COMMISSION WORKSHOP - Oct 07, 2025

commission workshop like to call the meeting to order we will start with the pledge of allegiance by our city attorney john first of all weak apologies to yankee stands but how about those blue jays come on and uh we'll all be going blue here after we're done with the firefighter things but uh anyway so okay we are going to start with uh florida city week and i'm going to turn that over to vice mayor gau to present florida city week proclamation thank you mayor very very much and while teresa makes her way up we need some sort of walk-up music or something for her for this uh you know every day is florida's florida city week and it's great to see it on the agenda this this morning uh and it comes third after our our firefighters and fire prevention which is as it should be but it's certainly uh city government is in the top three as it should be uh florida city week october 20th to 2026 2025 whereas october 20 through 26 2025 has been declared as florida city week city government is the government closest to most citizens and is the one with the most direct daily impact upon its residents and whereas municipal government provides services and programs that enhance the quality of life for residents making their city their home and city government is administered for and by its citizens and is dependent upon public commitment to and understanding of its many responsibilities and whereas city government officials and employees share the responsibility to pass along the understanding of public service and their benefits and the florida city week offers an important opportunity for elected officials and city staff to spread the word to all citizens of florida that they can shape and influence this branch of government and the florida league of cities and its member cities have joined together to teach citizens about municipal government through a variety of activities to actively promote and sponsor florida city week 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 do hereby recognize october 20 through 26 2025 as florida city week and encourage all citizens city government officials and employees to participate in events that recognize and celebrate the week while promoting dunedin through civic education and volunteerism so thank you very much good morning mayor vice mayor commissioner commission teresa smalling director of hr and risk management for the city thank you for this proclamation to recognize florida city week as it mentioned a time set aside each year to celebrate the important role city government plays in shaping the quality of life in our communities this week is an opportunity to highlight how city government connects directly to our daily lives from award-winning water and wastewater programs to increase our appreciation centers and the library city services directly and profoundly impact our quality of life every day right here in our own community city employees work together to deliver essential services responding when our residents need emergency medical services maintaining our roads sidewalks and parks keeping our neighborhoods and business areas safe and offering programs that make our city a great place to live work and raise a family as we celebrate florida city week we want to take a moment to recognize and thank all of our city employees elected officials and volunteers as well as personnel from the pinal's county sheriff's office who happen to be here today for their dedication and service to the city of dunedin for many their hard work often happens behind the scenes but it takes it makes a lasting difference in the lives of our citizens every single day so thank you thank you theresa and yeah let's get the picture sorry and uh yeah i'm just going to add you know the backbone of our city is our employees and um local government is closest to the people and um as we always look for ways to uh how we're going to fund it they're looking um at that at tallahassee it just you know what what makes our community special um is you know the things that we can do in our community that are you know different um we don't want to be the same old community as everybody else in florida we want to be different so um opened all the discussion on how local government should best be funded but i think it's very important that citizens pay attention to it because um who we are um if every funding source is cut off we will slowly not be who we are so i think responsible financing of our government is really important but pay attention to discussions please because if you have to vote for it you want to vote in a way that really you understand the give and take of it thank you okay we are going to move to uh fire prevention week and i will turn to commissioner sandberg come on up mike good uh good afternoon actually uh chief sorry i'm all right first of all uh good morning mayor vice mayor commissioners city manager um thank you for having us this week dunedin fire rescue joins fire departments across the nation in celebrating fire prevention week a program that has been supported by the national fire protection agency nfpa for more than 100 years each year we focus on a theme that brings us life-saving information to the residents and this year's theme is charge into safety lithium-ion batteries in your home lithium-ion batteries power so many of the tools that we use in our day-to-day lives power uh laptops power tools e-bikes and even mobility scooters they make our modern life convenient but can be when damaged overcharged or improperly stored can become extremely dangerous according to the national uh data from the nfpa and the us uh product consumer safety commission lithium-ion batteries have increased more than 40 percent over the past five years across the country these fires and are responsible for hundreds of injuries and dozens of fatalities each year often starting suddenly and spreading rapidly in many cases they begin while devices are charging on couches beds or other combustible services turning everyday conveniences into a life uh life-threatening event and here in dunedin we take that risk seriously many of you know that uh the pedigo store um that was located uh just off of uh railroad um off of main street a couple years ago had a a significant fire attributed directly to a lithium-ion batteries that were in the e-bikes um chief uh castillo uh investigated that fire and through actual uh uh security cam footage confirmed that so it is a significant hazard so we we're definitely looking for people to uh only use certified batteries and chargers charge devices on hard flat services avoid using damaged batteries and properly dispose of old batteries at recycling centers so our message is safe fire prevention starts with awareness and small everyday choices so thank you for uh thank you and please join us in charging into safety fire safety this week and all year long so our firefighters are going to be out uh over this month as it's it's our month that we do fire prevention uh we we do fire prevention every day in the community but we really focus this month in going out to the schools uh different uh assisted living facilities nursing homes and different other communities uh to really put that message out there so uh you'll see our firefighters all over this uh next month in schools and different events so thank you guys very much and i think there's a proclamation sorry i probably jumped the gun i have something for you yeah thank you yeah faux pas number one when uh yeah very difficult to follow you know i i read through this a couple of times and my how things have changed it was one time it was important for me to remember to unplug the christmas lights don't don't play with matches uh uh what was that uh never smoke in bed i mean things have really changed but as i was reminded by some cute grandkids stop drop and roll so if does that still you guys still use that one or yes absolutely every time in the community all the time so so that being said whereas the city of dunedin is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting dunedin and whereas the national fire protection association announces charge into fire safety lithium-ion batteries in your home as a theme for this year's fire prevention week and whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally and homes are the locations where people are at the greatest risk from fire and whereas lithium-ion batteries are increasingly used to power everyday products such as our cell phones our laptops e-scooters e-bikes power tools and other devices found in homes and whereas when not properly used properly charged or disposed of lithium-ion batteries can overheat catch fire or even explode posing significant risk to life and property and whereas dunedin residents should always use battery devices and charges that are listed by a nationally recognized testing laboratory follow the manufacturer's instructions for charging and storage stop using batteries that are damaged cracked or overheating charge devices only on a hard flat surface away from beds couches and combustible materials never throw away lithium-ion batteries in household trash or recycling bins instead dispose of them at approved collection or recycling sites and regularly test home smoke alarms to ensure early warning in the event of fire now i therefore steven sandburgen dunedin city commissioner by virtue and authority vested in me by mayor mo freeney of the city of dunedin and on behalf of my entire city commission we hereby proclaim 2025 fire prevention week theme to be charge into safety lithium batteries in your home to effectively remind us that we need to take personal steps to increase our safety from fire thank you dfr thank you very much appreciate it thank you get a picture you guys are going to be a mile apart right you may or if i may uh when you talk about disposal of of the batteries i don't know whether you guys know it or or not but especially in solid waste because of the price of those vehicles they are told that if there's ever a fire in in a solid waste recycling vehicle you dump that load wherever you are and prior to being on the commission to work for the city of clearwater and you've actually seen that in action and and they they dumped the load as soon as they saw smoke and and that smoke was a result of batteries in in the load and when they're compacted it starts to fire so it really really does happen so thank you mayor absolutely so um i i think our firefighter of the year is delayed still delayed okay so uh i think this might be a good time because i just got a text from my partner who said what's where's all the toronto blue jay gear what's with the red shirts so i think it's time to get the toronto blue jay gear going here we that's how much we love our firefighters though but sorry guys as a woman it just was too difficult and uh while they're while they're changing out i will uh also announce and maybe sue you've got more information on this but so uh on on spectrum if you have cable uh or or stream you can get the channel 639 now uh it is the uh dunedin channel um so that's been a long time coming since we left the old city hall but it's officially up and running and i've heard that i know that uh you you you saw that it was up but uh there were a lot of citizens that still have cable and um and so they uh wanted it and finally got it and a special thanks to dave garcia with spectrum who seemed to find the magic to finally get it done right so after two years after two years anything you want to add about that or super ness our communications person good morning mayor and commission um yes no we've been working on this for two years to try to get the cable uh reinstalled into the new city hall because we couldn't transfer it over from the old city hall so it is live we've been making sure it was tested and we're actually viewing it live um this morning here at city hall and we will be promoting it through all of our channels um that those who have and you have to have a cable box to be able to watch the channel so um you have to have spectrum cable box um just so you know that as well it's one more way to watch the zumo box it is that because i get it and i'm streaming so okay whatever box you have as long as you've got a box yes absolutely absolutely so we'll be promoting that through the dinita news and and all of our social media platforms that's awesome and and that was something we really pushed for because again we pride ourselves on making sure that we're as transparent everywhere and that was an issue that was really important to a certain constituency of our population so um okay so um mayor if i can sue are we able to capture numbers or not right and there's nothing we can do on our side since they can't do it we can't okay thank you okay i think we now have our firefighter of the year and so i would ask uh firefighter emt michael boll well i'll let the chief handle it chief and doga it's your it's your game thank you very much again mayor vice mayor commissioners thank you very much um if i could have my fire department join me my fire department my fire department i get to say that now it's very nice i like our our along here here's good so and i lost my firefighter of the year michael balls to the front please on the way there he is they move with purpose not speed no okay um so it is my honor to stand before you this morning to recognize