing there. Or is it implying that they would not be a chair for the special meeting they're calling? That's a good question. It is. I don't get it either. Yes. That's a great question. And I'm not sure I have a fabulous answer for you. And I've only been here eight years. I don't know why. But we're not even in a meeting when you call a special meeting, right? Right. I'm not, I'm honestly not sure why that language is in there. I think it's just historically been in there. Yeah. I mean, it just feels like you don't need the parentheses marks, right? Right. I remember speaking to the former mayor about that in particular. And I'd actually like to reach out to her. Okay. To try to, you know, ascertain the origin of that. Yeah, because I don't, I don't really get it. It was a particular instance that, that had, had spurred that particular paragraph. That language? Yeah. Which will probably never happen again, but, you know. Well, at a minimum, I think we're finding that out. We can clarify it. What it is. Yeah. You know, so that this question doesn't come up again. Well, let's just say there's not a good reason historically for it. Do we want to just take out what's in the parentheses for when it comes back to us? Well, I will, I will reach out to her and, and we will do that and then I'll elaborate. Okay. When it comes back to you. Okay. Sounds good. That's all I had. Yeah. Well, that was enough. That was good. Commissioner DeGuard, any items of. I have no items. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. And Vice Mayor? No additional items. I do just, back to the workshops and that discussion. You know, I, we're still, Angelica puts, still puts out the workshop items periodically. So we've got an idea and I'm, I'll be honest, I, I use those probably more just to make sure I'm forward looking. Um, so to me, uh, you know, I think it's kind of a, I, you know, I, I thought we were approving the agendas kind of by just consensus and discussion. But, uh, I do think it's important that we have the flexibility to, to, to add items as they come up. So, anyway, that's. So are you okay with the Commissioner DeGuard's language? Yes, I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, those are the only things I've got on this. Um, Commissioner Sandbergen? You know, this is something that's bothered me a couple of times. We've had, uh, someone come to, to speak at the podium and they've been very critical of a specific business in town. And I'm not sure. I was, I was kind of hoping maybe you were going to shut it down one day. And I, I, I, I don't think, I don't think I need to explain because I, you guys know what I'm talking about. I just think that's very awkward and it talks about, you know, slander and it's, he's actually went so far as to call out a specific business here in town. And, uh, I'm not sure the answer, but that's all I have, Mayor. No, no, um, actually we've had that discussion and clarified that, yes, I should have shut it down. There are no personal attacks of any type. I mean, I'm very, you know, we're used to getting it directed or somebody names one of us. You can't do that. You got to speak to the chair. And honestly, it didn't feel right to me. And we've talked about it. I should have shut it down. I will absolutely shut it down when it happens again. So good. I appreciate that. It was, it was, it was very personal. So good. Thank you. Absolutely. That'll happen. I appreciate that. Um, okay. Um, just Mary, if I mean, that's on page seven of 10 of the rules of procedure. Yeah, it does spell it out. And so that was, uh, yeah, just, uh, yeah, clarifying. Um, so my only comment was, I think on the workshops, so commission meetings shall typically be scheduled the first and third Thursdays of the month. I believe workshops should say, workshops shall be scheduled typically on the first Tuesday prior to the regular schedule commission meeting. Because I think in practice, I mean, we can have it anytime. Yeah. The point is we wanted it once a month and typically we'll have it then, but maybe that, that, that's not as conducive. So I just, I don't, didn't want to lock us in. How's everybody feel about that? What page are you on? So I am on page three of 10, number two, workshops. So we would say, oh, wait till you get there. Yep. Workshops shall typically be scheduled on the first Tuesday prior to the regular schedule commission meeting. Does that make calendaring difficult? No. I mean, I don't. No. Go ahead. We actually use, uh, typically, uh, to acknowledge commission meetings. So it would fall in line. Yep. Right. That's what I thought. Yeah. Right. Yeah, and when we get to the schedule, I'm going to have the exact example where March 31st is a Tuesday and April 2nd is a Thursday and I'm hoping we can shift the meeting to that. Existency makes sense. Yeah, and, and we used to do that. I mean, like we, the end of the month, if it kind of fell that funky way, we would do it, which, but, um, but then we called it a different thing. So, but now it kind of violates the exact wording here. So if we change the wording, we're good. So, I mean, everybody good with that? Yep. That was it? So, given your example, are you implying that the Tuesday meeting would take place on the 31st? That is going to be my proposal later. Right. I didn't want to be in violation of our rules, yes. And that used to be very typical when we called it a work session for us to, when the Tuesday fell at the end of the month and Thursday was, you know, in the new month, we would follow the track of keeping with what the public, I think, always thinks of as our meetings, which is first and third Thursdays. Right. Versus breaking it up because they don't fall together by the month or something, so. Is there any strong feeling toward the word workshop as opposed to work sessions? I'm just wondering, because workshop sounds very seasonal, but, um, I just wondered if there was an issue with that word in and of itself. I mean, I don't honestly know why we call it a workshop instead of work session. To me, it doesn't matter. I guess work sessions typically are, like, specific to the agenda. That's a lot of communities do it that way, right? So, they almost go over the, almost a pre-agenda sometimes. We used to have, uh, work sessions and then workshops on the Tuesday. Yeah. Right. And then when we changed the rules last year, last year, year before, no, year before. Oh, last year. Last year. It became, oh, right, right, sorry. Yeah, it became just a workshop because the work session had action items that were voted on. Right. So, yeah. Oh, I get it. I get it. Thanks. I mean, because I think true work sessions used to be you'd take a meeting and you do all the preliminary work on an agenda, so then you come back to do the meeting two days later and you can just say, vote on it almost, which seems like a lot of extra work to me, but. Yeah. But that is how some places do it. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. So, if there's nothing else, uh, let's see. No other questions. So, is there any public input? Anybody in the audience wish to speak on this item? Since I'm sure it's very exciting and everyone wants to rush forward, especially Claudia Walker. Um, okay, seeing no one, I'll close the public input. I'll ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. And final comments, Vice Mayor? No comment. No. Oh. I wasn't inclined to say anything, because I was waiting for Jeff to talk, but, uh, yeah. Um, this is such a fascinating agenda item. I have no other additional comments. Okay. Mr. Sandberg? Nothing else, Mayor. Commissioner Stout? No questions. No comments, Mayor. Commissioner Dugard? I do wish to discuss the installation of the Vice Mayor when it was effective, because I understand why there was a little confusion there, but no other comments than that. Changing of the guard. Um, uh, and I don't have any comments either. So, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Now, we go to the fun one. Commission lays on appointments. You don't, uh, Michelle, you don't have, like, a printed copy of it, do you? Yeah, um, that's okay. You probably need that for yourself to keep track of it. Let me, let me just, I'll get to the, yeah. Would you like it to write? Uh, I kind of would, just to, it makes it easier. Yeah, that'd be great. I'd just easier to follow. Yeah. So, typically, we've done, where we actually have done, like, a preliminary sheet, um, about preferences. And I think just with all the changing of the guard with the city clerk, um, we, we just forgot about that. So, but I think we can walk through this. So, if I look at, get to the item here. Okay. So, let's, shall we start with, um, the outside agencies first? So, right now we've got, uh, the mayor, Ford Pinellas. Uh, Commissioner Gow is, uh, the school board liaison. Um, the PSTA is Commissioner Walker. Suncoast League is Commissioner Degard. Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is the mayor. Um, so, um, the one that I, I, and again, I, I guess I need to hear from everybody about what your thoughts are about who wants to keep what they have or not, and whether they want to kind of throw it into the pot. Um, I, last year, if you recall, and I was going to put this out early, but it just didn't happen, but, um, I, uh, wanted to remain on Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council because I was due, due to be the chair, which I am currently the chair of Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. Um, and I told them at the time that at the end of this term as chair, um, I would release it so someone else on the council, if, if, if you wish, would, wants to pick it up. And I will say that the, to me, some of the great benefits of doing, um, the outside the city ones is you do meet a lot of the outside elected officials, other communities, um, county commissioners, and, and, you know, and that's, that's helpful. So, um, so I, I, I put that out there, um, if somebody is interested in, in Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, and then, um, Jeff, let me ask you, are you interested in continuing to be the school board liaison? Um, I am, yeah, but unless somebody, because I understand my schedule, so if there's somebody else that really wants to bite at that, I will relinquish, but, but if possible, I'd like to keep it. Okay. And, um, let me, let's kind of go through, and how about you with PTA, or PSTA? Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll stay with PSTA. I, because we were just, uh, just elected to another three-year term, and, um, the, uh, there's still some critical things that we need to get done for Dunedin, and so I think continuity is important right now, so. Okay. Um, so, and I know Suncoast League, Commissioner DeGuard, you're on that. Um, do you want to stay doing that? Are you interested in Tampa Bay Regional? I'm just beginning to get to where I understand it, so I hate to jump off of it. Okay, so, um, does anybody want to take Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council? Let me ask a question of the Mayor. Uh, are you challenged with your current schedule? I, because you're clearly an asset to that organization. Um. I'm just thinking of what your time commitments are, and how difficult that is. Yeah, I mean, um, I'm, I'm absolutely more than happy to give it up for somebody who would like to do it. I mean, I've had this discussion with the Executive Director for Tampa Bay Regional Planning that, um, you know, that, that was kind of the deal, and I wanted to give the opportunity to anybody else that wants to do, be on a kind of more countywide board. That being said, I, you know, I would be the past chair on the board, and, I mean, I'm sure they'd be happy with that, but Bren is happy with getting a new member as well. And she knows I'll, I'll continue to be a supporter. I'm going to be at the Sustainability Conference. Um, I'll, I'll, you know, she just made me promise I'd have lunch with her some, you know, once in a while, so, yeah. So, um, yeah, so, I mean, I, I, I think it'd be good for one of you two to take it, because I do think you do, you just, you just meet a lot of other elected officials, and you learn from that, and it's really helpful. Well, obviously, I mean, if, if you don't, I'm the one, I have, you know, I have nothing that I'm assigned to, so, yeah. Logically, it would be, fall into my lap, but it's up, it's up to you what, what your plans are. I realize, you know, your name's on here more than once, so I, I know you're busy, but whatever you want. And I just want to make sure you've got the right thing, too, because I think you had said you might want that one versus something else. I had. So, I just want, I think it's kind of what, because I, I am, I think it'd be good for one of you two to be at Tampa Bay Regional Planning. I really do. I'll trade you for the Blue Jays. No, I'm sorry. He's never given that up. I'd have to give you my upcoming meetings with him. I don't know, what do you think, Tom? Hi, the Suncoast League of Cities, and I, I got what you just said, you know, you're just really getting comfortable, whatever, anxious to what you want to do. I'd defer to you, if you, if you want that, I would defer to you. I was involved with Tampa Bay Regional Planning my first two years, and it was, it was wonderful. You really had a lot of exposure to other elected officials, but also what's going on in the region, not just at home, what's everybody else concerned about. Yeah, I'd be glad to represent Dunedin, and if that's, that's the best for the city, absolutely. Steve's great. Okay, good. Then, so really, if we're all okay with those as they are, so it'll be, I'll still be Fort Pinellas, Jeff will stay school board liaison, PSTA will be Commissioner Walker, Commissioner Degard at Suncoast League, and Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council will become Commissioner Sanberry. That's awesome. Mayor, before we, yes. Was there anybody that wanted the school board liaison? I can't imagine it without you. Yeah, I would still be. You're good. You can't keep me out of it. You know, I heard, like, last night with that, that art recognition, you're