COMMISSION WORKSHOP - Dec 02, 2025

December 2nd, 2025, City Commission Workshop. I'd like to call this meeting to order, and we'll start with Jen, if you could give us the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we will start with the presentation, Connected Community Bus Network, PSTA presentation, Nicole Duffa, Director of Planning, PSTA. Welcome. Good morning. Mike, the green light. There we go. Perfect. Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much for having me here today. We're excited to present to you all about PSTA's new services, as well as our Connected Community Bus Network. I'm really happy to be here in front of you today, in front of some PSTA family, as well, so not just the Dunedin City Commission, but members of the PSTA board, as well as PSTA staff. Hey, Nicole. I have one second. I was in such a hurry to start on time. We do have our representative, Commissioner Walker, and I didn't know if you wanted to say something before Nicole started. Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Yeah, so it's great to have you all here. I just want to say that, you know, we're all looking forward to this presentation because you've got a lot of great things to present, and this last year has been pretty much phenomenal in the new services that you've rolled out. And I will not stand in your way. Thank you very much for being here. Thanks for making the trip up to Dunedin. Absolutely. Thank you, Commissioner. And thanks for representing us on PSTA. So go for it, Nicole. Wonderful. You're on now. Thank you so much. Well, as Commissioner Walker said, 2025 has been a really great year, in particular a great year for PSTA. We've launched some really exciting things in 2025. Number one, I want to talk about our new Grouper Airport Express service. This was an idea that came out from our County Commissioner, Brian Scott, who wanted to provide a really easy way to get folks who are coming through PIE, our very own St. Pete Clearwater Airport, to our most pristine Clearwater Beach. Huge tourist destination, and this was a service where you can actually go from PIE, when you arrive and land at PIE, use either an app or even go right out to the curb, and you'll find a grouper vehicle there for you. For $8, you can connect to Clearwater Beach directly, anywhere on Clearwater Beach. So this is a brand-new service that started in 2025, and we've seen some really great success. And so if you know of anyone who's visiting the area, this would be a service that you can recommend for them. Number two on the list, Clearwater Ferry. PSTA took over Clearwater Ferry, and what we are also very excited about this year is opening the new Dunedin service, or reopening the Dunedin service. We were really excited to partner with the City of Dunedin in opening up the service where we can provide direct Dunedin, downtown Clearwater, Clearwater Beach Ferry service. With the hopes of expanding our ferry service, we're in the midst of working through the new Tampa Bay Ferry, formerly Cross Bay Ferry. So those are really exciting ferry services for PSTA to take over and to move forward. This year, we also launched our new SPARC service, so a new premium rapid transit service on 34th Street South, where we have premium-branded stations and signage. So if you were to take 34th Street South, if you ever get down to South St. Pete, from Eckerd College to Grand Central Station, connecting the students who are at Eckerd College to the premium Sunrunner service, as well as anyone who lives along the bustling Skyway Marina District, all the growth happening in South St. Pete in that particular area, now has 15-minute frequency on the SPARC to be able to connect them to the Sunrunner or any other route serving the St. Petersburg area to take them where they need to go. And we also, for anyone who has not used PSTA before, or anyone who wants to try PSTA, it's actually really easy to get on board. We have super easy fare payment methods where you can actually just tap on with your credit card now. So you don't have to download an app. You don't have to get a Flamingo fare card if you don't want to. But you can just, in fact, use your Apple Pay, Google Pay, your contactless credit card to be able to board a PSTA bus. And so we're really excited about the innovative programs and services that we've launched in 2025. As I said, Clearwater Ferry, we now connect Dunedin to Clearwater. For those, I'm sure you all know the service that we operate with you all, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. And we're reaching our peak tourist season now. I know my family from Michigan has already come down and made their home here in Clearwater, actually Clearwater in Dunedin. And this is a service that they love to use. It is $8 to go from Dunedin to Clearwater to Clearwater Beach. And reduced fares are also offered for anyone who does qualify. And so really, one of the other really exciting developments that PSTA has done in 2025 is our Connected Community Bus Network. So our Connected Community Bus Network launched October 26, 2025, and so we've now been just over a month, maybe five weeks, of service on this new program. But it has been in development for at least more than two years. We did a lot of data collection, and when we were going through our network design process, there were a few goals that we really wanted to achieve. And so we know that ridership has changed since the pandemic. A lot more people are working from home, or they have different alternating schedules. And what we also saw is that there's more weekend demand for service. So there was more ridership emerging on the weekends and evenings rather than focusing on the peak Monday through Friday commuter-type traffic, where folks were riding, you know, 7 to 9 or 3 to 5, and we saw it throughout the day. And so we wanted to be able to provide service that met those new needs. We're also focusing on the tourist transportation demand. You all see it. When tourists come into our county, a lot more cars are on the road. How are we able to provide service for tourists that can easily access the destinations that they want to go to? We really wanted to capitalize on our core services. A little dramatic effect there. I think it's Christmas now, Halloween, right? When you look at a system such as PSTA, where we're really efficient with the service that we put out there, and it's really hard to enhance service without taking from somewhere else. And so we really want to look at how are we able to put resources on our core where most of the riders need to get to or from work, or to or from home, or where they're health care, their friends and family. And so we wanted to make sure that we're looking at enhancing our core routes and focusing on that increased access to jobs. As a part of this new system, we also really looked at how we time our transfers, and so how folks who get from one route to another, and making sure that that wait is as minimal as possible. Because it can be really challenging, your trip can be much longer if you transfer from a half hour, and you have to wait a half hour to transfer to a new route. So we really focused on making sure that transfers were timed, and folks could be able to go from one bus to the other very seamlessly. But the ultimate goal for PSTA, without any new funding source, was to remain cost neutral. So this was a really big deal for PSTA, where we wanted to focus on how could we enhance our service without actually increasing the burden on taxpayer dollars, or using any more of the PSTA budget. And so while a lot did change through the Connected Community Bus Network, there was a lot that didn't change. So our Sunrunner, our premium bus rapid transit service along the First Avenues connecting downtown St. Pete to St. Pete Beach, did not change. We added a couple of trips to that service in the morning, but otherwise remains as a 15-minute frequency as it was before. We did not change our 100 and 300 services at all, nor did we change our trolley services. So the trolley service, the Jolly Trolley Coastal that goes from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater Beach, as well as the Jolly Trolley's on Clearwater Beach, our very own Central Avenue Trolley and Suncoast Beach Trolley that connects, the beach trolley that connects downtown Clearwater all the way to St. Pete Beach. None of those changed. So all of our tourist services remain the same, and with the tourist season coming up, they actually have enhanced service there. The other routes that go through Dunedin, so anyone who has a family that goes to Clearwater Fundamental, the 66L formerly went to and served that school, as well as went all the way up to Tarpon Springs. The only thing that changed about that is we changed the name. We took the Route 66 and put it on 66th Street instead and renamed that one the Route 91. In addition, our ferry service did not change, only, oh, this was an older presentation. We restored service to Dunedin, as well as provide mobility services and ADA paratransit services, as we did before. But with a focus on Dunedin, we wanted to show you the routes that come right through your city. And so Dunedin is outlined in the big black square, or the big black outline there. And you'll see that the two primary routes going right and cut through Dunedin are the Jolly Trolley Coastal, as well as the Route 91. But we have the Route 61, as well as the Route 19, and the Route 78 that all go through Dunedin, providing both hourly service and half-hourly service through the city. So there's some really good service connecting the city of Dunedin with Palm Harbor and Tarpon Springs, as well as with Clearwater and Countryside Mall. The one route that I really wanted to highlight is our new Route 78. So we have the Route 78 formerly served this area, but we enhanced the Route 78. And so this route now actually gives folks who live in Dunedin or anyone who lives in downtown Clearwater or in the general area between Dunedin and Clearwater now has a one-seat ride to Tampa. And so this was an important change that all the way west of town and country, that's the Hart's Northwest Transit Center, Transfer Center. And it connects to a variety of Hart routes as well. And so this service, this is a half-hourly service providing folks in the city of Dunedin to Countryside Mall, to the shops at Boot Ranch, so in Oldsmar, as well as West Tampa. One of the other new programs that we launched, so this has been a year of launching innovative programs for PSTA, this is brand new with the Connected Community Bus Network, where we modeled it after the grouper service. So the grouper service where you go from a point at PIE to a zone on Clearwater Beach, so you can go anywhere on Clearwater Beach, this is very similar to the grouper service. Snapper is where you, this zone outlined in blue on the screen, you can go anywhere from this zone to downtown Clearwater at Park Street Terminal or Countryside Mall. So there's two points. So from either of those two points, you can go to this zone, or from this zone, you can go to either one of those two points. And so this provides service direct, so door-to-door service. This would be directly from your home or anywhere that you are located in that blue area directly to Park Street Terminal or Countryside Mall to be able to connect you to other PSTA services as well. And so this service came out. It formerly had the one route going through this area that had very low ridership. And so this is a way for PSTA to provide service to this region without actually pulling service away and making it potentially a direct service, a direct transfer to another route. The rides can be hailed either from an app. So there is the Grouper app if you download on the App Store. It can be on the Google or Apple App Store, any App Store. You can book or you can download the Grouper app, or you can call PSTA's info line and request a Snapper ride. And so this service, because it is modeled for bus service, is actually the same price and the same fare as a PSTA bus. So it is $2.25 if you, for one ride, or $1.10 if you are a senior or a youth under the age of 18. And so it's cost affordable for folks to be able to make that connection. And with that, I will take any questions. Thank you all so much for the chance to present about PSTA. Okay, well, we'll do questions. So I'm going to start with the Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. And it's nice to be back this morning. Thank you. It's good to have you back. Nicole. Hello, Mayor. I'm so happy you guys are here today. At least for me personally, I consider transportation one of the top priorities and concerns of the county, of the region, not just Dunedin. But it's always nice to talk about Dunedin. So thank you that you're here. Just a lot of questions that I have. The snapper on demand will work backwards. And it's that anywhere in the zone to point, or the point to anywhere in the zone. That's correct. But not anywhere in the zone to anywhere in the zone. That is correct. Right. Okay. But we are getting closer. So, okay. Because I think that's one of the, that microtransit is a huge, huge deficit in the county. And so if we could have more of that, the better we'd all be. Do you see where that might ever be, zone to zone might be an offer? Or you just don't know? I don't know at this point. I think because this service is new, even the grouper service is new this year. I think we're waiting to see how it performs before we make any changes to the service. It's, I would say nothing's off the table. But at this point, that's not in discussion right now. And speaking of grouper, and that is, just like one more time for the residents, that is working with Pai Airport to anywhere within the zone on Clearwater Beach. That's correct. Are you guys monitoring, or is there anybody that's monitoring the impact of that to microtransit on Clearwater Beach? That's a great question. I know that we, as far as microtransit on Clearwater Beach, we should be monitoring that. So if we're not, we can look at that. As far as the impact goes, I think we don't anticipate a strong impact. Microtransit really has a benefit in the shorter distances, in particular, like within Clearwater Beach. And so I think for the service to provide that direct from the airport to the beach, once they get to the beach, they'll need to use that microtransit service to be able to get around microtransit or PSTA Suncoast Beach Trolley service. And so I think that we don't anticipate a strong impact on that, other than to maybe even increase ridership on microtransit in that area, because we're bringing folks without their cars to the beach area. And so they'll have to look at alternative forms of transportation while they're there. And that's actually where I was going with that. In that, because my concern is, because I'm a big believer in that, but my concern is the feeling of the tourists feeling trapped on Clearwater Beach. If I take this transit out to the beach, now what do I want to do? Absolutely. So the success of the group or program has to rely on a robust microtransit. Once they get there, that feeling of comfort, that, okay, I can still get wherever I need to go or want to go. That's a great point, Vice Mayor. I think partnering, our partnerships with the hotels out on Clearwater Beach, so PSTA has a robust U-Pass program where, in partnership with the hotels, they pay PSTA a fee, and we offer free rides to their guests or their employees on the beach. And so ensuring that the hotels are promoting the free rides on PSTA in particular is a really important point to make sure that folks don't feel trapped once they get on the beach. They actually have a variety of options for them, and all of which are actually free and included with their stay. Right, and to even educate those tourists on what microtransit might be, that's anywhere from the Jolly Trolley to are the hotels offering bike rentals? Right, absolutely. Yes, so microtransit is anything. Then also working with the Cedic Clearwater on any type of beautification that includes shade. Absolutely. So to increase that walkability factor. Yes, sir. And reasons why they might not, but anyway, that's the end of my plug before I get away from questions and then the comments. You talked about there are some parts of Jolly Trolley that are 30-minute service, and there are some parts in Dunedin where Jolly Trolley is 60 minutes. And can you talk to that discrepancy on why some routes are 30 minutes? Because we talk on the days here all the time about, as a matter of fact, our previous mayor, that was, she was almost hell-bent on getting 30-minute service minimum. We'd like 15, but we'll take 30. But why we can't have the 30, why that doesn't work. And it can't isn't, you guys are saying no, I get it. But what are those obstacles? Because I think increased frequency is certainly one of the two things that increase transit. Absolutely. And so, yeah, can you talk to, what might it take for Dunedin to get to 30-minute service? That is a great question. I think, and I don't want to speak out of turn with Jolly Trolley. I know that, broadly speaking, one of the barriers to increasing service is also the number of vehicles and being able to have the number of vehicles required in order to operate 30-minute frequency for as long of a distance as the Jolly Trolley coastal route is. And so I don't want to say that the Jolly Trolley doesn't have enough vehicles, but I know that that can be a barrier, as well as to increase frequency is an increase in funding needs as well. So I know that that's another barrier to increasing service, because then you're putting not just another vehicle, but another operator on the route. And so that does cost additional funds in order to provide that increase in service. So I would say those are the two top barriers that are typically, that we at PSTA experience anytime we want to increase frequency on any route. And so for the, I can get the information on the Jolly Trolley coastal in particular, just for the City Commission to have that information, so I can have more specifics for you about, like, how much is the funding shortfall and how much, if there's any vehicle needs of that sort, so I can make sure that you all are properly informed about what it would take in order to increase that service. Absolutely. Yeah, if you could have did that, it'd be great, because either, oh, God, not as much as we thought. Yeah, we can do that, or, you know, either way, that gives us more data. Absolutely. Right. And with that, Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner Zandberg, in questions? You know, the grouper, that's a wonderful program. I've seen them on the roads. Ever possible to expand the points of stoppage from, you know, rather than just Clearwater Beach? Sure. A pretty cool little community down here. There is a wonderful community up here in Dunedin, absolutely. The benefit of a service like Grouper is that it can be customizable and that it can be a little bit flexible, so I will bring that comment back to my team and to the PSTA and see what we could do with that. Absolutely. Okay. So, you know, if someone was standing outside this building and they wanted to go to the Tampa Airport, how many transfers, or how would they get from here to the Tampa Airport? From here to the Tampa Airport? That is a great question. So, it would likely take definitely three buses to get to the Tampa Airport from here. You'd have to get to downtown Clearwater, and then there is a route from downtown Clearwater that would take you to connect to the 300. That is the PSTA Airport Express along Elmerton Road. And so, as far as time, I wouldn't know how much time it takes, but I know it would take at least three buses. It would take a while. That's what I thought. And the last thing was on the water taxi or on the ferry. Is that cost round trip, or is that each way? That is a one-way. That is one-way. Okay, good. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. I greatly appreciate the Vice Mayor bringing up the Jolly Trolley Coastal. And, you know, I was going to ask for the same information with regards to what it would take to embark upon that expansion. Absolutely, Commissioner. You know, we are, you know, I think through the course of any year, we evaluate our microtransit options that we have here in Dunedin. And I think we're always looking for a better way to do it. And so, the one thing, so having been on the board for just a little over a year now, I think, one of the things when I started, it is remarkable in the last year, the number of regional relationships that PSTA has established. And you've really created this ecosystem of stakeholders now. So, you want to kind of expand on that, just kind of, you know, talk about some of those relationships? Because, to me, that's remarkable. I mean, you have not only, you know, served Pinellas County, but you're also working with Tampa and a number of other, so. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Commissioner, for that opportunity. PSTA is an inherent regional service. In Pinellas County, in particular, with 24-plus municipalities, our relationships with our cities and municipalities is very critical in how we work together to provide transportation services. We have really strong relationships, not just along Pinellas County, City of St. Petersburg, City of Dunedin, City of Clearwater, but as Commissioner Walker said, we also work across the bay. We've been working a lot on the Tampa Bay Ferry service. So, the Tampa Bay Ferry has been one of our biggest regional services that we've had to work on in a very long time, where we've been working with the City of Tampa, in particular, as well as the City of St. Pete, on negotiating a funding agreement, maintenance agreement, making sure that dock locations are in place, and making sure that the cities both want the service there and that can accommodate the passengers once they emerge from the ferry service in their respective cities. And so, it's being able to strengthen those relationships with fellow staff, as well as fellow elected officials across the bay, has been a lot of work, but a lot of really fruitful work. And we're really excited about the upcoming Tampa Bay Ferry service that we hope to launch in 2026. Not only with the cities themselves, but we have a really strong relationship with the transit agency in Tampa, as well. The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Agency, as well as the MPOs. So, I know that there's been some talk. You may, if you're a member of the Ford Pinellas Board, for example, they're talking about MPO merger. So, even PSTA and how we engage with our metropolitan planning organization, both here locally, as well as across the bay in Tampa, is really important. How we talk about transportation in a regional perspective, because we all know that our folks don't just stay here in Pinellas County, even though I would like to just stay here in Pinellas County sometimes. You know, you still have to go over to Tampa or go to the airport, for example. And so, how we provide that service and how we're able to grow our service is dependent upon those relationships that we have. And so, it's been, I would say, our CEO, Brad Miller, does a really good job at being a bridge to those regional relationships, as well as our staff. I think the work that PSTA is doing is really trying to bring the region together in that way, especially in regards to transportation. But it's critical to have the support of members of our board, like Commissioner Walker. And so, I know this has been exciting to be at PSTA during this time when we're exploring and enhancing those regional relationships. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I would even add to that, your advocacy, you know, on behalf of the city of Dunedin, both Tallahassee and federal, has been extremely welcomed and helpful. So, the other thing I just want to maybe expand on a little bit here is one of the other remarkable things that I've seen that is definitely working very well is the fact that, you know, through your leaning forward and your adoption of, you know, basically cutting-edge analytics, you are really able to be a lot more responsive to the needs and requirements of our region. Anything you want to add to that, just in terms of, you know, what the investment has been like and, you know, kind of what has helped that? Absolutely. I know as far, our agency has a goal of being really a data-driven agency. And so, we have, actually, I brought our planning data analyst manager, Devin Deal, here. He presents to the PSTA Finance Committee every month on data. And so, how PSTA is looking at the services that we provide and understanding the impact of those services and the cost of those services and how we're really thinking outside of the box, I think it comes down a lot to the data. How are we able to be effective with the resources that we have and how are we able to save money? And so, we really look, bottom line, at what do the numbers tell us before we start making decisions? I would say that our CEO is really an innovative thinker. And so, he, the mobility-on-demand type programs, that's one of the ways that transit can innovate into microtransit as well. And being able to see, look at where is the need, where are our riders trying to go, what are they telling us they need, and then what does the data say? And then being able to then branch out and look at what can we do is something that PSTA, I think, does really well and is always striving to do better in order to meet the needs of the community. I know that we'll be, we have a strong data focus and a data project coming up where we'll be looking at all of PSTA's data and how we make our decisions. And so, I know that's one of the other ways that we're going to be leaning into that cutting edge is utilizing new software, utilizing tools like AI in our call taking. So, that's another one of the, actually a really cool program that we just recently adopted was the use of AI in taking reservations for our paratransit service. So, if people call in to a PSTA, paratransit service, mobility on demand, for example, all they need is, hey, I just need to schedule a ride from point A to point B. That can actually now be taken by an AI caller through our call center, through our reservation call center, where it actually alleviates the burden of the hold times on our call agents. And it's a simple process, hey, this is the phone number that I called, they know exactly who you are because of the phone number. They say, you say, here's my starting and end destination, and the ride will be held for you. So, we're constantly looking at ways to innovate and look at technology to be able to reduce costs to PSTA. And so, those are, I would say that's the most recent example of something cutting edge that we've recently adopted. But I know that PSTA will do more in the future. Yeah, thank you for that. But your philosophy on innovation is truly remarkable, and it is a significant discriminator in terms of the organization, the PSDA, and the services that are provided. So, thank you. I have no further questions. Thanks, Commissioner. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. It's always interesting to follow my esteemed colleagues after they've exhausted my 28 questions. But I do have a few. And thank you, Nicole, for joining us this morning. Absolutely. We really appreciate it. I'm looking at what your conflicting priorities must be when you're dealing with the various aspects of worker transportation, tourist transportation, traffic reduction, and basically shoppers. And you've got all four to figure out. Help me understand how you prioritize that. That's a really great question. So, that's really a balance, I would say. And so, as far as a transportation agency, a transit agency such as PSTA, one, we know that we're providing service across the board. We know that we need to be providing it early morning through the later evening. And so, we look at and do a comprehensive analysis of where are people starting and where are they going. So, every five years, PSTA does a comprehensive operational analysis that includes an onboard survey. So, we do an origin and destination survey every five years across the system. And so, we do a statistically valid sample of riders across every single route, every single time frame of the day. So, we make sure we capture riders in the morning as well as riders in the evening and middle of the day. And we're trying to understand where are you going and where are you coming from. And so, that way we have a baseline of data, of knowledge, of here's where in the county folks are trying to go. And here's where they're coming from. And then being able to allocate resources across each of those types of trips. So, we know where the major job centers are. So, we know we have to have core routes going from where people live to where people work. And so, we know that we have to start there. I would say that's the backbone of transit service across the world is how we get people to and from work. And so, being able to look at that. And then you layer that on. So, I would call those our core routes. So, we look at core services routes that we know are taking a large majority of people from their neighborhoods to their places of employment. And then you look at the supporting service that gets you to the core. So, what does the neighborhood service look like? Where are folks in the neighborhood? And which routes do they need to connect to? And so, then you look at that supporting local neighborhood service where you can, like, okay, we're feeding the core now. And so, we're looking at how do routes serve specific neighborhoods? Do they go, like, are there concentrations of large multifamily housing in certain areas? We know where there are, as far as the U.S. Census goes, we know where there are cars with zero to one cars in a household. So, we know that there's limited car access there. And so, we're looking at demographics, demographic information on the census, as well as the data that we get from our surveys. And then we start building a system from there. The fortunate thing about PSTA is that we've been around for 40 years. And so, we do have a baseline network. But with our connected community bus network and our redesign, we were looking at how has that shifted? Where have folks changed where they're going? Or where has more housing increased? Where has density increased? So, we make sure that we're providing transit service in those areas because when there's density, there can be more transit use because there's usually more walkability. There's more things to do, a lot like the city of Dunedin where here in the downtown core, it's concentrated. You have a lot of walkability. How are we serving that area? And so, it becomes a balance of prioritizing some of the key trips and then how do you get folks to those areas? And really looking at the major job centers, looking at the major destinations. So, the beaches, for example, are not just job centers, but they're destinations. And so, it's a combined trip here. And so, we know we have to put service in these areas. So, it really becomes an exercise in balancing acts between the different types of needs. And I would say as far as prioritizing them, we know where people need to go. And so, really focusing on that core service and then supporting the core service. So, I know that's kind of a very simple explanation to a very complex problem that you're talking about. But I would say, generally speaking, that's the work, the analysis that goes into how do you compete against those, or how do you accommodate those competing demands? Recently, we have approved the development of an affordable housing unit over on Main Street. One of the questions we asked during that process is how close is that to a bus stop? It seemed that it was pretty close, which was good news for us. But I'm not sure what that meant for the residents in that particular location. What does that give them access to over on Main Street? By the way, this development is right behind Lucan's, if you happen to know where that is. So, what access is that going to bring to those residents? How are they going to use the transit system? And what does that mean for them? So, for here in Dunedin, what I would say, if you don't work here in the city, but you work outside of the city, that bus service will take you to Park Street Terminal, which is where all of our North County services really combine into one location. And so, being able to even have a bus stop outside of your apartment complex or new home, new unit, wherever, being able to connect you to more bus service that can get you to your job, get you to your children's schools, get you to your loved one's house, the grocery store, your doctor's appointments. So, having even just a single bus stop, regardless of where that bus goes, it can connect you to more bus service as well. And so, being able to say, hey, I have transportation, can alleviate a really large burden, both mentally, emotionally, to know that I know I can get somewhere. I can get to where I need to go. And so, for here in particular, I would say it's either, actually, it could be Countryside Mall, where we have a really large transfer presence of buses going to Countryside Mall and then going north and south, or to downtown Clearwater, where we have Park Street Terminal. And coming soon, our new Clearwater Station, where folks can get to downtown St. Pete, they can get to Seminole, Largo, they can get to Oldsmar. So, from that location, they can get, actually, anywhere in the county. And so, being able to have even just a single bus stop to make that connection can be really important for folks. Thank you so much. That's all I have. Absolutely. Good questions, Commissioner. Yeah. Knocked out a few of mine. Let me just drill down a little bit on the same concept, though. So, if I'm on Main Street at the affordable housing units, and I need to go to a job, you know, let's just say mid-county, since that's a huge job area, how long would it take me? What would be the process of getting there? Oh, so, I could pull up my phone right now and map that for you, actually, from here. So, the route serving here, actually, I'm going to call on my phone a friend who might do, plan a trip. To Park Street Terminal, and then Park Street Terminal is one of the locations where we have time transfers. So, all of our bus routes coming into Park Street, they get there at about the same time, sit for five to ten minutes, and then leave at the same time. So, if you are transferring to a route that only runs once an hour, you're not waiting 50 minutes for your next bus. So, they could ideally get that bus stop to Park Street and then make a time transfer, and they could take Route 18 down to Mid County through Largo, Seminole. There's a few other routes that you can take, probably hour, hour and a half, thanks to the time transfers. Before the time transfers, that was probably a two-hour trip. So, that's really the heart of what you guys are trying to work on? Yes. Realistically, how you can shorten it? Mm-hmm. So, how about if I want to go to Honeymoon Island? Ooh, to Honeymoon Island. From Main Street. Well, we don't offer service on the Dunedin Causeway, unfortunately, although I would love to, because then I... I kind of knew that, but I was peppering. And why is that? That's a great question. Why is that? I think, as far as destinations go, I know it can be challenging. So, when you design a transit network, a lot of it... So, part of the reason why we serve Clearwater Beach so well is that we can just... We can go through Clearwater Beach. So, we can go through, we can connect through, so you can come in from the north into Clearwater Beach or from the south into Clearwater Beach. So, with Honeymoon Island, the way it's designed, right, it's an out-and-back. And so, we've not, at the request of the city of Dunedin... Probably would be better for something like that, too, probably. Yeah, absolutely. Microtransit would be a really good way to approach that. It's just such a huge spot where we get bottled down, traffic's a big issue, people get stuck trying to come out onto the causeway, and it doesn't look like we're going to get any improved real... I mean, they've done some improvements on the access entranceway to Honeymoon, but it's a work in progress. Okay. Let's see. So, do we know the percentage of Pinellas County residents that actually use PSTA to get to work? Actual percentage? I know that we have quite a few unique users. You want to speak to that, Devin? Yeah, we can't specify the number that use it to get to work, but on our... It's called Flamingo Fairs. It's a service where you use your contactless credit card, where our transportation disadvantaged riders, who are below 200% of the federal poverty level, get tap cards. They can tap. So, we can track unique accounts on our Flamingo Fairs, which is about half of our ridership, and we had over 150,000 unique accounts used last fiscal year, and that's only on about half of our ridership. So, that's interesting. And, I mean, I speak from, this is probably 10 years or whatever. I used to be Director of Health and Human Services for Pinellas County. Huge, huge issue about how long it took people to get there. And, of course, people, if they don't have transportation, picking between home and a car. Yeah, like, how do you expect people to go to work? So, those are interesting numbers. What do you guys consider your biggest gap? I mean, when you look at, like, we just don't have the money to do this, and what a loss it is, because we could be so much more efficient, so much more useful. That's a great question. As far as gap goes, I think for me, so coming from a transit planning background, when Commissioner Walker was saying, you know, or Vice Mayor was saying, more frequency means more rides, I think the biggest gap that we have is that we can't provide enough 15-minute frequency service across the county. We have two, three routes now. The Sunrunner that provides 15-minute frequency, the Spark service that provides 15 minutes, and the route for Monday through Friday in St. Pete. So, from PSTA's office all the way down to Pinellas Point area provides 15-minute frequency Monday through Friday. We would love to provide more 15-minute frequency. It's one of the ways that the less time you wait, the more likely someone's able to take the bus, you know, especially if you have a choice. If you have a choice, you're going to choose not to wait. You're going to take that instant ride on that Uber or Lyft to get you to where you need to go. But if we had 15-minute frequency or less across the system, how much more likely it might be that people will take transit would increase exponentially. And so I think from a transit planning background, being able to provide that service is one of the gaps that I think is our biggest. Maybe I'll ask you, Devin. Do you think it's any other gaps? I would agree. I think the frequency on our core service, we know that that's where most of our riders live, where most of our riders work. And because of kind of the nature of your service, you choose either ridership-based service and heavy corridors or coverage-based service that provides that access from neighborhoods to the core. And we're at about a 60% ridership focus and 40% coverage focus. And short of new funding, you can't allocate more resources to ridership where most of the people are and where most of the people work because you do have to provide that kind of lifeline service to the neighborhoods and the communities to get them to the core. We would love to provide other services too. You know, I think the ferry is a great addition, and I would love to actually increase ferry service so that it can become a viable commuter option for folks. And then lastly, I just thought about it, robust airport service. Those are a couple of areas that I would love to improve. I was going to ask you about how long it