dunedin fire rescue's 2025 firefighter of the year michael balls michael joined dunedin fire rescue on april 12th 2023 as one of the first firefighters under the new lateral hire policy something that you as the commission approved and supported so it's an initiative that allows us to pay for experience and bring skilled professional firefighters into our organization at a higher step a higher pay step michael exemplifies exactly what that program was designed for to attract exceptional experienced firefighters who immediately elevate our department so before coming to dunedin michael was uh began his career with hernando county fire rescue in 2017 and later joined pasco county fire rescue where he served on a ladder truck and squad one as part of their special operations division he was a primary member of florida task force 425 which is a usar urban search and rescue team and he's a hazmat technician along with all that he is also a large animal rescue technician so if any large animals get need rescuing he's our guy so uh it basically demonstrates a huge diverse uh skill set that he has brought to the to the department so since joining dunedin fire rescue michael has quickly become one of our most respected firefighters he's obtained his acting lieutenant qualification he is part of the training cadre which uh trains the new firefighters and uh rookies when they come in he serves on our safety committee and also on our apparatus build committee he's been instrumental in mentoring our new firefighters during a period of significant hiring just this last year we probably hired about 20. so he serves as the b shift union rep which handles all of this uh shift uh overtime scheduling special events he handles all that for for an entire shift and he continues to get represent his peers of professional professionalism respect and collaboration so michael's professionalism initiative and genuine passion for helping others makes him a role model within our organization today he is joined by his wife jamie and their son landon coming um excellent so when he's not serving the citizens of the you'll often find him and his son landon spending time together at the racetrack where they they share a love for oval asphalt racing which about 120 miles an hour at least 140. yeah so um firefighter bowls truly embodies the core values of dunedin fire rescue which is service professionalism integrity and teamwork it's a privilege to recognize him today as our 2025 firefighter of the year congratulations michael well deserved so so on on so one thing i wanted to uh we're starting a new tradition today and the firefighter of the year from the previous year is going to um present the current firefighter of the year with the uh the plaque so that was done quickly but i'm sorry i didn't recognize that but so it's again today we're starting that and uh it's a new day and we appreciate it so uh thank you commission for recognizing us and uh we'd love to get a picture with you all yeah we got to get the photo of it does anybody want to add any comments starting starting vice mayor thank you congratulations thank you sir mr samuel no i just wanted to say it's probably every little boy's dream to be a fireman and you lived it my friend and uh thank you very much tell you that not only is the city commission proud of you but so is this entire community so thank you very much thank you mr walker yeah you know i'm so proud of you guys and uh i think wonderful congratulations uh you obviously epitomize and uphold all of the values that dunedin fire and rescue provides to our great community so thank you for that mr sandberg if you ask a citizen what is the element of dunedin that they most appreciate they follow with the word safety you guys are the front line of that sentiment people feel safe in dunedin my family feels safe in dunedin thank you for helping us feel that way before i take the final word city manager did you want to add anything yeah absolutely thank you very much mary i appreciate it um first of all i'm very pleased that that the policy that we put in place the lateral hiring policy worked amazing yeah which is it was it was uh put forward by admin in order to hire experienced firefighters and um at a time when we really needed that experience um uh in the fire department so i'm very pleased that that worked out and continues to work out um and and congratulations michael i know your wife is here is landon here landon's in school so we'll have lots of pictures so landon can see how great his dad is congratulations so what's your wife's name jamie jamie did you have to drop him off at the front door and park the car that's what i thought that's great well that's good i saw him he kept looking for you she didn't even slow down we saw it yeah just kicked him kicked him to the curb um obviously you know i'm proud of the whole department it's such a it's so important and you know 85 percent whatever the percentage is is medical now and um but you always have to be ready for that fire as well knock on wood we don't want any but um but um you're there for people and um i don't i don't want to have to call you for a long time since i've had to touch you guys three times in the last year um but um but you're there for people and i'll tell you when you're there there's there's nothing else like it when you're there quick and you're there with your expertise um that that's everything to our community and it shows in our surveys so we we thank you and michael big kudos to you thank you for uh stepping up on a lot of this stuff and being that person and obviously it's great for you to be recognized for all that you've done so thank you and congratulations to your wife so sorry about the uh the rush in this morning okay yeah my nerves are a little frowned um i think i love the name landon too so how old is he he just turned 13. okay that's awesome i think uh commissioner de gard had a quick question i was just wondering about this large animal rescue specialty you have what is the largest animal you've rescued so can you talk into the mic michael sorry all right so um the largest animal that i've rescued was a horse um but during the class it's put on by the university of florida they sponsor it and they provide the county with all the equipment um they've got um mocked up dummies of of plastic cows and plastic horses that you pick up that are two to three thousand pounds in the class we did rescue a horse that that later was sick and passed away but um yeah it was a neat experience so it's not just cats out of trees no no there's a so there's a funny saying you'll never see a dead cat in a tree so he'll eventually come down so thank you guys thank you very much for this opportunity you know i really appreciate it sorry for being a little bit late that's completely out of character for me but i appreciate you guys holding it back for us that's awesome well thank you for all you do and let's get a picture thank you maybe we should start with you and your wife by yourselves first and then you and your wife and the chief and then everybody she didn't think that dead cat thing was funny you practiced that at home and she said don't say it you guys stay together okay now everybody everybody everybody good luck bro can you get a little bit closer can you get a little bit closer maybe he's a little bit you're going to get a little bit closer all right thank you okay so while we're waiting for them to leave we'll just make sure everybody knows 8 p.m tonight is the blue jay game right and you want to just say something about that our liaison for the blue jays is i just wanted to make sure i left lanyards on all of your desks yesterday oh those were from the blue jays um they've adopted this yeah it's the slogan want it all so yeah check your desk say it they they wanted to make sure everybody had one for today awesome good i'll make sure i got them get it thank you yeah good yeah so they can clinch tonight let's do it sorry yanks but i'm not for you i'm for the jays all right here we go so we have um uh dineen causeway update from pinellas county transportation division several of us asked for this uh to get an update on what's going on with the causeway and i guess uh apparently sue will be leading us off good morning sue bartlett public works director good morning mayor vice mayor commissioners city manager good morning attorney hi michelle um it's my pleasure this morning to introduce tom washburn he's um a pe from pinellas county he's the transportation division director and he was here in january to give an update on the causeway um and he's back had your request to give you an update he has a brief presentation and then he'll take some questions and you all may know but our citizens may not um know that the dunedin causeway is a collaborative effort it is actually pinellas owned by pinellas county the right of way but there are interlocal agreements for the city to do certain maintenance items there like parks they take care of the landscaping and the trash and you know make it a beautiful place for us but now the damage has been done by the hurricanes and so tom will give us a little update on how that progress is going they have been a very collaborative with us um working with uh several city departments looking at traffic flow improving safety um signs um against signs and markings are the city's responsibility but soon again we'll be entering into another interlocal with its and transferring some of those so not for the citizens to worry about it they can just let one of us know and we'll notify the other if there's something that needs to be addressed so with that i would like to introduce tom come up thank you for coming hi tom thank you for being here of course good morning everybody thanks for uh for having me again um as sue said uh i was here in january and i've got a quick presentation just an update on three three items that i wanted to brief you on um if you can go to the next slide here so uh just real quick i want to give you an update on where we're at with the storm damage that occurred out on the causeway um during the storms last year uh give you an update on the one-way circulation we talked about that last time and and what our plan is moving forward um and then i understand that there's been some concerns about vehicles that have ended up on the pinellas trail so we've got uh some ideas behind that that i'll brief you on as well so real quick on the storm damage uh there were two two areas of storm damage that occurred uh the first was was probably the more immediate safety concern it was up on the bridge um with the sidewalk and the railings and the fender system that was that's there so that was an emergency repair that was cost us about sixty thousand dollars we did submit the paperwork to fema for reimbursement and just to give you an idea of the time frame we just received the agreement from fdot they managed the all the grants with uh with fema so fema issues the the money dot manages the grants on behalf of the state of florida but we just received the agreement for that particular repair and that just went to our board of county commissioners last month so um so that's been complete the next area and and probably the more significant is the erosion that's occurred on the southeast side or actually the southwest side of the causeway southwest of the bridge when i was here in january our estimate at that time was about 440 000 so you can see that's about tripled we're up to about 1.3 million dollars that's the latest estimate that we've submitted to fhwa for the repairs we are still working through this is one of five projects that the county is seeking additional fema reimbursement so we've been working we've been in contact with fema and fdot trying to keep updated on the status but we don't have a timeline yet for when we expect to receive that agreement once we do receive that agreement we do have a schedule that we intend to adhere to we plan to mobilize within two weeks we're going to use our general contractors for the bulk of this repair and also using our in-house services so we plan to mobilize in a very short period of time once we have the agreement in place and then we're going to focus on the parking area i know that's been a an area of concern with with the facilities that are out there we've been coordinating with glenn and i think he's here today but we've been coordinating with him we're also looking at ways and we should have an answer this week on whether we can expand the parking a little bit that's out there but the goal is to focus on that parking area get that open within two months and then focus on the erosion that's occurred on the uh on the embankments there and that'll uh in total it's about a three to four month duration for those repairs once we get that agreement in place moving on to the one-way circulation the last time that i was here we had a plan for both sides of the causeway again as a result of the storms so we've kind of pivoted in our approach um we're going to pilot the north side um and just we've got and i'll show you a graphic here in a second um we're going to postpone the south side until we figure out if this is going to work you know we think it's a good solution we've had a lot of coordination with the the groups that are out there including city staff and some of the committees and gotten some positive feedback from from everybody mostly