very well known and very well respected. I could hear it last night. I don't think we'd feel good with anybody else doing that. And I think the learning curve, too, for you are much more, I made a comment to Jennifer the other day. I said, you know, we've got to be all about this with the schools merging and how that's going to affect us. And she said, vice mayor at that time, vice mayor was all over it. And that's great. I mean, and that's what, I don't think any of us would be all over it like you are. And I think you've got the background and you know a lot of the people. So I, I, there, I have like zero interest in changing that. I think you're too good for, with that soon. Okay. That's done. Okay. So that's done. We can, we'll vote it on it when it's all done. So now we go to the local liaison areas. And I guess, let me just, I'm just going to go one at a time to see what people are feeling. And I am going to start with vice mayor as the new vice mayor. How are you feeling about where you're at and what, you know, your thoughts are? Thank you, mayor. And I, I, I, I think that I would like to stay with the fine arts center and the history museum. It's been, it's been a lot of, a lot of work to, to get to a point. And, you know, I'd like to continue on those two. Commissioner Sandbergen. I, you know, I've been dealing with that organization for many years. I was, I was with them as recently as yesterday and I would love to stay with the liaison to the Blue Jays. And I think some consistency is good too. You know what I mean? Because you've just, that's, you've been in there for a year, even though you've got a long history. But yeah. Can I be as understudy? I know. I know. I have to say I loved it when I was a liaison, but. Okay. So, Commissioner Gow. I'm good. Okay. And, and Commissioner DeGarden. I'm good. Okay. Well, you guys are easy. I'm good too. I'm good. I mean, I feel like I'm a little bit everywhere. So, did you have something you wanted to add to? Yeah. We are preparing the resolution to establish the, the golf club committee. It's kind of the wrong direction with our, with our, with our, consolidation of the committees. But we did commit to that community that we would, we would stand up a committee. And so, perhaps at that time we could, we could, when we bring the resolution to you, you could consider a liaison to the golf club. So, let me just put this in your hat. What makes a liaison to the golf club different than, we don't have a liaison to the marina. We don't have a liaison to a lot of other city committees. The other ones are outside organizations. So, I just, I don't want to, you know, in some ways we're all ambassadors to that golf course. So, I just, I didn't want to layer us down with, or layer staff down with any unnecessary pieces. So, I'm just giving you that to think about. I don't know if anybody else has any thoughts about it. I appreciate that. I think the only reason it's in there is that traditionally there was a liaison because there's a board of directors, but there will not be a board of directors. So, that's a very good point, Mayor. Yeah. Anybody have any strong feelings about that? I mean, obviously we all care and we're going to, we'll get regular updates on that golf course. Well, we are headed toward their centennial. And so, there will be a number of things that will be coming up in the next few years. Yeah. Just keeping the importance of a potential position there in front of us. Yeah. You know, I'm actually, I'm glad you said that because it's not just that. I've been, in my head, I've been continuing to think that next year is our 30th anniversary with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. And I think we should do something to recognize that. Because that, more than anything, has saved taxes in tenfold to this community. And we have great service. So, in these two, you can never go anywhere. So, I, it was, it's a win-win. And I think we should celebrate it. You, hey, always, always. Yeah. Right. Or probably more likely the ones pulling you over somewhere. No. Okay. Okay. You were going to say something, I think. Yeah. Just regards to the golf club. You know, when we had a golf club liaison, the golf club was significantly different. And now it's, it's, it's an enterprise. I mean, I think it was, well, now, yeah. It is an enterprise. So, you know, I, I think in terms of precedence, I, I, you know, to the point, your point, we don't have one for the marina. So, right. And really, as a former staff person, my gut is you do not need a commissioner. Or, or, and probably Tony, our rec and parks guy, parks and rec guy, director. I mean, he doesn't need a commissioner sitting at the table. I, I think it almost can undermine. Yeah. Yeah. That's just my view. Right. That's a very good point. And we will take it out. That's, yeah. Okay. So, if I could, let me just kind of get back to my thing here. I think I have to open this for public input. Anybody in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Seeing none, I'll close public input. I'll ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Second. Okay. Any final comments? Vice Mayor? No additional comments, Mayor. Commissioner Sandberg? Nothing, Mayor. Commissioner Gall? Yeah, Mayor. Just, everybody seems to be settled on where they want. And we actually, the conversation was wonderful. But I also want to acknowledge when I first came on and we talked about these positions every year, they weren't settled. Everybody didn't settle into, this is what I'm going to do for the next four years. And so, there was always a change. Hey, I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that. And so, while we are very comfortable with what we're doing, there was also some value into mixing it up. So, as you're a commissioner for four years, you get to learn a whole lot of different things as opposed to, I'm just on PSTA. I'm just forward Pinellas. And it also gives somebody else the opportunity. And I just wanted to put that out there. I'm fine with the way things are here. But it seems to me we're starting to get into a place of complacency and comfort. Well, yeah, I hear you loud and clear. And I do think we go back to the old way. Michelle, we'll have to pick that back up where we give a sheet of paper, people pick what they want. I think that kind of helps the discussion when it gets here. I will say some, at least the outside ones, are driven kind of by Ford Pinellas is a four-year term. PSTA is a three-year term. You know, there's really no term for GPRPC. But some of that drives that. But still, I don't disagree. I would love Ford Pinellas, the one I don't have the time. But also, I think it's appropriate that you're there. I think that's a mayor position. That's just me personally. And I mean, I'm just going to. Because I know that you were waiting in the wings on that one for a very long time. No, I was. And I wanted it. Well, you're the treasure now. I'm the treasure now. Well, I'm the treasure, so there you go. I was going to say something else, but it skipped my. Oh, yeah. I do think there is something to be said for, especially with the local groups, to, you know, to, you know, you want some continuity, but you also do want to mix it up. And I say that because, also, I've seen, you know, the confusion of being a liaison versus being an advocate. And I mean, and I don't mean you shouldn't be an advocate, but I mean, you become a life force in fighting for that agency. And that is not what the liaison role is for. I mean, obviously, if you believe something's right, you should do it. But sometimes you can get so close to it, you forget you're actually, you know, reporting to this team to help make a decision, not fight for that team against this team. So, but I, and I think if you stick to the same areas too long, that's more likely to happen. But yeah, anyway, it's all good. And so, Mayor, forgive me, if I understand correctly, then the preference is that I reach out to all of you in advance and have you put your names in the hat. No, no, no. There, there's a form that we've used before and, and people made their first, second, third choices of everything. And we can look back, you go back two years, we did it and everybody put the first, second, third, and it gave a very good basis of discussion of where people wanted to go. So versus being up here and feeling like, oh, they really want to keep it. I don't want to offend them up here. It really did. It was helpful. I'll find that form. Yeah. So do we just agree on the 2026 or? 2026. Okay. So the form, I know the form you're talking about. Yeah. That would be for a year from now. It would be for a year from now, which I think is fine because we all just got settled in here with different assignments anyway. None of us have been sitting in the same assignments for too long. I mean, you've been with Scottish. That's probably, that could be the longest one, but somehow that fits. So anyway. Okay. So did I take the vote? I think Tom, did Tom have any comments? Yes, I did. One thing I've noticed is that many of these organizations relate to administration instead of to the liaison and make certain requests of administration. And I think that's fine. And it's just that I'd like administration to start asking those organizations, have you consulted your liaison? Because we should be endorsing and engaged in those processes when they're coming to the city. And sometimes they like to go right to the manager. I get that. There's not a problem with that. But I think one of the questions I'd like her to ask, has you referred this to the liaison? And where is their position on it? Just to make sure that that liaison role is empowered in some ways. Yeah. And I'd say they do that at their own risk by not bringing you into it. But yeah. But no, it's a great point. I don't have any other comments. So all in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Cool. Yeah. So, Michelle, let's just remember to do that process next year. That'd be great. Mayor, may I? Yes, absolutely. That's because I just noticed on the subcommittee list for the school board, it shows me. And I believe that is one where Commissioner Degard has said that's that quarterly school transportation safety committee. And we just did that a month ago, two months ago. Did that change? Okay. So your name should be there? Commissioner Degard, is that what we're saying? Yep. Okay. Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, I'm staying corrected. And the change was already made because I was speaking above and he's already there. So never mind. Disregard. Okay. I'm going to disregard. But your endorsement is so powerful. Yeah. Okay. I'm a little confused. But we're good. We're good. We're where we should be. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. So now we will go to quick glance calendar. It's fascinating stuff, isn't it, guys? All the busy work for the year. Okay. So any thoughts, changes, concerns? I will start with Commissioner Gao. My only concern is the poor people in the audience have no idea what we're looking at. Sorry. You don't want to look at it either. Trust me. This is what we're looking at. There we go. Yeah. It's just we're setting the calendar for the year. So we're looking at all the months. No comments. Usually I just sit back and you and the former mayor let you guys battle it out and what it is. I know. Sometimes I miss those fights. But whatever. They're always friendly fights. Commissioner DeGuard? No comments. It looks reasonable. Okay. Vice Mayor? No, I'm covered on this. So I'm good. Okay. And I'm going to Commissioner Sanberry. You know, I notice that August is a slow month. Is that tradition that each summer we skip a meeting? Is that okay? Yeah. We've kind of made it a tradition. Okay. Because it gives the commission one kind of really gap time to take a vacation. We're all coming to your place, Steve. Yeah. Well, that's perfect. Unfortunately, it's the same. It's also the same time as Florida League of Cities. So, you know, so that always used to get kind of in the way, too, when you were trying to get to that or trying to just get away. Okay. Good. No. I'm about five minutes. For the World Piping Championships. We're only coming to your place, though, if you've got that water problem fixed. No brown water. No brown water. Or clay gets it fixed, right? I offered up brown water, and it was two different kinds. Yeah. So I wanted to propose one change, if it would be possible. So it was actually on my calendar, for whatever reason, that April 26th would be the 9th. The meetings would be, I'm sorry, the 2nd and the 16th. And I am performing a wedding at the Fenway on the 10th, and the opening party is at 6 o'clock on the 9th. And it would just be really easy and nice if we could make March, let's see, I'm sorry, what would it be? March 31st, the workshop, and Tuesday the 2nd, the meeting. Now, I mean, and I asked Jennifer, she said she didn't really see an issue. It is the Thursday before Good Friday. But anyway, that's what I'm putting forward. Jennifer, can you reiterate those thoughts? I don't change your mind. Sure. I mean, we scheduled early enough, we wouldn't have a problem. Mayor, one question. If you are moving the meeting from the 9th to the 2nd, are you also moving the 23rd to the 16th? To the 16th. To the 16th. So that would be it. So we'd literally have it. And again, I think all the, I always think the citizens, they get stuck on the fact that the 1st and the 3rd, Thursdays are a commission meeting. I want to speak for that, because that opens up an opportunity for a spring holiday and not being with school kids all over the world. Oh, there you go. So I like that a lot. Okay. But I do like consistency, so, no, I don't mind the deviation from this, but I don't want, all of a sudden, it becomes a habit in and of itself, and, you know, is my thought. But the fact that you've already got some dates set in your calendar, making this move, especially this. Yeah, it really helps me. You know, this early on. Because the day after the wedding is the Highland Games, which got moved because of Easter. And I'm, I've got a lot of grief about the fact that I've got to get in a kilt and leave the Fenway for that. So I only say that because I wouldn't miss the Highland Games, but it helps me not have both ends to struggle with. Well, if you do the wedding in a kilt, that stays in the process. That's up to the bride and groom. I do, I do have a question, however, in light of these changes and in light of the fact that you have such a busy April, well, I think the new vice mayor needs to make sure that fits his schedule because he might be covering one of these. Well, I need to clarify something then. I think we're really only talking right now about changing, doing the first April meeting on the 31st of March and the first general commission meeting on the 2nd. Is that correct? And that we were going to move up the 23rd to the 16th, but that's not critical. Okay. I don't think, I'm good. I'm good with whatever we all decide here. Commissioner Sandbergen, any thoughts? No, I know what he's talking about, and I'm fine. I'm good. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. It really does help the schedule. So, if everybody agrees, then we would be approving this calendar with the exception of the April work session. It would actually be March 31st. And, of course, we could make the April work session any time we want, really, but March 31st. And then the two commission meetings would be the 2nd and the 16th of April. So, okay, I need to open it up for public input. Anybody in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this? Yes. Yes, one of the wives of the commission. Well, I just want to make sure. I was looking at my calendar, but I'm sure Claudia was looking at hers, too. Is this okay, Claudia? Is it work? Okay, good. All right. We want to make sure spouses stay happy. Hey, Karen's calling. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. I'm closing public input, and I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. And I don't know if somebody has a dying need to make a comment. Anybody want to make a comment? Okay. So, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Okay. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate that. Okay. We're going to go to request to review and approve Resolution 25-32, adapting the update to the Multimodal Transportation Master Plan. Jen, can you please read Resolution 25-32 by title only? Resolution 25-32, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, amending the Multimodal Transportation Master Plan for the City of Dunedin, Florida, providing for conflicts and severability and providing for an effective date. That was Resolution 25-32, read by title only. Okay. And I need a motion. So moved. Second. I think Commissioner Sandbergen got it. Okay. Okay. So, staff presentation, George and Kathy, and you guys. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, congratulations, Commission and City Manager, Kathy Gadamer, Project Manager for Community Development. So, this is the update to the 2021 Multimodal Transportation Plan. It went through the BPI and funding process last year through, and it was approved. We did come and present to you in October at a workshop, and since then, we did additional outreach and we gathered some more comments, and we made a few changes, and we'd like to present those to you today. So, today, I'm here with Hannah Schaefer and Trevor Poole from Kimley Horn, and they will be doing the presentation. So, I'm going to hand it over to them. All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Kathy, for that introduction. As Kathy mentioned, we were here a couple months ago. We had a lot of good feedback from you all, and since then, have had some more conversations and gone to other committees to get additional feedback. So, tonight, we want to briefly go through the presentation, as a lot of this material is similar to what we presented a couple months ago, but really hit on some of those things that have changed and some of the highlights from the update to the plan. So, the update really occurred to have a one-stop place for all multimodal transportation improvements. So, this is combining the 2011 pedestrian and bicycle master plan in with the 2021 multimodal transportation plan. So, this is the one place for all multimodal transportation improvements and recommendations within the city. And the main components within this update was really looking at the existing recommendations and policies within the plan and seeing what has changed in the last four or five years, what needs to be updated, also looking at existing conditions and what needs to be updated, what has changed. As we know, trends have changed in transportation. So, how can we incorporate that into the update and into the new recommendations and strategies? And, of course, we included public engagement throughout this effort to really refine those opportunities and those recommendations and actions. And the biggest addition to the multimodal transportation master plan is the streetscape design standards chapter, which gives guidance for all streets and the design of those streets within the city. So, looking at the existing network, I think we all know the Pinellas Trail is one of the biggest assets the city of Dunedin has. And it attracts not only residents and people who want to live here, it's, you know, a huge regional draw as well. I think you all are the gold standard for trail and trail-oriented development within the county. So, you get a lot of visitors and a lot of economic development from that. It is the major north-south connection for pedestrian and bicyclists. Other than that, there is pretty limited facilities for bicyclists that are dedicated just for bicyclists and that are safe. You have a pretty good roadway network with a lot of regional connectivity, a lot of major roadways that dissect the city. On those major roadways, you do have bike facilities that aren't necessarily the safest, but they are there. And within downtown, you do have a pretty good street network, a lot of sidewalks, as you can see tonight, a lot of people out walking around enjoying the area. So, a lot of good qualities within Dunedin, but certainly some challenges that we work with and some opportunities that we see, which we included in the update. And in this update, we looked at the most recent five-year crash data, as this tells us where there might be some opportunities for improvement and to improve safety within the city. And I don't think it's any surprise that there's a lot of crashes that occur along the trail. Not only does that show up in the crash data, but that shows up in our observations as well. You see a lot of pedestrians and bicyclists mixing on that corridor, along with vehicles at intersections. So, there's a lot of opportunities for conflicts. Other areas where we see a lot of crashes are those major roadways and major intersections as well for a number of reasons. And we also heard a lot of this feedback, too, as we were doing community outreach. We had an online survey and an online interactive map where people can leave their comments, which we saw a lot of activity on, which helped us identify those priority locations and those areas for opportunity. It also allowed community members to respond to each other, which was really good to see and know that this isn't just one person's problem or idea. It's multiple people. And then we attended the St. Patrick's Day Festival, where we were on the trail. So, we got to see where those conflicts happen, where you have a downtown event, but then you have people walking, biking, using e-bikes on the trail, and it really creates that congestion point, those areas of conflict. And then we visited some of the committees, the Ford Pinellas BPAC, as well as the safety committee here. And as Kathy mentioned, we did go back to the BPAC and the Council of Organizations to get some more feedback after we presented in October. And the main things that we heard was e-bike safety on the Pinellas Trail and safety on the Pinellas Trail. That was definitely one of the most prevalent comments we received. I know we had discussion on that when we were here in October. So, that is one of the priority challenges that we seek to address with this plan update. And then just overall safety for trail users and intersections within the city in crossings and ensuring that all modes of travel are safe for everyone. And our community engagement really fueled the updates to our multimodal network that we identified in the plan update, as well as recommendations and strategies. So, I'm going to turn it over to Trevor, and he's going to talk a little bit more about what those updates are in the recommendations. Yeah, thanks, Anna. First of all, on your screen on the right side, you'll see the bicycle recommendations map. This includes both existing and proposed bicycle facilities. These are updated kind of twofold. One, based on crash data, and two, based on community feedback. We heard a lot of community feedback wanting, you know, east-west connections from outside of downtown into downtown. Furthermore, you'll see in pink in the downtown area, the downtown bypass routes. This is something we discussed with you all in October. During special events or just weekend peak times, congestion on the Pinellas Trail makes it hard to bike through downtown. So, we added these potential routes to kind of bypass that congested Pinellas Trail area. Next, of course, e-bike safety. This is a large focus for this plan, as opposed to the 2021 plan. And in response to this, the plan includes both educational and actionable items for e-bike safety. This includes partnerships with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office for enforcement, as well as infrastructure improvements for traffic calming on the trail and in the city at large. So, this slide just represents a section-by-section, it's kind of a summary of all the updates that were made to the plan, mostly including the revamped in-person community engagement, some updated strategies and actions to reflect new goals of the city, and the additional section for streetscape design standards. So, specifically, some of the strategies and actions that were included in this update include, of course, e-bike safety, including the 3E approach of education, enforcement, and engineering for e-bike safety, and also the promotion of previous plans that have been done throughout the city, including the golf cart mobility plan, to kind of foster more multimodal transportation throughout the city. And the biggest addition to the update is the streetscape design standards, and the intent of this is to really create a cohesive, consistent street network within the city that provides a range of transportation options and modes and facilities that are appropriate for those types of streets. So, we have six total street types, and we assign those to each road within the city, even though some of those roadways are outside of the city's control, those are FDOT or county roadways, but it's a way for the city to communicate what they desire those roads to look like should any improvements happen. And so, it's a way to point back to the plan and say, this is what we would like to see on those streets for our multimodal network. So, each street type shows graphic representation of what that might look like should you incorporate all the elements. It's really allocating dimensions and space to different modes of travel. You have, you know, sidewalk recommendations for width, space for bike racks, transit facilities, on-street parking, landscaping, as well as what those bicycle facilities might look like on those streets, and also the targeted speed limit, as well as the number of lanes for those streets to provide guidance. And the intent really is to provide a vision of what that street could look like. We know that there's going to be unique challenges to every street. You're not going to be able to do what you want to do all the time. So, providing more guidance and recommendations of what that vision is and communicate that to city departments, other agencies, or developers who might be making those improvements is key. We really wanted to hit on, you know, after this plan is adopted tonight, what are the keys to implementation and making sure that things happen? We don't want to see this plan sit on a shelf. So, it really is the first step, partnering, continuing to partner with, for Pinellas and Pinellas County to address the safety concerns on the Pinellas Trail. And the city can coordinate with other departments in ensuring that they're aware of the multimodal transportation plan. Should there be any improvements on a street, like let's say a sewer line is replaced and there's an opportunity to add a sidewalk, that can be a partnership where the multimodal plan is being moved forward along with other city projects as well. And when the time is right, incorporating the streetscape design standards into the land development code so that they can be implemented and that there's a little more teeth to that, whereas right now it's guidance in the multimodal transportation plan. And the city is already doing this, looking for funding opportunities, grant fundings, and partnering with other agencies to implement some of these multimodal improvements and recommendations. And Trevor and I are here to answer any additional questions or listen to your comments. Yeah, so questions, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I really only have one question. You know, I think I took a look at the comparison and I think you did a very comprehensive job of capturing the intent of what we discussed previously. The only thing that kind of jumps out at me is, you know, how are we measuring our success on this? You know, I would almost say, you know, and I appreciate your recognizing the partnerships and the relationships with Ford Pinellas and others. But, you know, I think there's still a part missing here, and that's how we document our success on some of these initiatives. Thoughts? Yeah, absolutely. We do have strategies in the plan as a way for the city to measure success and track progress. We've recommended a multimodal dashboard where you can track. It could be the number of crashes throughout the year. If you're reducing crashes, that's when, how many miles of sidewalk you might have in the city. So there are metrics that the city can track with that that will help measure the success and kind of hold everyone accountable as well. Yeah, that's good. And I appreciate that part of it. But I guess, you know, I'm kind of thinking about, okay, how do we do a deeper dive just to make sure we've identified the metrics that we're wanting to capture here? And I don't know if that's a staff question. Well, as George comes off, I will say that, as you know, we have a strategic theme, multimodal transportation and a dashboard associated with that. Go ahead, George. You just hit on it, City Manager. So one of the things that we're doing as part of the new strategic plan is we're basically dashboarding our BPI's, our BPI initiative. So as these capital improvements come online, I think we'll be able to track those. And we are tying performance standards to those capital improvements. So we will be, I think we'll have, going forward, a much more robust look at what's happening and then tracking that progress. Perfect. Because that was my third question. Is this tied to the strategic plan? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. This is great. Yeah, and I think one other thing, Vice Mayor, is we are, in fact, Hannah hit on it, we are updating our land development code at the same time. So we really have a golden opportunity at this point to kind of start to incorporate some of those things into our regulatory documents. Got it. No further questions. Commissioner Sandberg, any questions? In one of these screens that talks about community connector, you know, looking at the, you know, it's the purple color. Those are, you know, it's, I think it's further along than that one. Oh, the street types? Yeah. Yeah, like, for example, Michigan is, purple is considered a community connector. What does that term mean? So those were just street type names that we came up with. It doesn't have any specific designation to any standards or anything, you know, at large, like state of Florida or anything like that. So that was just our unique name that we came up with for the street type. And you use a term, like, a bypass during special events. Could, I mean. Yeah, we can elaborate on that. You ever been down there on a special event? I mean, it's a free-for-all down there. Yeah, and that was part of our discussion we heard a couple months ago, and then we also heard that from community members as well. So the bypass is really alternative routes, and we can notify people through signage, wayfinding, pavement markings that, hey, there's an event going on. If you're a bicyclist who's just trying to get from point A to point B and doesn't want to deal with the mess downtown, they can take this route and go around that and avoid that. So it's not only a bicycle facility, it's signage, wayfinding. So there would actually be signage installed at the time of that event? Yeah, that would be the intent, or permanent signage, just notifying that there's other bike routes other than the Pinellas Trail. Good. That's all I had. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Gao. Thank you. Oh, where we have come with this plan, this is just wonderful, wonderful. Thank you very much. Just to piggyback on the bypass issue, be mindful of the fact that the speed limit on the trail is 20, the speed limit on Douglas is 15. So when you start to direct bicyclists, that's going to be an issue. And also it's not about directing them off the trail, but directing them to an appropriate place that meets them where they need to be met as well. Not just, we need you to go here, but, you know, anyway, be mindful of that. You mentioned e-bike safety a lot, and there's certainly a reason for that. But before e-bikes, the same comments are being made about e-bikes than they were bicycles before we had the onslaught of e-bikes. So while the focus, certainly because of speed and weight of the vehicles, be mindful that we just need a lot of bicycle safety everywhere. And it seems to me, I don't know where I learned it, but it seemed to be common knowledge growing up. When I was a kid in the 60s, everybody knew the rules of the road. And it was not only here, the bike rules, but also driving is a privilege, not a right. It was also common, not just in my household. But now it seems to me that that's switched, and cars can do whatever they want. And I don't even know if they suspend driver's licenses anymore. That's just my editorial comment. But when it comes to the, when I looked at the community connector, Steve, what I thought are those streets that connect neighborhoods to neighborhoods, not necessarily the streets in any individual neighborhood. So that's why I looked at that. Street design standards, where did you get those standards? So those we develop, we develop them using a number of tools. We do reference FDOT manuals. We reference NACTO, which is the, I forget what the abbreviation stands for, but it's a transportation official's handbook to street design. So it is best practice standards, but also looking at the context of the city and what is realistic for those streets. So ideally, we'd love to have a dedicated bike facility on every street, but that's not realistic for identity, and there's limited right-of-way. So it is a combination between, you know, city standards, FDOT, and best practices. Okay. Okay. And that's fine, because you have to have best practices. You have to have some sort of standards. But also when it comes to any implementation, George, Kathy, don't be afraid to do your own research. And what are some cool things that are being done out in the world that we don't know about because we're stuck in this box of standards? And FDOT says blah, blah, blah. You know, push back on that so we can, you know, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. And other than that, and I know we talked about the dashboards, is this is a whole lot to swallow. And so what will you be looking at every year to decide what's the action plan, what's the next steps? How can we make sure that this is a living document and not just going to collect dust? So, Commissioner, you know, I've got really two thoughts with respect to that. One is, you know, through the annual budget process, we'll continue to work with particularly engineering and other departments with respect to their capital improvement projects and see where we can fit in with those to advance some of these multimodal strategies. And I had a second thought, and I lost it. I just had a senior moment here. So, what was I? Sounds like, how many syllables? Shoot. I'm sorry, Commissioner. I lost my thought here. It's going to come back to me in a second. I'll be around for a little while. Rephrase your question one more time. It'll click. Yeah, I'll move on. No, just as long as you're thinking about it, it's all good, George. Don't kill yourself. God, it was a good one, too. I know, it was so good. Just text me at 2 in the morning. I got it. He's got smoke coming out of his ears. And I'll move on. And if it comes to you, then feel free to shout it out. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. Was the education. And we talked about safety and education. We talked about it. But we really need to do it. And I know what we do now for March, right, is Florida Bike Month in March. And we do a little thing. We hand up little trickets on the trail. But we really, we could do so much more with what we were doing in March. And we should be partnering with our schools. We should be having school roundups and rodeos and teaching the kids. And I don't know whether that's a city function. I don't know whether that's a school function. I kind of think that's also part of the problem is that I used to do all this as a kid. I have no idea where I learned it. But whoever it was that was teaching, they're not teaching it anymore. So somebody needs to pick up that ball, whether it's us or partnering with the schools. But really have some wonderful opportunities to teach kids how to ride a bike. And the rules of the road and all of those things that come with it. And shame on any parent that has a kid under the age of 14 and gives them an e-bike. Make them pedal. Make them work for it. It's good for them. We're working towards a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. But I was going to, I could phrase it. Never mind. No more questions. No more comments. I'm sorry. Whether he's on my right or on my left. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Dugard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. I share a lot of my colleagues' thoughts on this issue. One of the thoughts I have is who's best to breed out there, not just within the state of Florida, but beyond Florida, potentially, that has some of our same characteristics. We have a city that was settled well over 120 years ago. Our arteries are not built for what we've got in many ways. And so I'm thinking, you know, show me best of breed and how we can go and learn from them. That's my first thought. Secondly, the numbers I'm looking at here are a period of 2019 to 2023. But the e-bike revolution has happened inside the middle of that period. When you look at the availability of those e-bikes, we're in the middle of that revolution right now. You go to school, Dunnington High School, and they don't have the facilities to handle all the e-bikes that are being stacked up out in front of the doors. There's that many of them. That's the situation we have. And unfortunately, we've lost a few people because of e-bikes and some recklessness as they don't seem to have a sense of what dangers are presented by that new instrument. So I think this work is great. I don't mean to cast any aspersions against it, but we're in the middle of a revolution on transportation. And we've got to figure out how to get ahead of the curve. The trail is a community asset that many of our citizens don't feel is safe anymore. Sorry, Commissioner, but we'll have time for comments. Are there any questions? Why don't the people in our city feel safe on the trail? Thank you for that interruption because I can see the clock and everybody wants to get home. But my question is, okay, who's best of breed? Number one, I want to know who's best of breed. Bring that back to us, please. So that we can begin to go figure out how to copy them. Secondly, I'm also looking at some arteries that have proliferation of accidents of all sorts. How do we better work with the state to get the designs on those roads that are more acceptable? And I think that means reducing speed. I think that means making those 45 miles an hour doesn't make any sense. Do you agree? Disagree? I'm just looking at the proliferation of accidents. When I do that. And I could go on for another hour and I don't want to do that to us. But you see where I'm going. I do. And you still have comments. So I can reiterate some of that stuff, too. Okay. So, Jennifer, one question. What is the status of our dashboards? So, actually, we've had the dashboard is up and running for the strategic plan. We've had, I think, two quarters worth of reporting. And right now we're really, you know, we've essentially uploaded all of our initiatives and we're reporting on those initiatives and the progress. And we took kind of, you know, some of the shorter term ones that we're going to be able to accomplish so that we can get the dashboard up and running. But it is, we are populating it. It is functional. We, you know, the departments are really right now figuring out who's doing the reporting. Because, you know, you report, like I said, quarterly. So who does it? And it's their responsibility and how they do it and all those sorts of things. So, and then we're not quite ready to publish it yet, if you will, on our website. But we will be, that will be coming up shortly. So it is functional. It's up and running. And we are populating it actively. So do we have a go live time? I can't. Let me go ahead and email it to you. I don't recall what it is. Do we have a time that you'll tell us when the go live time is? Like in a week you'll tell us when it is? Oh, yes. I mean just when it's going to be. I will tell you tomorrow. I want to put you, you know. I will tell you tomorrow. Okay. So starting to get those would be really good. So, yeah. Okay. And my second question is, how does Bob Ironsmith feel about the streetscape design standards? So Bob was part of the review process. So I don't want to speak for him, but I believe he's okay with it. Okay. Good answer. I respect how he thinks about it. He was certainly, we did try to circulate the plan among all interdepartmental agencies. So everybody had a look at it. Okay. Well, Clay's shaking his head, so he must have seen it, too. So that's good. Okay. And then I actually had written down the question, but you answered the question, which is, but again, I guess for staffs, my question to staff is, what is your plan on how we're going to incorporate the streetscape design standards and anything else applicable into the land development code? Yeah, I think so. So, you know, once you approve this tonight, we'll certainly go back and start to look at those and see how we can at least include those on larger projects for design review specifically and see if there's ways to, you know, make that a standard, if you will, or a part of the design review process. And then they're just maybe, we'll use, we'll speak to our consultant as well and see if they have some ideas on how they've incorporated those types of things into other land development codes because we do have an outstanding land development code team that's working with us right now that brings a lot of national perspective to the process. So we'll work with that. Where are we getting that? Because I know it's like a three-year plan, right? Yeah. So they're actually going to the LPA, I believe, on next Wednesday to talk about the module one update. So there'll be a little bit of an update that, as you know, the LPA is acting as the steering committee for the land development code update. I think they are