would take to get to the Rays game, but probably a long time to get there and back. Oh, yeah, from Dunedin to, you're talking about next season in St. Pete. Yeah, that would take... And we're kind of all about the Blue Jays right now, but just saying. Just curious, though. Yeah, well... I mean, it's probably just really people would look at that and say, no, I'm taking my car. There's no way, right? Yeah, I think from Dunedin, that would be a very long trip, actually. It would only take two buses, because you could take the 18. So it would only take two buses, but the Route 18 from downtown Clearwater to St. Pete would take almost an hour and 45 minutes. And so then you have to add that trip from Dunedin to that. Express bus service would be a nice addition as well. We are looking at Alternate 19. And so there has been a study with Ford Pinellas on Alternate 19 from the Grand Central Station area all the way up to downtown Clearwater. So it only goes up to downtown Clearwater. But we're looking at that becoming maybe another spark-like service. Premium-branded stations, that is in the early planning stages still, but could be something that we move forward in the future where there could be enhanced frequency along Seminole Boulevard from downtown Clearwater all the way through. So it could cut down on that travel time compared to the local route. And what is your guys' total budget? Oh, our total budget is $165 million. And how much of that comes from property tax? I know. I'm just curious. But I mean, your primary. It is our primary. I'd have to get that number, too. I don't want to have it on the top of my head. Okay. Those are all my questions. Anybody else forget something they want to add? Okay. Forget. If you don't mind. You go ahead. I know. You're Mr. Transit up here, so. Nicole mentioned Sunrunner. And so I just wanted to talk. Since its inception, have you seen an increase? And can you talk to transit-oriented development and what might have has occurred along that route and the benefits of any development that has occurred? Yeah. I'll speak to the transit-oriented development and the benefits. But then I will also still defer to Devin as far as ridership. He's our data guy and has been paying attention to those numbers very acutely. The city of St. Pete did a really big study on transit-oriented development and is in the process still of implementing new zoning overlay along the Sunrunner Corridor. So it has not been finalized yet, but they still do have a lot more allowable density there. And so they're seeing pockets along the Sunrunner Corridor in particular, obviously close to downtown, but as it moves further west even, towards 22nd Street, towards outside of, right outside of the TROP area. There, the amount of growth and interest in growth from developers in the city of St. Pete, they're all really looking at how can we maximize the allowable density here. I know that in conversations with developers, the appeal of the Sunrunner and being able to maybe provide a little less parking that can actually help them with the development. You know, parking is not easy to provide from a developer's perspective. It doesn't make them any money. And so with having premium service there available, they know that they can offset that parking with providing with the Sunrunner. I know that further west, they've not seen as much development yet, but I know there's more smaller scale multifamily coming in. So I actually live along the Sunrunner Corridor myself, and I'm seeing more like townhome style units coming into the corridor right near the station areas. And so within walking distance to the station areas, you're seeing people capitalizing on the fact that actually, hey, you can get to downtown or to St. Pete Beach really easily. And so it's not just like large scale, huge density, but really looking at more neighborhood scale, but multifamily. And so you're seeing that come in a lot more and folks really taking advantage of the services that are out there. And I know that they're talking about density in South Pasadena. What are they doing with those shopping plazas that are there? There's opportunities for growth and development as well as in that Pasadena corridor. And so I think transit-oriented development does take some time, but we're seeing the small starts of it really starting to take root. And I do anticipate more growth in the future. And as far as the ridership goes, I can defer over to Devin. Yeah, I think as Nicole said, we aren't really seeing the impacts of the transit-oriented development yet. Areas that were already developed do tend to have higher ridership like downtown St. Pete. But over the last year and a half or so, ridership has been relatively stable at about 2,200, 2,300 rides a day. With the new network that we implemented at the end of October, we are seeing about a 6% to 7% increase. It's only one month of data, so it's very tentative. But we did prioritize better connections to the Sunrunner from our regular bus routes, and that may already be paying early dividends in ridership. One more question down here. Thank you, Mayor. We'd like to know the ratio relative to income of fees versus state-local funding. Okay, absolutely. We can provide that for you. Okay. I'll make sure to, yeah. So, because then you're talking about funding for PSTA, state-local funding for PSTA. Trying to figure out how much you're subsidized and how much you're getting in the way of rider fees. Absolutely. Oh, so our fair recovery ratio is? Our fair recovery ratio is about 5%. 5%, yeah. So only 5%. Fairs only cover 5% of your operations. Okay, thank you. Okay. I'll just tag on, because I did forget 30-minute trolley service. That's huge for us. Yes. Huge, huge, huge. And so I guess my question is, have we really put that into writing as to what that would look like and what that would cost? That's what I want to provide to you all as a result of this conversation. Absolutely. And you're providing that to everybody, right? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Good. Okay. So covered. Okay. Okay. I don't think there's anything else, but we really appreciate it. I think we learned a lot and appreciate how you're doing. Thank you all for your questions. And keep up the good work, Commissioner Walker and the board. Mayor, if I may, just a comment that if anybody wants to really geek out on, especially the data, go hang out in the planning department, talk to Devin. And it was so fun. And I was sitting in my cubicle one day, and I think my passion for public transit is fairly well-known. And Devin was so excited to show me. They just don't get rid of all their equipment. They have, like, stuff that they used in the 50s and was how they tracked the different types of writers. And it was something that certainly he thought that I would probably be the only one that would really appreciate that. And I really did. And so that was really cool. Just go, look at all this stuff and what we used to do. So it was just fun to go down and talk to them about, we didn't even talk about U-PASS programs. We didn't talk about all the things that are offered and just how hard PSTA works to provide as many rides to as many people as it possibly can. And so, and also one of the things that we didn't mention, but it's certainly part of public transportation, is political will and support. And so it's just incredibly important that as a community, multiple communities right within the county, that we all support public transit, because at the end, it does benefit everybody. So even if you're a car driver, support public transit. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Vice President. So does he get kind of irritating at the office? Or, yeah. Not to us. We're the transit nerds for the planning department, so we welcome him with open arms. Yes. Sounds good. And were you wanting to say? Yeah, I have to pile on to that. But so, yeah, the other thing is, this has been positively one of my greater experiences is serving on the board. But the one thing in terms of, you know, my admiration for the organization really lies in the staff. You guys really have assembled the A-team on this, and it's been very impressive to watch. So thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Commissioners. Appreciate the chance to come up before you all. You better close it out, or you guys are going to get big heads before you leave yourself. Okay. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Okay. We're going to go to citizen input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close citizen input and maybe want to take a five-minute break before we go into our solid waste. Okay. Let's bring the meeting back. And we have two workshop items today, although the first one felt like a workshop item, kind of. So solid waste recycling rate study results in discussion. And I'm going to turn, I guess, to Sue and Michelle, kicking it off. Good morning. Sue Bartlett, Public Works Director. I'm glad to be before you this morning to give you a little bit of an update and to talk about the solid waste sufficiency study, sufficiency rate study. And this morning we have, well, Michelle, as you mentioned, the Assistant Director, and Randy Knott from Solid Waste is here. Bill is in Hawaii on a much well-deserved vacation. And we also have Laura, she's quarantined to the back for support as well from Solid Waste and our business analyst, Tanya. In addition, we have our Raftelis consultant, Terry, who will be presenting. I think you're familiar with him, Terry Boveri. I'm going to start to not like him now, because every time he comes, it's about more money. You need to be worried, Terry. Well, this one he dug deep on, for sure. So we appreciate his help. But I also wanted to just bring you a quick update to let you know some of the things that we've been doing there in Solid Waste as well in Public Works. But we came before the commission to get some consensus direction on one of the recommendations from the efficiency study was to change our service and focus on our city residents and making that service more efficient and more cost effective. And we have withdrawn from the unincorporated county, the non-city residents. That is complete. And as of today, yesterday actually, the new routes for internal city services has begun for residents. Commercial remains the same. This one change allowed, it was a huge change, but with the efficiencies and rerouting, we appreciate the support we've gotten from other city departments, like Wayne and GIS, to help us put those routes together. And we'll be refining them as we go, and we find, you know, what works best. But this allows us to pick up the refuse faster at a lower cost. And we have, as you know, frozen two positions and are recommending them for elimination in FY27. That would be two whole positions. And then we're looking at other efficiencies that may also impact some other reductions. This is not an elimination of any personnel. It's two vacant positions. We kept them frozen and vacant intentionally. While we were providing the service to unincorporated, before we reduced that with us to vacancies, we still incurred the expenses, right, for those. But once we stopped doing the service, again, we had those vacancies. We're not working the overtime on our new routes that we were for those. And so we'll start to realize those savings, those personnel savings. Another thing that we've done, which is included also in a note in your package, was some of the surplus or spares, reserve vehicles there at Solid Waste were turned in six. We have, I think, three more slated, ready to go, with possibly two more in the future. That was done with collaboration with fleet maintenance to make sure that we can get those vehicle services. And with the recent acquisition of the newer vehicles, and then we not only get the surplus value for those, but we avoid the cost of maintenance for those on an annual basis. So that amount that you have there is just the surplus dollar value. But Terry's going to actually go into a little more detail with his rate study, because he looked at this, and they worked in conjunction together, LAC, which was the efficiency consultant in some of our recommendations, and then simultaneously, Raftalis was working on the rate study, so that the model can incorporate some of those projected savings for the future. And he'll be very clear. We also presented to the Board of Finance two times. The first time to, you know, just present the information and then get questions and went back to them. And there's a letter, an email with a letter of support in the package agenda item from the Board of Finance and recommendations for what they saw. We have had those staff changes, as I mentioned. It also, the changes that we made to become more efficient also included changing some of the hours for our current employees and days that they work. So it hasn't had a big impact throughout the organization to become more efficient, but they've really been focused on this, and they've already been saving dollars. One of the ways that we're going to show that we're saving those dollars is throughout Public Works. We've created annual plans that our staff has gotten together, and we have an annual plan. It's a resource plan. Basically, all the equipment, all the people, materials that it takes to do a task, it's put into a whole plan, and it equals really the budget. So it's how much it costs, how much of it we're going to do, at what level we're going to do it, what quality level, how many times we're going to do it. So we're talking service levels. So we can come back to you, to our citizens. It can be transparent as to the services, the core services we provide, like PSDA was saying there. Core service. We're focused on core service, and then the commission will provide some policy direction should that service level need to change. And we'll be able to define, if you want a service change, what impact is that going to be fiscally? Is it going to increase or decrease? Will it make a difference? So I'm really excited. We, the commission approved software purchase for the maintenance management, for tracking. This plan has already been loaded in there. Our staff has been using the software, and they approved, you approved it in August. And the PO was issued in September. We plan to go live in January. So it's a pretty extensive thing, and solid waste will be using it with iPads in the trucks. So a lot of cool things happening in conjunction with this rate study. I just wanted to make sure to highlight that we are actively working on these efficiencies and on reductions and savings wherever we can throughout public works. But specifically in solid waste, there are several areas that we've already documented savings. So with that, in January, we had a delegated authority memo from the city manager to award RAF Talis this sufficiency study. And we went to work. We actually delayed them a little bit because at your request about making sure we had some of those efficiencies put in place and that we were looking at those recommendations so that we could come up with the best scenario for our citizens and their rates. And so, again, I mentioned about the Board of Finance. But without further ado, let Terry do the presentation. And we'll be available for questions should you have any. Thank you, Sue. Good morning. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners, for the record, my name is Terry Bovary with RAF Talis. And I'm here today to present on the work that we did with city staff and with direction from the Board of Finance concerning the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund. We have a fairly detailed presentation. I'm going to try to stay a little bit higher level as we go through it. But certainly, we welcome any questions about any of the detail that we've presented here and today. Today's presentation is organized around providing you some background and context for, you know, why we're here today. What the underlying issues were that drove the need for this study. What our scoping key objectives were, basically our methodology going into the study, which I know you're generally familiar with from the other enterprise fund work that we've done here with you all in the city, as well as the results of that work through a discussion around the financial plan and then closing out with our findings and recommendations. So this is probably more beneficial for members of the public that may be following along with us today. But the Solid Waste Fund is established as an enterprise fund, meaning that it needs to be operated in a manner similar to a private business and that, you know, all of the cost of service needs to be funded from the fees and the charges for service. So we must, you know, if we don't set fees to fully recover the cost of service, you know, we're not subsidized by the general fund. We could have service failures, issues like that. So when developing these types of planning studies, it's important to be thoughtful around what those costs look like today and over the long run to be fiscally sustainable. A little bit of overview of the services offered. You know, we, you know, the city provides residential trash, recycling and yard waste and bulky collection one time per week. Commercial has varying levels of service up to seven days per week. And these are the number of vehicles that are going out on average on a daily basis with the FTEs tied to those vehicles. However, overall, we have about 20 FTEs in the operation. And this just gives you a little bit, you know, some of the statistics around the operations related to the service delivery within the city. Generally speaking, it's a very high level of service, a quality operation that's being offered by the city for trash collection service. By the numbers, we service about 15,000 accounts. You see the breakdown between residential and commercial, as well as the tonnage breakdown that we process collecting at the curb and then consequently disposing of. And you can see the breakdown of those tons among garbage, recycling, bulk and yard waste. There's a cost for disposal for each one of these material streams. And we've reflected that in the financial modeling work that we've done. You know, the city had commissioned a rate study back in 2020. And that study had identified and adopted a series of rate increases. You can see here a little bit about that. A key issue, though, that happened since the last time that study was done, really two things. And I think Sue touched on one of them being the efficiency study that was done more recently. But and then that took us in a, you know, that improved the forecast. But something that hurt the forecast that wasn't contemplated was the significant inflation that we observed from around 2021, 2022, starting through 2025. So that prior forecast hadn't anticipated the amount of growth in the operating costs that had been experienced during that short period of time. Here's a comparison between the prior model forecast from the 2020 rate study versus actual operating costs. And you can see that difference picking up invisible in 2024, as well as in 2025 estimated. There were some pretty significant increases in disposal costs, as well as labor costs that, you know, we needed to do in order to retain staff within the city and continue to provide quality service. Here's a more detailed breakdown. And I know I'm kind of moving quickly, so if you'd like me to go down, go a little bit slower, I can too. But here's a more detailed breakdown of the historical projections by category of expense and then subtotal. These amounts for the actual periods would reconcile to the business plans that, you know, you normally put together. And I'm going to show in the next slide here. And I know this is very small font. I don't think it's that important that we necessarily read the font so much as to say that this is sort of an image out of your annual budgetary financial business planning book process. And it had identified this deficiency. We