from the sheriff's office they think that the circulation pattern is going to be helpful when traffic starts to back up from honeymoon island next slide so this is somewhere what i presented last time but you'll see that you know we're focusing on the north side we do have one entrance that we're proposing to close we're not going to touch that at this time we're going to keep everything as it is out there and just put the signs up there but nothing on the south side at this time next slide and this is one of the entrances it just gives you an idea of what the signing because it's all um dirt out there we can't put any pavement markings on the frontage uh road but we'll handle it with signing uh we'll coordinate with city and and with the the sheriff's office for enforcement we'll have plenty of signing out there variable message boards before we intend to to implement so that everybody's aware that the change is coming we'll let the sheriff's office know and then we'll have quite a bit of time out there just seeing how operations work and and seeing you know if there's issues that occur something that we didn't quite anticipate but again we're looking to pilot this and and we'll be looking for any feedback uh positive or negative on on how it's operating when are you going to pilot it though our intention is to have those installed by the end of october so and again that's spending feedback that i get today obviously and then the last thing is vehicles on trail this was brought to our attention um you see the picture in the top left that's one of the vehicles that uh for whatever reason got off on the trail and then ended up getting a good ways down there before they got stopped the photo in the bottom left is where most of this seems to be occurring this is just before the entrance to honeymoon island where we've got that turnaround the picture in the top right kind of shows what somebody making a turn at that location would be or what they would see so you can see there's an open area with the guardrail we've got a pedestrian crossing there right now so our intention is to relocate that crossing over to royal steward arms and then use some type of railing or guardrail system to wrap around to prohibit vehicles when they're making this turn from getting out on onto the trail you can see in the top right picture and in the bottom right picture we do have bollards out there obviously the bollard is set in the middle of the trail so it doesn't quite provide enough it doesn't provide enough of a resistance for anybody especially a smaller vehicle that may make it out there but the uh the bot the photo in the bottom right the the bother that was put in there as a result of one of these incidents and that's positioned just before you get to the title relief bridge where the trail starts to narrow down you know so we do think that's in a good location but we intend to use a similar type of treatment at all entrances to from the causeway onto the parking area we've got a standard bollard type treatment that you see with any other trail crossing we help and we think that's going to help prevent vehicles from getting out there and getting in a situation in a location where they should not be and with that i'm happy to take any questions i know that was brief and quick but first of all could you go back to that last slide so is that your car vice mayor sorry couldn't help myself um okay i'm going to go to questions i'll start with uh commissioner walker thank you mayor um this wasn't necessarily covered in the scope of what you presented but um is it the erosion on the southeast side of the causeway that's um basically preventing the jet ski access correct yes okay and what was the timeline for that uh the timeline once we get the agreement from fema we expect the the total uh repair to take four months three to four months but we expect to have that parking area open within two months yeah well and the reason i'm asking is um one that was a inquiry that i got from the park service but more importantly was the feedback that followed and essentially um you know over the course of of not having access down there and it probably in measure due to probably lighter boat traffic because of what's going on at uh at um hurricane pass um they've seen a uh marked um improvement increase in marine life in that whole area so i i found that interesting um and uh i you know again uh that that that decision would be made though following the repairs to to open that back up i presume or is there a plan possibly not to open it back up to jet scares that we don't have a plan not to open it back up um i think that would probably be a discussion with the city um and with your committees um you know we'd be open to a discussion but you got to get closer i'm sorry um yeah the county does not have plans to not open that back up the way it was prior to so if there's any discussion um that would be a coordinated effort with the the city okay and so we would get it would come before us i presume then for discussion or it's i think that actually if we insert ourselves at this point and say we'd like to have that discussion i don't i don't see it circling back necessarily as a part of the process so is that true tom it it is uh dunedin's request for the jet ski area and the signage and um and even access so yes and we can get i can go with tony and we can make sure we have been meeting we haven't met for a while but uh it's a large group including so and all and we can certainly put that on our agenda and talk internally about it yeah that's a that's good feedback though we we do hear from the jet skiers and the launch there we have heard from them when we proposed the one-way circulation when the county proposed it and then we brought it out and there was some objections to it but um it's actually good to hear that it's a positive impact on the environment so i think it at least needs to be looked into we'll do that well and i here i'd even say carry it one step further i you know having you know been on the water extensively in that area i will say that um without any sort of enforcement or any sort of um you know just regulation in terms of the traffic down there uh i really think that you know we need to take a serious look at this because um you know i and i i know this also that um you know there's these there's these tours that come out from clearwater beach and you know i honestly that's problematic enough so anyway just food for thought hopefully thank you okay that's it okay uh commissioner duard questions well first of all let me compliment my colleague for bringing that issue up the flora and the fauna have all benefited from this peaceful period where there aren't just skis running through that area and i don't know how we begin to put that into the equation of recreation and how that balances but i think it is something that needs to be carefully examined um my question had this has to do with the possibility we're seeing one-way traffic on the north side of the causeway any thoughts on making one way on the south side uh yes sir when we were here in january the the plan that i showed actually showed the same type of circulation pattern on the south side that required a little bit more work again going back to the jet ski area what we wanted to do is make sure that the jet skis weren't having with when they were being towed having to make a huge circulation pattern to get onto and off of the causeway but we do have a plan in place for the south side as well it's just what the damage that's out there and some of the other work that has to be done that's proved to be problematic to do it at this time that's all i have thank you mayor okay vice mayor all right thank you mayor with the slide that we're on you had mentioned the movement of that crosswalk yes sir and is who uses that crosswalk now um i would say primarily it's it's um probably people from the condo association or maybe people i don't know that it's anybody coming from honeymoon island that's a pretty long track if you're parked over there but um i would say it's probably anybody from the condominium area looking to get to the trail and it would just be my suggestion that we understand who's using that crosswalk sure to decide whether or not it should be moved or not because it could be the intent is is good but you can be doing more harm from people who are using it and now you've just moved it farther away uh and for the the circulation is was that primarily uh instituted because of the storm damage or is it more traffic management on the causeway the one-way circulation is is an idea that we've been talking with the city about for several years um this was we were getting several safety complaints with interactions between motorists looking for a place to park and pedestrians after they've parked uh either getting out to the beach area or crossing the street so we were just getting a lot of concerns about um speeding uh two-way traffic in an area where there's not a lot of room to maneuver and then dangerous interactions with pedestrians okay okay and uh for the storm damage and uh what's it slide it's like the fourth slide um we expect totally we should we expect completion within three to four months on that i'm sorry can you agree that three to four months for the completion of that there we go once we have the agreement in place yes um so that that's really the unknown right now is when we're going to get the agreement from fema to proceed with the work and that's fema federal level correct it is shut down right now okay i'm just understanding timelines not making a statement but fhwa is also their hand in hand so florida the high the highway administration's federal highway administration yes closed also maybe six months right that's what we're talking about hopefully um all all righty um i know our hands are tied there from that timeline standpoint but hopefully we'll have everything in place so that when we do get that agreement the ball can really roll and we can get that completed um i know this is one of five projects for the county but but this is our home and our residents are really really anxious they they want their causeway back is is along with the many number of visitors that we have i understand and we are ready to mobilize all right thank you and um i agree with with my colleagues i'm looking forward to a conversation about the jet skis and the impact on the environment so thank you very much thank you yeah commissioner zandberg questions it's been 52 weeks and i know the citizens are getting to the point where enough's enough so from this day forward we still can't give them a hard date until we have fema acceptance is that what i'm understanding correct and as prior to 52 weeks prior is it safe to say that there's been stuff going on behind the scenes that the public doesn't know about i would say that's safe we are um in constant communication with fdot and with fema uh just trying to get a status of not just this project but the other four that we're waiting on um you know there is a risk that that any agency runs if if we go out to make the repairs without that agreement in place that we could end up forfeiting uh the reimbursement and that's that's the reason that we're on hold with these projects so the county would end up picking up the tab to put back correct uh i know what was there obviously didn't work is there what about any resiliency changing of the products that are laid down there riprap whatever is there any idea to make that a little bit more resilient when this happens again i believe that we do have that plan we we have a grant that we're working on it's a resiliency grant specific to the causeway and we're looking at those type of improvements living shorelines for instance and those type of things but i would see where that could roll into to these type of improvements as well okay good because we're counting on you because we're hearing it from the from our citizens so we're we need your help we're here too thank you sir um so um and just sue i guess this really for you um just i just a whole history of the jet skis because i have some memory of some of the approvals beyonds ago and i'm just curious is it all like when it was allowed would it you know just the history of it if we could get that that would be awesome okay yeah you don't have to do that um and um let's see um well i think everybody's kind of beat the drum on the uh you know the the agreements the key in which it's out of your control and we and we understand that and we understand that you don't want to you know get stuck with the bill so um but boy it's tough to tell the citizens that but um but again you're ready to go as soon as you get that agreement and get it signed and then it's a four month four month process um and uh and then you'll so once you do the pilot on the north side and get the results of that you'll come back to us before you do anything as far as a pilot on the south side correct and you're not waiting for any of the one-way stuff if you get the agreement and you um uh front to to do the south side for storm damage you're doing it you're not waiting for anything that's those two things are separate the whole pilot one way okay got it let's make sure of that um and i think that um before i ask if there's anybody in the audience wishes to ask did you have a follow-up a quick follow-up uh yeah if you don't mind go