COMMISSION WORKSHOP - Jun 02, 2026

Morning, and welcome to the June 2nd, 2026 City Commission Workshop. I'd like to call this meeting to order. The group in the back is pretty rowdy, I can tell. It started early today, didn't it? Especially Claudia, I see she's still talking. Claudia, I can't wait. All right, here we go. We're going to start with Pledge of Allegiance. Jen, can you lead us? United States, and to the Republic, from which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. Okay, we're going to go to our presentations, and we only have one today. It's the 2026 Juneteenth Proclamation. I will turn it to Commissioner Gao. Thank you very much, Mayor. Teresa, would you please come forward to accept this? I'm excited and I'm honored to be able to read this proclamation for you this morning. A proclamation recognizing Juneteenth. Whereas our nation was conceived on July 4th, 1776, with a Declaration of Independence, which includes the statement, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And whereas on June 19th, 1865, more than two years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that enslaved African Americans were free, marking a significant milestone in the end of slavery in the United States. And whereas this day, known as Juneteenth, represents both the triumph of the freedom and the enduring pursuit of equality, justice, and opportunity for all. And whereas Juneteenth has been celebrated for generations as a time to reflect on our nation's history, honor this resilience and contributions of African Americans, and the recommit to building a more just and inclusive society. And whereas since 1991, Florida leaders and legislators have celebrated and acknowledged through declaration, resolution, designation, memorial, and emancipation of slaves in Florida following the Civil War. And whereas in 2021, Juneteenth was officially recognized as a federal holiday, affirming its importance in our shared national heritage. And whereas communities across the country commemorate Juneteenth through education, cultural events, service, and reflection, fostering greater understanding and unity among all people. And whereas it is essential to acknowledge the historical significance of this day and to continue working toward equity, dignity, and respect for every individual. And whereas Juneteenth will be celebrated in the city of Dunedin with various events and activities, including an employee in-service day and community event to provide Dunedin residents and city employees with the opportunity to learn, reflect, and celebrate like so many others throughout the nation. Now therefore, I, Jeff Gow, by the virtue of the authority vested in me by the mayor of the city of Dunedin, and on behalf of this entire city commission to hereby proclaim June 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth Day in the city of Dunedin and encourage all residents to observe this day as a historically significant event in the heritage of our city and nation. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Dr. Teresa Smalling, Director of HR and Risk Management for the city. It is my honor to accept this proclamation, recognizing Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, but also celebrates freedom, resilience, and progress. Juneteenth reminds us of our nation's history and the ongoing importance of equality, inclusion, opportunity, and justice for all. It is a time to reflect on the struggles and achievements of those who came before us while recommitting ourselves to building inclusive and welcoming communities in which everyone, regardless of race or ethnic background, has a sense of belonging and being seen. At the city, we recognize Juneteenth during our annual Employee in Service Day to be held this year on Thursday, June 18th. This day is an opportunity for City of Dunedin employees to work together on community service activities, learn from each other, and celebrate our diverse employee population. Our theme this year is celebrating our diversity, looking toward the future. Thank you again for this proclamation in recognition of Juneteenth. Thank you, Teresa. Picture. Okay. We will go to citizens' input. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda? This would be your time to come forward. Name and address for the record, and you have three minutes. Come on down. Good morning. My name is Kathleen Sands-Martin. I reside at 428 Orangewood Drive, Dunedin, Florida. Is the button pushed there? It is? Okay. Oh. Yeah, I just want to push it. That's the first of me not being heard. Anyways, my name is Kathleen Sands-Martin. I reside at 428 Orangewood Drive, Dunedin, Florida. My question is, who is responsible for the upkeep of the Pinellas Trail? Well, I have a rather large dog, and I walk her every day. And from Orangewood to Belltrees, it is disgusting. People are throwing their garbage bags down in the gully side, which would be the right side if you're coming into town. People leave their dog waste bags because there are no containers there that you can drop it off and continue to walk. And the paintings where it shows where bikes should be and walking people, it's not there. And I can't comment past Belltrees except for how it is not up, the upkeep is bad. But I've talked to other people, and it needs to be repainted or something because you can't tell who's to be on the bike side and who's to be on the walking side. So thank you for listening to me. And I want to thank the commission and the city manager for what they did Sunday. It was wonderful. Thanks, Kathleen. Is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to come forward and speak on an item that is not on the agenda? Anything that's not on today's agenda, you can come forward about. Okay. If it's not, you'd have to come forward. And you're still on a three-minute, so you can't do it twice. So just quickly. Can anybody tell me who is responsible for the upkeep of the Pinellas Trail? I'll do that. I'll do that. But we always take all comments first. All good. Thank you. I should have said that, Kathleen, so you weren't confused by that. Okay. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak on an item that's not on the agenda? Okay. That being said, now we will respond to that. I should have told you that so you weren't wondering what we were doing. You want to send your answer? Absolutely. Yes. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your comment, Kay. Pinellas County is responsible for maintenance of the trail in that area, and we have made notes. I see our director of Parks and Recreation has made notes, and we will reach out to them today. So thank you. Yeah, because, I mean, if there's not receptacles there, too, I mean, obviously, that's kind of a given. I feel these are pretty easy fixes. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, so sounds good. But also to teach people just to carry their bags with them, and we don't need to have receptacles every three feet because they're too lazy to carry their food bags. Yes, granted. I do that. Yes. Okay, cool. Okay, we will go to our workshop item, and our first workshop item is 2A, the Neen Causeway usage discussion, and I think we want the city manager to kind of kick this one off. Yes, thank you. Good morning again, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners. As you know, the Neen Causeway has been closed since Hurricane Hilton, and it is under repair. It's currently actively under repair by Pinellas County, which is a good thing. We've been waiting for that and hoping for that and pushing for that for quite some time. It has been called to our attention in several different areas by several different members of committees and residents as well that during the time that the causeway has been closed to motorized watercraft launching, there has been a resurgence of seagrass, a resurgence of the native wildlife in that area. The parking issues are no longer there, the trash issues are no longer there, and all those types of things on the causeway. We received on December 9th of 2025 a memo from the Causeway and Coastal Waterways Committee, a very well thought out memo requesting that the city take action pertaining to the causeway as far as launching of motorized vehicles off the south side of the causeway. We have done our research in the intermean period. Given that the causeway was closed at that point, it gave us some time to do our research. We've been talking to Pinellas County. It is under the jurisdiction of Pinellas County, and so we've had several emails back and forth. We wanted to be sure that this would be the city's call, whether or not to permit launching motorized watercraft off of the south side of the causeway, and in fact, it is our call. They have given us that authority to make that call. And we have that in writing as well for Mr. Tom Washburn, who is their county engineer, so we're grateful for that. I just want to cut to the chase this morning. What we're asking, after we do a staff's presentation and the research that we've done, some of the input that we've received from boards and committees of residents, and specifically the Causeway and Coastal Waterways Committee, we're going to ask you for consensus direction to allow staff to work with the city attorney to draft an ordinance which would prohibit launching motorized watercraft from the causeway. This would not prohibit motorized watercraft in the intracoastal or the sound because that is under the jurisdiction of the FWC and the state. So we're talking specifically about launching motorized watercraft off of the causeway. And I have a number of staff here. We all worked on this together after several meetings including our fire chief and we're going to do a presentation for you and then ask for your questions and of course consensus direction. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so we've got a staff presentation. Who's taking the lead? Good morning, Mayor and Commissioners. Nicole Delfino. You're supposed to be in Tallahassee, aren't you? Protecting our tax money? We'll talk about that later. Yes, we are. Okay, and sorry, go ahead, Nicole. It's actually a joint presentation but I'm kicking us off with the first couple of slides here to go through kind of some of the history and the background. As far as the rest of the agenda, Tony will, our Parks and Rec Director, will talk about the environment, the current environment. Jorge will also talk about the county ordinance and then the Pinellas County support and then we'll look at those recommendations. So really quickly, obviously there's a lot of history when it comes to the Dunnean Causeway. It was built in 1963. Typically, it's open for recreational activities from 5 to 11. There's some caveats with that. In the 90s, the City Commission did ban tentatively, as it was written in the Tampa Bay Times article, launching or retrieving boulderized watercraft from the causeway. Also in the 90s, there were some additional ordinances passed both in June of 1990 and then in 1992, which it appears as if the map, which we'll talk about a little bit later, was added in that 1992 ordinance. There were a series of studies from 2005, the Causeway Master Plan, 2012, the Corridor Study, and then moving forward through that, 2014, the Waterfront Task Force report. In 2019, and Jorge will go into a little bit more detail on this, the county passed Ordinance 1929, which restricted usage specifically on the north side of the causeway. Obviously, we all know where we're at now. Since 2024, the south side has been closed due to the storm damage and the erosion there. In 2025, we had the Pinellas County come and do a presentation to commission in regards to the circulation and access as far as safety goes, which was then implemented. And then that takes us to today, which is where we're seeing that beach renourishment and erosion control. While the county's website states that it's expected to be complete in December of 2026, we believe it'll be a little earlier than that. And so with that, I will pass it to Tony. I'm just going to jump in so we don't bog down on that. But at some point, you are going to update us on that during all this? Okay, good. Just what that's going to happen out there. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Good morning, Commission, Mayor, members of the public. Tony Mulkey, Parks and Recreation Director. I want to provide a little bit of an overview about the use out there now in the applicable code. Currently, as you can see on the presentation, there is the map that is taken directly from the city code from the ordinance that was originally passed. It clearly identifies three main areas of the south side of the causeway. It's divided into an area that has no watercraft whatsoever, another area that allows for non-motorized watercraft, and then the area that is just west of the drawbridge is the motorized watercraft zone that's in between the channel and the land area. The code on this is that essentially it's illegal to operate a vessel within these areas that doesn't conform to those rules on that map. The area is very busy if anybody's ever been out there on a weekend, very congested, multiple uses, multiple conflicts on that, and essentially you don't see anything on the north side because the county made the decision back in the 90s to forego having any of those types of activities. So they limited kind of the uses to kind of prevent the conflicts and some of the damages which we'll go into. Again, here's the graphic that's out there on the signs now that's posted along the north side of the county signs. One thing to kind of really point out there is there's no paved ramps. This is not an improved boat launch. This is not any kind of infrastructure that's been provided out there to allow for this activity. It is right from the shore and that does have some impacts of that. This goes into the county ordinance that was passed and it's referenced on the signs out there. The first section kind of deals with horses mostly and the damages to seagrass. The second section is essentially just pointing out that any kind of activity out there should not damage the seagrass. And that's countywide. That's not specific to just the causeway. And then we get into the benefits to the environment. And this really kicked off. This was a long-term conversation from my research into the history of all the planning for the waterfront and the causeway specifically that this discussion has been ongoing for years. And the Dunedin Coastal and Causeway Waterways Committee I'm sorry. Causeway and Coastal Waterways Committee issued the letter in December to really outline the recommendations and provide that to us which kind of kicked off our deeper dive into this issue. Looking at their concerns and going a little bit deeper I will kind of reiterate shoreline launching has a lot of negative effects on the environment just beyond the seagrass. It encourages bank scouring. It has bottom disturbance which is very germane to seagrass health with prop scarring as well as jet wash that can damage those beds for years. It can take ten years for boat scarring to recover in a seagrass bed. And those seagrass beds are vital habitat for the flora and fauna of the sound and the waterway itself. That bottom disturbance also kicks up sediment increases the turbidity of that water so sunlight can't penetrate. And then nutrient loading when you're kicking up things off the bed of the bay there you're going to get more nutrients into the water as well as chemical pollution from vehicles coming down to the water's edge. A reduction of vehicle interaction with the water would have a net positive impact of fuels and other materials getting into the water. And moving on the continuous noise wave action and other effects has a profound impact on wildlife out there. Not only the turtles the dolphins the manatees but also the birds and other animals that frequent that area. Some of which are threatened. And then just looking at the multiple uses out on the causeway anything to do to reduce congestion to reduce use impact even the counties come back and been very supportive of an effort to make this restriction and has proposed doing some other improvements to help the natural area out there and improve the recreation environment. Because this isn't just a place for boating. It's a trail connection from the island to the Pinellas Trail. It is an area for people to just go out and enjoy getting out of the city a little bit. Waterfront access is gold as you know. And it's been 20 months. There's still jet skis out there. There's still places for people to go and access the water for that type of use. But like I said I'll circle back. This is not an improved space for boat launching. This is a shore. If you go out there you will see jet ski trailers or other personal watercraft or other small watercraft with motors lined up side to side to side all along the shore and on both sides. So it's kind of a free for all. I mentioned the Causeway Committee to start out initiating this but we've had a lot of feedback from other committees and other members of the community. some may have reached out. Some are here today hopefully to speak on their views on this but I just wanted to highlight there's been a lot of support for this effort. Good morning Michael Andoga Fire Chief. So when we looked at some of the public safety issues that were out here Dunedin Causeway remains to be a very busy area for us especially on the weekends and a lot of that is driven by the boat traffic and the jet skis when they were out there. So the highlight of this is that we have had two fatal accidents since 2020. May 21st or May of 21 a personal water craft struck the rear of a recreational boat near the Causeway and this second occurred in March of 24 when a personal water craft ran aground on a sandbar near Hurricane Pass and ejected the operator and was later pronounced dead. So it is definitely an area of concern for public safety. We run a significant amount of water rescues. Pretty much all of our water rescue calls are in that general area. And a lot of the call volume, so you look at some of the calls up there, especially with the traumatic injuries, it's very difficult to, a lot of times the calls will come in, it doesn't come in as a jet ski accident, but it's an injury due to something that happened on a jet ski. So this is definitely an area of concern for us. Good morning again, Teresa Smalling, City's liaison to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. We have requested a report from the Sheriff's Office dating from the period before the storms and then the period up through at the time, April 30th of this year. As you can see from the synopsis, there are over 13, almost 14,000 calls with 80 being jet ski related. You'll see a constant description of on plane and what that means is that the jet ski is basically speeding through a no-wake zone. So it's on plane, meaning that there's only a small portion that's actually below the water. So of course you're not supposed to speed in the middle of a no-wake zone. And then this is only a synopsis. I think you may have the full page. Before the closure in 2024, it was mostly speeding in the no-wake zone. Since the closure, most of the calls have been from jet skis attempting to launch in the closed area or other unauthorized areas. Thank you. Good morning. Jorge Quintus, Deputy City Manager. I'm going to go over after this slide some of the highlights that Tony touched on on the ordinance. He kind of robbed my thunder there, but I'll go over that. But my main highlights here have to do with the coordination that we've been doing with the county probably for the last two months. I actually spoke to Tom Washburn as late as yesterday afternoon to make sure that we had an update on their efforts out on the causeway. But essentially we reached out to Tom and he coordinated and consulted with Kelly Levy, the public works director, with respect to their position and the actions that they've taken on the north side of the causeway and essentially asked if they would be supportive of a similar restriction on the south side, acknowledging that that responsibility and that authority falls on the city, but we asked would they support a similar position and they indicated they would. In addition, they also would be supportive of some kind of a living shoreline restoration in certain areas of the south side and might make some funding available for that and restricting access if that is the commission's direction moving forward. So those are the coordination efforts that we've been taking with the county as we were preparing this presentation and yesterday afternoon, based on some inquiries made by the mayor, I reached out again to Tom and he's actually watching. He said he would be, so I'm sure he's going to relay those comments about the Pinellas Trail as well that were offered earlier. So listen up, Tom, so with respect to the north side, the pilot project that they've done there, he did indicate that, you know, obviously a lot of their, it's all been done with signage because you can't put pavement markings down on shell, it just won't last, but he says in their coordination and their interaction with the sheriff's office, they believe it's been relatively successful that there have been minimal issues with compliance, compliance, so they're pleased with the outcome of the pilot project that they've been doing on the north side. He acknowledges that the south side, you know, as you may recall, he's come and presented to the commission on multiple occasions and he's willing to do so again in the future depending on what decisions are made here and what direction staff has provided to move forward, but he indicated that they will make no changes on the south side without coordinating with the city first, he'll come and present and they want to work in concert with us in a collaboration to come up with an approach that would be beneficial to both agencies. So that's their update in that regard. As Nicole mentioned, they are a bit ahead of schedule and they hope to probably be done with the south side grading efforts within the next four to six weeks, but they will maintain the area restricted until a decision is made to move forward and we come up with a plan going forward. So that's essentially a recap of that slide. And as Tony mentioned and excerpts from the ordinance, I won't read all of it, but the underlying part, I think, as you mentioned before, the county commission, the board adopted this ordinance because they recognize the importance of aquatic preserve system and how critical it is to the environment, recreation, and economy. And that ordinance applies countywide, not just on the causeway. But in addition to the references to equine riding and restrictions associated with that, the board recognized that it's not just equine riding. It's exclusive to possible damage to seagrasses within the aquatic preserve. that additional activities such as dredging or careless vessel operation also poses a significant impact and damage to those environmental areas. And obviously their interest is in preserving the aquatic area going forward for additional generations to come. So that's really the recap of these next two slides. I can certainly read them to you, but I don't think you want that. Thank you, Jorge. I did want to just really quickly, I know Jorge and Tony both mentioned this, but that ordinance is applicable to the entire blue area you see on this map, which is the aquatic preserve identified in that Pinellas County ordinance. As far as next steps go, you all are very familiar with ordinance review process. In order to put something forward before you, we'll work with our attorney in order to prepare that draft ordinance language, which we put a little bit of a timeline on here. It requires advertising for a minimum of seven days before we get that on a meeting in the future. That would address then the first reading of the ordinance. It would require a second reading, which again would have an advertising period as well. And then just as an FYI, I suppose, we did take a look at where we're situated or where the causeway is situated in relation to a number of other public, I think there is a private one on this list as well, but public and private launching opportunities that are very nearby, some within just a hand, you know, two miles. And I included both the distance from the causeway and the distance from the marina, just as a reference point to each of those boat launching opportunities. So, Mayor, as I said, staff's recommendation is that the City Commission move forward with amending Ordinance 14-21 Section 54-32 to prohibit launching of motorized watercraft along the Denenean Causeway. I have had discussions with the City Attorney. It's necessary to adopt that by ordinance so it's enforceable by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. So, as members of staff would say, this effort really checks all the boxes. It meets many of the elements of our strategic plan, and that was adopted after many months of public input. Our vision for the City of Dunedin is to cultivate a vibrant, inclusive community that treasures its history, champions sustainability, and fosters a safe environment. And our mission is to improve the quality of life for all by listening to the voices of our citizens and providing quality services through responsible financial stewardship. And so, we are listening to the voices of our community. I think that restricting access to the Causeway is much more reflective of Dunedin and who we are and the quiet, peaceful environment in that area. It also meets strategic themes under environmental resiliency and sustainability and also community amenities. So, thank you very much, Mayor. So, before I do questions, though, we're not going to hear from our environmental guru, Natalie, about this at all? No, no. I'm sure she supports it. Would you like to say anything about it? Are you good? Okay. All right. I'll go for questions. I'll start with Commissioner Gall. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Tony, you talked a lot about scarring and what it does to sea beds. And if anybody hasn't seen it, it really does take about 10 years for seagrass to recover, for the bed to recover. Is there any data on how much of that damage is caused by prop boats versus jet skis that don't have a traditional prop? Apologies. I will jump in. And, yes, we did recruit Natalie for reaching out to a lot of our environmental groups, which did include the Tampa Bay Estuary. They provided, actually, a very significant study, which I'm happy to forward to you, which, through drone footage, provided this very extensive report as far as identifying scarring and then discussing all those impacts, which is part of the reason why they had written a letter of support as far as being able to have that teagrass recovery, you know, in the causeway and how important it is to the environment. So I'm happy to send that along, and Tony can add as well. I found a lot of studies on this. Some of it is just kind of the practice and what the impacts of the different vessel types can impact on this. But I think what Nicole's found is more quantifiable in, like, progressive-type elements. But I do have some resources I can provide to that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Again, I would appreciate getting that. So thank you. People move here for a variety of reasons. Certainly at the top of that list is our ability to enjoy the water and live on the Gulf. And the freedoms of being an American is I can kind of do what I want unless laws tell me I can't type of thing. And so if we're going to say no to the jet ski owners that currently enjoy launching there, what's the expectation of if we're going to take something away from them, what follows? What can we tell them? Where are they going to go? What are those options? Commissioner, if I could? Yes. They can just drive right down the road to Seminole boat ramp and launch there, which is a good five, ten minutes away. Even Dunedin residents? Anyone can use it. Yes. Mayor, may I? Sure. I think it's also important that we talk about motorized watercraft and not just jet skis, right? I mean, they're the most visible, but it is all motorized watercraft. So when we're reviewing the impact of this amendment, I think that you're going to hear from some folks who are doing some fishing from, you know, canoes with a little motor on it and that type of a thing as well. So they are launching. Thank you. And thank you, Mayor. Those are all my questions. Okay. Commissioner DeGuard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. Do we have any idea how many jet ski owners there are in Dunedin? Any inventory on that at all? No. We talked about that. We couldn't quantify that at all. All right. And we've had the north side restrictions since the causeway was built. Is that correct? I believe it's 2019 on that. 2019 was when that ordinance was passed. I believe the restriction goes back to the 90s, though, according to Tom. Okay. All right. How will this be enforced? So the Penelope County Sheriff's Office will enforce, as they are now. You know, you see on the list we gave you from the Sheriff's Office, a lot of launching in areas that are prohibited. So they will be on the causeway as they are. And we are talking to them as well about this ordinance. Walk me through a scenario where someone attempts to launch. They typically do a warning first. As you know, their policy in pretty much all matters is a warning first. And then I would assume that they would move to citation. But we can give you an exact step-by-step when we get to first reading as well. Have we received any calls for opening to motorized craft? I have personally not. Anybody else in the city? We have not received anything through the city commission or that I know through the city manager's office. I do anticipate that we will get pushback. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor, questions? So I'm very familiar with these issues and spend a lot of time out there. I really don't have any questions, but I do have some comments. Thank you. Okay. Questions? Commissioner Sandbergen. Yes, I do. On that, now the presentation, I guess it was Exhibit A, map number five of 18, Southside Current Environment. Is that today? Is that what we have out there at this time? It is what is out there at this time, except it's the motorized area has been blocked off since the storm. So that area is not operational. Okay. Let me go back to my questions. You know, that's really changed. I mean, I remember back in the 1980s, bonfires out there. I'm not the only one that remembers that. And I've been part of that group that's launched jet skis. And I know, it's a mess. First, I do appreciate, because I brought this up yesterday, about our committee input. That was well written, and I was hoping that we would get something to hear from our Dunnean committees. Also, Nicole, really going above and beyond the call of duty to get the local and nearby launch sites, because this will be a real hit to these folks that are planning on doing this. Will we have an area then, and I know we talked about motorized, and I know it's not just jet skis. Folks can launch their kayaks, their canoes. They will still be able to launch from the parking lot, or whatever you want to call it? That's correct. Okay. Okay. And will there be a designated swimming area, so we can keep people safe? Yes. Okay. It's that area, Commissioner, in blue. In the blue. Kayaks, yeah. No, yeah. Okay, that's, all right. And does that have buoys out there, so that they, it does keep motorized crafts? It does. It's a vessel exclusion area. It's kind of nice. It's fine. And also, as we're talking about the causeway and what we're hitting on here, I may be getting ahead of myself, but I know in the past we've had issues where ice cream trucks have arrived, jet ski rental, different businesses. I see it's been addressed. Are we covering everything that we need to cover going forward? I believe the commercial prohibitions in the code cover those activities, and they have been able to be enforced. Okay. We do get calls on that. Our concessionaire out there lets us know when there's activity happening, so. It's the same in the marina. We usually, it takes us some time to chase them down, but we'll. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And the last thing was, if this goes through, can we consider increasing the fine to really put some teeth in this? So rather than, you know, the other day I saw someone, it cost me $20 to park. I'll just take the $10 parking ticket. I mean, can we, if we're going to go this far, can we make this where we really can sink our teeth into the violators if there are any? We'll take a look at that when we're drafting the ordinance. I know it sounded kind of harsh, but I mean, this is big. Yeah. Get in there. I mean, you know, from the days of having bonfires out there to, you know, being someone that has participated in the jet skiing. So good. That's all I had, Tony. I think the statute of limitations is good for you, Commissioner. So I'm safe after 40 years. Just the tone of his voice, I'm thinking maybe he's thinking baseball bats. Did we put jail time into this? Did we get Guido on them? I don't know. I'm not the only one that's done that. And I do have a follow-up. So I vaguely remember when this was around in the 90s, and I know it was pretty controversial. I know it was a packed city hall when it really happened, and the restrictions got put in, and that little area was declared. And I remember the thinking was, and this is going to be a question, gentlemen. So, and I remember at the time, it was, well, we've got to give them something. We've got to give them some area. So how do we respond to that? We've got to give them something. Especially in light of, I believe, the, we are also going to close this off and not allow it from the marina boat ramp. So I have not had one jet ski person contact me. I have a feeling that's going to change. But tell me what the answer is for that. So, may I'm here? Yes, please. I think that the answer is, well, I know that the answer is we will redirect them to a boat ramp. To Jorge. We'll just redirect them to Jorge. Yeah, an official boat ramp, though. To, you know, to Tony's point, not a shoreline, but a boat ramp with a proper launching infrastructure, with a proper parking, with, and so on and so forth. So as far as restricting it and giving them something, you know, for motorized watercraft launching, the, I think that we can see that the balance between the environment and the little area that has been provided has been very detrimental to the environment. And that there's a reason why access to water is established the way access to water is established via a boat ramp and all those types of different amenities that facilitate, you know, launching vessels. So I think the answer is that we will provide everybody with a list of, you know, of where they can launch their motorized watercraft and encourage them to use an official ramp. It's the best answer I can give you. Yeah, no, I get it. I love to ride them, by the way. I haven't done it for like 15 years, so last time I took a major spill, so I haven't been back on one. So, and I am correct, right? We're not going to, our thinking right now is the, the marina boat ramp is not going to allow jet skis. Actually, no. The, what we want to do is restrict the marina ramp to residents only. Including jet skis. Including jet skis, motorized watercraft. That said, we need to, we need to, I'm working with the city attorney about whether or not we can restrict a public amenity like that to residents only. There are ramps that do it in Pinellas County and, and, you know, other areas that don't. So we can look at a combination of either residents only or a fee for non-residents that would be prohibitive, but we're working our way through that right now. Come on, Jen. Come on. I transfer the hot seat to the city attorney. Why would we not be able to say residents only in a city-owned marina? As to whether or not you're going to be able to, there are. If you're not ready, you don't have to answer that question. Yeah, there are just some concerns that we want to make sure that we're not inviting problems and if the, and we really want to know that what we're trying to accomplish, how we can accomplish that. There may be multiple ways. And so, which is the best way for the city to go about it? Yeah, I got you. Okay. And if I could just add. Sure. Because the Marina Advisory Committee has weighed in extensively on this particular issue as well. So, with respect to, and respectful of the Marina Advisory Committee, that is the ultimate goal. And we will figure out a way to get to residents only or encouraging residents only at the Marina Boat Ramp. Yeah. Encouraging. Yeah. So, okay. I'll let you guys deal with all that. So, no, I think that's a good track. Obviously, the obvious alternative for people would be Seminole Boat Ramp. I don't understand their costs. Does that mean if I go out for the day, it's going to cost me $20? I mean, most of them have $6, $10. That one has $2.25 an hour or $20 a day. So, I mean, how does that work? That is what is provided on their website as far as the cost. And obviously, you can see there are some others. Sutherland, which does allow access, is $6, and it's about four miles away. Yeah, okay. Sorry, I didn't notice that. Palm Harbor, okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. And Tarpon. And then, obviously, there's private vendors as well that have boat launching, and that is a much more significant fee of hosting your vehicle in their location of between $175 to $375 a month. Great. Okay. Well, when we have 500 jet ski people and 250 of them are Denning residents, I want to make sure we've got the answer, even though environmentally, I think this is kind of a no-brainer to me. Okay. So, yeah, I think that's my only questions. So, I'm going to open it to... Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Follow up. Yes. I follow up. As I always do. That's okay. Can you go to the Southside Current Environment slide? The one where Steve was. I think it was Steve. Southside. There we go. Just, I wanted to clarify, especially for the public who might see this later, where the blue, the blue-shaded area and where it says no boats slash kayaks. Is that no boats, no kayaks? Or is that no boats, yes, kayaks? No vessels at all. That's kind of the designated swim area, if you wanted to point to that. Thank you. Anybody else have a follow-up question? Okay. I will open it up for public input. If anybody wishes to come forward to provide public info, move forward and name and address for the record, even though we know where you live. Ray Bouchard, 232 Lee Street, Dunedin. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and everybody here. Thank you. This sounds wonderful that everybody's done so much research. As far as some of the very recent questions, the swim buoys that protect the swimming area, as of last week, there was one white buoy, and that was over toward the rental where the kayaks are. And I swim from there all the way up to mile marker 5, which is just before you go into the bridge in the intercoastal, and there were no other white buoys there. Environmentally, I've sent some photos to Natalie and Nicole a couple weeks ago. The north side, which has never allowed any ramps or access to launch, is fully vegetated with wax myrtle, purse lane, which is a low ground cover, and palmettos and things like that. Even after the storm, there was no destruction to that shoreline whatsoever. The photos on the south side, which is where the launch was and the swimming area is, has no vegetation, and that caused part of the reason the county is spending, I'm sure, over a million dollars to recoup that parking area. And if we can just use that as an example for the protection of either side, vegetation protects it. Josephine Sagerman, Joaquin Hansen, and Sophia Wickstrom with the University of Stockholm have done researching all over the world. There are some articles that I've shared, which they can share with you, so I won't bore you with all the details. But everything that Anthony and other people have spoken about, the importance of the vegetation, is in these reports, any kind of motorized vessel traffic causes this damage. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission found that during a 10-year study that one out of every four adult manatee carcasses, which they recovered, bore evidence of 10 or more watercraft strikes. I know that's between bladed and also jet skis. Some of them never, you know, they die from that after so many wounds. As a personal note, when I was a kid, we could go out into the Anclote area, and even St. Joseph Sound, four people within one hour could harvest 20 gallons of scallops. In the last two decades, scallops have never recovered in the St. Joseph Sound area or in the Anclote area. And even though the northern counties, Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco, open to scallop season, they often have to reduce the season because of the reduction of, and the lack of recovery of the scallops. So we need those scallops to help clean the water, which helps the seagrasses and everything else. Tampa Bay is one of the largest estuaries in the world. It's the second largest shark population estuary. Only the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has a bigger estuary for sharks. The sharks are critical to the health of the... Am I out? You are. Thank you, Ray. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Anyone else wish to come forward? I've been hit by a jet ski. Okay. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Name and address for the record and three minutes. Morning. My name is Dave Ferguson, 1110 Palm Boulevard here in Dunedin. I'm one of those people that's been using, thanks to the generosity of Dunedin, the causeway to launch my small fishing boat. It's a 12-foot John boat with a 10-horse motor. I have never, ever scarred seagrasses. I am a member of the Sierra Club. I appreciate their work. Although they aren't quite right on some things, I would be a little bit more less skeptical if I would see them deal with the seagrass issues around the spoil islands in St. Joseph Sound. The seagrass damage there by boats and jet skis far exceeds any seagrass damage in the launch area along the Dunedin Causeway. The reason I can say with confidence I have never damaged the seagrass is because I have oars on my boat. What I do when I launch on the Dunedin Causeway is push the boat out until it's in a few inches of water, hop in, row the boat out to the edge of the channel, drop the motor, and go. When I come in to land, I lift the motor and either glide in or row into the shore. I also take issue with the fact that there are enough places to launch the boats. Having a little John boat like this, I can't go out into open water. If I'm caught in a storm, I'm in trouble. If I have to launch up at Sutherland and Palm Harbor, I'm in open water. If I launch south in the Sound, I'm in protected waters there. If a storm comes up, I'm probably okay. The waves won't be big enough to bother me, and I can get to a protected area quickly enough to wait out the storm. But if I have to cover that long distance from the boat ramp up in Palm Harbor down to the causeway, and a storm comes up either while I'm in transit or trying to get back or want to go back, either way, I'm in trouble. I have to wait it out, or if I want a chance to storm, not a smart idea in a small boat. Someone on the waterways committee actually joked, said, well, what about just putting your boat in the water, rowing out and dropping the motor? Would I be in trouble for that if I launched off the causeway for that purpose? When we talk about the damage to the seagrasses, that is concerning, but I'm also concerned about what happens up in the area where we launch the sailboats, the paddleboards. Skegs are dragged across the seagrass. Sailboats drop their rudders and their centerboards and scrape it up. People are out there fishing, pulling up seagrass as their lures hit the bottom and they get stuck and they pull. You've got people wading around and kicking through the seagrass and damaging that area as well. What about us? What about the little guy? We can't afford a place on the water where we can launch our boats off a dock. We can't afford to have a marina. There are ways, and I have talked to a number of people on this. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate it. Appreciate your perspective. Okay, anyone else wish to come forward and to speak on this issue? Name and address for the record in three minutes. My name is Claudia Nabel. I live at 1094 Sumo Road in Dunedin. Just a little bit about me for some of you that don't know me. I am a Dunedin resident, president and founder of Sailability Greater Tampa Bay. I sit on the Coastal Waterway Committee. I was on the Marine Advisory Committee. In the process, we just are with the Coastal Causeway Foundation. We just started a 501c3 through the boat club and all the uses of the peninsula and the marina. But a lot of us do use the causeway. I realize that Dunedin does a lot for its citizens, and not only that, the public that comes over here to see what's going on on our causeway, the sunset and stuff like that. And the concern is, I thought that the causeway was for non-motorized watercraft. But there are some places, as we learned, where some can launch, like the John Boat, this gentleman was speaking about. The concern for me is safety. I'm a sailor and a kayaker, and I know that when we drop in to go kayaking over by the High and Dry, that a lot of the jet skiers are totally inconsiderate of the people trying to get out on the water. There's a very short distance between where the shore is and getting across a channel, and it's not an uncommon thing for them to try and swamp you as you're cutting across. It's not just for the kayaks. There's kids swimming over there, sailing, stand-up paddleboarding, and just enjoying the sights. And as the fire chief, I believe it was, had said, there's already been two fatalities over here. Those are, those are, and there's going to be more. I know that prior to this meeting, there was a thing on Facebook being posted by the jet skiers for meetups over on the causeway, and it was a mess. And I didn't go because I probably would have gotten in a fight with someone or something, so I figured, you know, I don't want to bring a bad name to me. But we need to, you know, figure out how we can make everything work for our community. And if there's anything I can do, let me know. It's not that I'm discounting having motorized watercraft there, but there needs to be safety. Okay? Thank you very much. Thank you, Claudia. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue? I had a feeling you might. Name an address for the record in three minutes. Hi, Nancy. Good morning. Nancy Schmidt, 1380 Daffodil Place here in Dunedin. I feel as though I've been in front of this group on a few occasions. I am so pleased to see that the city is in support, the county is in support of this. As a member of the, I always say Causeway Advisory, I don't get into the whole name, member of that committee for years, it has been an ongoing issue dealing with not just the jet skis, but the volume. And you had questioned how many jet skis. There was some back in, no, I don't know. Okay. In 2023, the Deputy Follehy said there were over 12,000 Class A jet skis in Pinellas County. The only county in the state that has more is Miami-Dade. And one of the issues we deal with is not just the people here in either Dunedin or in Pinellas County. It's the volume that comes from all over. I see it on Facebook pages all the time where they announce these jet ski meetups. And we're talking hundreds, almost, they want to get 1,000 jet skis. And they go from all up and down the area. They round and close. And they think this is great fun, having large volumes. You never see boats having large volumes, meetups like this. So it is a tremendous volume. They're all on the causeway. They're all blocking up everything. They are doing sales. They are renting to people who have absolutely no experience. I've seen people with babies on jet skis going off the causeway. Again, this has been an issue for years. The causeway advisory has mentioned it to the city on a number of occasions. And I wish we could have posted the memo that was sent that described all the reasons why this should be enforced that we don't have jet skis on the causeway. It cites all kinds of regulations, all kinds of experiences. And it was a really excellent document. And I know it was referenced, but it would have been nice to see it up there as well. Again, there was another issue about where are they going to launch. It's similar to people who have boats. There are a limited number of places that you can go with boats. Even the city of Dunedin has a wait list for boats. And so it's not just related to the jet skis. It's related to anybody who wants to use the waterfront. We are a victim of our success. The causeway is so busy. Even Honeymoon Island is dealing with issues related to the volume. They're having major issues out there. Again, I thank you for your support and I hope it goes through. Thank you. Thank you, Nancy. Anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue. Name and address for the record and three minutes. Hi, Fawn. Fawn Garmer, 971 McLean Street, Dunedin. I was a starving author in 1999 when I quit my job at the Tampa Tribune and I was a resident of Lutz, Florida. In the worst failure of my life, my book was getting rejected over and over and for mental health I came to this place, Dunedin, rented a kayak and changed my life. I don't know that there are many people who have been to the causeway as many times as I have since. I've kayaked sunrise, moonset, sunset, oftentimes in the same day. I love this causeway and I've seen how it has changed over the years. What we are talking about is not anti-jet ski. It's about public use, quality of life, safety, and compatible activities. The question isn't whether jet skis should exist. The question is whether the most heavily used public beach on the causeway is the right place for them to launch. Because of the hurricane, for the first time, residents have experienced what the causeway can be. We've discovered that quiet has value. We've discovered that people enjoy sitting by the water without constant engine noise. We've discovered that kayakers and paddleboarders can launch without weaving through motorized traffic. And literally, the amount of times that I've felt my life has been endangered has gone down. It is almost a sport for some of these jet skis to throw wakes trying to get at us. And sometimes, I have a dog with me. And that's really scary. And so, I have found great joy in seeing the resurgence of the wildlife, the number of dolphins, the manatees, seeing the seagrass. It's changed. And the attitude has changed. So, I was delighted with your recommendation. And I know you're going to get a lot of pushback. And I just want to tell you we'll be there to fight. Because this is the right thing. To see in 27 years how this has changed and what it has come back to, it's the right thing. Thank you. Thank you, Fawn. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close public input. And I will go to, you just want some consensus whether or not to keep moving this forward? Yes. Consensus direction, please, Mayor. Okay. So, I'll go to final comments. And within that, if you could kind of share your support or non-support. I will start with Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I really appreciated how Fawn packaged that because that is spot on. This isn't anti-jet ski. This is about public use. This is about preservation of our natural resources for future generations. It's about safety. It's about quality of life here in Dunedin. And because all of that is impacting, all of that is being impacted. You know, some key takeaways here is the infrastructure on the causeway does not support the launching of motorized craft. And Dave, I appreciate your comments on your 10 horsepower John vote. And I wish I could say that everybody out there is responsible as you are. And that's the part that I'm having a problem with with regards to that. But I do appreciate that comment. You know, the other thing is I'm a captain on the Clearwater Ferry. Clearwater, I'm sorry, Caldese Ferry. And, you know, every time I go through the gates of Honeymoon Island, the rangers tell me, oh my God, you have no idea how much our, you know, our seagrass and our marine ecosystem has come back. And, you know, that's important because the seagrass affects every living thing in that area. And so without that, you know, the results are not good. Talk a little bit about congestion. And this is, this actually is even kind of outside of the boundaries of the causeway because we still have a large influx of jet skiers that come into that area. And to the comments of the reckless behavior of some of those jet ski operators, I've seen it firsthand. I, we've had, I'm actually shocked that we've only had two fatalities since 2020 because I, case in point, I was driving the ferry and there was a string of, of jet ski tourists that were coming in from Clearwater. And they were all in line and they were going quite fast. And there was a, one person in this tour was very focused on the leader of that tour to the point where this person was not seeing anything else around them. And so I'm watching them and they're coming across and, and this individual was the third person in line. and literally I, I had to throw the boat in reverse because I thought she was going to hit us. And, you know, that's, that's what it is. And there's another thing going on out there and that's with the storms, I'm very passionate about this obviously. With the storms, the sandbars have shifted. And with the shifting of the sandbars, that's affected the boat traffic through that particular area. So, if you are, let's just say I'll, I'll use the ferry as an example. And again, the ferry operates in the prescribed channels for safe navigation. You know, we, we are very restricted in, you know, our ability to maneuver. So, when the jet skiers are running across our stern and jumping the wake and all of that stuff, it's creating a hazard that, you know, is, is really going to be detrimental to the safety of the individuals out there enjoying this beautiful resource that we have. And, I, I just, you know, it just, we don't have the infrastructure out there. This makes no sense. And, so, you know, I'm, I'm obviously very much in favor of this. I, I think, you know, I, it's, this is, this is high time to have this discussion, especially in light of the fact that we have seen the marine ecosystem come back to the extent that it has since we've stopped allowing motorized watercraft. So, anyway, that's, that's, those are my comments. Are you sure you don't have any more? I mean, just kidding. Oh, I've got plenty to say, but I think, hopefully I made my point. Yeah, I think you did. Commissioner Zandberg, final comments. Yeah, it's hard to call on that. It's true. I was very well presented, Vice Mayor. I was very well, I'm very comprehensive. I guess what I, the only thing I'd tag on with my Vice Mayor is this does not mean that we're anti-jet ski. It just means you have to launch your jet ski somewhere else instead of right there. You know, I guess all of a sudden I have this, you know, sitting up here and I know we get emails about memorial benches that were destroyed and we have people that ask whatever happened to them and some of them may still, you know, be out at sea. But I guess the vision going forward is, you know, I can see families sitting out there on the bench in the afternoon watching the sunset. I can see just a calming demeanor out there where, you know, you can go out, you can go out as a family, you can