waited to, as Sue mentioned, to really provide rate recommendations until the completion of the efficiency study was done so we could incorporate that so we didn't have to come before you and ask for you to approve a rate plan that would have overstated the need and hadn't incorporated that into it. But one of the consequences of that is it meant that we had a little bit of a shorter window through which we could recover the appropriate amount of rate increases that we're recommending here today. And I'm going to touch on that in a second. Before I do, though, just a reminder about, you know, what our scope and key objectives were for the study is that we were, you know, intending to develop a 10-year financial projection of the solid waste operations. In the presentation today, we're really only focused on the near-term five-year window. But we did look longer term at the full asset life cycle of, you know, solid waste operations, which typically runs around eight years, which is the typical life of a garbage truck. So we wanted to make sure we captured the full asset life cycle. So we looked at a 10-year window. But the focus was the near-term five years. And ultimately, we just want to propose rates that are fiscally sustainable and balance the different sometimes competing policy objectives. So we want to minimize increases to rate payers. But we need to ensure that we've got adequate funding to provide the services that the rate payers expect from the city. This gives you a bit of an overview of our methodology for how we determine the sufficiency of rates. The graphic on the right side shows that we're trying to balance in each year of our financial projections that the revenues are offsetting our costs. And our primary costs include operating expenses. That's the majority of our costs. Sorry, that doesn't continue. Otherwise, I may need to ask Sue to step in and advance the slides for me. But, you know, the primary expenses are operating costs. However, we do need to set aside for capital reinvestment. You know, the garbage fleet, the vehicles are the single largest capital expenditure we have, you know, besides carts, really. And then that translates into the way we fund those assets is through a lease payment, which is basically a debt service obligation repaid over about a five-year period. And I've got more details about how we arrive at that in subsequent slides. But the point is, is this methodology, we're trying to ensure that the charges for service on the solid waste side fully fund these expenditures. So let's get right into it. So here's the forecast that we developed, this graphic, the bars represent the operating expenses. What we're going to do in the next few slides is build upon this, you know, this slide right here. So we're going to start with operating expenses. Then we're going to show you the debt service for the vehicle replacement, the deposits to reserves on top of those, and show you overall what that deficiency looks like, and then what the proposal is to remedy the deficiency. Apologies for that. What I want to point out here are two sort of things. One is that the average growth in operating expenses were projecting off of the fiscal year 25. I know fiscal year 25 is now historical, but when we started this study, we were still in the prior fiscal year. We did escalate the cost off of that fiscal year 25 budget estimated, and we compared it to the 26 budget, and we were generally in line with everything. However, and I think Sue touched on this, the efficiency study. So in that 25 budget, we still plan for the need of addition of two staff members and some vehicles in order to provide or maintain the current level of service the city offers. The efficiency study identified ways to increase the routing efficiency and potentially save. One of those options was to look at, you know, the difference in the levels of service between serving inside city customers and outside city customers. And what we found from that, and I have a slide that goes into more detail, is that it's not the same efficiency to provide service to both customers. And, you know, the commission here decided and provided direction that maybe the best way to move forward would be to not, you know, eliminate or stop providing service to outside the city. And I believe that there were, that there are options for those folks outside the city that are going to be able to get the same rate, which is great news for them as well. But more importantly, it helps offset some cost of service needs and rate increases. And in this chart that's exemplified when you compare 26 to 27, it's not that noticeable, but you'll see that the operating expenses are almost flatlined from 26 to 27. And then you also see that the green line, which represents the revenues that we're forecasting, drop a little bit. So that reflects those changes of the elimination of outside city service. And we have a more detailed breakdown incrementally of those costs. But that, you know, holding those costs more constant provided a direct benefit and lowered the need for the rate increases that we proposed today. So here's a little bit more detail about what I was just describing with respect to the outside versus inside city. And I'm just going to step you through the tables that are on this slide. So if we look at the top table that shows the municipal solid waste routes and just some statistical data, the first line represents the number of customers we serve on these different routes in total being the first column. The middle column is the outside city customers. And then the last column is the inside city customers. And what you'll notice is that it takes us two routes to serve the outside city customers. And we can generally process about 588 homes per route. So that's less than the 827 for inside the city. And that demonstrates the difference in efficiencies between providing inside city service and outside city service. By eliminating the outside city service, we're going to increase from averaging about 798 homes in this example to 827. And one of the things that we did in the financial model working with LAC consultants and city staff was to build out a financial model that could adjust what we thought the labor costs, the fuel, the maintenance costs were for the change in these types of efficiencies. And this is a tool that, you know, we're providing to the city for future use internally as needed to model other potential changes as you look to review your collection routing for enhanced efficiencies. We also provide this example for the bulky yard waste, which also contributed to the efficiencies and savings through the elimination. And you can see there we're going to be going from about 877 on the bulky and yard waste to about 922 with the elimination. Again, we were assuming all of this to happen, you know, at the outset of fiscal year 27 within the financial forecast. Here's a little bit more detail about the potential savings that we estimated over the next, you know, seven years or so from initiation of the elimination in the forecast. You can see that in total, we're limiting about 5.4 million in operating expenses over that period of time from fiscal year 27 to fiscal year 34. That was about an eight-year period to reflect that asset lifecycle fully, as well as the loss in the revenues because we had a higher charge for some of the outside city customers. So even with that surcharge, it wasn't enough to overcome the cost of service. And we would have had to have increased those charges to better offset that. So, but we've assumed that we've eliminated this service and it provides a net savings of about $2.4 million and on a yearly basis about $300,000 per year. So moving off of the discussion about operating costs and the savings of the efficiency study and transitioning to the other elements, key elements of cost, which are the capital needs of the system, this shows you that primarily we have vehicle replacement in the plan and this shows those total expenditures that we would need every single year. And to fund that, if you go to the next slide, we've assumed capital leases. An important point that I just want to circle back on from the last slide is that, and this is more for members of the public to better understand this, but, you know, if we go back five years or so, a garbage truck, an automatic side loader might have cost you $350,000 for one truck, okay? And today we're looking closer to $500,000 or more, depending on the fuel type that we have for an automatic side loader to procure them, you know, within Pinellas County. So we've had a very substantial increase in the cost of the vehicles. So this was another element of cost that increased a lot, more so than probably what was, you know, assumed in the 2020 rate study. But you can see here from this chart what those resultant capital lease or debt service payments will do. You have the existing payments that, you know, we're already subscribed to, and then the red represents the layered payments that we're planning based on the asset replacement cycle within the CIP. So these annual funding requirements on the debt service will stack on top of our operating expenses as a component to help us determine what the total revenue requirements from rates needs to be. So this is how we stack everything together now, putting it all together, the operating expenses being the bar on the bottom, the debt service component, which I just presented on the last slide, being that gray stack bar, and then a little bit of deposits in fiscal year 28 and 29 to our fund balance to maintain our working capital, which we'll talk about, I believe, in the, you know, next slide. But this just shows you that a key issue here is that our revenues are really only sufficient to cover not even 100% of our operating costs, and that over time this shortfall increases. And so there's a real need to adjust rates. Because of the impact to customer bills, we worked with staff to develop a rate plan. And that rate plan was to try to phase it in over as long of a period of time as we could, recognizing that, you know, we're starting at the, you know, at the outset in a deficient position on a cash flow basis with the enterprise fund operations. So we were able to do this over about a two-year phase where we have to raise rates more aggressively. And then after that, we can go to a more inflationary type increase thereafter. And so we think after fiscal year 27, you know, we'll be over that hump. We'll be back in alignment with our cost service and more fiscally sustainable with more minimal rate increases to the rate payers. You'll also notice that the chart on the right presents what our projected ending cash reserves are going to do over our forecast period. And you can see how, you know, we don't have a great deal of reserves, about $2 million we're projecting to end this year. And we're assuming that we're going to drop that down even further to phase in the rate increases that we have planned and that by fiscal year 28, we'll get back to our minimum reserve target, which is about 15% of, you know, the budget. And that translates to maybe about 55 days of operating expenses. So if we didn't collect any more revenue, we could operate for another 55 days just for reference to the 15%. This is what the rate increases would look like to the typical residential customer and, you know, a very comparable level of commercial service. You can see the monthly bill going from about $24 to about $34 over the next two years. That's $6.75, you know, this fiscal year but next calendar year. We're planning effective date of April 1st, 2026, so after the holidays into springtime. And then we want to get, you know, we want to maintain another 12-month gap before another rate increase for the benefit of the rate payers. So we're recommending April 1st of 2027, and then because the subsequent increases for fiscal years 28 throughout 2030 are more inflationary, get back onto the fiscal year cycle of October 1st through September 30th is the proposal. You can see also what that rate increase means in terms of the cost for customers that may have additional carts, which would be on top of the base rate, as well as for the commercial customers that are serviced within the community, two cubic yard, once a week service, a common level of service going up by the same percentage increases we had for residential. How do we compare with these increases? Well, if we assume the FY27 rate increase and we compare to everyone else based on their current rates as they are today, you can see that we're below average, and with this increase, it takes us right to the average. You'll also notice that we have a series of different comparables on two ends of the spectrum. Some of these other municipalities that we're comparing to may or may not fully recover the cost of service in their rates, or there could be other reasons why their rates may be less than ours. And I just want to focus in on, for example, Newport-Ritchie because, you know, they're not established as an enterprise fund, meaning that the general fund could be subsidized in the operations. Or, for example, with OldSmart, it's contracted service, and that contract was entered into back in 2020. So it's about a six-year-old contract, and when that contract goes to renew at market rates, we would expect, you know, the cost of service to increase for them as well. So we don't necessarily know how the rates are going to move over time, but generally speaking, there are some industry benchmarks to inflation of these types of rates. And over the last several years, it's been closer to about 5% per year for the solid waste rates within the industry nationally and even within the state of Florida. So we do think that while the rate increases are more elevated in the next two years, we think, you know, it's still in line with everyone else. And also, you know, the city of Dunedin is not unique. Everybody else in Florida is dealing with the same increase in vehicle costs, the same pressure on labor costs for licensed CDL drivers to retain them to provide the high quality of service that's offered by the city. So in closing, you know, our recommendations in summary are to consider the two-year rate plan that, you know, we just talked about with the $6.75 and $4 roughly increase over the next two years. Thereafter, we're recommending indexing provisions and that, you know, we would recommend maybe consideration of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you know, consumer price index, and the subcomponent of that is the trash and collection index. And that measures and tracks the cost for solid waste operations. And so we felt it might be appropriate to look to that indice to adjust your rates thereafter, with the hope being that, you know, now that we've captured with the fiscal year 26 and 27 rate adjustments getting us back up to where we need to be, that the inflationary indexing thereafter will hold those margins for us and maintain fiscal sustainability. So perhaps you don't have to call me back very quickly. With that, we'd like to open it up for any questions or discussion points you'd like to make. Okay. I'm going to start with questions. Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Just in terms of, you know, first of all, the efficiencies that are gained through the removal of the unincorporated parts of Dunedin is remarkable in the fact that, you know, take a look at those expenses, you know, $5 million compared to a reduction in revenue by, what, $2 million, somewhere in there. You know, that to me is pretty telling. But my question on that is, what, in your opinion, drives those inefficiencies? Why is it made more inefficient for the unincorporated parts? Because the majority of the unincorporated parts in Dunedin are actually in Dunedin. So what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's because inside city, everybody has to subscribe to the service. Outside the city, not everybody does. And if you can think about, you know, maybe how that service delivery occurs, if I'm driving on a neighborhood and I'm only picking up maybe every other household, let's say, that's much less efficient than if I'm stopping at every go. And so that's a key contributor to the difference in efficiency, in addition to maybe, you know, the density differences that exist for the outside city customers. Okay, so basically that's a result of unincorporated residents having different services. Different options. And or possibly, yeah, gotcha. And I just wanted to confirm something. So on slide 22, it looks like the way that we are phasing this would be that if we do vote for the rate increase, that that would start in April of 26? Correct. Okay. And this is my last question. I also thought that it felt that the differences between the lease and the capital or equipment and asset was significant. And this is more of an accounting question because I wasn't sure. But how do we account for the lease expenditures? Is that an operating expense or is that a capital expense? I think if I had to pick one of those two options, I'd call it a capital expense. But there is sort of a translation that occurs. So if I've got to purchase that vehicle, and I mentioned earlier it was like $500,000 for a vehicle, what we're doing is we're going to go out and buy that vehicle, but we're going to buy it with a note, a capital lease. And then what's going to happen is that $500,000, you're going to pay it over the next five years. So the charts that I presented first showed you the total amount that we're purchasing in vehicle quantities, so the $500,000. And then the second chart showed the $100,000, the amortization of that cost, layered into the revenue requirements of the financial plan. Yeah, that was exactly why I was asking the question because this is a capital expense. Then we get to depreciate and subject that to amortization, right? Correct. Okay, all right, great. Okay, that's all the questions I have. Okay, Commissioner Dugard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. So many questions. First of all, we're looking at a 62% increase, if I'm reading this right, over a five-year period. Is that about right? Yes, sir. Okay. Now, we're doing less service than we were before. Is that correct? No. Well, let me clarify. Let's define service, and then we can agree on a common ground there, and then can better answer your question. I, you know, we're providing the same level of service to each household, but what's happening is we're reducing the overall number of customers that we're serving because those customers are outside the city. So when you say reducing level of service, are you referring to the reduction in service to outside city customers? Because I just want to clarify that we're not reducing any of the services that we're offering inside the city. I get that. I understand what you're saying. But our service level is going down. I don't know if I'd characterize it that way. It says so. I mean, that's what I'm seeing. Also, our revenue seems to be going down. Correct. Yes. Yeah, so let me just clarify. When the services that we're offering, we're reducing that overall, and the revenues are going down overall, but on a net revenue basis, we're actually doing better. Because if you could go back, what we're trying to do with the efficiency study is we're trying to provide a better cost per customer account because, you know, I think Jorge sort of touched on it. We're, in essence, subsidizing outside city customers. And so by reducing the overall service, we are reducing the rate increases that are necessary for the inside city customers. Did we ever consider raising the rates on the outside city customers to reflect their actual cost? Well, I believe there had been a discussion with the commission about this issue prior to the study, and it was, there was the direction of the commission to consider elimination of those services. But that doesn't answer my question. Do we ever consider that aspect to figure out if it made more sense for