ahead thank you you know i just remember growing up here that nobody went to the causeway you know i actually took all my swimming lessons out on dunning beach at the time on the right of honeyman island and then as populations increased you know then all of a sudden the south side uh became popular on the causeway made bonfires in high school and things of that nature and so i'm talking decades about changes over days or weeks or years uh and then as population increased all of a sudden we're seeing a migration over to the north side so what used to be the lower end place to go now all no holes barred on when you're on the causeway and and so when you talk about uh their renourishment of the south side particularly which has become very popular and talking about resiliency and sustainability and living shorelines do you have any concept of that do you know what impact that's going to have on the causeway as it relates to uh recreation activities and you know is that going to no longer have be accessible for water recreation not just uh jet skis but just fishing or waiting yeah i would say we haven't gotten into it that deep yet just to identify what those impacts are i'm sure that's part of what our grant requirements are with that resiliency grant though right okay thank you because i just i think that needs to be part of the conversation and if we can be part of that as well yeah we coordinate with with the sue and city staff and like i said the the committees that you have out there yeah we don't we don't do anything in a vacuum environment and recreation you know it's almost now with population where we're putting 10 pounds of mud in a five pound bucket and it's decisions need to be made so it'd be great to be part of those discussions have a seat at the table so thank you so there is some sand going on down in the south side any chance we can get some sand dumped on uh the causeway i think we've been doing you know the areas on the south side that that aren't damaged by this i think we have been doing um some of some of that treatment that you know is part of our interlocal agreement i think we're still maintaining you know what we're committed to do in that area okay um tom i'm just going to allow public to comment so if you if you want to maybe even sit by sue that that'd be great um so uh is there anyone in the audience wishes to come forward to speak on this issue okay there we go former commissioner tornga welcome hey welcome welcome john tornga 1901 saddle hill road north dunedin florida uh i began boating here in 1990 uh long time jet skier before and during and after the period of 2000 with my kids and so i was a guy that was had the shovel and while the kids were out on the jet ski i'm the one shoveling the sand from all of the divots that were made by the weather on the south side so that's occurred that has always occurred that's been occurring forever um but i just wanted to make that comment we are a coastal city and sometimes we have to invest in that and we've gone for over a year now without having our causeway i was one of the chair of the causeway or i'm sorry of the waterfront task force and one of the things that we looked at was what's really important for us to be a coastal city and one of the things was of course our causeway it is the one place in dunedin that you can watch a sunset and watch a sunrise all you have to do is move a little bit but you really don't even have to do that so you get both of those both of those features naturally when you have any any uh vessel that's floating in any kind of shallow water you can create problems for let's call it nature but we live with that and and that's how we've done that in the past uh the solution and and tom i just want to make this comment i think i've made this before uh in some of the committees uh an easy solution for the north side is to simply close the two western exit or entrances for a right turn and that would require then some officer down there writing some serious tickets in the beginning but it allows freedom on the north side as opposed to just making it one way let people move around people see friends that come come later come earlier they park in another place and they say somebody says julie get the car let's go and let's get together with everybody let's let's have some freedom out there so it's an easy easy just two signs the sign department will be happy to do that so rather than rather than get into all the stipulations of trying to control control control let's let them use use use use as they as they wish and have it be as natural as it can by the way in the waterfront task force when people were asked where the beach was most of the people said the beach was on the causeway some said it was in other places some said it was way out in the island honeymoon island but it's on the causeway that's our causeway that's what helps make deneden deneden let's not take away all the freedom thank you thank you john uh anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue and a couple people name and address for the record how you doing um three minutes one lenny carr 2169 cedar drive uh just to make a comment i really wasn't prepared but uh i see a lot of people are obviously anti as you call it jet ski or personal watercraft and that's fine i understand um we purchased our personal watercraft and we go island hopping we don't go on the weekends for the same reasons i think a lot of people are against the jet skis the weekends are chaos chaos on the causeway in fact is what i called it um there's got to be a middle ground solution i'm all for the nature part i get that anytime there's a lot of activity that's going to happen we don't go on the weekends for the obvious reasons if there's something you can consider to make personal watercraft maybe not allowed on the weekends just a suggestion um again i wasn't prepared for this um but again we live right by the causeway excuse me and uh we would hate to see that that right taken away to be able to take our watercraft out there and go island hopping things like that we pick up trash when we're out there so not everybody's the um bad actors that you see on the weekends that's all i wanted to say on the matter thank you thank you lenny okay anyone else wish to come forward looks like cindy come on down name and address for the record in three minutes i love the causeway and i go out there with a group of people early in the morning before the sun comes up and we get our kayaks out there and we go kayaking and watching the sun rise and it's beautiful and i'm just going to tell you since the hurricane and no jet skis out there the marine life has been just amazing we have many many the manta rays coming in and different species of the manta rays coming in the dolphins the sea turtles the sea grass just everything has just been blossoming out there in that the whole area and the sand is shifting we have more sandbars out there and it's maybe like that deep and that's great for kayakers we love it but one day i was sitting out there and here came a jet ski just speeding by and i thought oh my god he's gonna crash and hit me and i'm gonna die but he just went so fast and i just was like are you crazy what are you it's only six feet i mean six inches but anyway the sea grass everything just everything is beautiful and i'm talking on just saving our marine life pardon me can i please get your name and address oh yes yes and i've been living here since 1990 i live at 433 orangewood drive dunedin and my name is cindy cole thank you okay thank you okay anyone else wish to come forward and speak come on down hi good morning good morning mayor my name is uh kevin senate 606 sea court in dunedin which is right behind frenchies on the causeway there so i am uh only a five-year resident of dunedin so i'm not a haven't been here forever i do own a jet ski do boat and we use the causeway extensively for biking and walking not jet skiing but we live right on it and uh and familiar with jet skis so i can only tell you my wife and i love when we walk out there on a weekend in the past and see numerous families families enjoying their time without their dogs with kids children enjoying a family time a family cookout and uh as a daily walker of that causeway on monday mornings i notice that all the trash is bagged put right by the dumpsters or the trash cans if they're full so i think the conception misconception that these people that are using that causeway that are pinellas county residents not necessarily dunedin but it is a pinellas county property as well as city property that these people are trashing the place is not necessarily true when we walk by on monday morning and see the bags there so i encourage the city to be involved with the county on the future of the use of the jet skis out there and i uh encourage that we make sure that the total users are in call and involved with that not just the city but the county residents that use that causeway as well so thank you thank you kevin did you get what you needed from kevin okay good one make sure um okay anyone else wish to come forward becky come on down girl good morning everybody becky stein or rebecca stein 2240 watrus drive dunedin good morning everybody this is a great great discussion i just wanted to add my opinion is balance so as i hear all of our residents talk about the causeway we all enjoy it we all enjoy it for different reasons so i'd implore you all to think about the balance of how we use it from our jet skiers to our eco tourism folks we have the state park there which is there for the natural beauty of florida but we also have our citizens and our visitors who love the boating and the water and so there's got to be a balance somewhere within all of this i'm going to leave that up to you guys i don't have an idea for it however um ecotourism is continuing to increase in dollars and of course the more tourism we have the more it offsets our millage rate so i would look at it from an economic point of view and i would also just caution that in the past i'm a very novice boater actually i never drive it only bob does but during those years prior to the hurricane to go out hurricane pass was a direction we chose not to go because of the jet skis it was just dangerous and for the kayakers they were always taking their lives in their own hands as they went across that channel going out there so again within balance ecotourism and the beauty of our waters along with all of the sports that our people enjoy there's got to be a balance in it for everybody thanks guys thank you way to lay out the problem okay anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue okay seeing no one we'll move forward and uh so does anyone have any final comments they want to make um commissioner walker well i'm glad you brought up the renourishment of the beaches um how does that work exactly in terms of the is how it gets funded scheduled all of that stuff just in terms of sand renourishment are you asking in terms of the work that we do out there to regrade well yeah and also to correct any erosion um on the beach sides okay so we've got an interlocal agreement with the city and i think we buy that interlocal agreement six times a year that we go out and we take whatever sand is necessary to basically smooth out the divots that one of the citizens mentioned um and we regrade it um and that's like i said that's that's part of our rental agreement our operating budget in our road road department uh is budgeted you know for that work okay all right no thank you okay anything else okay uh commissioner de guard uh vice mayor no commissioner sandbergen nothing mayor i don't have anything either but you might as well go ahead you want to clarify that sure yeah why don't you yeah go ahead because i thought the same thing so i was kind of curious john can you step back up i've got a question point you don't mind i just wanted you to clarify the way i interpreted what you said was you want to keep the the two-way traffic but maybe limit the entrances that are there to one point on the west end was that one of the problems um commissioner that i've been told is paramount is that people want to take a quick drive on the right hand side when traffic is stopped and then they want to merge back in and get ahead of everyone if that is the case if that's the case if that is the issue then you can one of the ways to solve that is on the final two exit or entrances you just say you can't take a right turn there so no no one will try to come down there if they knew that uh or if they do that they'll see that you can't take a right turn so there's no advantage for them to try to to to uh to jump off and take the dirt road down there right so in other words we can leave it as natural as what we want to leave it but just not allow anybody to take a right turn to try to get ahead of any of the traffic now there is racing that goes on down there on occasion on both sides but particularly on it well i guess i most i've seen has been on the has been on the north side but we're not we're not attempting to for example we saw one vehicle here fine you're going to see you're going to see a vehicle in a bank someplace uh you can you can capture that at all times but i'm just i was just talking about the freedom of the use of the property that's out there so that somebody can go back and forth or run from one side you know from the east