go out as a couple, you can go out by yourself and relax and enjoy what we have to offer and not listen to the jet skis. And, you know, and like I said, I've heard it and at the end of the day for all those folks that didn't pick up their trash and just, you know, just there to have a good time, you know, just like the folks on the social media. There's just a small handful that make it bad for everybody. So I am, I will be very supportive going forward of making these changes. I know they're big. I'm sure we're going to hear about it, but I think right now it's the best thing for our city. So thank you, Mayor. Okay, Commissioner Gao. Thank you, Mayor. Well, we have seen some changes on that causeway, right, just over time in general in Honeymoon Island and Dunning Beach. my father, who was proudly Dunnington's first director of parks and recreation, brought hydroplane racing out to the causeway back in the mid-60s and it is kind of hard to see that now. But there was a very wise woman, Sylvia Earle, who mentioned there was a time when we truly believed we could not damage our oceans. We could not damage the gulf. It was so vast and so deep. It was just unimaginable. And here we are today and that conversation has completely changed. We are well aware of the damage that we can cause to our oceans, to our gulf. And we're also at the same time seeing the benefits of our waters and what it does. And we're starting to recognize that our gulf is an economic engine for the city of Dunedin, for Panemus County, for the state of Florida, and the surrounding states around the gulf. And for a variety of reasons, to enjoy the water by boat, by jet ski, by kayak, paddle board, or just to sit on the shoreline. And so I remember growing up, in addition to the hydroplane races, but it was just Dunedin Beach. And populations have changed. And there was no such thing as Dog Beach. There was nothing on the south end. You just went straight out, out to Dunedin Beach and was hyperactive growing up. So I took swimming lessons out there every summer. Almost I had my driver's license because mom just needed me out of the house. And so, but then eventually, all of a sudden, because of population, Dog Beach became a thing out on the south end. Nobody was on the causeway. The causeway were for bonfires and for the teenagers to hang out once the sun went down. But look at it now. It's Honeymoon Island. It's the most visited state park in the state. We've got the whole line of the south side on the causeway all filled with people. And to have the passion and understanding of our waters we have today combined with just the influx of population, we're trying to fit 10 pounds of mud in a 5-pound bucket. And we've got to pick and choose on how we use it. Now, the jet skiers haven't been able to launch there since the hurricanes, which is approximately a year and a half, two years ago. they have certainly already found a place to launch. Nobody is sitting at home waiting for us to open that up. And to also acknowledge, Dave, thank you very much. And if we had every boat owner that appreciated the water that it sounds the way that you do and to really enjoy it the way it could be enjoyed without damaging it for future generations. we are in desperate need of seagrasses, desperately need the oyster beds and really what really started Florida being what Florida was and could be in the future. So I certainly do support this. I think it is the right time. I'm glad we're having this conversation. And I look forward to the ordinance coming before us again. Thank you. Mr. DeGuard. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. DeGuard, final comments. So I didn't have my mic on, sorry. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the citizens that have come forward today. It has been very helpful. Dave, particularly your comments. There's an expression that a good lawyer friend once told me. Jennifer, it was a lawyer friend. Even the thinnest pancake has two sides. And I wanted to hear the other side because as issues come to us, we have our own opinions and feelings on those issues and we can't let those take hold of our final decision. We have to try to seek both sides of the question, if you will. And my instant reaction to this one was, of course we won't have power to motor vehicles go off the causeway. But that was an instinctive response on my part. And so I wanted to hear the other side, and you presented it quite eloquently. and I wish there was a way for us to allow your kind of recreational behavior without opening the door to the others. My calculations are that somewhere between 3 and 10% of the population inside this county, thanks to the numbers that were given to me today, benefit from jet skis in some fashion. That's not a large segment of our population. We're allowing them to damage a body of water that benefits all of us. So that means that 90% must deal with the damage for the benefits of a 10% population. I'm afraid that equation doesn't work. For safety reasons, for sound pollution reasons, for just our sense of well-being as a community, I find myself in one place and that's supporting this particular question. I wish we could keep those people that do respect our environment with access to this, but the problem is is the edges will always be tested and I'm afraid I can't vote for that. So I'm in support of this initiative and I hope that we can see this quickly. I think it will come in July, is that correct? If it's July? July. That's correct. Very good. I'm in support. Thank you, Mayor. So I'm also going to thank you, Dave, because it's always good to have that view that there's someone else who works hard for the environment with another point of view and what you said has an impact on me. It kind of took me back. I'll give a little analogy that I thought about. When I first moved to Dunedin, I lived in Scottsdale condominiums and I had a little 50 cc motor scooter and I couldn't park it at the condominium place because we weren't allowed to have any kind of motor scooters, right? So everybody, all the condominium owners said, Mo, we're going to change the rules. We're going to let you have that motor scooter because this is stupid. You've got to have a storage area and you got to keep it there and you got to drive there and they all rallied and then they got together finally. They talked about it and they decided, oh, if we do that, I bet we're going to get a bunch of motorcycles and we're going to get all this other stuff. And they said, Mo, we're sorry, we just can't do it. And I got it. I get it. And I think it's the same thing. I just think that, you know, it's not you. Your story is great and I have no doubt that you do everything responsibly but I do think Vice Mary did a great job at just bringing it all together. Fawn, I think you did a great job of bringing out some great points too. But I just, I think that it's crowded out there. It's not a good compatible area. It's not made for that. I mean, I just watched the movie Remarkably Bright Creatures over the weekend with Sally Fields and all the creatures of the water. And, you know, there's a part of me that says, oh, we've got to have a place for the jet skis. But most of me just says, no, we don't. You know, this is too crowded. It's not meant to be there. And at some point, as a country, we've just pushed out a lot of things with our wildlife for our own things that we want to do. And this is one time I think the creature's got to win. And I'm definitely supportive. But again, I will clearly, as we move forward, we got two public hearings. And I'm open to hearing what people have to say. But I think my mind definitely went to this as a very logical path, the right path, and that there are some alternatives. And we just need to direct people that way. So I'm in support of it moving forward. Thank you, Mayor. We have our consensus direction moving forward. We will work with the city attorney to draft the ordinance and have it to you for first reading as soon as possible. Just to reiterate something that the deputy city manager said, that the county has committed to keep the causeway closed even after the repairs are completed until we can put this ordinance in place and make it enforceable. We are working with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, particularly Captain Brandon Harvey, so that they are aware and ready to enforce. Also, to Ms. Schmidt's point, the Causeway and Coastal Waterways Committee did submit, as I mentioned, the December 9, 2025 memorandum. It's very well thought out. I'm going to ask the city clerk to attach it to this agenda item retroactively so that we have it read into the public record moving forward. And, of course, we will attach it to the ordinance at first reading as well. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, and I do want to give a shout out. All of us do. To the Coastal Committee, Nancy, you as the head of that, and all of our groups that kind of used the Causeway, I think your comments were great. I think bringing it forward, certainly Ray, a lot of very valid issues, and you guys brought this to our attention while things are where they are, so that when we do reopen that whole area, we'll set it out straight. So we appreciate that involvement. It means a lot. It goes to show how important our committees are. So thank you for being here today as well. And we will expect you at the public hearings, no matter how many jet skiers there are. Okay. All right. And, Dave, again, appreciate your comments, and I'm sure we'll get some more of those as this moves forward. So thank you all, and we're going to take a short break, and before we move on to the next item. Thank you for that. We're going to reopen the meeting and go to 2B, which is fiscal year 2027, city commission line item budget discussion, and I will turn it over to Les and Gene. Great. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Les Tyler, the Finance Director, and I'm here with Gene, our budget manager. This item is the 2027 city commission draft budget that we walk through with the commission every year. A couple of exhibits in there is we have exhibit A in the staffing report, which includes a summary of the fiscal year 27 commission budget. It also shows actual cost for fiscal year 25, also shows actual costs for the first seven months of 26, and then the original budget for 26, and the proposed budget for fiscal year 27. Exhibit B is a little more detailed, and that staffing includes a line item budget for the fiscal year 26 original budget, and also the 27 draft budget. A few items I'd like to just briefly go over, looking at exhibit A for a minute. Exhibit A, salary and benefits have increased. And that's due to a projected increase of 15% for insurance costs in fiscal year 27 over fiscal year 26. In the operating cost area, we've got some decreases actually in 27 compared to 26, and I'll go over a few of those highlighted ones. First, internal service fund allocation and the building maintenance fund allocation for ISF funds decreased citywide in 27 by about $11,000 in total, decreased for the city commission's budget. Staff's still fine tuning in the IT services budget. We don't expect it to change by much. For most departments, both those cost centers or ISF funds reduce their costs in 2027 compared to prior year. And I want to mention, early in the 27 budget process this year, finance staff work with all departments to reduce operating costs in the general fund. We actually did that for the entire city, but focusing on general fund for a minute. We ask that all departments try to reduce their operating costs. Overall, citywide, we reduced the operating costs by just under a million dollars in total in the general fund. And within the city commission's budget, we also reduced some of those costs. Those are some of the ones you're seeing in that report in exhibit A. The line items, another line item reduced is we did reduce training costs in 27 from $1,500 to $1,000 each for each commissioner in 2027 compared to 2026. Another one is books and publications. Books and publications and subscriptions budget were reduced by $3,900 in 27 compared to 26. And that was due primarily to we reduced the National League of Cities amount by $3,900 for the membership dues and planning that the membership dues will not be will not be renewed in 2027 for that subscription. Also, another big part of the budget is the aid to organizations. The budget in 2027 is for aid for our civic partners and our grants to nonprofits totals 222,000 in total. And that's the same as the 26 budget. We've not changed that. We've got the same placeholder in 2027. And also want to mention that the grant applications are currently out. They've been out for about three weeks now and they are due back from the social cultural nonprofits by June 12th. Their grant submissions are due by June 12th. And also we're projecting our first meeting with the aid to organization subcommittee to be in early July. That includes our general comments. We'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Okay. Questions? Starting Vice Mayor. You know, Mayor, I don't really have any questions on this. Commissioner Sandberg? I have no questions, Mayor. Commissioner Gao? No questions, Mayor. Mr. Degard? I wish I could do the same. Walk me through the process on how this got here today. Just step by step so I understand how this got here and what we can do. Sure. Well, we began, we began the budget process back in January. The department started with the capital budget and they prepared the capital budgets, had three weeks to prepare that, working with the finance department. Then we started the operating budget process. That was opened up about two weeks later and that was open for another three weeks. So that took about two months, roughly. Then Gene and I take all that information, vet it, and then we meet with the city manager and the assistant city manager with our draft numbers and we present that to them. And then we begin, one of the key parts is then we begin the