us to retain those for the cost of our citizens? Relative to their expense. I'd rather defer to maybe Jorge or Sue about that, since I wasn't at the commission meeting when that discussion occurred. Good morning, Commissioner. Jorge Guintas, Deputy City Manager. That consideration was part of the efficiency study that LAC, LORIC, and Associates performed. So going back to the question that Commissioner Walker asked, the cost to realize covering those external non-city residents, not your constituents, was also related to the fact that it's an inefficient operation. It's an open market situation for unincorporated residents, even if they're in the vicinity of the city of Dunedin. So since we're not collecting every household, you've got this huge carbon footprint because you've got all these different vehicles crossing in a particular corridor that's outside the city limits. So in order to increase those amounts, it was more expensive for those residents to utilize the city than it would be to contract with a private vendor. So in the analysis that was done by LAC and then subsequently by Terry's firm, even though there's a drop in revenue, the net difference we're better off because the cost that we were incurring versus the revenue that we were recapturing did not offset. And by that virtue, then city residents were subsidizing the service provided to unincorporated residents. That leads to about 40 more questions. And I think what I might just add to that is, because I understand your question. Your question is really centered around, why don't we just raise the rates for the outside city? And one of the potential challenges that we may find is that if we do that, would they go, would they no longer subscribe to the service? And then it creates a bigger problem where the unit costs keep increasing. And so we don't necessarily know that. So I think that might have factored into it, but I don't want to speak for, you know, the main decision point there. However, you know, when we analyzed it, we didn't analyze it with the idea of trying to raise the rates and figure that out, you know, we were going off of the direction to, which was to eliminate that service. And so we modeled it that way. I think I'm beating a dead horse, but thank you very much for your answer. Secondly, we're uploading, we're front loading the cost for this. We've done this before. It kind of gives me pause when I see us front loading the percentage of increase so much. Explain to me why we're doing that. Well, yeah, because when the original rate study was done, it hadn't contemplated the amount of inflation. So as you had been raising rates to keep pace with the original rate study plan, actual costs outpaced those increases. And so we started out the forecast in a deficient position. And because our fund balances within the solid waste enterprise fund are limited, if we don't front load the increases more, our fund balances will go negative. Terry, that's a great answer. The problem is, is we do this every five years, and it seems to be insufficient from what you've just said. That's frequency. May I answer that, Mayor? So you're right. You know, traditionally, doing a rate study every five years was acceptable. But the environment that we live in right now is much more dynamic. For example, with stormwater, we're going to finish the vulnerability assessment and then look at stormwater. We're going to, Terry has, and Raftelis has developed these rate studies so that we can tap into it every three years to make sure that we are still on course for where we need to be. But this last series of rate studies, we have realized that we definitely need to do these more often or at least check them every three years to make sure we're still where we thought we needed to be. I would concur. Very good answer. I think I'm digging a hole here, so I'm going to pass further questions. Okay. Thank you. Let me do my first round, and I'll come back to you unless it's right on point. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, just to make sure, because my colleague brought up a great point on level of service and what I would characterize as being the scope of the service. And I think the way I understand this is that the reduction is really in the scope and not so much the actual service that's provided, right? Correct. Yeah, and then there's a graph that I've seen in the past where you basically graph the service scope and the ultimate cost of that service, and there's a sweet spot. And I think that's what we're trying to achieve, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Vice Mayor, questions? Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, it seems to me that forever and a day, with me purchasing cars as late teens, early 20s, all the way up, the average new car loan has always been kind of five years. That's kind of industry standard. But recently, we've seen an increase in terms of car loans that now are at 84 or even 96 months, depending on the bank or the financial institution. And I noticed that, right, am I right that we have, right, our debt service is tagged at five years? Yes. But the life cycle of the vehicle is eight years? Is that correct? Yes. Yes, but yes. Right. And so for years six, seven, and eight, that we still have that asset on the books, are we seeing an increase in revenue because of the lack of debt service? Yes. Or? Yes. But there are two compounding issues. One is that, you know, inflation to the underlying costs. So, like, when you develop a capital lease, the payments are fixed. They're not going up for inflation. Right. So, by the time you actually get to that year seven or year eight or year six, depending on when you need to replace that vehicle, because it's not a guarantee it'll last all the way to eight years, you're re-upping at a payment that's higher than where you started. So, any sort of cash that you're able to set aside into the reserves presumably helps to offset the jump up in that payment a little bit in the financial plan. And it's also one of the reasons why we looked at a 10-year window when we developed the rate plan. So, we did look a few years outside of what we presented today to ensure that the rates would be sufficient for the longer term, given our assumptions in the forecast. And I'm trying to visualize on a graph what that might look like. Because my thought is, is what happens if we extend the debt service to the life cycle and the asset? Yeah, I think the rate increases wouldn't change. It's a really great question and a way to try to maybe soften the blow. The issue with that, though, is we'll have higher interest at costs. And we think it's a better methodology to leave it at the five years because there's no guarantee it'll last all the way to eight years, depending on the maintenance of the vehicle, things like that. So, there are some, you know, reasons why this might be a better approach from a financial perspective. You know, I think, you know, getting back to the city manager's point, if you reevaluate this every three years or so and that you find your reserve balances are higher than what we forecasted, you might be able to forego future rate increases and adjust the financial plan. If we... I was just going to say that, you know, great comments, Terry. And I agree with what Terry said. We could go to a seven-year loan, but I do think that I don't think the net impact would be much of a difference. Because with a seven-year loan, we're paying a lot more interest expense. You know, right now we're at 4% interest rates with the last one we got for the leases. And if we paid off earlier, you know, even though we're paying... The payments will be a little bit lower over seven years versus five. But I think if you looked at the analysis, I don't think we would be in much of a different net because we paid it off in five and then we're earning interest internally over those next two years rather than making payments. So I think that will offset any savings that you get the first five years. Agree with Les. Also, if I could... So I mentioned that we have additional recommendations and efficiency recommendations that we're implementing. So one of the things in the fleet plan that we're doing specific to solid waste is the recommendations. As you saw, the salvage value for those six vehicles was rather low for several of them because we kept them so long. So staying on this cycle and having the vehicles ordered, you know, we've paid off the debt. We're having... We have to have the money in order to... In the bank, so to speak, the loan ready, in order to purchase a vehicle. And we're finding we need at least two years, if not three years, lead time to do that. So we've been coming to you and asking during the fleet replacement plan for approval to go ahead and authorize those purchases so that they can be built and then be delivered on time. So part of our plan is to get back on track, getting rid of these surplus vehicles when they still have salvage value before they're run into the ground and before we're paying a lot more maintenance costs. So it's that sweet spot that Commissioner Walker was talking about, but with the asset. So that we're replacing it, ordering it in time, and then sending it so we can get some money back in the fund while there's still some life left in that asset. And we're not incurring those increased maintenance costs. So it just kind of goes all together. And I know that doesn't affect exactly the lease amount, but five years, it's paid off. We don't have, we can go and ask you again. We're starting to fund another vehicle for replacement, even though we haven't got it yet. And we don't incur those by leasing it or that loan. We don't incur those until we actually, we get the approval, but we don't incur it until we start, obtain the purchase, and then we start paying the lease back. Yeah, and the point is it's a really great suggestion aimed at trying to possibly lower the rate increases by looking at alternative financing sources. And just want you to know that we had considered it, and that weighed into our factor. And so our recommendation, we think, is the best approach with the five years. Okay. And the life cycle in the asset is eight years. How long do we actually keep it for? Right. In my asset, eight years, I'm talking about depreciation. Is it depreciated at eight years or five years? I believe it's depreciated at eight years. At eight years. And so what's the average length of time that we have a vehicle? Some of the vehicles we're turning in right now are 20, over 20 years old. Okay. Because part of, right, your presentation was vehicles every 2.5. Was that? Yeah, and I'm on page 19. Funding 13 vehicles. This is what this plan is justifying the rate increase is 13 vehicles, right? So it's an average of 2.5 vehicles per year. Correct. And we're holding on to vehicles for 20 years, but all of a sudden we need to buy 13 in the next five? That actually may seem counterintuitive, but is actually correct. And the reason why that is, is because if you don't replace them and you hold on to, and I think what Sue is referring to is reserve vehicles. So we have our main vehicles that we use for daily use, but for redundancy and ability to provide service, if there is an outage of that vehicle, you have to retain reserve vehicles. So what's a common practice in the industry is once that vehicle reaches the end of its useful life, we hold on to the best ones is the aim, and then we get rid of the ones that are giving us the most problems to have a more efficient operation because what we find is that the maintenance cost, the cost to actually hold on to them, becomes a higher cost than the cost of just buying a new vehicle and seeing the, you know, higher capital lease payment, but a lower operating maintenance cost, so the overall cost is less. So this is the balance that your staff has to go through when they're making decisions about when to retire the vehicle, and that's why I couldn't precisely just say that it's going to happen eight years every time because, you know, when you manufacture these vehicles, they're not always built exactly the same. Some vehicles tend to have more problems than other vehicles, and the actual practice of the service delivery is what we find with the many solid waste operations. So you've got to continuously monitor your vehicles to determine when's the best time to kind of replace them. And getting back to your question, if you've got a lot of vehicles that are 20 years, what does that suggest about the operations, that we waited a really long time to replace it? We weren't actively replacing it, and part of that might have been because of the fact that our operating costs went up so much, and maybe we didn't have as much money to replace those vehicles, and now we find ourselves in a situation where we've got to replace a lot more to get caught back up a bit. The other, you know, circumstance that happened over the last several years has been, you know, after COVID, there was a really long period where it was very difficult. Sometimes it took over a year and a half to get a garbage truck in the door. You had to wait a really long time because there were issues in supply and logistics. So we're just finally getting over those hurdles now, and, you know, that also maybe contributed to having to hold on to vehicles longer because the supply of the vehicles years ago weren't there, and that sort of compounded to where we're at today. I don't know, Sue, if that, you know, hits on all the points. Yeah, I think it does. I just want to mention, too, you know, specifically, for the fleet at Solid Waste, we have very, very specific recommendations where we mentioned surplusing six. The last auction was 2021, that we got rid of anything. We are proposing three more vehicles go to auction. These are reserve or spare, so they will reduce the overall annual recurring costs as far as maintenance. But this whole plan is contingent on acquiring the vehicles in this time frame so that we have good, reliable vehicles that they can use and count on, and then we're able to surplus additional reserve. The fleet ratios, the spare or reserve ratios, have been calculated by industry standard, several standards, so that we can become in compliance with this standard, what makes sense. At the time we started, it was 100 percent backup. And really, it was so that we could preserve services. I mean, the whole idea was not that we're just trying to hoard or hang on to these vehicles. It was that they want to be able to have, if this one breaks down, they can go get this one. And, you know, if fleet can't fix this one, then they have that one. And so we're changing our whole model. And so, including fleet and how they respond to those maintenance requirements, and then what we're going to invest in some of these older vehicles. The study showed that vehicles older than 2010 recovered only 23 percent of their expected salvage value. But vehicles from 2012 exceeded projected salvage values by 37 percent. So, just in our own facts, our own data-driven facts, it tells us what we should be doing. And it's a long-range view. It's, you know, we're looking down the road to the end here. But with this proposed plan, and again, we can change this. Things get tough, and they have. That is what's happened. Times have gotten tough, and purchases have been pushed out. What hasn't been transparent is the associated cost with pushing those out that occurs with maintenance, the general maintenance, and then this angst about providing service and making sure that you have enough resources to provide that service. And so the change in philosophy, Sue, is I, with all due respect to staff, because you guys really are amazing. Was that part of a, oh, we were a little inefficient here with this methodology, and we're changing? Yes. And so through this process, we are getting to where we should be operating efficiently, and things should click. So the only time that we're going to see rate increases aren't efficient reasons, but it's because labor costs have increased, or the cost of vehicles, those specific hard dollar are quantifiable things that go, listen, we're exceeding our expenses, so we need to increase. That's correct. And the whole team, they're all thinking of efficiencies and how they can do this. And we talked through having this annual plan. Well, they're going to compare how they're doing. They're going to look at how many houses are they picking up. Can they revise the routes? Randy came up with a suggestion on one of the vehicles that was going to be replaced and said, well, I think we should do this one, and we could get a smaller truck, because it does this route. So they're thinking like this now, all of the staff. They're thinking in there. Sometimes they seem small, but they end up being big. They're a little bit at a time, and they all count. So yes, they're thinking like that. And the average 2.5 vehicles a year, that's what we're looking at. What happens if we reduce that to one vehicle a year? What does that look like? It throws off the plan. Again, we're going to bring you the entire plan. It'll be in the CIP as it reroutes. Like this year, it's only one. And then we look at, okay, where are we at for next year to continue down this path? So that's a model. And it's not our business plan that we're going to present to you. Because I do share the concern of at least one other commissioner on this, if not all of us, that the front loading of this is very, very, very painful for me. And I understand that the city of Dunedin, and we do, we pride ourselves on how efficient we are, how every dollar goes right back in, that there's, we try and eliminate waste. And we're proud of where our millage is in relation to other municipalities. But residents are hurting on every level. And we keep saying, we haven't increased our revenue. We haven't, and we really haven't. But what can the city do? Because it's not fabricated pain. Our residents are hurting, and most of it is not any reflection on the city of Dunedin. I feel I sleep well at night going. We do well. But between property taxes, between property insurance, inflation, what can the city do? And if we can reduce it from two vehicles a year to one vehicle a year, yeah, that doesn't keep us on our own target. But what does that do for the resident? But it does result in increased costs. You know, it ends up costing us in other areas that, like I said, weren't transparent, that will be transparent, for maintenance and then the salvage value. So we don't get that. It does cost our taxpayers. This actually is the way to reduce our cost and our rates to our citizens. Mark, that's always the way it's explained. And right, in the long run, it may be. And I'm not even going to challenge that point. But it is hard to say, yeah, you'll benefit in 10 years, but suck it up the first two years. Because we said that on the last rate increase, not solid waste, but water, right? And there was justifications for that. Now we're doing it here. And it's at what point do our residents, whether or not the rates are justified, where do we say we understand you? And we're, right, because so far along, it has been to keep us out of trouble, right? That it's all about we don't want to reduce our mill because we're balanced here. And so anyway, those are more comments than questions, as I'm getting a look from the mayor. So that's kind of where I am. So thank you. Okay. Commissioner Zandbergen? We've talked several times about new vehicles. Do we have new vehicles on order right now, by the way? Yeah, I think we do. I think we have two. Two on the way? Uh-huh. The 2.5, so we have two on the way? Two, yeah. A rear and a front. Okay. And then we have one anticipated for this year to put in for one of the, well, the suggestion that Randy made that will allow us then to surplus additional reserves. We start getting these in, then those extra, I call them extra assurance, won't be needed. Okay. And they'll be, you know, sent. Are we starting to feel the benefits of the efficiency