to the west um staying on that same side of the road without having it be one way right so that was that was the purpose and that was the intent and and if that answers your question then i'll sit down it does it does yeah so thank you sir very much appreciate that thank you john great and and tom have you looked at that yeah actually we looked at several different options as we were developing this this final plan i think the drawing that i showed up there actually had one of those entrances closed that we were proposing at this point we weren't planning on doing that we thought it was more important to get the signs out there and just kind of see how the circulation works but we did consider you know options to keep the two-way traffic but again the second part of the concern that we were hearing was a safety concern the interaction between the vehicles you know trying to negotiate two-way traffic in an area that's very small and not conducive to it necessarily and interacting with pedestrians so it was several different uh areas that we were trying to address from a safety standpoint so yeah i was just going to say another reason i mean we went out pinellas went out and um as well as city of dunedin to the civic association and to the coastal waterway causeway and coastal waterway committees to talk about some of these options and we started with parks i mean you know several departments in the city and in the county at the so's requests sheriff office request because of the safety concerns and then as we talked um pinellas is um really wanting to renegotiate the interlocals and update them they're pretty old um and make sure that everything's current and in that process um it was it you know the facts were presented that this is actually the most expensive piece of roadway maintenance maintenance wise dollar wise um in pinellas county and we were looking for ways also to reduce the cost of the maintenance but it still maintains service level and one of those ways is by making one-way traffic you reduce the turning moment um and disruption of the sand um there on that causeway so it actually um helps with that maintenance cost and the the um frequency at which you have to regrade but the primary reason was to look at the safety we did work with solid waste too and the way you know how they have to get in there and pick up things and you know can they make the turning moment we talked about we closed some entrances and opened others to make sure it was convenient especially when we talked on the south side because that's where the restroom is um is to make sure people could get back to that quickly and not have to go all the way down the causeway as well as tom mentioned even looking at jet ski traffic to you know the motorized um trailer pieces to make sure they didn't have to go all the way down to the bathroom and turn around looking at both directions which is the most desirable and the best safety option for that movement so it was not that we wouldn't look at it again but it was looked at very closely by a lot of different parties to come up with the current proposal and then on top of that as tom said we wanted to do the pilot see how it works because in real life when you get out there it doesn't always work how you think it was going to and what kind of disruption it would be for our citizens and you know would was it convenient enough that they could get to those places as quickly as they wanted to or go meet another family so yeah try to balance the idea that makes sense i mean you can see people trying to cut off there and all of a sudden you can't you only have to learn it once you're not going to do it again so but okay as long as you guys have looked at that okay um i think we can move on from there tom thank you again for coming and you know can you kind of beat it well of course you can't beat up on fema now right because they're closed so anyway appreciate it thank you and i think we'll take a quick break and then restart well actually i take it back we're going to go ahead and go to uh citizen input first and then we'll take a quick break does anyone in the audience have anything they wish to come forward to speak to that is not on the agenda okay seeing no one i'll close citizen input and uh we're going to take a short break before we start on our items so thank you restart the meeting and our first workshop item is social connection survey and um staff presentation i guess i'm turning to jennifer yes okay i'm turning to jennifer yeah you you kick it off good morning again mayor vice mayor and commissioners i do not want to steal the committee on aging's thunder so i'm going to ask cindy to come on up if you will thank you and then the committee on aging is here if you put up your hand nope come on up everybody animal so the committee on aging has been working uh for a long time with commissioner dugard regarding uh the social connection survey uh the survey is attached to your agenda item um as is our our procedure the city commission would review the survey and either support sending it out or not but it's coming out it will come out under the committee on aging's under their um uh title if you will um i have reviewed the survey uh with cindy and um it really is intended to reach out to those who are isolated in our community and there are quite a few of them um i did brief all of you yesterday on the survey uh and the intent of the survey and then i'll just hand it over to cindy to to talk a little bit about more about the committee's work go ahead cindy chuchel okay good morning mayor vice mayor commissioners and our city manager well for over a year um the committee on aging has been always thinking out of the box how we can improve what we can do to help our seniors which i really want to find a new word for seniors but i'll say it today and um and then um and then a year ago um tom de gard started coming to our committee meetings on the fourth monday of the month at 9 a.m and he we were talking about um things that we can do to help our seniors who live in this community and we know that the three are health transportation and food but we also noticed that loneliness and a few of us standing right here right now are um we work in the community of um seniors we're out there helping these people every day and we notice that there was more and more isolation loneliness a lot of our seniors are lonely for whatever reasons they have no family they are can't are homebound they can't get out of their house or their apartment and we wanted to reach out to that we wanted to figure out how can we help this because this is a growing number it's growing in our nation more and more communities are seeing more senior loneliness so tom who comes to our meetings not all of them but he does come to quite a few he suggested that we you know he had a survey of 12 000 voters that he used and we thought well let's see what we can do to help their loneliness and have a survey so we spent a year talking about this and had hunting what we were going to put on that survey what questions we wanted to ask and everything that we want to do and then when we start this survey hopefully in six weeks we get it out there that we can start planning on what we want to do we have several things that we've been talking about one is senior to senior we will have seniors in dunedin high school who want to um for whatever hours that they have to get in for school um meet us at the health center once a month and we will call seniors and that are isolated in their home can't get out and one of the examples of the senior to senior was started in buffalo new york this kid he was 18 years old calls this lady that's 92 isolated in her home they both loved they found out that they both love lp records they had taught that so every month they would get together on the phone and talk about records and then she looked forward to it and the kid looked forward to it so we want to start that we've been talking about that um we also been thinking about having um um cards going out to people we'll do that once a month and i talk to the dollar tree they're going to donate cards and we'll send it out to people the seniors who are home lonely isolated saying we're thinking of you city of dunedin committee of aging and we just got a bunch of other things going on um uh phone pal you know know where we'll do at the health center and it's going to be no cost it'll be all volunteer and we'll do that once a month and reach out and start that way but the survey is going to help us get started and on that note i just so grateful and i look forward to working with the city you guys want to add anything michael any of you okay yeah go ahead go add something too there sure um michael post um been working with seniors probably for 18 years and all aspects of pinealas county yet we know the isolation has become a huge epidemic it started with covet 19 and really from there with the two hurricanes it's just gone out of control we haven't even got the right numbers yet we have a feeling that the mental loneliness is still catching up to seniors just like hurricanes we know that the mental challenge of being hurricanes and covet takes up to a year to hit people emotionally at home so we are already seeing this come to fruition now and we know there's even going to be more of it in the future so just trying to let seniors know that we're here and help them really not to be as lonely this survey is key to getting information so we can develop plans and ideas to help them because right now we don't know a lot we only know a little bit so we want to know more we want to know so much more so that we can actually develop programs around it it's not going to be redeveloping the wheel there are pinealas park um fire department does a great thing with seniors so there's golf port so it's really going to be finding out what the need is getting with other local communities on what they're doing not reinvent the wheel and then be able to bring this to our seniors here and 54 percent is 55 of our the 12 000 54 000 i mean 54 000 54 is 55 and older and it is a growing concern it truly is it's going to get bigger bigger okay see if there's any questions for you i'll start with the vice mayor questions i love you guys such such amazing work amazing work i'm married i really don't know i got comments okay yeah hold on to that um commissioner sanberg just one will it be emailed or how i mean i'm not sure some of these these people are computer savvy how do you plan on reaching out to the people you know some of them are some of them aren't so we're going to have um hard copies at the health center and here at the city hall and um we probably well we we work we don't have no budget so we work on donations and what we can get to make the committee thrive for our committee and um so that's where we're going to start just that and you know and yeah a lot of them do a lot of them do email yeah that's right we'll do email i just went blank there for a while um thinking about the jet skis now never mind okay but yes they do yeah you you'd be surprised there's 94 year olds that are out there with their laptop and they're homebound and they just they are on their emails and how they find they connect with their family some way somehow and do their puzzles so it would have a i'm not sure you guys know this or the city manager what it would have a a dunedin.gov return email i'm just wondering you know i i tell my mother don't open don't answer unless you know so i'm just just to be careful oh see where i'm going with that it would be a dot gov yes a dot gov so they would see from the dunedin okay that's okay thank you okay we'll make it accessible from websites from newsletters we'll make sure it's easy and tom degard's been working with us on this survey and everything and it's going to be done right yeah yeah yeah we're hoping yes we are it's going to be perfect yeah we are okay all right okay uh commissioner walker questions yeah thank you mayor um yeah just related to what steve was asking um any in terms of just the outreach on this uh have you guys approached meese at all yeah meese life sorry yeah trying to yeah but we're not really worried about the ones as much as an assisted livings as we are the ones in private individual yeah and uh meese life has their connections but a matter of fact and we deal with silver sanders to bls and triple a pp on assisted living completely different talking to the mic here go ahead you talk okay i was going to say uh we're more we're more really concerned about seniors that are in their homes not assisted livings we have triple a pp bls silver santis that we handle that yeah for assisted livings memory cares um but of course there are going to be some needs in those communities as well but we're really looking for those who are isolated in their home with no one around them not even a caregiver yeah nobody and there's many out there and there is many because they want to stay in their home they're that's their treasures that's they you know they're 90 they have their treasures in their house but they're really they're just all by themselves nobody and that's who we we need to reach out to because nobody is and that's why we need this survey to get started to reach out to them yeah no that that totally makes sense i would i was well actually that answered that part of the question but i'm the other thing that i