meetings with the departments. We have meetings with every department with the city manager's office and the finance office walking through everyone's budget and detail by line item and city manager asks questions, makes changes to some, some projects get moved or pushed out a lot in that process, but we vet every department with the city manager for all funds, including the general fund. And then we, and we are currently, our process now is we've, actually back up for a minute, we also during that process in early January, we did that effort to reduce operating costs. We, we, we wanted to try to reduce costs this year. We worked all the departments, all the funds, and I mentioned that we were able to reduce it by a million dollars in the general fund, pretty close to that, which was, it was worth the effort. It was pretty, pretty happy with how it turned out. And we did that basically looking at prior actuals. We looked at prior actuals working departments and there's a trend there and, you know, and then working with them that maybe you don't need that budget, that line item, and then reduce them throughout the departments. And now we're basically, you know, developing the long range plan and we're, you know, our goal right now is to have the proposed budget completed before June 30th to present to the Board of Finance and then all, and of course, the City Commission and then we have our workshops one and two in July and August. So this is the first time the Commission has actually interacted with the budgeting process. Is that the case? Yes. Okay. We have a number of issues year to year that are different. For instance, this year is the 50th anniversary of our relationship with the Blue Jays, which is going to be a heavy burden financially on many of us because the amount of allowance dollars that we have for travel is going to, could be consumed by that in and of itself. When we have that kind of situation, how do you put that into the budgeting process? Well, we do look at that and I mean, this draft was presented by working with City Manager's Office, you know, this draft here and again, this is a draft. This is a draft open for discussion and changes and that's why I had this meeting, you know, quite frankly. We want to make sure that we walk through the Commission's budget with the Commission and make sure that nothing's changed or there's, but we went through working with that trying to, you know, present a reasonable budget at this meeting today but again, this is just a draft. That would be good. Thank you. And actually, when we do a trip like Toronto, the liaison and the mayor are usually budgeted, you know, for additional travel for the Toronto trip. You talk about that in December when we talk about what travel and for example, when we went to Scotland, we actually incorporated that within the budget as well. So then the remainder of the Commissioners, if they elect to go, either private pay or they use their travel and if there's enough travel then they private pay the remainder, being very clear that any spouses that go are paid privately. On the expenditure line down here at the bottom, I see the actual, for my, I'm going to pick on myself here, is $6,016. Does that take into account the amount that I paid back into the city in some way? Or is that a net or a gross number? The $6,015 are the actual expenses for that year? The, no, actually, the $6,015 is the budget for 2026, excuse me. Total budget for 2026. Well, that's the actual. $6,016 is the actuals for 2025 is what I'm looking at there. Hold on a second here. I'm looking for that number here. Oh, you're tough. I'm looking at the Commission Summary Budget, my line item, Dugard Commissioner, $6,016 actuals. Am I looking at that right? And that's 2025? That's right. Yes, that's correct. Yes. Okay. That's $6,016. And the budget was $3,000. Is that correct? That's correct. For that period? Okay. Yeah. I think it's important to note for our citizens and my colleagues that we are asked to participate in a number of things that expends that very quickly. I mean, if we go to Tallahassee, if we go to state meetings, if we go to Toronto, that money is out of our pocket after $3,000. Just keep that in mind as we go forward. Very good point. Thank you, Mayor. That's it. Is it on that same one? Yeah, go ahead. You know, that is interesting because I can see what Tom is reading and there's such a big difference between, for example, the Mayor and Tom and the Mayor and myself. Is there any way to get an itemization of where that money went, how that money was spent? Yeah, we have that. We have all the detail and we can provide that to the commission for sure. I would really, I don't mean, I'm not as worried about these guys but I'd like to see it for myself. That's all I had, Mayor. So, if I may, Mayor, we'll provide that for all five of you then. Yeah. Okay, so, yeah, and that being said, I mean, one of my areas was I absolutely, I'm just one person, I do not think we should decrease the training area down to 1,000. You know, training and education used to, or travel and education used to be in the same line item because they are, you know, they kind of offset each other and I think they can still offset each other even though I understand why we put them in two different line items but they really are our only expense accounts that we can use. We don't make a lot of money. I don't want to, you know, we don't need to be adding more impact to people pulling money out of their own pocket when we don't make a lot of money. Nobody's getting rich on this job. The pay is very little and I think the least we can do is make sure that our travel and education accounts are appropriate. They're not excessive at 3,000 and 1,500 and I don't think we should be decreasing them even $500. Now, I know, you know, to me, I mean, even if we had to pull, if we have to do some of our decreases, I think there's some other areas and if we had to, even in the aid to private organizations area because we usually keep a little extra there for groups that come in during the year but I don't think that further burdening a pretty cheap labor cost to the commission is the area. That's just my opinion to the group. Does anybody, is everybody okay with leaving that at 1,500? I'm fine with that. Okay. Okay. Other than that, I don't really have any other questions of it. I do agree and I think, you know, sometimes, you know, we are expected to be a lot of things and it's a commitment of time but, you know, you don't want it to be overburdensome and again, I will look beyond myself, you know, because I can personally pay. I'm not rich by any means but I'm comfortable and I can pay for a lot of stuff but at any given time, if we want people to be willing to volunteer and take this job on for very little pay, we can't expect them to be reaching in their pocket all the time. So, anyway, those are my comments on that. Anyway, I think you guys did a good job. I don't have any other. Sure? I think there is a pattern here and it can be addressed without making a broad change to our budgeting process. Freshman commissioners are asked to participate in everything to be part of the process. In that first year, you may make allowances for freshman commissioners coming on board so that they feel freer. And, by the way, they have no line of sight to what their expenses are going to be for the whole year. So, my number there was me saying yes too often. Thank you, Mayor. Good point. Noted good point. Thank you. Unless I'm wrong, all of the commissioners all together offset any of that grace that needs to be given in terms of not going over budget overall. Yes. And I think that's the important thing we're all pretty good about. If one goes over and the other doesn't trying to offset each other because we're all up here trying to do the right things. Right. And honestly, I don't want training to go down because I almost went to, and I know many mayors are going to the National Mayor's Council or Mayor's Event this year. You know, we just had too much going on. but I don't want to not be able to do that and that, trust me, that will right away eat up that $1,000 for the registration fee. Okay. Great. Mayor, if I can. Yes. Just a point of discussion if nobody saw it. Just the idea that it looks like we are backing out of the National League of Cities and that's all I'll say about it. Just if we're okay with it, we're okay with it. But I just don't want to cut off our nose to spot our face. I figure if Nicole's okay with it, we're okay with it. Yep, we're okay with it. Okay, great. And I know our Florida League of Cities connects us because I've done both and honestly, I think our Florida League of Cities does a great job of doing both jobs. Okay. So, all right. We'll move on from there. That's all you need from us? Are we good? Yeah, thank you. Thank you both. Okay, we're going to go to the next item which we don't have to vote on but it is a new item that was not on the agenda but since it's a workshop that's okay. Did you want to do public input on that item? Sure. Sorry. If there's anybody that would like to speak on the City Commission light item budget discussion, anybody in the audience wish to come forward and speak to that, this would be your time. Seeing no one, I will close public input. Okay. So, we go to property tax reform discussion which is happening right now in Tallahassee and I will turn to City Manager first and then I know Nicole is going to. I'm going to ask Nicole Thank you, Mayor. So, this is a start item on our agenda which means it was placed on the agenda yesterday afternoon and the reason that we requested that the City Clerk place it on the agenda is certainly out of transparency that we're going to be discussing this item at the workshop this morning. This is obviously a very dynamic process right now. I know that the House and the Senate are in session in Tallahassee discussing property tax reform that there is a bill that is processing through that's come out of committee. It is, I think, on the House floor right now or Senate being debated. I know that Nicole Delfino was listening last night until about 9 o'clock to Suncoast League of Cities I believe. It was actually the Senate committee. The Senate committee discussion. So, we don't have a great deal of information for you right now because it is so dynamic but for the fact that the bill that is currently being debated in fiscal year 2028 at $150,000 homestead exemption an increase to $150,000 homestead exemption the revenue decrease for the City of Dunedin would be $4.2 million and in fiscal year 2029 increasing the homestead exemption to $250,000 would decrease our revenue by $6.3 million so we are currently in the middle of our budget process having prepared a budget for all of you and for the Board of Finance and this would change things it would go to referendum if it gets out of the House and Senate today or tomorrow I know the session is finished tomorrow if it gets out then it would be on the referendum for November which would impact our budget process most certainly so but we just wanted to give you a kind of overview exactly where we are right now as far as we know but like I said it is constantly changing and talk a little bit about putting together once we know what it is a fact sheet for all of you to have in your back pocket to talk to your constituents about and also to chat with you a little bit about the communications plan moving forward should it get out of the House and Senate today and be a referendum so Nicole you want to talk about where we are right now sure good morning Mayor Vice Mayor Commissioners Nicole Delfino Strategy and Sustainability Manager as Jennifer mentioned this is a kind of a constantly moving situation I actually just pulled up the Florida Channel they're in debate on the Senate floor I can only I was only looking at the Senate side at this point the Senate and the House's bills are identical is what they claim but amendments are being filed left and right I think there were eight amendments seven or eight amendments on the House side yesterday and there were several amendments at least as many on the on the Senate side the debate was very robust yesterday in the Senate committee hearing it did the meeting did last for six hours and 15 minutes it did end up passing out of that committee 13 yeas to five nays and I will say that there was really good discussion and I think that even on the Republican side they're looking to see some additional changes to the bill language before they can really support it off the floor or so they had stated yesterday in committee so I'm hoping to see some additional amendments come through today that may make it a little more tasteful I think one of the largest issues that is being discussed at this point is simply the name of the bill save our homes from excessive taxation is what would go on the ballot this is a little different than what would come up through a resident petition because that would require a supreme court review of the ballot language this does not require a supreme court review of the language if it's passed out of the house and the senate there may still be an opportunity that would be looked at or what's the word Jennifer or addressed as far as that language being fair there was a lot of discussion around that language yesterday and how it would be interpreted by residents because as a lot of us know not a lot of people are going to go and look further into what that means they're going to see save our homes from excessive taxation and of course who doesn't want that so the language right now I think is one of the items that they want to see addressed so that when I'm going to say when it makes it to the ballot that residents have good information as far as the losses that they're going to see in service in exchange for their reduction in property tax so that's a very high level summary as to where we're at again they are debating on the floor the calendar for today's senate I didn't have not looked at the house this side was 9am to 6pm