study as well as reducing the, I mean, as recently as this past Sunday, someone talked to me about their trash being terminated and unincorporated. So are we starting to feel the benefits of that? Yes, we are. Again, our internal efficiency and within the city just started this week in those change of cycles. But yeah, we're definitely feeling that already. Okay. And last thing I'd like to talk about is our recycling program. I'm surprised nobody else brought it up. You know, we push the residents to recycle, use the blue bin. Do I understand that we're actually, that costs us money to have recycling instead of someone paying for the recycled goods we're giving them? How does that work out? And how does that work into these numbers? I'm not prepared at the moment to give you all the details of the recycling costs. But, you know, if you give me a break or possibly we could follow up, we could give you the details out of the model related to that. But yes, recycling, you know, since 2018, the market has really changed for recyclables. What happened was China stopped taking our recyclables from the U.S. And that changed the overall market dynamics of the commodity values for the sale of those recovered materials. And it meant that the net cost, because most of these contracts, the way they're set up, is that the sale of the commodity that you were recovering from the recycling process was offsetting the cost. But, you know, after that time in 2018, the revenues that we were getting were significantly diminished, but the cost actually had to go up, because in order to continue to do it, we had to increase the level of service that we needed to do to continue to market and sell it. So it really fundamentally changed a lot of the marketplaces on recycling. And it's been reacting ever since 2018 to that. There's been a lot of investment into new recycling technologies to improve the quality of the process. We used to do, I call it negative sort, because the industry calls it positive sort now, by way of example, where, you know, we used to pull trash off the line. Now, you know, these modern recycling facilities are using robotics and optics to only pull the items that are recyclable out of the trash. A different way to think about it. That's the positive sort aspect of it. So we haven't fully seen, you know, the economics of all of these things play out. But in the near term, what we have experienced, and I think what you're alluding to a little bit, is the fact that it is costing us more to recycle than what it used to cost us. Okay. So we have a separate, we pay WastePro separate. Is that, am I understanding that correctly? Commissioner, if I could. Again, Jorge Quintas, Deputy City Manager. Your question's right on point. So our contract with WastePro and Sue, correct me if I make any misstatements, is structured such that there's a collection component, there's a transportation component, and then as Terry spoke, I believe there's a quarterly payment or reimbursement component to it, and that's based on recycling being treated as a commodity. Okay. All right. So if there is value in that particular quarter on the sale of that, then we receive a payment. If there's an actual cost that was incurred, then we have to stroke them a check that quarter for that value. So to your question, there's the decision at your level, do you do the right thing or do you do the most economical thing? If the question is, is it cheaper to recycle versus taking it to the burn plant, it's cheaper to take it to the burn plant. That's it. I thought so. That's interesting. All right. This is where I'll end. So if someone comes to me, the average citizen is going to receive a $6.75 a month increase in their trash. Well, that seems a lot less painful than the water. But next year, they're going to get a $4.75. Okay. All right. And the average business, the business, the only thing they have is dumpsters. Am I correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. So they're going to get a $22 increase. Correct. All right. So I know that it's been brought up that this seems like a painful increase. But I think $6.75 to bring us back to where we need to be is well worth it. And I think you did a good job putting it together. And next year, that $4.75, I mean, it's just everything's going up. You know, and I saw that food's the worst and then utilities. But I think for what Dunedin gets, I mean, I can set my clock by my Monday pickup. So I'm very, very satisfied. Thank you. So I have a couple questions, a few. So how many vehicles do we actually need to run our system? I'm going to say that. I mean, major vehicles. How many? I'm sorry. Can you? Vehicles. Vehicles. What was the question? Trucks. How many vehicles? To run our system. Randy's counting. I wanted Randy involved anyway, so this is good. I don't want you to think you came for nothing. So here's a listing of all the trucks in service that go out on a daily basis. Okay. So 10. So I'll ask this question. I've asked it before. I think it's 12, right, Randy? Because that's how many go out, but they're different trucks for different purposes. So that's not a total number, right? Okay. Okay. So 12. So I asked this question before. I'm going to ask it again for clarity. So, you know, I can remember 20 years ago when the city made the policy decision to start to lease the trucks. In my recollection, it was done strictly to find a way not to increase the rates, you know, which I'm not going to second guess that. But at the time, I didn't think it was a good idea because it boxes in. How do you go back once you do that? You know, you let go of your dollars and then you can't go back. So I ask again the question of is the way we are leasing versus buying the smartest way to go? I think that you have a good mix from the studies that I do anecdotally. You have a good mix of folks that would lease versus cash fund. You have a lot of folks that really like the idea of cash funding. The savings to you right now, because even though interest rates have gone up, they're still very low. So the real difference between the two options would be the interest expense on the loans. And I don't know exactly how much 4% over five years amounts to, but that's the cost savings that you would have if you were to be on a cash funded basis. So let me just cut to the chase. So if the interest rate is low enough, probably the right way to go. If it starts to jump, we box ourselves into a tough issue because then all of a sudden, wow, the smarter way to go is to buy the vehicles. So do you look like you want to comment on that? Well, no, I'm just agreeing. You have to come up with the money up front. So you have to have an increase in rates. It's the only way to get it unless you're going to, like you said, you're boxed in with that lease. We have to come up with that initial investment if we change it. May I make a clarification? Sure. I know that all of you know it, but for those who are watching, this is a lease to own. Yes. Right? It is leasing it and then turning it in in five years. Right, and not buying it out. Right. Yeah. Gotcha. No, that's a good clarification. I actually had that down. Mayor, I also just wanted to mention that the other item to mention is that if we purchase it outright versus leases, we're spending that large dollar amount out the gate, and then by having the lease, we earn about 4%, 3%, 4% on investment, so we're earning interest on that cash we did not pay for the purchase over that lease period. So there's that side of it, too. I just wanted to mention that. Okay. No, thank you. I think you answered the question. In your view, we should have been more actively replacing these vehicles. Yes. Which goes to the heart of why I don't want to make that mistake again, because we are trying to run an efficient business long-term. Even though, and when we drag our feet, at the end of the day, somebody along the line gets hurt, because we're having to jump up and down, and that never is good for anybody. Let's see. Editorial comment, which, sorry. One quick comment. I like the dollar increases versus percentage, because when you say 62%, oh, Commissioner Dugard left. You must have known I was going to say something. Like, you know, that sounds horrible. Why, how could you do that to us? And you say $6 a month, you know, not great. I don't love it, especially when it's tacked on to some other increases. But, you know, I just think it's as transparent. It's more transparent. And so, if I'm correct, like, if you take the $6.75, so the $30.42, if I did my math right, $30.42 a month times 12 months divided by 52 weeks is about $7 per pickup for each resident. That's what they're paying. Yes. So I would say, when it talks about cost of living, it's the insurance that's killing this both in cars and in homes and in, you know, flood. So, let's see. The City of Oldsmar contracts. So they contract for everything. I believe so, yeah. And, you know, there are some communities that provide services in-house, and there are some communities that contract out. And, you know, I didn't make the point earlier, but I'll just say right here, for example, City of Tampa provides it in-house. Hillsborough County, by contrast, you know, for the unincorporated city residences, is contracted service. And what we kind of saw, too, over the last several years is the rebalancing of those contract costs. Like, if I go back to the Hillsborough example, one of the reasons why they're kind of on the higher end of the cost is because their collection contract went from about $8 per month per resident to over $20 per month, just for the collection aspect of it, not the disposal cost aspect of it. So that was, you know, something that a lot of folks that were beholden to these contracts have to deal with every, you know, eight years or so when they redo these contracts, is what is the market going to be when I go to market if inflation, to my rate, hasn't kept pace with the market. So what happens is you have kind of like what we experienced here, which is why the city manager was suggesting, you know, because we do offer this service in-house to re-evaluate it every three years or so, which is a benefit to an in-house operation. And you actually answered one of my other questions, which was, you know, how do we compare with private? And you're saying some of these are private. Yeah. Right? Yeah, for sure. Mayor, could I elaborate on that? Having been a Hillsborough County resident for many, many years before moving to Dunedin, you know, I was in the Carolwood area in Northwest Hillsborough. And so I was one of, you know, I didn't have a choice. It was, they picked a particular hauler in our neighborhood. And so the difference on my bill in Hillsborough versus here is here I pay monthly versus in Hillsborough, it was just added on to my tax bill every year, just like swift mud. And school board and everything else. So there was a question earlier about level of service. So I will tell you that the level of service was significantly different than what I'm accustomed to here in Dunedin. For example, during Hurricane Irma, I stared at debris sitting out at our curb for a good three months before anybody even showed up. They wouldn't answer phone calls. There was just no acknowledgement of a timeline or when service would be delivered versus what happened here in the city. So, yeah, when you compare across the board, to me, it's not just the dollar amount that you're paying. It's also the level of service that you're receiving. Yeah, I think those are good comments. In my 40 years in Dunedin, nobody ever wanted to prioritize our sanitation department, solid waste department ever. So the finance board is suggesting we don't do 3% a year, we do CPI. And what are you guys feeling about that? I mean, you might have said it. We had actually recommended it to the board of finance. Okay. And it was also something that the board of finance was also independently asking about. So we were in agreement on that point. And we made a suggestion to the board of finance about the specific indice that they may want a benchmark too, which is an industry-recognized solid waste index as a subcomponent to the consumer price index. Mayor, if I'm sorry, we will need consensus direction for that decision and how the ordinance is revised as to if the commission approves. We'll have to have two public hearings and have, you know, the readings. But how that ordinance is constructed will depend on your consensus direction for what we've shown is the 3% because what Terry modeled it, I mean, we needed numbers in there. And so that was a, you know, a good base to model it under, right? But the finance, board of finance went as to far as to ask what the standard was or the index was and reference it in their letter of recommendation. So they are agreeing and the recommendation is to index it. How the commission accepts or just, you know, gives us direction, then we'll proceed based on that. Mayor, if I could elaborate. As Terry mentioned, you know, we did present to the board of finance twice and we got some really smart people on that board. And so that recommendation, and I love Terry to death, but, you know, one of the things the board of finance looked at was, yes, it's that initial painful hurt in the two years to get us to where we need to be as far as those front-end loaded costs. But, you know, if we can go back to that slide that shows the increases in outer years. But their recommendation in the outer years and actually going forward was putting some language in. I think the rate recommendation is 3 percent each year indexed, but their recommendation was to use that CPI index that's specific to trash collection and disposal and to try to then write the ordinance, as Sue mentioned, such that we don't have to keep hiring Terry to come back, right? The index could be 3 percent or whatever that CPI-specific index is each year. So then it could just adjust and index accordingly, and the ordinance and resolution could be written such that it would allow that rate structure to adjust in those outer years based on what we're seeing in the CPI-specific to solid waste collections. And they actually recommended you might even want to consider beyond the five-year window, such that then you have that index that's specific to solid waste, making those adjustments automatically without having to come back and do a rate study to address anything that might be out of whack that might be different than, you know, we just think we're a 3 percent cost of, you know, cost index would take care of it, whereas this would be targeted just to solid waste. Okay. So we need to have consensus direction. I think because of the complexity, I'm just going to go one at a time, and people can just tell me where they're at. So I'm going to start over here with Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, no one likes raising the rates, not the people that has to make the decision or the people on the receiving end. The reality is that there are forcing functions that are putting us in this position to have to make this decision. And the forcing functions, for the most part, are not totally within our control. Inflation, cost of disposal, and subsequently the only decision at that point is that we have to make the responsible decision to figure out a way to raise our revenue. But at the same time, and I think you all have accomplished this with regards to our responsibility ensuring that, you know, we're looking at efficiencies. And it's not just a one-time, one-off. It's not a two-off. It's a continuous process. And so that's back to the burden, and how do we maintain the viability of the enterprise? The, you know, and I greatly appreciate the fact that you provide the regional comparisons, because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we're at the low end with our current rates, and we'll be in the mid-range with proposed. And the mayor made a great comment, percentages vice the actual dollar cost. You know, and, you know, I do appreciate my colleagues' comment with regards to 62%, but that 62% is really, you know, net value, not that significant. And I don't want to minimize that, because, you know, people, you know, are very sensitive to that, and but kind of to close this, you know, there's, you know, I did a comparison of kind of the national solutioning of this particular problem, and my past home city of San Diego, they've just embarked upon a 30% increase, and, you know, and the reason a lot of this is driven by the fact that we're running out of room to dispose of our trash. And so subsequently, you know, and there's nothing within, well, we can advocate, we can get involved, we can engage, you know, but aside from that, any decision we make here is not going to impact those costs. So, with that said, I am in favor of this, I also am in favor of tying, tying the time and the procurement and all the associated decisions that the Board of Finance recommended to the CPI. So, that's where I'm at. Thank you. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. The problem is, is we've been here before. I mean, if we hadn't been here before on a number of other issues, this would not be as profoundly distasteful. And so, we're facing a number of areas where our enterprise funds are raising their rates substantially. This would be another one. Unlike when someone goes to the store and they find their price of their favorite beverage has gone up substantially, they might have some different choices to make. Our residents don't have that choice. They either pay it or we don't haul away their solid waste. I mean, it's that simple. And so, I think we have to look harder at this one. Particularly when I look at the numbers and our assumptions within those numbers, I've got to ask that we screw down harder. I really do. And I don't know what that means as I say it, because this is not my expertise area. But I look at other communities around us that have lower rates, and I ask myself the question, how do they manage to do that? Not just that we're at the average, which is, I guess, good. But for our citizens, I'd like to be better than average. And I'd like to find out a way to get there. That's where I am right now. Thank you, Mayor. So, you don't want to move forward. You want to hear more about this? I'd like to exhaust all options to keep this as low as possible. Okay. Okay. I'll go to Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. And I'm going to look at page 21 of 27, right, if I'm understanding that graph. And I know we're on comments, not questions. Right? The projected cash reserves, right, were underwater for 26, 27, and hope to be right-sided in 28. And that's what this proposal is going to get us. And maybe to kind of piggyback my colleague, Commissioner Degard, what does that look like if we don't front load, but we do a straight increase? How many years are we still underwater? Because apparently we're okay for two years. We're recognizing we're going to be underwater for two years. I think if you didn't move forward with the rate adjustment in fiscal year 26 absent a reduction in level of service to the residents or some way to lower costs, which I think the efficiency study exhausted that, the fund balance would be negative, and you'd have to rely on the general fund to subsidize the operations. Okay. That's not good either. Right. I certainly understand and I get all the external factors that got us here. It's just the reason we're front loading it is because we didn't take a look at it sooner and that's on us. And so it's, I do have reservations against passing this on to them when we've recognized the efficiencies now and we're not going to wait until the end of rate cycles before we look at it again and go, oh, we're going to have to ask you to front load again. No, we're going to have to ask you. I do like the idea of getting the fund to a place where we are relying on some sort of index or something that always keeps us in check. So at least it's always a smooth, justifiable increase to the residents or