would might suggest is working in this is in the interest of the fact that you don't have a budget for this um but approaching them and being a partner in this to leverage what their resources might be to really kind of assist in that outreach um so there that's just a thought on that and then uh i i think i think uh the more outreach would be able to do a non-profit through non-profit not not mcniece is a profit yeah so if we go through better living for seniors got it you can see the aging finance pasco yeah it's the non-profits we'd be getting funding from not a profit totally okay that totally makes sense yeah no i okay well i just uh it's more of a blanket question then okay um but um the other thing is i uh you know you've already done this and i think the senior to senior is a great example of uh of this but as you're as you're getting the results back in the survey and everything associated with it um really start thinking about what this means in future programs because right you want to have you want to have a place to to to basically apply your focus based on the data that you're getting back and yes that's correct yeah well i i just you guys are doing great work i i just you know i'm always overwhelmed by the amount of passion that this group has and you know what rightfully so and uh i know we get a lot done once a month for one hour don't we it's crazy and i just want to tell you i love um working with the whole committee all of these people we're all just it's we it's we working together for the city of dunedin hey commissioner to guard any questions or you know you know all about this so yeah okay okay um um i don't really have any additional questions i probably have some comments um so we'll go to comments which i'll start with vice mayor you guys are amazing i just heard that thank you no just no thank you for your focus thank you for your passion uh i'm really excited about the outcome of this and what next steps whether whether you have money or no money those steps still need to be taken so it's a matter of as a community knowing what those next steps are and we all can't be surprised that you have an aging population with the baby boomers we're all right just a big bubble uh it's not just it's coming it's here so what what can we do about it so it's those next steps and i also encourage you within those next steps don't try and do it by yourselves um i'm a real believer in we've got how many churches for example in this area and they should all be focused on community and how can they help and what is their role in all in all this so there's lots of organizations that should be able to help us uh psta keep them in mind for transit and what we can do there um but but thank you thank you for what you do mr sandberg yeah i'll be anxious for you to keep us updated i think a couple of things that really jumped out at me were um the basics and um food uh concerns about food and i think health care was on there too be interesting to see what you see and then make sure you share it with us that if we anything we can do to help out so and then thank you for what you're doing for these folks thank you that's all mayor okay commissioner walker uh thank you mayor i don't have nothing really more to add i just love you guys and uh this is this is our community at work you guys are doing it you guys are doing it thank you it's it's i it's beautiful it is beautiful yes we do yeah and sometimes we have a full house with friends just friends from the committee coming in that's awesome it's uh commissioner de gard final comments thank you mayor yes you're right they're beautiful aren't they they're beautiful people they're doing wonderful work i've been had the pleasure of working with them for the last year we uh pulled on this about 16 different ways we made sure it was right i mean i've never been corrected so many times in my life but it's it's gotten to a point where we're going to have the data we need to intelligently address the issue and i'm excited about that thank you mayor yeah and my final comment well i mean everybody said they love you so you know i love you so um but no seriously i i just think this is so important um you know as someone you know my mom lived by herself until her last 20 months were at me's life and um and you know i kind of am like her like the social piece is blood to me like i you know you take that away i you know you just shrivel up and i think that uh it's so important to pull out the people that have that isolation going on and um i worry a little bit about and i you know trying to figure out creative ways to get to them because the ones who are the most isolated you know it's going to be hard to get the questionnaire to them um but you know even on voter rolls you kind of know who's living by themselves and things like that i mean i saw it when i was walking houses during my campaign you know you'd have someone in there you know they wouldn't even be able to come to the door but they'd kind of you know yell from inside and and you know they'd have a lot of stuff because i think they just were overwhelmed and older and they couldn't do a lot of stuff so i think it's it's a very huge need to begin to really try to reach out and find out where these people are who they are and again i think you plant the seed now not just with the survey but you get people talking you get the buzz going and and some of those people that are most isolated you know people say hey i know so and so who's on such and such a street and boy we need to try to work with that person so it's it's it's it's very important and um it really is our community in action and the seed will grow and we will learn and churches i didn't think of churches yeah i yeah mm-hmm but anyway um you are following in the footsteps a lot of people that this has always been one of our most active committees but you guys are just hitting it out of the ballpark that's great i know thank you so no mayor i'm here in consensus direction to move forward with the survey yeah absolutely yeah absolutely yeah overwhelmingly consensus direction go forward do good things glad to see senior to senior start in buffalo new york though that must be all right okay uh before you guys go i i didn't open it up for public comment is anyone in the public wish to come forward and speak to that issue seeing no one i'll close public comment okay just to make sure we don't leave anyone out okay so we're going to go to our next item and thanks again our next item is sustainability matrix update so you've done even code of ordinance section 105 dash 28.4 and staff presentation is by natalie natalie you're keeping us on track you're very good thank you good morning mayor vice mayor commissioners city manager and everyone joining us today natalie gas sustainability program manager for the city here before you today is the progress we've been making in updating our sustainability matrix the sustainability matrix is a requirement of design review so for any project development projects that trigger design review it also triggers the sustainability matrix typically these are projects residential projects that are five or more units or commercial projects that are six thousand square feet or larger so they are targeting those larger type of development projects the current the current the current matrix consists of six categories including energy recycling and waste reduction urban nature transportation water and additional strategies the sustainability matrix was first discussed in 2015 and then officially adopted into our land development code in 2016 and it was amended in 2019 with a increase in points requirements to make it a little bit of a stronger document so the purpose of this update is the the intention is not really to strengthen the the document the intention was to create a more accurately tiered and weighed matrix that incentivizes points for projects and initiatives that are most impactful in a development project other things that we wanted to do was clarify points explain what needs to be submitted for documentation and then provide examples of that type of strategy as well as provide for another exemption with the matrix and i'll explain that in a minute so with the update we've added 20 new strategies all of these strategies all of these strategies have a most of them have a tiered system of points which allows developers to really right size the strategy to their project so as you scale up the size of the project you can scale up the size of the points because you have a greater impact we've also additionally added a category called green stormwater infrastructure with a lot of new points and again tiering and weighing those points more heavily to really emphasize what has a bigger impact on the environment and how do we get development to focus on those things we have added an additional exemption so for any projects that are being certified with a third party organization lead green globes florida green building coalition or a similar certifying agency that as long as the documentation and certification is submitted to city staff for review and then with approval they would be exempt from having to complete the matrix we added this exemption because all of these third party certifications they are usually updated on a year-to-year basis they have a lot of staffed you know time that they put into looking at how do you increase points and so those standards keep increasing more than what we'll see with something in our sustainability matrix if you're doing that work you're going above and beyond what our matrix is and therefore it would kind of be a wash for that as an added exemption so with the current version versus the proposed version our goal was to again expand the range of points for developers expand the amount of strategies and ways that people can incorporate sustainability and resilience into their project and when you look at this our our intention was really to develop a matrix that was all-encompassing of these items so our intention was to create one matrix and bring that forward to you we started this before senate bill 180 and that has kind of come forward as something that would need to be addressed in terms of looking at this when you see the matrix as a whole it is not more restrictive it is actually less you're required to achieve less points overall but when you go down to every single point and item and how it weighs to the greater total it could be thought of as or argued that it's more restrictive and we've worked with uh jennifer cowen on this um to really look at all the points i appreciate all of your time and all of the redlining that you had to go through because it was a lot there's a lot of updates a lot of people have put their work into this um but again we want to make sure we comply with senate bill 180 and in order to do that you know it we have to figure out what that looks like so if there's two paths forward if we keep the current matrix and we also offer an updated matrix which has a lot of incentives for developers to go after we are having a hard time developing a single matrix that can comply with senate bill 180 and still addresses the reasons that we're updating it which is to weigh the points correctly and update things any questions there before we move on when's the expiration of of senate bill 180 um should be august of i'm sorry october 1st of i think 2027 so 2027. thank you and that's just for what's in there now that's not if any intervening storms were to happen between now and then no understood no yeah okay i'll keep my comments to myself after that but um uh now uh go ahead go ahead do you want to continue and then yeah go ahead and continue again this document has been seen by many people has been edited by many departments and divisions so internally our division of strategy and sustainability but also working with public works community development parks and recreation and engineering as well we've also had external feedback from our committee on environmental quality and sustainability our pinellas fast group faith and action for strength together they've been a huge proponent of creating and developing a green stormwater infrastructure section in the matrix which is new and then we have been receiving input from psta and then are also in the process of receiving input from our local developers and property owners who have had to complete matrices in the past or have projects that require design review two additional program options that we could look at in the future that would allow us to expand this program and strengthen what's in the code is to one possibly develop a set of certification levels that encourages properties to go above the minimum where we can award them with you know silver bronze gold and based on those levels have different forms of recognition for the projects another option for the future to really look at the success of this holistically is to create a program where we would be educating on maintenance and what we're kind of seeing is a developer and property owner can come in they can select all these points implement them into a design and a project for development but a lot of these things they take ongoing maintenance in order for them to actually be sustainable how do you care for solar panels on your roof long term how do you care for green infrastructure bioswales rain gardens how do you care for the property that