scheduled to come back and provide you some updates relatively quickly here, I think by maybe this spring. Yep. And... Are we on schedule with the three-year plan? Yes. I would say we are. So we are, we're about a year and a half in, maybe? A year and a quarter? We're actually projected on the schedule to be done by the beginning of next winter. Yeah. In 2026. So we'll see how that goes. Again, direct to the question, though, is if we, I don't know, if we're going to believe in these streetscape design standards, it has to be in the code or else it's nothing, right? I mean, it's really nothing. And or part of that capital improvement process. So do you envision getting this into the code quickly, since we have some pretty major projects coming down the pike? Um, when you say quickly? Um... Do you feel a sense of urgency to get these in the plan if we're, if we believe, you know, that these really will enhance our walkability and... So there would be some legwork to putting that into the land development code, particularly with the city attorney, um, because they would be off-site improvements. So we would have to take a look at that and see how we could do it. But we would do it, we can certainly commit to doing it as quickly as we possibly can. Well, if you guys could put your head together and write something, a memo or something that, or an email that kind of gets what your guys' plan and your head's is out so we can kind of visualize what that looks like. Yeah. I mean... Yeah, we can do that. I just want to see how this becomes real. And if it's important enough and urgent enough for us to get it moving. Yep. We will get together with a land development consultant and talk with Jennifer some and see if we can get something. Um, okay, um, so, um, that ends the question. So, um, I'm going to open public input. Anybody in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? I would like a question. Sure. Go ahead. I finally formulated a question for you. When the state begins to design roads in our area, do they reference our multimodal plan as a... So, we would normally provide them with that feedback as part of their data gathering process. Um, now, do they take it and kind of incorporate it as another matter? A lot of that depends on the scope and the funding that's available for the project. Anybody else have any additional questions you wanted to ask? All right. So, I'll open it up for public input. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this issue? I'm seeing no one. I close public input. And, uh, I will, uh, let's see. We already have a motion. Uh, so, we'll go to commission comments. The maker of the motion was Commissioner Gao. So, we'll start with him. Oh. I've got nothing to say. No. I was like, what? No, that's not true. Um, no, uh, and thank you, uh, Mayor, for your questions and kind of drilling them on the design. And, because that, that really is the important step. I mean, all this is nice, but if things that need to get into code don't get into code, then it's worthless. And so, thank you for kind of pressing them on that. Although, it was done with such love and technique. Really wonderful, Mayor. I'll phrase it in a comment so it's not a question, but I know when we talked about the e-bikes before and we were talking about the trail, and one of the things that I wanted was there seems to be a lot of trail crossings in Clearwater that are not far away, that they're two-way. And I've asked for data on that. How many of the, how proportional is that to the crossings in Dunedin? And what's the safety aspect of that? Are they having more crashes at those two ways? Because I know that we get a lot of complaints of bike riders not stopping at the stop signs. And so, that poses the question, well, if they didn't have a stop sign, would you complain about that? And I don't think they would. I think the drivers are just frustrated that the bicyclists are breaking the law. So, if we take that law away and just have two-way streets, then we already know the responsibility then becomes on the driver. And so, but I want to look at that before I just say we should do that. And if we've got a local community that is doing something like that, whether by happenstance or with structure and meaning, it's still, what does that look like? You know, and that's why it goes to my mind, not just what are these standards we're looking at, but who are the people who are leading, who are best in breed, and what are they doing? And I would say not even looking in the state or even the country. I would look globally. Certainly, I would encourage you to look globally because Europe is by far ahead of the U.S. So, you can get best of breed in the United States, and that might not even hold a candle to some of the things that they're doing in Europe. So, if we're going to look at the best, then let's look at the best. But anyway, wonderful job. Thank you guys very much. And I just look forward to talking about this every month. And the second or the motion was Commissioner Sandbergen. Final comments? Yeah, nothing about e-bikes, but I, you know, it was always referred to as, you know, a golf cart friendly city. I am really impressed the way it's morphed into this, these LSVs. I can, you know, speaking for our house, we may be getting rid of a car simply because as that's expanded, paid the extra money, got a license tag. You know, it's, you know, I can go to Clearwater Beach, and you guys have done a nice job keeping that going, keeping it growing. It just, we just can't ever lose sight of educating the public. You know, you still see that golf cart, a golf cart, not an LSV, on Alt-19, you know, spots that they should not be. But I'm really impressed by what we have done as a community. And you go through the, you know, downtown at night, the parking lots are full of a few golf carts, but man, it's just morphing into these LSVs. You know, I, just looking around up here, I know how many we have, and I'm very, you guys have done a nice job, and I really appreciate that. Thank you. Vice Mayor, final comments? Thanks, Mayor. You know, so in the course of, you know, preparing for tonight's meeting, I took your comparison sheet, and I found that very useful because, you know, then we could go back and take a look, and I got to tell you, you guys did a great job of comprehensively covering all the comments that were made, and I like how it's factored into the plan now. You know, that's important, but as, you know, the drum that I'll keep beating on this, though, is the success of this plan is only as good as the data that's collected and the analysis of that data against star metrics for success, and so, you know, I can't emphasize that enough, you know, because there's a lot of great work that went into this, and, you know, what we want to do now is translate that great work into something that's actionable, and we are being held accountable to it. So, anyway, but thank you for your hard work. This has been one of the best master plans in my time or career that I've seen, so thank you. Commissioner DeGarden. Thank you, Mayor. I would agree. This is a great master plan. It does bring us forward in how we do land development and projects like that, but I don't think it gets us to the solution that creates a greater safety environment, which is where I want to go. I think it tells us, you know, if we're going to build a complex over here, this is what we want the streets to look like, that kind of thing. I like that a lot. That's really important stuff. But that being said, I'm going to beat the drum almost as much as Jeff has, that we've got issues that we don't seem to have tools for. I'm really pleased with the way Skinner came out. I use it every day, and that's a great success story for us. How much farther can we push that success story is where I want to go, because it was a great piece of work. It took visionaries. It took people taking risks. Honestly, 580, how far can we go? How far can we go at 580? Because it's not the speed that gets people from point A to point B. It's the flow. Well, that's what those roundabouts tell us, and I want to do more flow. Let's keep the traffic moving, and people won't want to go as fast. That's, like I said, I'm just there on that issue. No, that's great. Thank you. No, I mean, that's great. I mean, because it's a great master plan. It's well done. Good work. I, you know, the complexity here, of course, is that we are built out, and, you know, we've got golf carts and bicycles and walkers and cars all colliding. And, you know, again, if you had the room to make a lane for bikes and a lane for walkers and a lane for golf carts on the trail, life would be fine. But that's not our world. So we're kind of in an imperfect zone and trying to figure it out, but it clearly is about safety. And so, anyway, I think this is good. I think that we have a lot of work to do, and I think that I'm very interested in the sense of urgency and getting a good memo about how we're going to get some of the stuff in the code, specifically streetscape design standards. So that's all. That's my only comments, but good work. Thank you very much. Okay. So we go to roll call vote. All in favor? Roll call. I'm sorry. Roll call. Sorry. Go ahead. I said it, and I went against it. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Commissioner Sandbergen. Aye. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Mayor Franey. Aye, and that motion passes unanimously. I've got lots of watch cards, which is great. Thank you. As the night grows on. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. 3G. Award the construction of bid number 25-2536, WWPDP, deep bed denitrification filter. Thank you. What is it? Denitrification. Thank you. Filter. Replacement project. He's vice mayor. There you go. To help. Yeah. To C&T, contracting services LLC, in the amount of $2,915,000, $10. And we'll go to staff presentation. I guess, Alex, you're kicking it off. Good evening again. Alex Gonzalez, engineering. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, and staff. I'm Alex Gonzalez, project engineer. I'm here today to present the recommendation of award for the construction of bid number 25-2536, the wastewater treatment plant deep bed denitrification filter replacement project to C&T contracting services, LLC, in the amount of $2,900,015,000, or $915,010. So our wastewater treatment plant is equipped with four deep bed denitrification filters that were installed in 1991, and they've been in continuous service ever since, thanks to Brian over here to my right. And each of those filters is filled with six feet of specifically layered media, sand, and gravel. So that is taller than me in a precise media that helps us process the wastewater. So over the last several years, staff has begun noticing that the backwashing of the filters is not evenly dispersed across all the filters. So that's a sign that each backwashing cycle may not fully clean the filters. Each and every year, we do perform an inspection on the filters, but in 2023, the manufacturer representative gave a recommendation that an extensive filter replacement and complete rehabilitation is needed to the filters. So we reached out to a GEC, Adura Group Inc., and we got them under contract. And in January 2025, the project was completed, and we solicited it, and we got three bids. However, the bids were all over budget, with the low bid at the time being $3.3 million, which is still very over budget. So we rescinded that bid, and we regrouped. We reduced the scope. We brought it down to where Brian felt comfortable was the base, the bones of the project. So then we got that out again in July or August of this year, and we got three bids again, ranging costs from $2,915,000 to $3,108,000. And we reviewed it, the engineer record reviewed it, our purchasing official reviewed it, gave it a blessing, and we're here to award it to C&T contracting. Although this project is still over budget, it is already at the base, the very base of the project, and any more value engineering or reducing the project scope is just not practical and wouldn't complete the task at hand. So as such, a budget amendment is needed to transfer dollars from the fund balance is proposed, and a budget adjustment of $1,446,258 will be brought in the future by the Finance Department for a formal approval during a future quarterly update. And our staff is here today to present a recommendation to commission for the approval award bid number 25-2536 for the wastewater treatment plant deep bed nitrification filter replacement project to C&T contracting services of Tampa, Florida, and the total amount $2,915,010 as presented here today. That's a mouthful. Yes, it is. Okay, questions, Commissioner Gale. That's a big number, and not all of it is budgeted for. Is there a way this could have been caught sooner? Is there a way? What happened in the process to where we weren't able to budget this properly? That was the main reason we had rescinded it in the first place. We did catch it, I guess, in the middle of all the inflationary pressures that's going on in every sector right now. Water, wastewater utilities is, you know, we're also susceptible. Our engineer of record gave a very good cost estimate. However, in January and February and March were times of, you know, recently applied, you know, tariffs as such, and, you know, compounding on the already going on inflationary pressures to Donora, which is provides filters. So, once we saw the real numbers come back from the hard bids that we received during earlier this year, now we had a better idea of what the real numbers were looking at and what the contractors were actually seeing. So, we pulled that back and we reverse engineered it and value engineered it to where we were comfortable with the project. And it is what it is today. This is the base of the project. It cannot listen to the scope of it. Okay, great, because it looks like there's going to be a budget adjustment of almost 1.5. Yes, that is correct, Commissioner. So, there's two-fold sort of reasons why we moved forward with it. And this process does have a little bit of a lead time of, I think, about 12 weeks. And we can only replace those filters one at a time. And you can only do them in the dry season. So, with that delay, we're hoping we can get one of them done this fiscal year. The other three will be done next fiscal year. And when we go through the budget process, we will be removing projects from the CIP to find those dollars. Because, as you know, we have to show the full dollar amount at the time of award. Right. Yeah. All right. That's all I have. Okay. Commissioner Dugard, questions? As you modified the bid in order to get it to a place where we would find it under the $3 million threshold, what did you take out? Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor, Commissioner. Brian Antony, wastewater treatment plant manager. We took out protective coatings for the concrete. We moved an automatic offloading valve. That was the big meat and potatoes of the project that we took out, the thing that I could live without. So, what we're doing right now is bare bones. We can't do anything less than what we're doing for those filters to last another 35 years. We need to do this immediately. And those reports that we hired in order to come in and do inspections every year, it's been on our site for the last two years. And it's just progressively getting worse. It's time to get in there. So, basically, we're just buying filters now. Sorry? Just buying the filters is what we're doing, which is bare bones. Yep. Bare bones. We're rehabbing and replacing the filters. And we're also doing a new, more accurate flow meter. That is pretty much what we're doing. It feels like there's some risks associated with that. Can you outline those risks for me? Risks of doing exactly what, sir? Yeah, the bare bones approach rather than the original concept. You had. Go ahead. The risks involved is, you know, greater protection and longevity of those filters. They've already been surfaced for 30 years. For what we do, like what Brian just mentioned, like the protective coatings, those would help with, you know, deterioration of the concrete structures. You don't know exactly the condition of the concrete until you empty out the filters and you empty out all the media and you can take a full inspection. That is particularly why we feel comfortable with CNT contracting. They are a very good concrete contractor as well. They came highly recommended with their references. So that's what we feel comfortable with, not going with some of the above and beyond stuff because we have a contractor who can perform the basic duties very well. What's the life of the new filters? I'm sorry. Can you say that again? What is the life of the new filters? What is the inspection life? We're expecting exactly what we have right now, 30 plus years. 30 plus years. But we have to experience this expense now with a 30-year asset. Is there some other way to do this where we can lay this expense out over time better? No. It would cost more to do different filters at different times. It is better to do them all at once while a contractor is mobilized to the site as opposed to doing like one a year, then another one in two years, another one in three. Is it better to do it all in a row? Makes sense. Thank you, Mary. That's all I have. Okay. Vice Mayor, questions? Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, my colleague, Commissioner DeGuard, asked exactly the questions that I had. But I want to just pull the string on one of those. So if I understand correctly, the reduction scope, and as you phrased it, is providing us the bare bones replacement of those filters, which is just the filter, right? Just the media inside the filter. Just the media. So, okay. So the six feet of different media, sand and gravel inside, and also some of the backwashing capabilities, which is at the bottom of the filter. Okay. So what's been taken out of the scope then sounds to me to be an awful lot like foundational, structural. It is more protective. Protective, okay. More protective, a protective coating inside the filters. That was about $400,000. Yeah. That we elected not to go with. So what happens when, okay, when you start to replace the media, will you realize the full extent of the age of the protection part of it? I mean, do you know if that protection part is compromised before you go in and replace the media? If I understand this, you, what the state of the, basically the state of the protection, what is that right now? Right now, each of the filter basins is bare concrete. And once we empty out the filter media, we fully do expect to do some repair and patchwork inside the filters, but not a full, you know, floor to wall, you know, protective coating that we mentioned that we took out. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, so it was really only a, well, I don't want to say just, but it was a $400,000 delta between what we're currently doing or calling bare bones and what would have completely. I could touch on, uh, a little bit more, uh, the $400,000 protective coating was a additive alternate. If we would have gotten a good price for it, we would have went with it, but we did not. Some of the other reduction of scope included more, uh, emergency measures of our air sparging and backwashing system. Uh, you know, if you have a air blower that goes out in the filter, then it could, instead of blowing out your filter, it could, it could blow out the wall instead. So it's, it, it gets more technical than that. I could go in it if you want me to. No, that's okay. Um, the, okay, so let me ask the question this way. Um, does not doing the protection part of the job shorten the life expectancy of the filter? Vice Mayor, we're going to find it out so we can end up with the contractor and see the state of that concrete. I really can't answer that until we get that tank completely emptied and we do a visual inspection with the contractor and engineering. Yep. Yeah. Well, my, my two cents, which is worth about $400,000 is, I, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, my basic understanding of this is, is that I really think, and I'm not saying we're cutting corners, but I really think that we need to do the job right. I, you know, that's my feeling. I mean, it's, the problem is, is that it's, it is a big figure, but when I look at its $400,000 more to complete the entire project, I'm wondering, well, you know, if we can pull up 1.5 million somewhere, then maybe we can pull 1.9. I don't know. I, I'm just thinking out loud, but I guess what I'm looking for in this is, is that you're satisfied with the risk of just doing the approach that we are going to be contracting here and not doing the protection part of this project. We feel comfortable with moving forward with this contractor and the work that, that he's going, that they're going to do and the repair work that they could be able to perform inside the filter basins. Okay. And I, and I like that. I've heard that as well. I mean, the fact that you're, you selected this contractor based on their expertise on that part of the job. Besides being the lowest responsive and responsible better, yes, that too. Yeah. Okay. All right. That answers all my questions. Thank you. Good questions. Commissioner Zandbergen, questions? The, I think this was asked, but I just want to make sure when this is done, we're planning that this is going to hold up and last for several years going forward. Is that what I understand? For 30 years. I won't have to touch it until I'm retired. Okay. I mean, I heard that. I just wanted to make sure. Sure. And this, I guess it's C and T, you do feel comfortable? Have they done work for Dunedin before? They, they're capable to pull this off? Commissioner, yeah. C and T contracting has done several projects with the city. At the water plant, wastewater plant, I've had them on at least seven, eight different projects. Okay. Is this work, is this something above ground or is it below ground? It's inside a tank. The tank is approximately 40 feet long, 12 feet wide, and approximately 18 feet deep. And as Alex said, there's 72 inches of sand, 18 inches of gravel. There's 1,518 concrete underdrain blocks that need to be replaced. That's part of that. 152 stainless steel, inch and a half air headers, 148 stainless steel sump covers, leak injection repairs, concrete spawn repairs, and miscellaneous spots where exposed rebar. And as Alex stated, the backwash water control valve and actuator. Well, that was pretty comprehensive. Yeah. You feel these guys can do it? I feel these guys can do it. Thank you. What's your next question? So, my first question is, does this over budget amount already screw up our rates that we just passed and already put us like, oh, this isn't going to look good for our long-term rates? No, that is why, I mean, this is why we talk about when we're going to move into the next fiscal year, we'll be looking at having to find a project that will need to be moved so we can afford this one. Well, when you kind of work around the long-term plan and all the projects. We'll be shifting stuff around. We'll be okay. Yes. Okay. So, Brian, by the way that we did this, I'm going to go back to where Vice Mayor Walker was. By doing this the way we're doing it, less the 400-some thousand dollars of work, are we, in your opinion, doing it the right way? Or are we short-cutting something that could be a long-term problem? I am comfortable with the current progress that we're going to go move forward on with the Santee contracting, less the coatings. But, again, once we get in there and if an issue presents itself, then we will address it at that time. I wanted to hear from him too, Alex. Sorry. Nothing personal. Yeah. There you go. Well, you know, I had a great tour down there. I know you guys work hard and take a lot of pride, so I'm just curious how you felt. I think that's my only questions. So, I will go to open it to public input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Seeing no one coming forward. Renee, did you have a question? Okay. Anyway. Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public input. And I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Okay. And so, I will go to final comments and starting with the maker of the motion, Vice Mayor. Yeah. So, I'm satisfied and I do like the approach that we get the principal part of this done first and then address any severe degradation in the protection as we see it. But, you know, then we might get lucky and everything will be good and we can move on. See, I'm a glass half full type of guy. The face you're making is... No, that's all I've got. Okay. And a seconder was Commissioner Sandberg. Comments? That's the first denitrification project I've ever worked on. So, I trust that's in good hands and fully support it as long as you guys feel comfortable with it. Thanks. I'm getting comfortable with denitrification. Yes. Okay. There you go. Commissioner Gow. No comments. Commissioner Degard. I think you can get arrested in Arkansas for denitrification. I'm not sure. But... Comments? I think the staff has done as good as they could in the situation that they faced relative to costs. But we know we're not doing a Cadillac job on this. I think that's where we are. Thank you very much for your efforts. That's all I have. Well, I think this kind of shows, you know, why we've got a master plan. It shows why we're getting faced with increasing costs and issues that we can't ignore. They have to be done. I want my toilet to flush and I want it to go somewhere and I want it to be clean going into the St. Joseph Sound. So, this is part of what we have to do. It's really one of the most key things we have to do. So, I'm very supportive and I will say again, I very much appreciate the work that's done at that wastewater plant. I, you know, I'm so impressed with the condition of it and the way it's treated by all the employees out there. Very professional operation and it's a very important operation. So, thank you. Okay. So, this is a voice vote. So, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Do we want to take five minutes? I'm calling the meeting back into order. We're going to a start item. Resolution 25-33 authorizing the City of Dunedin to make a Phase 2 claim and conduct the related testing in the… Rob, what's that word? Aguas? Aqueous. Aqueous. Thank you. Well, there you go. I'm having a bad night with the vocabulary. We need Deborah Kynes, you know. Film forming foam production liability litigation class action settlements with PFAS manufacturer and the multi-district litigation. And I need a motion to put this on the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay. I think I've got Degard and Gal. So… Okay. Well… I got Gal, so… He'll get over. He's vice mayor now. He's vice mayor. He can, you know… Okay. All in favor for putting this on the agenda? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? So, Jen, could you please read resolution 25-33 by title only? Resolution 25-33, a resolution of the city of Dunedin, Florida, authorizing the city to make a claim and conduct the related testing in the class action settlements with PFAS manufacturers in the multi-district litigation and providing for an effective date. That was resolution 25-33, read by title only. Okay. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. There. The vice mayor shot in there. That was clear. That was clear. That was clear. Okay. Staff presentation. Clay and Jen Cohen and possibly Nan is what I have. So… And high points for speed. So… So whoever, take the ball. I'll go ahead and just do a quick stop. So… Okay. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and commissioners, Clayton Watkins, Utilities and Engineering. The start item in front of you, resolution 25-33, is basically for… We're asking your approval for us to join in the class action lawsuit for aqueous film-forming foams or PFAS. I'm glad you stumbled. That made me feel better. Okay. So… And with this, this will allow us to submit the application form to meet the deadline of actually January 1st of this coming year. And then also we will perform the test on our production wells so we can set a baseline and then understand how we will move forward with the… as part of the overall litigation. And at this point in time, we'll be here for any questions unless Jenyn would like to add anything else to it. No. Just to say that you're really… you're not joining the litigation as a participant in the litigation. The only join here is to go ahead and be able to file a claim in the settlement. And you are identified as a phase two provider in the settlement proceeds. So that's why we want to proceed with the claim. So the answer here is obvious because it only can get us money. That's right. Okay. All right. So questions, I'm starting with Commissioner Gallo. No questions. Commissioner Dugard. Is there any reason we shouldn't do this? No. I can't think of one. I'll refer to Nan and anybody else in the room, but… No. The first thing we're going to ask for is reimbursement for the testing of our raw water supply. And if it says that we don't have any, then that ends the course. They pay for the testing. They're reimbursed for the testing. And then we know that, what we have in our raw water supply. If there is something positive, then there's a settlement already laid out as to get some kind of compensation for the damages and possible other avenues for special considerations down the line. Are there any expenses associated with this? Yes. Any what? Expenses associated with this filing, and please outline them for me. Not the filing, but the testing is going to be $20,000 or less. Go ahead. I guess the attorney knows more than I do. No, no, no. The expenses, at least initially with regard to the claim, there isn't anything to file the claim. With regard to the testing that Nan was just referencing, there is an expense associated with that. How frequently do we test? Just once? I think the standard has been a couple of different tests. We are a phase two utility because we don't have any knowledge of having PFAS in our water system. There are other phase one utilities that have already initiated this process and actually, you know, are starting to get checks back from this locally here that we've talked to. And I think most of those did a round of a couple of different baseline testings. So we may or may not have to do another round of baseline testing after this one to see, even if there isn't PFAS in the water at this time, if there's a temporal effect of that or a seasonal effect or something, that they may ask us to do two rounds of testing just to verify that the testing we get the first round is complete. Is there any risk if public revelation or someone would ask to see these tests, would there be any risk to the community's image if these come back positive? Not at this time. It is, I mean, there are other local water systems that have found this to be positive in their system. The positive that we have here in Dunedin is that 100% of our water is treated with one of the two primary treatment processes that remove PFAS, the first one being reverse osmosis, which, you know, the vast majority of our water goes through. And then we blend some of the raw water to remineralize the water. But all of the water that's blended goes through at least the granulated activated carbon, which is one of the other highly preferred removal processes for PFAS. So there's even an opportunity to show what we do here in a positive way. All right. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor, questions? Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. So this is actually related to this. The Department of Veteran Affairs is heavily involved right now in AFFF class action suits. And basically it all boils down to exposure. You know, AFFF is a fire suppressant and it's used in firefighting and it's used on ships and all manner of different platforms. And so what's coming out of this is that, and this is kind of the way I interpret it was, is that we really do need to participate in this for future claims. And so that's that part of it. And the question I have is, so what's the difference between a phase one and a phase two? So a phase one, they had already done the testing and found, in fact, that there were PFAS. Okay. And they'd done it by a certain time period. And many of them were also initial litigants in the class action suit. And so they received, basically what they did is, many of the PFAS manufacturers, the bigger ones settled quickly before the first case ever went to trial. And then they divided that settlement into class ones, which they knew already had PFAS, and then the rest of the water systems that would have to test to see whether or not their sources had PFAS. Okay. All right. Thank you. I have no further questions. Mr. Seymour. Is this something, maybe this should go to you. Is this like something that would appear in federal court? How, what is, where will this go? Yes. So this was in federal court and it was handled similarly to like the BP claims. Okay. Where what they did is they had so many claims that were coming in. They put them together as a class action. That's why you hear it referred to as the multi-district litigation. They take it all from all over. They assign it to one federal court. In this instance, I think it's. It was in South Carolina. South Carolina. Okay. For BP, it was in New Orleans. Right. Right. The first time I ever heard about this was when I watched 3M sink one day. It's a bad habit and hobby I play. And is this money from 3M and DuPont or will there, will there be other? Yes. There are other PFAS manufacturers that are involved in the litigation that haven't settled. Okay. So potentially, but the major manufacturers were DuPont and 3M and their initial settlements were 12 and a half billion and 1.1 billion. And is this only for municipalities or would this be for the general public also? No, it's for public water systems. Public water systems. Okay. And I know you can't answer this, but this is something that could drag on for years. No. So the settlements occurred. Okay. It's formulaic. Okay. And basically, it's based on if you do testing for PFAS, what is your PFAS score? You know, how much is in your sources? And then what's your flow rate? So how much is getting carried through your system? Okay. And based on that, there's like, there's a chart and there's a formula and there'll be a determination as to how the different entities are getting the money. And will you walk this through to settlement? Or once it's submitted, we just hope for the best? Or what's your role? So the first thing you do is you submit a claim. And then after that claim submitted, our testing will be concluded and we'll know whether or not, in fact, there is PFAS in any of the source. And so that'll, we may do additional testing as well as just identified. And there may also be opportunities, if there is PFAS in the source, to identify other ways that we've been damaged, other expenses that we had related to that, and seek reimbursement for those out of the settlement proceeds. Okay. I don't want to sit here all night. So that is specifically involving our water. Correct. If I'm not mistaken, some of this with 3M was like firefighting. Again, I, you know, learned about it the hard way for another reason. But was it like firefighting foam or something? That's the AFFF. Yeah. That's the AFFF. And what happened is, and maybe better to talk on this than I am. But I think what, as I understand it, is that this was commonly used. And the issue with PFAS is that it's a forever chemical. Okay. So once it, once it was used and it was out there, it doesn't biodegrade. So it's there. Okay. And then it's, it's everywhere, actually. I mean, they're finding it literally in polar bear flesh in the Arctic. Yeah. Where it was never used. You know, it can travel through the air. It can travel through the water. It can travel a lot of different ways. And. Okay. That's very interesting. I appreciate what you're doing. So that's all. Thank you. So I don't know if I'm asking the right question or not. But so, so there's multiple ways that PFAS gets into our system. This, this is just a couple of ways. And so you're, you're testing in a way that can isolate. We're only talking about the drinking water system right now. Right. That's the only thing that's gone to litigation for the damage cleanup, whatever you want to say, is, is from drinking water. Nothing else has been addressed that I'm aware of. That's right. Yeah. I know a lot more about drinking water than I know about other things. Well, yeah. I mean, it's interesting because obviously it goes back to what we talked about, what, within the last month about now working to get stuff out of our system because people aren't being good actors. So, yeah. I mean, I don't have any other questions. So I'll go to public input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Have an opinion on it? Okay. I'll close public input and I'll go to commission comments. And I'll start with vice mayor. I have no comments. I, you know, this is, this has been going on for, it's, it's definitely something we need to be involved with. So. Okay. And, uh, commissioner Sanborn. Nothing to add. Just go get them. Okay. Commissioner Gao. No comments, mayor. Commissioner DeGarden. Just how much money did you lose in your 3M stocks? That's what I, you know, how much you like Tesla. Ooh. Ooh. Okay then. There we go. Okay. Um, this is, this, my only comment is this. Because of the amount of PFAS we find, we're likely to get a good settlement. If we find a lot is what I'm understanding. Is that correct? Ah, that's a question. I can't do that anymore. You can do it. All right. I can do it. I'm hoping we find nothing personally. That's exactly my point. That's my, exactly where you, this is one of those that you've got to pray for zero. And if we get zero, we're just investing $20,000 and getting zero. Is that a correct statement? We understand that the settlement will pay for the testing. Yes. That we do. Regardless of the findings. We do have to front the money to get the testing done. But we understand that the very first application and claim is for reimbursement for testing. Thank you. That is all I needed. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, that's fine. No, I mean, I, I, yeah, I think it's good to do anyway, right? And just to be clear, because I don't want to mislead. Sure. I don't know if it's for the full amount of testing, but it'll be for a portion of it that is reimbursed. Okay. Anyway. Hoping for nothing, but neither way, we need to know, right? So. Okay. So I don't have any further comments. This is a roll call vote, which means we ask each of you to vote. I won't start to do voice vote. So, Michelle, roll call vote. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Commissioner Sandbergen. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. And Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. Our next item. Thank you. Our next item is recommendation for non-competitive appointment of Deputy City Clerk Michelle Wells to City Clerk position. And I will go to staff presentation with Jennifer and Teresa. I'll hand it straight over to Teresa. Okay. Good evening, Mayor, our new Vice Mayor. Congratulations. And Commission, Teresa Smalling, Director of HR and Risk Management for the City. Thank you all for saving the best for the last. So, in accordance with our employee service system rules, the City Manager does have the authority to make, propose for a direct appointment of a current employee to a position within the City. As you know, our City Clerk, Rebecca Slichter, went on medical leave back in July and has since submitted her resignation as of November 7th. Our Deputy City Clerk, Michelle Wells, has been very ably, very efficiently serving in the position since July 14th. And she has done this before on previous occasions. Therefore, I'm speaking on behalf of the City Manager, where she is recommending direct appointment of Deputy City Clerk, Michelle Wells, to the position of City Clerk for the City, effective December 4th, if approved. Okay. And if I could just add, Mayor, the direct appointment is obviously throughout the City, the City employees. However, since the City Clerk is a charter position, only the City Commission can appoint. Right. That position. I just want to make that clear. Nope. I got you. So, questions for staff? I'll start over here with Commissioner Gao. No questions. Okay. Commissioner DeGarden, any questions? No questions. You had me at Teresa. Okay. Vice Mayor? Questions? No questions. Okay. And Commissioner Sandberg, any questions? I have no questions, Mayor. Wow. Look at this. Okay. So, I'll open it for public input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on this issue? Seeing Deputy Rene, no. Seeing no one rushing forward, I will close public input and I will ask for a motion. Moved. Second. Third. Okay. Okay. And I get Commissioner DeGard and second Vice Mayor Walker. Yep. She got to hear it again. She got to hear it again. Right. See, obviously that matters to her. She's jotted it down and, you know. Okay. So, I'll go to Commission comments and I start with the maker of the motion, Commissioner DeGard. Commissioner DeGard. We're so happy you're here. And, you know, I only want you to know one thing. That we could have lined up a host of competitors and we'd still end up here. Okay. And seconder of the motion was Vice Mayor. The new Vice Mayor. Sorry. No, I know you're going to do great and I'm happy to have you aboard. Thank you. Okay. And so, we'll go to Commissioner Sandberg. Nothing more to add. I'm just glad to see it filled and I think it's filled with the right person. So, welcome. And Commissioner Gow. I'm excited that we're going to be able to have a seamless transition. You've already done the job. You've been doing the job. And so, it's really important because it's an important job to have that continuity there. And my only other comment would be, certainly, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. But this should have been the first item on the action item tonight. But she needed to have a full gallery for us to do this. And we missed that opportunity. And Vice Mayor, that can happen anytime. You know. In that way, I would have at least been able to hold on to it for three more minutes. That's