the customers. So if there is a way to soften that blow of 675 up front, I would like to see that and what that looks like. And this is what it is to the residents. It reduces by $2, but what's that impact to us? And it could be that we're going to need those $2 unless that's what you're implying today, right? This is your recommendation. So you're saying this is it. But I am having a hard time swallowing the front end on that. I mean, just to comment about it, you could try to balance the increase from one year a little bit more, like instead of six, you go to five. But then that means that the fund balance in fiscal year 26, that bar of cash reserves drops even further. And then it takes us longer to get it back up there. And then in the meantime, if you have an unexpected expenditure, we could be back here again saying that, you know, we had this thing occur and we don't have the reserves now to soften that blow for residents in the future. So I think that's why there's the reserve policy recommendation. And you can see we're even going below that a little bit with the rate plan, which is why we were struggling with that. I don't think it's black and white. Like, I don't think that there is one perfect solution to the rate phasing. But I think this is the best that we thought, trying to balance those. But ultimately, you know, we need your direction and approval for what you all think is the best. And so, you know, we tried our best to balance that. But obviously, there's more ways to do things than just one way. Mayor, may I? Sure, go ahead. Thank you. I think, and I just want to chime in here, understanding that this is difficult for the five of you. Any sort of a rate increase is difficult for the five of you, given, you know, like, as I mentioned earlier, the dynamic environment that we live. And this stresses on your constituents. We've been working on this rate study for a long time as staff. We've had several meetings and two meetings of the Board of Finance. We, I feel, that we have looked under every rock in order to lessen the blow and the front and having to front load. That said, I do feel, I understand, you know, Commissioner Nugard's point of view. Have you looked at absolutely everything? Perhaps we've missed one thing. But I feel that if we go back and look through the study again to kind of soften the blow on the front load or soften the blow overall to the rate payers, whatever we're going to find is going to be minimal because we've been at this for a long time. So, and it is Terry's recommendation. It is also staff's recommendation. And, and that's all staff here, sitting here today. We would be more than happy to go back and look, come through it again and find whatever we can. But I do feel that, that it will be minimal, whatever we can find. So, did you, so are you basically saying you want to see it again before it comes forward in ordinance form or what's your, I just want to be clear. Yeah, I know. Vice Mayor, before you answer, could I elaborate on? No, I know. I want to stay here. Thank you, though. I don't know what I want, Mayor. I mean, I just, I feel for the residents. Okay. No. Well, I think that's unanimous, obviously. And I appreciate that very much. Commissioner Sandbergen? If I did the math correct, this will generate a little over 1.5 million the first year and a million the second year. Am I right? It's a lot of money. I guess I didn't, I didn't look at it. I looked at what it's going to cost me, $6.75. But boy, the city as a whole, it's a pretty good revenue generator. It, it, it's intended to cover costs of service. That's, that's what our goal is, to just cover our costs and make sure we're in a financially sound position to be able to provide the service to the citizens. One, one thing I just mentioned to Jorge as a potential idea to maybe do further exploration on would be to see if there's a way to provide some sort of an affordability discount for those residents that have difficulty in affording their utility bills. So that's something that could be looked at. And that's a much more targeted and precise way to help out for those residents that may be having challenges, but that, you know, for the vast majority of folks that maybe wouldn't meet that threshold, you'd want to move forward with the rate plan. And that that could be something that could be studied further after the fact, and then, you know, added on after the fact as well. And that's something that municipalities do sometimes look at to try to help within the community. So that could be a potential solution that maybe addresses some of the comments that we're hearing here today without negatively impacting the financial sustainability of the enterprise fund. Right. But by no means was I, I think it jumped in too quick. By no means was I saying that I was against it. I mean, for $80 a year, you wheel that can out and the next, you know, that morning it's gone or that afternoon it's gone. Yeah. I think it is a, I would hate to be on the wrong end of all of a sudden, you know, we didn't have the funds or the equipment or the manpower to pick up our trash. So, no, I fully support all the hard work. And I'm sure the city staff, I know what you all put into it. And I'm 100 percent behind it. OK. Well, my comments are, I mean, it's an enterprise. And I know we've gotten hit with a lot of different things that we're dealing with with our enterprise funds. And a lot of it is, you know, inflation and labor and costs that everyone is dealing with. They, we all understand it's a, it's a, it's a national issue. It's an international issue. But we're here and we're at the, we're at the bottom. We're at the end. And we're dealing with running an efficient, effective business enterprise fund. And I think that's our job to do. I don't say that lightly. I don't say that I'm, you know, pushing aside. I care deeply about our residents that are struggling. But I also feel like the staff and our finance board has worked hard to build efficiencies, took some courage on the unincorporated group. I mean, we, we heard from unincorporated people. And these are people that, they don't pay our taxes, but they do contribute in our community. They're, they contribute in our, with our businesses. They contribute in, you know, a lot of volunteerism. I mean, they're, they're part of us. So that was tough to do. And there was a lot of things down the line where, and so I respect the fact that, you know, we're owning it, that we, we should have maybe kept these vehicles up better and had a better plan, but we didn't. And, and we're here. And our job, again, to run an effective business enterprise fund and, and provide a very, very critical service to this community, trash pickup, garbage disposal, recycling. And, you know, and again, I think Commissioner Walker brought up, because I had, I had them do the list of the increase in disposal tipping fees that, that we're getting, you know, which is beyond what we thought it would be. And it's continuing to increase. And then I'm not pointing a finger at Pinellas County giving us those fees, because the reality is, I mean, you're absolutely right. It's harder and harder to find places to dispose. And we just heard, what, a month ago about the forever chemicals that are being put in at the front end of products, and now we're trying to figure out how we're going to maybe pay another $5 a month, put it on our citizens to get the chemicals out of our products before they go into landfills. I mean, we're the end of the line here. And we got to do the best we can to keep an efficient business going. I do think, unfortunately, the front loading helps us in the long run. And again, labor, cost of disposal, inflation, vehicles. I appreciate the cost comparison. I think, actually, it makes me feel better when I look at that cost comparison. I know we're not out of whack. Actually, we're better than most. And we know. We know. Our citizens know. We have one of the best services of solid waste of anybody in the world. I mean, we get rave reviews all the time. So again, I think Commissioner Sandbergen said it. It's like $80 a year, which is not nothing. That actually sounds like a lot. But when I break it down into $30.42 per month, new rate for trash disposal, pickup, disposal, recycling, $30.42 a month times 12 months divided by 52 weeks is $7.02 per visit of somebody coming to your house, taking all your trash and getting rid of it for you. You know, when you look at it as its own enterprise fund, I just think we have to do it. I mean, I think it's a responsible thing to do. I think if we don't, we're just pushing the kick in the can down the road. And that hurts our citizens more. So I'm in favor of moving forward with it, as discussed even with the finance board. I think the finance board had a good idea in terms of, you know, and you suggested it, but the CPI. And so I think we should move forward. And again, there's a lot of costs hitting our residents. And we've got a lot of work to do in the rest of our budget. But I think this is the right decision on this enterprise fund. So I'm going forward. So I'm hearing three to move forward. Obviously, I think all of us agree. If you can figure out something else, we're all for less. I mean, I'm certainly for that. Anything that takes burden off of our residents would be good. So I think, I mean, if I can summarize for everybody and you guys jump in, we've got the three votes to move forward. But on the other hand, I think we would all agree if there's more that we can dig into. You know, I think both Commissioner Gard and Vice Mayor have made good points. If there's anything else we can dig into and find, maybe you can bring it to us. And is that acceptable to the group? Or, you know, I'll look at particularly Commissioner DeGard and Vice Mayor. I do not mean to impugn the work that's been done so far. And it's been notable. I appreciate, Terry, your work on this project as well. Please don't interpret my comments as any of that. I do have one question I need answered. Maybe I can flip if that question has given me some comfort in its answer. I'm looking at the financial page, which is page 10, I believe, yes, in the slides. And I'm looking at the, that's the financial issues background page. And I'm looking at the bottom of that page, and I'm looking at total expenditures in projected of 2030 of $9,317, and I look back over at 25 budget, and it's $8,353. That's not a 62% increase in expenses. And so I feel like what we're doing is our increase is based on a restoration of a fund. Help me. Is that what it is? Yes. Okay. I'm afraid I can't flip on that then. I'm afraid I'm where I am. Okay. Okay. Well, I think we have, it's three to two to move forward. But at the same time, you know, I think continue to look at it. Maybe have any kind of sidebars with all the commissioners about any thoughts they might have of how we can reduce it further. And we'll go forward. Mayor, we would thank you for the consensus direction. We'll meet again. And this has to come back to you in ordinance form, and we will let you know what we've looked at and if we've been able to find any efficiencies. And you'll be heroes if you do. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Mayor, I don't see any public, but would you like to request? Oh, thank you very much. Is there anyone in the public that wishes to come forward to speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close that out. And thank you, Michelle, for that, especially on this. We don't want to miss that. Okay. Do we want to take a couple minutes and then come back and do our last item? I think let's take just five minutes, but let's stick to five. Back into session. I did want to say, because, you know, had a conversation actually with the city attorney back there and with the consultants. And, you know, I think that what makes this so hard on all of us with these rates increasing is because they're all hitting us at once, right? Like water, sewer, you know, and trash, and now we've still got stormwater. And I just want to say, I mean, it's not unlike what the rest of the country is facing in so many ways with inflation and high costs of labor. And so, and that's why it's all hitting us at once. And it's hard. And I know it's hard and appreciate where everybody ended up on that. We're all trying to go through this process and do the best we can for our residents. And so, I just wanted to make that statement. And we will now move to, I've got so many notes on this, I can't find out what's next here. The annual review of the freebie loop contract, including funding and ridership discussion. And I'm going to turn to staff presentation, George and Kathy. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor. George Kinney on behalf of the Community Development Department, alongside Kathy Gadamer, our project manager. Unfortunately, freebie could not make it today, so. Wasn't he here? No, he is not here today. Okay, I don't know why I thought he was here. So, he does know that we are meeting. He was invited. So, he just, he was unable to, I think he's traveling. That I think was the problem. That said, we are going to be very quick. I'm going to turn this over to Kathy. She's going to give you a quick overview of, a quick PowerPoint overview that includes kind of some of the ridership numbers since the inception of the program. What we've done to date with respect to advertising and what we've done to date with respect to grants to help support some of the funding for this effort. As was, I think, mentioned a few weeks ago, you know, we still kind of considered this first year contract a pilot, if you will. So, that contract does expire in two weeks. So, what we're seeking from the commission is direction on whether or not to extend that contract or to let that contract organically die, if you will. So, with that, and then we'll answer questions after Kathy does a presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Kathy, and she'll walk you through some of the numbers. Thank you, Kathy Gadamer, Community Development Project Manager. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, and City Manager. So, throughout the life of the program, from November 2, 2023 to the end of October, we had just under 30,000 riders on the loop. Kathy, is your microphone on? It is on. A little closer, I couldn't hear you. Thank you. So, we had just under 30,000 passengers on the loop. We had a, it was a 50, almost a 50-50 split between the app and the flag down. So, as you know, people could use the app to get a ride, or they could flag it down on the street and be picked up that way. This is just an overview of all the data over the life of the contract. And I'll go into that in detail. So, this is November and December of 2023 and 2024. And there was a reduction in ridership. However, in 2023, the first two months, we had three loop vehicles on the road. And then in 2024, we dropped it back down to two vehicles on the road, which was a reduction in the ridership for that period. This is the January through October comparison of 2024 and 2025. The first year, there was a reduction in ridership. And then after that, every month in comparison, it did double. And on May 21, 2025, the commission did approve a flex route that allowed the loop to go anywhere within the orange border. So, for pick-up and drop-off with the stipulation that the pick-up or drop-off had to be within the downtown core. And as you can see, May 21st, that's when the ridership went up. And also in August and September, that is spring training. So, that's a very high percentage increases. This is the days of the week comparison. And Friday and Saturday were the most used with Saturday being the most popular day over the life of the contract. This is residential or non-residential, depending on if a person wanted to pick up at their home or at any non-residential establishment. And by far, the non-residential establishment went out, mainly because we did expand the border of the flex route. Now, this is a very long list of special events that the city puts out throughout the year. I'm just going to go through this real fast. I just wanted to bring out the spring training was the number one total ridership of all special events that happened throughout the year. Overall, with the trend for all the special events that happened and when the freebie loop was actually in service, that's how this data was calculated, that the overall trend increased, the overall trend was increasing. We did apply for three grants with the help of our grant writer. The first one is the public transit service program, and that was for a grant for a 50% match for three years at $657,000. We were not approved for that grant, and subsequently, we were not approved for the other two grants that we applied for. The second grant was the TD Bank Terrible Foundation, and that was for one full year of staffing, one full year of funding at $219,000. The last grant that we applied for was the T-Mobile hometown grant, and that was a small-town grant for only $50,000. And we did hear from FDOT that we were not eligible for that one as well. One other comment was the advertising. There was one loop vehicle that has advertising for the Blue Jays, and we received revenue from that for $1,367. Is there a reason we lost the screen? Oh, that was it. I'm sorry. That was the end of the... So, thank you, and we're here for any questions, and looking for commission direction, please. Okay, I'll start with Vice Mayor for questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. There isn't a lot of detailed information on the numbers for the specifically the on-demand portion of this. I think we're relying on maybe their dashboard or something. And do we have any information on the value of the on-demand portion of this? Right. It was the looper downtown, but then we did expand it. We expanded it to like the northern border, I think, with St. Christopher. So, I'm hearing you would like data on who came in from the red border into the downtown area. Yes. Yes. Well, from the red area? No, because the red area... The flex area. I'm sorry? That's the flex area? Yeah. It looks like more of the purple is the parameters of... So, that was the fixed route portion that you had approved prior to then the expansion. So, the expansion is that red area. That's that on-demand area where we were trying to get to the residential folks and bring them into downtown. Okay. So, that red area didn't expand until, as you can see in the slide, May 21 of 25. So, the ridership numbers were considerably less prior to the expansion of the on-demand area. That's what this chart reflects is that they did start to pop after the on-demand piece of it was added. Okay. Now, the exact numbers, we don't know. Right. Okay. So, we're going on the basis of, right, starting in May of 25, all those increases... Correct. ...from prior year. We're just putting them in the on-demand basket. Right. I think that's correct. Yes, that's correct. And the idea, you know, the assumption would be that there was... That probably drove an uptick in ridership. Right. Okay. That's all that I have. Thank you. Commissioner Zandberg? So, I was curious that the red in that little inset, I was under the understanding either if the ride originates in what would be the purple, you could go from the purple to the red, red back to the purple as long as it ended in the purple. God, did I even try to say that right? It originated downtown, you could get out, but if you came back, I guess maybe I'm wrong. The ride had to start or end in the downtown core. So, you could go from the purple to anywhere in the flex, the red area, or if you started in the flex area, you could then, you'd have to end in the downtown core. So, Commissioner, the idea was to assure that it was a vehicle-less ride. So, in other words, we know you're not taking your vehicle if you're starting outside the downtown core and you're taking the looper. Because twice this year, during football season, I've wanted to have it picked up in the purple and went to individuals' homes in the red. And the app says invalid, ineligible. You know, I just told you guys, I had 26 rides booked on my app in the last year, and that doesn't include wave downs. I know I've used this thing 40 times. But it's just like, you just can't set your clock on it. You just, you can't really rely on it. And I know, I wish they were sitting here, because that's really harsh of me to say. But, you know, the other thing is, we were promised about the grants. And I know it's not your fault, but it just seems like that just, you know, the wheels fell off of that. The other thing is, somebody came to me the other day. What about letting some of the local businesses participate in it, and then guaranteed stop? Now, I'm not talking about necessarily, you know, a retail store. But if you were a food or a beverage place, and you paid towards this, but then every time it went on its route, it would stop. It, you know, it just. No, I think that's fair, Commissioner. Those are, you know, that's why we're here today, is to kind of talk about that cost and the services you're getting for that cost. And does it make sense to continue to move forward with it, you know? And I think it's a fair point you're making on the business community, because, you know, through our negotiations, if you will, when we were doing design review, larger projects, you know, these kinds of things come up and discuss. And there might be opportunities there for some private, you know, private microtransit opportunities. So, and we continue to push that with the development community as those things come forward. Okay, and I'm not sure if this is for you or for Jen. And are we here to make a decision today about the future of Freebie Looper? So, the contract will expire at the end of December. So, we're looking at consensus direction either to negotiate with Freebie Loop to re-up the contract or to allow it to expire. Okay. That's all. Good. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. I really only have one question. And I have several comments, though. And this relates to our local business. And I think Commissioner Sandberg brought up a great point with regards to, for lack of a better concept, cost share or some contribution to the program. But I guess in terms of also our local business, has any feedback been provided by them on what they, how they, if they thought the program was, the pilot was successful or there was benefit to their business or. Actually, Mayor, may I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you in the middle of your question. That's okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I see George gearing up and I, you know, because, you know, we do do surveys, citizen surveys and business surveys as well. And looking at the Freebie Loop, there's one question familiar with local transit services, Freebie Loop, Jolly Trolley, local Tiki shuttle. And 53% of our population was very, this is the business survey, sorry, was very familiar, somewhat familiar, and 46% was not familiar at all with the looper service. Astoundingly. Is that all the services or specific to Freebie? It's just Freebie. Okay. It's Freebie. And actually what I found astounding was in looking through this that we did ask them, again, as part of the business survey, the impact of the transportation mediums on their businesses and the Freebie Loop, and this is verbatim. The Freebie Loop shuttle had a similar pattern, 36.6% of businesses reported a positive impact, while 60.1% saw no impact or were unsure, and a small share noted negative effects. So that's the business survey. Thank you. That answered my question. That's why I interrupted. I figured it wouldn't. It's okay. It is a work session. Commissioner Degard. Looking through the history of Freebie, we had a very sporadic start in our first year, because we were funding it almost on a day-to-day basis, it felt like, because it was almost before us. I was only in the gallery at the time. I think we refunded it three or four times in the first year. So, yeah, we had some, if you'll recall, Commissioner, we had some ARPA money that we kind of used to get it, to kind of lift it off the ground from a pilot perspective. That's helpful. Yep. If we continue this service, we don't have that ARPA money anymore. That's correct. So we'll be taking this out of general fund funds. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. That's a powerful comment. So I'm disappointed they're not here. It's hard for me to understand how no representation could be here. Hopefully, if it's all in one guy, that may be its own answer. I've had marketing questions before, and I'll make comments about that. But I just didn't get some of the things answered that I really would have felt comfortable with. Was the Chamber notified of the fact that we were going to talk about this today? Or any major user? I guess the Chamber would be the point I'm aware of. I did not speak to the Chamber. I know they've discussed it before. I mean, they weren't really a factor the last time we voted on it, a year ago, which I kind of talked to them. Like, if you guys want it, why aren't you here? But I just, out of courtesy, I don't want to get lambasted after the end of the year when they're like, well, we didn't even know you were going to talk about it. So thank you very much. They were not directly notified. I think they should be immediately, directly notified. And that way, if they want to scream and, well, I'm assuming what we might be doing here, then they have time before the end of the month. I mean, and whatever we do here, I don't want to be the one to tell me it's life. So, okay. There we go. I don't really have any questions, honestly. I've looked at this a lot behind the scenes, so I probably just have my comments. So I'll go to comments, and I'll start with the Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. It does tell signs that Freebie isn't here. But I'll also say in their defense, I don't blame them. They have come before us, I don't know how many times, and each time we've approved the looper, but we beat the hell out of them over it, and I'm sure they're going, you know, I'm going to go one more time to the city of Dunedin. I see your comments, George, over the flex route in May of 2025, but I also see in April a decent increase. It was the end of May, so I think those increases were happening anyway. I don't know that I'd put all that weight on the commission or on the flex route to go look at these improvements, but I do think they are improvements. And so I am going to vote in favor of just allowing this to expire. I've never been shy about my feelings about a looper service. I don't want to say anything negatively against Freebie, because if there was going to be a provider, I thought they were fabulous. I love the app. I love the way it works, ease and convenience, but this is something that the residents didn't ask for. This is something that the chamber, at least outwardly spoken, has never outwardly spoken about the service. And so we are trying to provide this service and almost shove it down the throats of who and for what benefit and outcome. And I've always maintained, and I think we all kind of have, that our downtown is walkable. And so all that we're doing with this service is to invite people to drive into our downtowns and we can then drive them around. And that doesn't make sense. I am a huge fan of the on-demand. So I'd like, if we can, between now and end of December, to maybe drill down on those numbers that we got in the flex, just so we have a database. We can say, yes, these were the numbers. So if we want to talk about microtransit in the future or something, we've got some data. And going, well, we pulled this off the dashboard and we extrapolate this might be, here's what we think are the numbers. So at least it gives us something to talk about. Because I think that's what the residents are talking about, is they complain all the time, not enough parking. Well, here's an opportunity for you to visit those same restaurants without using your car. And so I think that still has value. But it's got to be affordable. And given we've just talked about utility rate increases and things of that nature, we're in tight budget years. So, again, I'd like to, we've got microtransit in front of our faces. We had PST here earlier. We had PST here, oriented transit, transit-oriented development. And everybody knows where I stand on things. So, anyway, so those are my comments. Mayor. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen. I mean, is there a possibility that we could get this on the December agenda? I mean, we have one more commission meeting before the end, I guess two more before the end of the year? If you're seeking additional information? I guess now it's been brought up about bringing in business people to go over, you know, tell us what they think. I mean, if it comes down, if we had to vote today, it's a luxury. And I would probably not be in favor. But yet at the same time, I, you know, if this does help, you know, our local businesses, our establishments, gee, I sure would like to hear from them. I'm sorry to be looking at her when I'm talking because I know it goes through you guys. But I'd love to at least have heard if they're, you know, what their feelings are. We can, we can subject it to the city commission. Well, what I was going to suggest is, I mean, it's December 2nd. We immediately get this out. Our last meeting is December 18th of the year. And, you know, if we get a groundswell of feedback, we, we, we can add it if we want. I don't know. That's just a thought. That's, that's sort of the way, the direct, the direction. So the contract expires on the 17th. Oh. But, but, you know, that would. Oh, it expires on the 17th? That would be just one day without service. I mean, that's, that could easily be. Oh, well. So I mean. My problem is we should have had this on before. That, that's my, that's a huge problem for me. We should have had this on sooner. So, because that way, you know, because it puts us in a position of, oh, you let it go. You didn't even ask us. Thank you very much. So anyway, I don't know what to do, how to deal with that. So. Okay. So let me, I, you know, I agree with George. I think that one day is not going to make that much of a difference. We'll reach out to Freebie and we will reach out to the Chamber of Commerce and Mies as well. Because they, they need to be contacted and yeah. We'll have Jorge do that. And, and, and we'll bring the item back to you on the 18th and give you a report. Yeah. I mean, it seems like putting a lot more work back on, on you and the city staff, but, you know, this is, we're going to get one shot at this. And like I said, I, I do use it, but it's just, I would love to give them more input. What I, what I see and what I hear and the merchants, you know, if, if we can help them in any way, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of the, the downtown and I guess, you know, whatever you think we could do to move it forward, but not keep sliding it, you know, kicking the can down the road. So good. Thanks. Well, let's, let's get some other views here to, uh, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, yeah. So we predicated the pilot on two assumptions that we would get grant and advertising funding to support it. Um, so those, those did not occur, you know, advertising to a tune of about $1,000. Um, subsequent decisions, um, were based on some of the service expansion, some other offerings, but at the end of the day, with the exception of what we funded out of ARPA was out of the general fund. Correct. And, um, I have to say, and I said this when we voted for it the last time I was against it. And I was against it because of the fact it's coming out of the general fund. And in light of the budget year that we have coming, we're in right now, 2026, um, I would say that that, we let the contract expire and we take the budgeted money and put it towards the general fund reserve. Uh, that's, to me, that is the only responsible option. Uh, I appreciate, and I do, as you all know, I'm a huge supporter of our local business, as we all are. Um, but we also have a business survey, which the city manager just read to, to us in terms of the comment and the feedback and the fact that a lot of them didn't even know we had this. Um, so subsequently, um, you know, I, yeah, I can't, I, and I, I worry, I don't, you know, I, I, I think the course of action with regards to, uh, letting our chamber know and our business community know immediately is, is a good one, but I really don't want to push this can down the road. I, I feel that the money needs to be, I, I think there, there are several things that have been problematic here. It greatly disappoints me that freebie is not here right now. And I will also say that, um, you know, you take a look at the business model. And Dunedin, uh, we have a relatively small footprint, um, and you know, there, the service is ebbs and flows with our season. And, um, you know, I just, I just don't know, and, and to the vice mayor's comment of walkability and everything associated with that, this town is very walkable and I just, I just don't think it's, uh, it's, it's something that we need. Um, one, one last thing on my comments, uh, vice mayor also had mentioned the on demand, uh, service and something to that effect. Um, I would say this, I, and I said this the last time we have a local business that provides on demand and now granted, um, I, I, they had the same opportunity to, to, to bid for the service. And I, I don't think they did, but with that said, um, there are probably other ways to address it because I am, I, I love the on demand aspect of this. I just don't want to pay 200 and some odd thousand dollars to get it. Um, unless it's, uh, the only way I would support it is, is if it was a local business. So anyway, those are my comments. Thank you. Mr. DeGuard. Thank you, mayor. My colleague said it very well. Thank you, Rob. Um, this was a good idea and we hoped it would flourish from a ridership standpoint. It hasn't done bad. I'm going to give them credit for that. However, this is not an equal service to all the citizens because it's primarily located in our downtown community. That's the only way you can get transportation. And I don't like systems that require other people to subsidize them that don't get the benefit. And so I would be on the side of letting this expire. Okay. Well, well, first of all, I mean, I went into this not being a very looper friendly person because I do think we're very walkable and I won't say, but somebody who used to sit up here before expressed wanting to go from, I don't know, Scottish American society down to the chamber. And I'm thinking, I mean, and I'm not saying anything. There's certainly people that, um, have limitations and need that, but I'm like, for the most part, we're walkable and, um, and those, there are always going to be some special needs. Um, the on-demand was more interesting to me, um, again, reducing cars and parking in downtown and by bringing people in, it was all about really about reducing the parking footprint for our community and saving a lot of money in that way. Um, but, um, honestly, I, I lost my enthusiasm for it because, and I didn't treat him badly. I was, I was a rah-rah person, you know, we can do this. But I had a staycation last January, so 11 months ago. And, you know, I had people that I'm down on Douglas Avenue with and they're like, I think you had this freebie, like, how would anybody know about it? Like, it's not, like, it's not in the, it's not in the Airbnbs, it's not in, it's, it's like not in the businesses. Nobody's putting up tents. I'm sure some are. There's some, a few people. Um, even I walked in to the chamber. I mean, this isn't a ding on them, but I looked at a hundred flyers and right in the middle where you couldn't see was the freebie. So, again, I think, um, and so I went back and forth, I think, with you guys, you went back and forth with Jason, give us the numbers, what are you doing to market it, what's the deal? I, I think it's something that could have been marketed. It could have been like if people knew about it, but, you know, I can't sit here and justify $250,000 a year of general fund money when, you know, I don't have time to do that. So, if we want it enough, there's got to be a group of people that care enough to market it, and, um, it's, you know, it didn't happen, and I wish freebie was here, too, because I, I think it could have been successful if it was done in a way that, um, was strategic. That being said, um, it's always been a burden on the general fund. Um, I, I, I think the word, um, the word luxury, um, is a good word. I did not think that going into it because I thought it's a really good creative way of trying to reduce park, or parking needs in the downtown. But, um, I do think right now, based on what's happening and the numbers we're getting, it is a luxury, and it's a luxury we can't afford. Um, so, um, and I will also agree, from day one, there was an overabundance of ensuring us that grants were going to happen, and they completely never happened, um, including up to three years of completely paid by grant, um, expenses to give this time, this thing chance to happen, but it didn't happen. So, um, I think, yeah, I think it's time to let it go. I, I personally don't think we should put it on the agenda. I think we should let people know, and if there is a backlash, we will know it immediately, and we can act. There's nothing to say we can't reestablish a new contract in a couple months if we hear a backlash. Because I don't want to create a drama either, you know what I mean? Like, I know, like, if I could provide transportation to Meese Life, because I, I, it's so good for them. But again, we can't do it just for Meese Life. And so I know we could get a room full of people wanting it for Meese Life. Um, our businesses, I mean, but again, we've got the business survey, and honestly, they, they weren't here last year when we reset it, we did it, we did it. And I, excuse the term, but beat at them. Like, where are you? Like, if you want this, where are you? Um, now, that doesn't mean they don't, and it doesn't mean it's not doing good stuff, but we'll hear it. We will hear it loud and clear, and we can readjust. Um, versus trying to create our last meeting of the year to be packed full of people who, of course, want it. But is it in the good of all our residents, especially because it's coming from the general fund, and we know we've got big cuts to make there, to make affordability an issue overall? So those are kind of my thoughts. Um, so that's it. So I'm obviously in favor of letting it expire, and if there's a backlash, you know, we'll adjust. So, uh, Mayor, I mean, but I want to respect what you're saying, too, Commissioner. Well, since it was on the agenda, then, would it be proper for us to vote on it today? It's a workshop, so it's consensus direction. Okay. Yeah. And I'm hearing consensus direction to allow the contract to expire, and I think in City Manager's update, I can update you on conversations that I've had with me soon with the Chamber if necessary. Right. And just, you know, let us hear it, so we can adjust. Okay. But I think the important thing is that as soon as possible, you let those groups know, you know, this is due to expire. It's not going to be re-upped at this time. So, and we'll hear. So everybody good with that? Yes. Good. I think good discussion. Um, okay. Oh, Ann. Yes, yes. Ann, is anybody out here in the audience that wishes to speak on this topic? And if so, come forward. No worries. Seeing no one. Seeing no one. I will close public input. And, okay, any informational items for the good of the order? It is good to have you back, by the way. Thank you. Yep. And, uh, this community will always be here for you, Vice Mayor. So, anyway, um, informational items, anybody? Okay. I think we're good. The meeting is adjourned. I'll see you all Thursday night.