you're managing and then when you look at some of these larger developments where property management may turn over frequently that gets lost in translation over time so this would be something additional it would require more effort more team that we would have to kind of review our capacity to do that work but you know maybe going out once a year and talking to the property hey do you know you have this on your site here's some education about how you maintain that and just creating that conversation and openness about how you keep these things going long term and then finally we're here presenting to you today in order to you know get the consensus direction and understand how we move forward with the the purpose of updating the matrix but still comply with senate bill 180 uh we have the developer feedback underway and a tentative schedule for moving this forward with our land development code update and i'll take questions thank you thanks natalie um so questions i'll start with uh commissioner walker thank you mayor um what's not clear to me is is in your opinion is it the senate bill that is restricting our ability on the sustainability what what in your opinion what what is what is the most critical factor here in terms of adopting the more stringent requirements so because this document is a requirement of our design review it's in our land development code and we require projects of a certain size to complete it with senate bill 180 from my understanding and jen you can correct me um we cannot put into effect anything that is more restrictive with the update with the way that we have it written some of those items have a greater weight out of the total and that was done on tension done intentionally because it allows us to incentivize those more impactful items and strategies but in turn it will make some of the existing items uh waste way less but that could be seen as more restrictive as harder to complete the matrix if we just have one updated document okay i don't know if i explained that well or if you want to hop in no i i think you explained it very well um i mean one of the things that we're dealing with is that this came into place became i'm sorry this restriction came into place by the legislature this past legislative session it's retroactive and it continues for for quite a while into the future and it said nothing more restrictive or burdensome but it didn't define those terms it just said you cannot adopt or propose anything more restrictive or burdensome um um with your land development regulations as well as comp plan and other things so in an effort to try to um still move forward and encourage the type of activity that you're looking to encourage but without um the risk of potentially being seen as more restrictive or burdensome develop that kind of two system approach so that they can it's their option they can choose to go under the old or go under the new and have a lot more options available to them okay i'm sure i have more questions but i'm going to i'm going to pass because i want to hear the other questions first thanks uh commissioner dugard questions thank you mayor um i think we're trying to get our arms around this a little bit um is this being driven by state legislation at this time is that what our revision is about right now no so the revision was initiated before anything with senate bill 180 the intention again was to clarify what's in the matrix and more correctly weigh the points in the current matrix you can look at an item or a strategy that is extremely impactful extremely expensive to implement and it's less points than something else that is not as impactful or so the points are not correctly weighed right now um and then we also want to clarify you know how do you go about these points what do you need to submit so a lot of it is around clarification and more clearly weighing the points that was the intention of the update okay good um uh we are using two terms here and i want to be sure i parse them out a little bit we're using matrix and scorecard are we moving to scorecard or keeping make what's the story there so i was proposing proposing scorecard sustainable development scorecard um if we venture with two paths forward that could be a way to differentiate one versus the other but that's still kind of open to discussion okay i particularly like scorecard over matrix matrix it's not as easy to get your arms around so just my voice has any input um as this is our target population for this is our businesses and our community in general is that correct so it's any project that triggers design review again those are the larger development projects residential projects that are five or more units so condos multi-family properties and then any commercial units that are 6 000 square feet or larger i know there's other stipulations but those are the two kind of main ones that pop out in my mind so it does target the larger forms of development in our community so this is limited into the development arena only or is it can it be applied to the general population as well so this is just for development okay uh under design review it's a component of the design review process and i can see this has a multiple set of desired outcomes what would you say the three most important desired outcomes you'd want to see for the update um again what i've mentioned the purpose of it the purpose of clearly weighing the points we want to incentivize encourage developers to pick the strategies that are the most impactful for for it for our environment um we want to secondly have a lot more options since 2019 since the last update and really the update in 2019 was more about increasing the point minimums so this really hasn't been updated since 2016 and since 2016 a lot has happened and shaped um our our thought process in the role of development for a lot of new creative strategies and we want to include those into the document but also provide for a way that we can encourage development projects to go above what we're requiring um and that that higher tier of looking at a third-party certification which they're updating things every single year they include all those new strategies i don't see this as something that we're going to be updating in our land development code every single year that's not feasible for us and um but it allows for kind of these different components that we're encouraging but again not making it more restrictive thank you for the clarity that's all i have okay vice mayor questions thank you mayor uh now i'm going to take a step back and ask you why we do this at all i mean what happens if the developer says i don't i don't want to do the scorecard the matrix does can it still go forward or is this only benefit or is there a stick and a carrot or only carrots uh i would say both so part of the design review process if your project triggers design review it triggers a set of requirements that you have to achieve in order to move forward with the project the sustainability matrix is just one of those items so there's a long list that you have to do to keep the project moving forward um so this is it's the stick in the way that it is required but the carrot is in the way that there's flexibility within the matrix or the scorecard there is um a lot of new strategies so it's it's kind of both but it is a requirement you can't move forward unless you complete it and it's triggered by design review which is triggered by the number of units or the square footage of the project or there are certain zones and i can't remember them but and those number of units and that square footage is that state law county law is that our own ordinance that triggers that is our own okay thank you that's a city in city okay so we we're the ones that decide that yeah okay so we could go down to one unit and everybody would have to go through design review right right okay but the commission doesn't want to look at every house that needs to be built in the city i understand i understand that um with regards to separate lists is there a reason why we and you might have said it and i missed it is there a reason why we didn't just expand the list we had and then adjust the points i'm why didn't we just go with one list so we developed one list okay and it's running into issues with senate bill 180 that's the problem so when you increase your strategy we added 20 new strategies right and then we weighed certain strategies more heavily right now those points are sometimes not always outweighing the points in the current version and therefore if you pick the same five or ten strategies from the current version you may not meet exactly the same number of points percentage-wise in the new version and it could be considered burdensome but the entire purpose of updating it was to weigh the points more correctly and i created a big spreadsheet to kind of calculate all these different things if you try to equally weigh the same strategies from the current to the proposed your whole matrix gets out of balance and now you're giving 240 points for a solar heated pool and then you still have the other items that are lower but then if you increase those it increases the total and then it it's a reoccurring it kind of feeds into itself of being out of balance if you try to make it equal but updated it's very challenging to explain i have a whole spreadsheet i don't want to show you the spreadsheet because it's very overwhelming um but it's we're in a challenging situation it gets in the middle of our business this is what i just say it's a challenging situation that's where you guys can help us with the state fast needs to help us with the state because this is nuts it's not a it's not a hopeless situation and i don't think it's something that needs to hold us back from moving forward we just need to move forward in a creative way that allows us to do what we want to do but not risk anything um and then in the future this could be looked at you know as maybe we remove the old version or we look at it again but in the current situation that we're in this is the best that we can offer at the moment something comes from the legislature that is vague and uncertain yeah it's crazy mayor may or may i uh yes please so um you're going to clarify it all it's going to be no natalie's doing a great job i'll just mess that up so yeah please um but the the um we hear from casey cook who's the executive director national league of cities right and he's also liaison to my professional association that um they are probably looking at the next legislative session to clarify senate bill 180 in terms of the definition of what is burdensome yes and what is not so i think that this is going to help us a lot with our matrix and hopefully we can come back to you in spring um and and go back to one matrix uh but this is a way to continue to move forward with our sustainability efforts in the city and not get into trouble with senate bill 180 so we've got both of these two are happy so i mean would we would we be able to put together some kind of type of a letter that we could give this a group like fast you know who's who's really in favor of all this because it's good for the community overall that would help us that they could actually send to their representatives and senators to say you know i'd be very nice this is why this is important to make this adjustment and then i mean if you guys are willing i think that would really help to get us all where we're trying to be yeah so i think right casey's uh florida league of cities sorry not yeah florida i knew i knew he meant so okay yeah anyway so yeah so natalie if you can kind of work and make sure that happens because i think you know if they hear it from citizens versus just us they'll understand it's important okay and i i'll mention one more thing um about starting with two paths forward um it also does kind of ease us into the new matrix it welcomes it i get to you know at the the drc meetings where we talk through the development projects with the developers and the property owners i'm able to say here's our new scorecard here's all the ways that it's beneficial for you and increases sustainability on your project but really it is it's a benefit to the developer when they can see the number of strategies that are new they can see the exemption they can see the points are weighed more accurately when they do these initiatives into their project they're getting more points for doing the things that really matter and that was the whole intention so i think it also kind of eases us into we're transitioning um and maybe that's benefit as well you're very kind thank you though um was where was where were you commissioner sandberg or were you done yet was i done i don't know were you done yeah no okay go ahead i wanted to clarify whether i was done yeah yeah no no no i mean if you have other questions i do i do okay oh he's done yeah yeah in that case you are done and and just to clarify is this like menu a or menu b that the developers they can't mix and match right it's it's one of the other it's one of the other when you pick one that's your track that you pursue but you have the option okay and for what we currently have right now without these changes are we grandfathered in as far as senate bill 180 or can somebody just say this entire matrix is burdensome i know i think as it stands now no so the um original matrix that's in your code