right. I saw where you were going with that. Purely selfish reasons. No. But anyway, wonderful. I'm happy to vote yes on that. Okay. I'm extremely supportive of this. I think it's great. I'm grateful that you are here. And you've worked hard to get here. I mean, you've had a lot of challenges even leading up to this point. And you've carried the ball. I think this is well deserved. And so, I'm excited about it. And I appreciate your dedication. And I've seen it. I mean, even in the, not the leadership class. What was the class? Citizens Academy. Thank you. Thank you. It's that kind of night. Citizens Academy. I mean, you know, you just did so much. So, I appreciate all the hard work. I did have one comment. And I've talked with Jennifer and I have talked about it. And Michelle and I talked about it. I think that it kind of helps all of us. Obviously, Michelle works for us. You know, she's a charter official. And we respect that. But on the operational side, I think it's really important for her to work with Jennifer very closely. And report to Jennifer. Because there's a lot of things that operational right now, you kind of need that support. Because I think you've got people helping from different departments. And I'm not sure how to word it. I mean, obviously, you guys will be working as a team. But I think it's really important to have that, that you guys are tightly, that you're, you know, you're regularly meeting and talking and staying in communication to make sure that stays on track. Because, you know, again, just as much to help you, like we talked about earlier. And I know that, Jennifer, you've already stepped up to try to, you know, help. And, I mean, it's always a funky relationship, the clerk's office. Because, you know, the city clerk is our charter official. But the employees, technically, are Jennifer's. And so it's kind of funky. And that's why I think that relationship operationally is really important. But I think this is great. And, again, Michelle, it's well deserved. I'm just glad you hung in there. There's been a lot for you, you know. So. May I ask one thing, Mayor? Sure. Is there still an open position in the clerk's office? Yes, sir. There are currently, there will be two. Currently, there are three open positions. Okay. One I'm hoping to fill very soon. And the other two. Because I, actually, last night in the room here, someone approached me. If the city was hiring, very educated and somebody I've known a long time. And I said, if I was you, I would look into the city clerk's office. And then I couldn't find it when I went on the city website today. They are not open currently. Oh. I'm trying to do one at a time. Okay. It's very hard to onboard. As one person, it's hard to do more than one at a time. I had no idea this girl was looking for a job. I've known her for a long time. And so, okay. That's all. Thank you. Be on the lookout. Thank you, Mayor. That's it. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And motion passes unanimously. And Michelle, is there anything you'd like to say? I would like to thank each and every one of you. I'm grateful. I'm grateful. I'm thankful for Jennifer and Jen, your guidance, your collaboration. I'm thankful to all of city staff. They've all been so supportive. Everyone's been right behind me, had my back. So that's amazing. I'm thankful for Rebecca Schlichter. She was my mentor. I miss her. But I feel fortunate. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Let's give her a hand. To be a great example of a well-laid succession plan. Yes. Absolutely. You've already done great. I told her today, like, her adherence to detail. Like, I've never found one issue on my old cheat sheet up here. Yeah. You must find them before I get them because it's like, okay, it's all good. Yeah. So any mistakes you might have heard tonight is strictly my own. It has nothing to do with the cheat sheet. Okay. All right. We'll go on to the next item, which is the proposed agenda for the next meeting. And let's just give it a chance. I'm going to pull it up if you guys all want to pull it up here. Okay. Proposed agenda for December 18th. And is there any additions or deletions? Mayor, there is one change. Okay. We have moved action item 3G to consent as it was under the threshold. Okay. Oh, yeah. Sounds reasonable. It doesn't look like a horrible meeting since it is December 18th. Last one for the year, right? Last one for the year. I'm remembering myself. I know, right? Yeah. That's like the fire stations aren't supposed to say, oh, a slow day, and then... Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, I need a motion to approve the December 18th agenda. So moved. Second. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Wait a minute. Who started it? I think you did. I heard somebody else. So, I was. You made the motion. I was. Okay. I'm going to put Commissioner Gao down for the motion. Who's the second? Steve. Okay. I'll second it. Anybody with a bright shirt. Wow. Wow. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Okay. There we go. Okay. Informational items. This is commission discussion and comments. I'll start with... Commissioner Gao. I just want to remind everybody during this holiday season is a time for a lot of stuff and that includes performing arts. And so, December 7th, the Dunnean Community Chorus is singing at the community center. December 11th, the Dunnean High School Chorus concert. December 12th, the Dunnean High School band concert. December 14th is the Pinellas Wind Symphony at the community center. And December 18th, we have a commission meeting, but it is also the middle school band concert. So, please attend and support where and when you can. Great. Okay. Commissioner DeGuard. As my colleague just said, it is the holiday season, but there's too many families out there that are challenged to put food on the table. It's getting worse. So, let me encourage all of you to consider a holiday donation to the Dunnean Cares. That's all I have. Super. Vice Mayor. Yeah, just one. So, PSTA board meeting last week, we passed unanimously the Cross Bay Ferry. So, it's going to be real. The impact, you know, the vision is that basically there will be, you know, in the future, there will be a lot of connections that could result in working with the Clearwater Ferry. So, anyway, I think it's a pretty exciting time. And I will say the other thing about the Clearwater or the Cross Bay Ferry is that this was truly an example of agreements between numerous government entities and the, you know, the contractor, the vendor that was selected is absolutely the right group to do this because they've done it before. And, anyway, I just want to, it was definitely, it was definitely a great event. So, that's what I have. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Sandbergen? I really, well, the only thing I have to say is, you know, I can say this as a commissioner and as a resident, really proud of the city. You know, the way that went off tonight for lighting the tree. You know, Jen, you and the city staff, we show up and you make us look like, you know, real heroes in the eyes of the public, you know. And my favorite part of being a commissioner is being in the crowd and shaking hands and, you know, having people say, thank you for everything you do. You know, the city looks great. There's people coming back. And I think right now Dunedin's, you know, about as good as we can make. And I appreciate what you and the entire staff do for us. Thank you very much. That's good in there. I will convey that to them. Oh, actually, you probably will at the holiday party yourself. And not just the, right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, and I include, like, our communications team, too. I mean, I saw Brooke down on her hands and knees getting these little picture kids, and it was, yeah, I mean, actually sitting up there watching the crowd, it was kind of emotional. I mean, it really was. I mean, it was a great crowd, a great, and of course, the high school choir, like, they're just amazing. I'm just going to put it out there because I just, I said to the director of that choir that I have always thought it would be great for them to do a couple songs or one song at Liebman. It would be a lot of work for them, but at, you know, our next Swearing In, I just think it would be awesome. They just, anything they do, they're great. Because they could do something very appropriate and it would be, you know. I know it's. Nobody would want to see us sworn in then, but they, you know, it would be amazing. If I could add something, I know it's late, but when the conductor, director, whatever you call her, turned on and said, do we have time for one more? I jumped in and said, yes, before, and I'm sorry, Mayor, I didn't mean to, you know, take your thunder there, but I was loving that music. And they're going to be a DCO, I think, so we'll get to see them again because they're just really good. The only item that I was going to bring up is, and it's late, I'm not expecting us to talk about this, but the property tax issue at the state level is continuing to move forward. They've picked four potential bills that potentially I think now might, you know, Nicole's not here to help me, but I think the next stop is Ways and Means. Yes. And that's potentially next week, Wednesday. They'd love for one of us to be up there. I know they're doing that. It's a tough schedule right now for all of us, so I don't know if that's possible, but Nicole and I were talking a little bit about that. Anyway, yeah, anyway, but in all seriousness, you know, this is a big deal, I mean, because one of them still on there is doing away with all property tax for homesteaded citizens, and I think in our city, like, you know, because they, at the state level, they say 40%, 50%. In our city, it's like 70%, 75% are homesteaded, and, you know, less is than the numbers. It's 50% of what we collect now, which is $9 million loss a year. And again, I continue to say, I mean, I just think Rob Cozen's quote is the best way to say it to our citizens. It is, you know, we all do our thing setting policy, and we have our city manager, you know, kind of keeping things moving. Our fire and police keep us safe, but it's our rec and parks that make us special in Dunedin. And I will tell you right now, if we got a $9 million cut, it would suck the life out of the quality of life items in this city. And we've got to connect the dots for our citizens so they understand. Now, there's three other proposals, and they, you know, that's the top one. They start to get a little bit lesser impact, but we have to really pay attention, because if it gets past Ways and Means, depending on which one it does, it could be in January, early in the session, on the floor of the House. And so the number one way that, I mean, I think we have a plan, and that's actually, I'd like us to get it on one of our agendas, so we can share what the plan is to try to, you know, have, I think, town halls, whatever, just so we can talk to citizens and make sure they understand kind of how the money does work. And, you know, again, we, you know, they can make their own decision. We all want, we all want a break on property taxes. We all love to not to have property taxes, but it's important that we're all educated on what that actually really means. Because there's been no good talk at all about what would supplement. And so it's, in terms of what makes our community special, I think we just have to pay attention. And the other thing that, in talking with the Florida League, is just, you know, talk to our own representatives and make sure, you know, I know they're just trying to do a good job up there, but I think use our relationships to talk to them and make sure we understand what they're thinking so they understand what we're thinking and that we're getting all the information. I know the staff has done some great packets already. I don't know what's been, what everybody else has seen, but there's, Les has put together some great packets on potential impacts and how our budget works. And I think we just have to be kind of out front of this, because it's good, it's good anyway for our citizens to understand how it all works and where our money goes. So those are my comments. So I'm ending with, if we could, Jennifer, get that on so we can at least talk about, whenever we have it on, where the bills are at, what they would mean, what the impact and what our plan for, you know, trying to make sure that we're doing our part to make sure the citizens are educated on all parts of this. I'm sure we can put it on the workshop in January for the best time. That'd be great. Okay, super. You mentioned something up in Tallahassee on this? Well, it potentially, I think, Wednesday will go to Ways and Means. Oh, this Wednesday? It goes to, and I think in talking to our representative in this area from Florida League, you know, they'd love to have, you know, some representation up there. I mean, they've got some, but again, you know, the earlier we speak out, the better. You know, the farther along it gets, I think the political pressure gets greater. So, but, you know, I mean, they're going to fight the fight on our behalf. I just think the more we can certainly touch base with our own, you know, senators and representatives, the better. So, anyway. Okay. City Clerk update. I love it. I love it. That's great. You know. That's perfect. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? That's enough, right? Okay, good. And City Manager update? We do not have a new City Manager. Yeah. And you're happy about that, right? Right. Okay. And our City Attorney update? That's good. Just congratulations to the Vice Mayor and congratulations to the City Clerk. Very good. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll get another day before the holidays, before Christmas, to say other things, but this meeting is now. Oh, wait. We are celebrating Commissioner Tom DeGuard's birthday in the back with some cheesecake. So, yeah. I mean, feel free to join us. Probably, yeah. Anyway. So, happy birthday, Commissioner. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.