so I do believe their goal is to get something voted off the floor today what that is going to look like at this point we're not entirely sure amendments that did pass yesterday included putting the schools back in as being exempted from this issue there were some additional amendments that also passed as far as removing the trust fund component from the bill that we all heard the governor talk about creating this trust fund there were probably more questions around the trust fund than there were answers because it's not clear as to who would qualify to receive funding from the trust fund that has no money in it and the fact that they have no dedicated revenue stream to allocate towards this trust fund additionally you know there was you know more discussion as to you know obviously fiscally constrained counties really it sounded like the fiscally restrained counties would be the priority to addressing those short falls because they will be basically wiped wiped out of any revenue sources at this point just because of the value of their homes there were obviously additional amendments that did fail so we're again we're hoping to see some amendments today I will be watching the rest of the debate after this and see where we land okay questions starting with Commissioner Gow no questions ma'am Commissioner DeGuard so by the end of this week we're going to know what we've got coming out do you think I think by today we're going to know what we've got no more questions Vice Mayor yes thank you Mayor so I just kind of maybe understand a little bit the path from January when we went to Tallahassee and here if I recall when we met on the Senate side that they were going to be the voice of reason and they were going to provide a little bit more conservative approach to the increasing of the exemption I guess do we have any insight from Southern Group or anything you've observed I mean what happened that was allowing me to sleep at night yeah yeah well it definitely was not allowing me to sleep at night so Senator Avila is from South Florida from Miami Dade he presented the bill yesterday the bill is a direct reflection of the governor's plan basically took the governor's plan and put it into a bill form and submitted it I believe Senator Avila was selected specifically for that reason and this was part of the debate yesterday due to his community and his representation he sees a lot of waste a lot of fraud a lot of excessive spending in Miami Dade as do many of his counterparts other House and Senate representatives that represent that area and so for them this bill is really addressing that issue while there was discussion that obviously not all not all municipalities in cities and counties are run in that same way and so why are we addressing something that needs to be handled in South Florida and we're affecting the whole state through this process but again that was part of the debate it's a priority unfortunately a priority of the governor to want to see this impact and I think you've got representatives who are willing to bring it forward who don't represent Dunedin don't represent similar communities who are fiscally responsible and run to the best of our ability so that's all I can really offer on that I appreciate that any sense at all okay let's just assume that this gets approved and goes to referendum have there been any surveys or polls on public sentiment at all to this point or has it been kind of silent FLC actually presented a session last week at the conference that Jennifer and I were at on Friday afternoon as well as holding a call on Monday I think the polling that they referenced was right at that cusp of whether it would pass or not the comments that they have made is that typically with a referendum like this the highest poll is right when the bill or the item is announced and then once people start understanding all of the components of it then that's when the polling tends or trends to then go down from there so there is some hope with that as far as being able to educate and provide information to our communities that we can be able to present that information I know that's what we were trying to do early with the property tax forums and I think repackaging some of that information and then putting it out again providing you all with the fact sheets getting the information out if you've been on social media on the last day lots of cities and counties are putting out all of their own information very similar to what we've presented so that's one kind of part of things again whether it's challenged with the language that's another component that they're looking at if some city municipality judge however that is brought forward whether the language is challenged and that either it needs to be revised or whether that will prevent it from moving forward thank you for that one of the questions I did have was what is the county doing because I have not seen anything from the county the county has maintained a pretty quiet perspective on this I know Les has been working with Mike Twitty they have been working on providing information and data as every request that we have asked of them they've been very responsive to that they've put a you know a toolkit so to speak out as far as the impacts of the bills but as far as them taking a stance I have just haven't seen it publicly so may the last conversation I had with administration at the county and that was quite some time ago was that they were going to wait to see exactly what it is before they took their position and really started their campaign so and one thing I was going to say if I may mayor that and I'm sure Jennifer will weigh in on this once it is scheduled for referendum at that point we turn to an education platform and we have taken a position on this obviously through our public tax reform forums but at this point then we would provide the city commission with exactly what this would mean the impact on the organization and then it would be up to us and to you all to educate your constituents yeah and I thank you for that can I just add but it's my understanding as elected officials we can provide our opinion yes you can provide your individual opinion right as bluntly as we want it to want to correct yes okay preceded by my individual opinion is correct absolutely no problem not speaking on behalf of the city gotcha yep well because I had heard I heard something with regards to this and I don't know how true it is but and it was in the form of a kind of an opinion editorial that and you can say if you can just tell me if this is you know you've heard anything like this is is that essentially there there is membership in the state legislature that put out worst case and see where it falls and with the anticipation that okay maybe it doesn't pass but there's still the political part of it where people get credit for supporting this extremely draconian measure any just if you've heard anything like that I I personally would agree with that statement would agree with that statement and I yeah I think that it would have seen less success had the schools not been exempted out of it because obviously you know where does where do schools get their funding there you know that's kind of not ever been the target so to speak of this bill of this language so yes happy for the schools I have public school children myself you know that they will continue to maintain that funding if this goes through but again I think it would have been more beneficial as a whole to see it fail if it would have remained included which I think was the intent okay thank you so much for that good questions Commissioner so if this happens it'll go on the November ballot correct so it still would have to at that time receive 60% support am I correct yes and just reading like this one paragraph increases the exemption from 50 to 150 beginning January 2027 so the piece of paper that we were provided the first time that we would feel that would be fiscal year of 2028 that's correct okay and I without getting real deep if it was a 4.2 million dollar hit could we come out of it really unbruised or would we come out bruised very bruised very bruised okay that's all I had mayor so Nicole is who's asking tough questions up there that seem like they're trying to get to a logical place for this proposal who's asking the tough questions from what I've seen from the Senate committee typically our Democratic representatives are the ones that are questioning a lot of the language in the bill and what is included and what is not included there was a very long discussion about the exemption list so to speak the presenter of the bill said that it was written very broadly with intent so that just about everything could fit into the exemption list of which then was questioned well why would you even have an exemption list in the first place there was really not a response to that but other than the fact that anything that this city or county should be doing as far as providing essential services would fall under one of those categories that's in the exemption list who's who's this could be the same question in a different way who is speaking on behalf of the tremendous loss in service money for local government who is speaking to those questions from again my from what I have seen in watching the committee meeting it is the senators that were on that committee yesterday Senator Pizzo Senator Polsky Senator Sharif Senator Smith and Senator Berman are really asking those tough questions who from our delegation is asking hard questions we did not asking on behalf of local government concerns we had three members from the Pinellas delegation on that committee chair hooper vice chair russan and senator de sigley I personally did not hear any of their comments if they were asking those questions it was a long meeting I had to step away a few times I bet you did I bet there might have been wine involved in the step away is this five and a half million dollar fund that the governor wants to promote his position going to happen there will be no fund they don't have the money the state itself is facing a several billion dollar deficit in their future years they have to deal with their own problems so to speak so as we've seen with a number of other funds that are constitutional they don't necessarily get funded as they are supposed to or pay for the items that they are supposed to pay for the comment yesterday as far as the amendment with that trust fund goes was that they would prefer to handle it legislatively and let their future senators and representatives decide how much funding will be allocated into that fund and how it would then be distributed they called it kind of a grant applications but again there's no definition as to how those will be rated who would benefit from them how much there would even be available I wouldn't count on it at this point this is in I'm going to go down the road of the vice mayor this is in the rumor department this rumor that the sheriffs of the Florida are keeping quiet because they have a lot riding in the current budget approval that has yet to be done by the governor and because obviously I don't know how they'll come out with the taxes but I mean 50% of the county general fund budget is the sheriff and which leaves not a lot to deal with the rest of the demands that they have any you hearing anything about that from what I saw the audience was filled and almost every person in the audience was a sheriff or fire representative so I again I don't know that it's necessarily Pinellas County that was in the audience but there was a lot of representation meaning in opposition yes in opposition because this bill does not as prior bills that we had seen during session does not remove fire or police although there's a police caveat so to speak that exists in other legislation but Tripp Barr was there and he did make a comment during public employment I'm trying to figure out I just wanted to add in I know we're focused in on the homestead part of this and that's certainly one aspect of the bill but understand the bill does several things so first it does the homestead exemption it also would affect the amount that could be assessed against non homestead property and then it also further limits how you could spend any ad valorem so there are only specific categories that you could spend ad valorem on and they are not all of the items that you currently spend ad valorem on so that's a great that's a great comment so would the current use of any ad valorem tax be allowed for little league fields so that was where so that that was a lot of the debate yesterday was there what we had there was a senator asking who pays for code enforcement officers who pays for permit you know permit staff where does that fit in they don't I feel like I can't there there's not an answer to that the the bill sponsor had said well that falls under infrastructure so that can go into that category so again that comment about how those categories were written so broadly was that you know you should be able to fit in everything that you should be doing as far as providing essential services into it is very vague but there is no clarity because there are still those questions that did not provide a direct answer where where does this fit the question was asked where do libraries fit well libraries are education so you know again it doesn't specifically say libraries the bill sponsor said that it could include libraries in the debate but it's not actually written in the bill so I think that we're as this moves forward to really understanding what is and is not included in that language citywide cyber security who knows right I'm going to say let's throw in infrastructure with everything else Nicole if I'm understanding and not to interrupt Mayor I'm sorry is that all these questions that we all still have will be resolved by the end of the day today yes no no I did not say that I think the only thing that will be resolved today if not tomorrow will be whether or not this is going on the ballot the questions have not been addressed if we see additional clarifying amendments which we did see one yesterday then potentially some of the questions will be cleared up but no I think that we will be leaving this as we have left just about every law that's passed this last year with more questions and answers I know how you love a bad bill made better I'm sure I'd be in the new group of first five years wanting to move the state of Florida under this either they will be even more crushed and but that's the goal I'm not sure what the goal is here maybe that is the goal I don't know okay so I'm just going to go to final comments unless there's something else that you guys have to add first of is there anyone in the audience who wishes to come forward and speak to this issue Olivia there's a good chance for you as you're our intern you're our future so we have an idea of where the Florida league stands do we have an idea of where the Suncoast league stands yes the Suncoast league also wrote a letter from its membership that they had advanced to the delegation and beyond which is one of the reasons why we actually also followed up with a letter yesterday sent from the mayor on your behalf citing several very specific positions that the city of Dunedin takes but yet the Suncoast league we are all in very close alignment Florida league Suncoast league and our own interests broadly who is involved in the Suncoast league the president currently is Andy Ross mayor of Temple Terrace our vice president is I apologize I did not have all the names ready his name is Jacob from safety harbor and then the third VP is Karen Rafferty from one of the Bel Airs I don't want to get it wrong so Bel Air shores I believe but they have been doing I will say I think the Suncoast league has been doing a really good job membership has been a big focus of theirs this last year of really engaging their members getting members that maybe they have lost over the years whether it's through seats changing what not really engaging those members thank you and that was the point I was trying to get across for our residents to know that the Suncoast league is local it's this region this county and a little beyond have we tried to do a combined lobby effort I think that is really what comes from the Florida league is really who's representing all of the municipalities in their letters and their testimonies they've been testifying at every committee during the entire session including yesterday I saw them in the audience during the committee meeting so I think that is really where that has all been pushed yesterday again I think it was not only do they want to hear from the group that's coordinating these large number but they wanted to hear from everybody individually so there was comments being made one senator said he had 1400 calls come in yesterday in opposition to this so the calls the emails I shared with you last week when we knew this was happening to please make those this is the time to make those calls and send those emails and so the email that was sent out with the letter yesterday was to our entire Pinellas County delegation including the Senate president and the Speaker of the House I then requested Lindsay to send the letter to every single member of the legislature today so hopefully those have also gone out the more people they hear from would would be better well that's what one would think right but at this point I'm not process of making bad bills anyway thank you thank you Mayor did you were you gearing up to say something you look like it yeah no just that I'm sure we have a city commission meeting on Thursday and I'm sure under commission discussion or city manager's update or something we'll find out what we're going to do moving forward okay so I'll go to final comments starting with the vice mayor thank you mayor you know the only thing I can really you know characterize this as in the way that this is being done is this is extremely irresponsible and it's you know to to put this on the city on a municipality especially one that enjoys the credit rating that we enjoy what is that less double a plus double a plus and living and managing a city that provides the level of amenities that we are proud to provide to our community and our residents and to embark upon this path with a referendum that potentially would have these fiscal impacts over the next three well going forward without without a plan without any sort of dialogue with regards to how do we make up that difference because basically the way that this looks to me personally is that essentially this will result in a significant shutdown of the services and amenities that we are able to provide and I just don't know how we got to this point and I do want to follow that up my line of questioning was kind of where Commissioner Gow went you know I think this is an all hands on deck I greatly appreciate the Florida League of Cities advocacy on this but I think every municipality needs to be out there beating the drum and and talking about what goes away so anyway those are my comments I guess we just have to hope that Tallahassee makes the right choice it sounds like they're going to be forced to make a choice and hopefully that's in our favor and then after that we'll rely on the voters and I'm not sure how much more we can do but sit and wait it never makes it a pleasant time but we've done everything we can and now it's up to the hands of elected officials and and then all of us as voters so that's all I have there Commissioner Gale final comments thank thank you mayor I certainly echo the comments of my colleagues and just while we have been in this era of making bad bills and then we'll try and make it better why don't you just make it better the first time it seems a lot more efficient and I just don't understand their logic and their thinking right now they're creating basically trying to create a slush fund for the governor without a way to fund it or where the money would go and they're spending even five minutes on that topic it's just absurd and so I just I just don't know where we're going I'm very thankful for Nicole for the heavy lifting the work you're doing very appreciative of the League of Cities and the Suncoast League I think we should put an incredible amount of pressure on the county they need to come out they need to come out against this and I don't know what they're waiting for I understand the sheriffs and stuff but this affects everybody and without any discussion on how those funds will be made up elsewhere I just don't even know why it's a conversation starter let alone the potential to go to referendum so I just I'm beyond livid on this but thank you Mayor that's all I have thank you Commissioner Degard thank you Mayor ever since history began and we started seeing the concept of government the next question has always been how much do we pay for government and that question's been with us ever since we had government where do we get the resources to pay for what we want in the way of protection and services through government so when we compare the state of Florida against all other 50 states and you know also provinces we're 47th in expending our citizens resources the word excessive in this bill is a step into ignorance they're being ignorant on purpose and they're hopeful that they will sell the audience they're talking to that's what's going on here our job is going to be to try to educate the citizenry as to what this bill will do to them their future and their children's future and by the way if you dismantle government history has shown us that it takes a lot more energy to reconstruct it once it's been taken apart this is a dismantling of local and county government on the part of those that politically benefit from such actions I have no countenance with this and it will be difficult for me to constrain myself as I go out and talk into the public because I believe we're hurting ourselves we're shooting our foot right now and for those of you that aren't in the top one percent this is stupid don't allow this to be done to you the very wealthy find it easy to reproduce the resources that they get from government those of us that are not do not and that's what we're doing it's a battle of the rich against the poor again and I will not couch my comments I will be out front thank you mayor thank you I was going to bring up that we're one of the lowest tax tax states and you know I will hold on to some hope that at the end of the day we might be surprised but it's already gone so far it's hard to think that's going to occur I'm just so disappointed in our state legislature I'm not going to say anything about our governor I'm just so disappointed that our legislature is who knows who knows and when we were all up there in March or February whatever it was behind the scenes comments like it's going to be fine that's crazy it's not going to happen we understand we're not going to unleash that kind of chaos into our local communities nobody needs this don't worry there'll be some minor thing done something that'll have some help don't worry don't worry don't worry but here we are here we are and I will again hold on to hope but right now I'm so disappointed it's gotten to where it's gone I last night I don't know if anybody watched political connections on Bay News 9 Spectrum 9 whatever it's called now former Senator Jeff Brandis Republican by the way was on there and boy was he great about how rushed this is about how ill thought out how many open questions are out there and yet they move on and yet they move on you know rushed poorly thought through no way to supplement the income and lost revenue and of course you know I'm glad they actually be honest don't keep a trust fund that doesn't have any money in it and act like that's something that's going to help fill the incredibly large gap that funds basic services to our residents I mean this is to me what's going on up there is bad government on steroids you know local government and I will always say this is the closest to the people we are so accessible you can come you can talk to us you can call us you can run to be on the dance floor in downtown and I will take your question I will hear your complaint it is part of what I do we all do it we don't get a lot of money to do it but we love this community and this is a quality of life community and you couldn't have said it better I mean yeah I mean we're going to struggle with basic types of services but it's our quality of life which by the way our residents voted for every time they voted us in here keep our charm keep our amenities this is why we move here this is why people come here to visit and I will tell you if anything like this actually gets the ballot and makes it through I mean the secondary loser will be our businesses will be our economy I mean we're a tourist state people love to come here to visit our city and that's part of what creates the economic vitality of our city and creates the ability for us to have the money to create the amenities we have it's irresponsible is the best word and I'll leave it at irresponsible that's a great word because they know it they know what they're doing which by the way one of the things that former senator Jeff Brandes brought up was where do renters fit in this we're concerned about affordability they're probably going to be the worst hit of all is renters businesses he made the point you can hold down the 5 or 10 percent of increases to business on the property side but what stops increasing their their taxes just to help afford the amenities of the community and the basic of services of the community so I don't know again I will hold out some hope that by the end of the day someone will do the right thing and I'll end with next year next year is a 20 year expert commission that meets every 20 years in the state of Florida to decide to talk about these issues of property tax in an intellectual valid way because clearly there are issues with our property tax system and brings forward logical thought out questions answered so there's not a million questions left on the table and brings those recommendations back but no would we want to wait no let's rush it through with very little thought to all the things that it throws everyone into chaos about and chaos is the word chaos is the word so okay all right thank you and I guess we'll go to informational items anyone have anything they want to share I do mayor after the commission okay so I'm going to stay there commissioner go I got nothing commissioner to guard vice mayor no I'm good and commissioner samarin nothing mayor okay I just two things at some point I did want to make sure we recognize that Nicole did receive a rising star award at the Florida City County Managers Association and we see every day why you got that award and we're thankful for you Nicole maybe we can do that a little more formally at some future meeting and then I just wanted to to Largo City Hall is having a ribbon cutting this afternoon Mayor Brown did text me about that I think it's four to six with the actual cut maybe happening at five I think they're going to do something more formal even later but I'm going to go and if anybody wants to go with me that'd be awesome so anyway so I put that out there it's four to six actually I think the ribbon cutting is going to be closer to five do you know Jen okay yeah I mean he said it'd probably be closer to five but I'll probably get there around four but okay we'll see if their party's as good as ours that'd be awesome what's that we'll see if their party's as good as ours well it's got to take a little wind out of your sails what's going on up at Dallas but we do want to support them Mayor Brown so you know they're great partners with us so okay other than that there's nothing else for the order meeting oh I did but it's actually it was sorry meeting reopen the meeting thank you no no it was the FCCMA oh okay so I beat you to the punch okay let me do that again meeting adjourned yay so you stole the city management thank you you