you're fine with that that was in place before senate bill 180 so it's grandfathered in so it's grandfathered okay yeah just clarification that we're talking about the current the current matrix that exists in your code today and then this new one would provide an option it's not a mandatory but you could use either the current one or you could use this new make new scorecard that would um provide additional options to you and as wonderful as we think these new items are because of 180 is there any developer that would take a look at those new items just yes or no i'm you know so in terms of uh for feedback for this yeah they'll go oh i like this new version i'll go here so we have sent it to uh a list of developers and property owners to receive feedback we're underway with that um so the way but also in the meetings when we're talking about the requirements that a developer has to meet for their project them having a sustainability matrix that is a requirement that stays now you have options and in the meeting and verbally but also in the the written documentation we send to the developer i get to express all the benefits of option b you're welcome to pick either one here's all the benefits and then they get to make that decision and when it comes to the exceptions the lead the green globes of that nature have we compared the requirements of receiving those certifications to these lists and is there anything in there to go well it's less burdensome to go lead i'll just go lead and screw your list you know you know because it seems to me we're letting the lead certifications and i'm using lead as an example for all for all yeah right um we're letting them drive the train as opposed to if you do this stuff with this with us oh look you can also get the lead certification but we're letting the leads because if the lead is the lower hanging fruit then why wouldn't the developer just go with that and and not do anything of our matrixes so the way that these certifying agencies are currently uh their lists are more burdensome to achieve um so if they achieve that then they're already above our matrix or our scorecard but the way that it's written is that it has to have you know city staff that has to be authorized they can't just say oh i found this um organization and i submitted for this and maybe it's it has to be an accredited it has to be similar or above our matrix and if that ever changes so if florida green building coalition or leader if they ever change their their requirements we can stay on top of that to say this no longer applies so there's still the need of justification for if they're choosing the exemption um that we get to kind of select if it makes sense for the matrix um but it allows them something else if they want to do that so they can't come to us with some certification i got five popcorn kernels yeah right okay um that is all that i have thank you thank you okay commissioner sandberg so if we have a developer come to town and let's say they're the southeast region every building they build is exactly the same is this mandatory or voluntary that they participate in that program it's mandatory if their project triggers design review okay in this case just like any of the other requirements under design review are required okay and this one the way i was where i was going is it definitely would um so the the developer is going to score his own building set up his own points and i know someone in the city how are you going to break out who's going to go in and verify the points that he or she has assigned themselves that's a great question um and that's part of the updated matrix or the scorecard is that we look at three different phases so phase one is that initial conversation they look at the scorecard they look at all their options and they kind of pick and choose what direction they want to go in from there they go to phase two where they'll start submitting their site plans architecture plans to show that they are designing the project with these strategies in place some of these things you can't wait till the last minute um you know there's low-hanging fruit of uh pet waste stations and cigarette butt containers those can be last minute that's not a problem but for other things for stormwater for solar and clean energy those things need to be implemented in the beginning they need to be part of the design so that's phase two is ensuring the strategies that you've selected are in your design phase three is the documentation or the proof of points so they'll submit their invoices for products that they've purchased um any invoices for work of installation of these strategies pictures and then usually we'll go out and do like a site visit okay and anything that um hasn't been checked off already through the proof of points phase three section will be completed at a site visit so could the developer versus the inspection could they lose points gain points i mean so they can they can i'm i'm i'm happy to be flexible within the scorecard if they say we were originally planning on doing this that's not seeming to work now we're going to take these points instead that's completely fine the requirement is that they hit their base minimum points and that they complete the matrix so they have to complete it they have to complete it with a minimum but they have flexibility within that and through the process because things come up in construction we thought we're going to be able to do this and you know they have the the flexibility so going forward is there ever a time that points could somebody could lose um you know we have solar panels today they blew off the roof they're too expensive are there any setbacks or any so this is that's a good question this is a requirement for the project to be complete and for them to get their certificate of occupancy um this isn't we're not really enforcing this down the road so down the road we haven't really developed anything like that in our land development code to enforce that long term but again that's where we were speaking to a program where we could have education ongoing education to encourage and help the success of these strategies long term that people know how to maintain them and how to use them as the property owner since you have your thinking cap on there's three of those examples or that i just wondered what they were i learned yesterday what bioswale was thanks to someone sitting up here what is uh how do you mitigate noise pollution what would what would you suggest someone do so noise pollution we have an added strategy for that looking at two different sides of it the noise that's um created during construction so changing their schedules to align so it's more during the middle of the day when there's the most amount of noise um and then also there's products that you can put into place on a construction site to mitigate noise secondly you can go in and look at long-term solutions for the actual development project those are included in the matrix in the scorecard under the additional strategies so we have all of our categories and then we have one that kind of is a catch-all for all the other items and that is something that was added as an option again they would have to pick that there we're not requiring any specific items within the scorecard but we're requiring the scorecard to be complete with a minimum set of points one that was added is for blue roof i hear blue roof i think of tarps what is a blue roof credit so blue roof is focused on storm water it's where you are gathering water from rain or a storm and holding it so then it can slowly trickle back into the system versus a traditional roof that is gushing the water out quickly alongside the storm well i didn't know that existed but that was all my questions thank you mayor thank you natalie very good yeah cool sure go ahead all right so just to confirm here so by consensus direction today you're we're look you're looking for consensus direction to either go forward with the proposed scorecard or not right with the two the two versions the two paths forward where we keep the current we have an optional second option i get to explain and share why that's so beneficial for the developers but that's currently our only way forward under senate bill 180 so yes direction on that okay and regarding the second path on the proposed scorecard we still don't have a good feeling whether that satisfies senate bill 180 is that true so if we have the option of a developer can pick or choose one of the other okay it does satisfy that okay so that was my third question the developer would have a choice between the two different scorecards yes okay sorry i'm yeah slow on the uptake on this today okay um and finally you know our our original goal here was to get this you know solidified or codified by the end of the year and it looks like you know we'll be in the second based on your schedule here um looks like sometime in january yes okay all right um and then finally at which point looking at next steps is this going to be besides the fact we're going to get developer feedback and input which is underway um do we take this before some a state review or anything to that effect so as it's a land development code update it does have the requirements of the lpa um presentation which is scheduled and then the two hearings back here before all of you so first and second hearing okay all right i'm clear thanks okay so um i'm going to ask my questions and i think there's a couple more floating out here so um the um so is our intention that when senate bill 180 either gets changed or expires that we're going to go strictly to the second matrix yes and we'll be ready to act quick right yes okay um that's first um my second question is more for jennifer jennifer sometimes i i i'm not always positive that the that cut off of five units is the right number because you know i see the developers when they'll purpose they always pick four to stay out of design review do you have a sense of that i mean is it strict enough and i guess we can change it right now anyway but um i i think it's strict enough i think also a lot of times when it's four units um we will ask them to go to architectural review and they will voluntarily go to architectural reviews so i i haven't seen um it to be damaging uh in in my opinion it still is rather you know it's still pretty low density and a lot of of lots five units um so i i i don't think that there's a problem with that myself um as i said traditionally we we make them go through some sort of a aesthetic review for for the property so and a lot of times they're voluntarily um doing a lot of sustainability as well in their properties since since i think that it's it makes it more marketable for a lot of developers the property i'm not going to use names at skinner and broadway it's just changed hands they avoided they they purposely tried to avoid design review right so they downsized the project somehow oh oh i know what you want yes they were under the threshold then that's commercial right yeah interesting anyway i'm just anyway that's just something i want to keep an eye on but i do think also though sorry for interrupting mayor that that did go through architectural review originally despite the fact that they were under the threshold got it okay um what i would really be curious about is if you went through this matrix and scored this city hall what our score would be can you go through that exercise at some point stellar no i mean i think what you were doing you know people are like oh you know we want to live what we say too so i'm just curious to see what our score would be well we did get three oh on our sustainability scorecard we did get three green globes for this building which is right yes yeah it would certainly i think translate to a great score but i'm just curious that would be kind of interesting so okay i think i have um before i go to public comment i think i have a quick question over here vice mayor i do mayor real quick and thank you for your last question because actually that was going to be one of mine but uh jennifer you mentioned that under five the a lot of them go to architectural review anyway how does architectural review correlate to the sustainability scorecard well that's a good question it doesn't so architectural view is more obviously about the way that it looks but i do think that that as i said a lot of them are incorporating a lot of these practices to begin with okay okay because i i too have seen a lot of developers that seem to be going to four when they could go five but they are purposely avoiding this so i i'd be in favor of discussion right and um over whether or not we can move that from five to four um but that's more of a comment my next question is is what are the penalties of senate bill 180 so it provides an opportunity uh or it provides an avenue i should say for a developer to come in and challenge under the senate bill 180 saying that it is more restrictive it would be uh litigation and then if they're successful they would get their attorney's fees no and you guys are expensive um and then they still wouldn't have to do it so you still wouldn't have to do it well yeah but then that's uh this would be more of a personal comment but that's what drives me crazy with the legislature they put these laws in there but then they don't really provide guidance and it's all to threaten small towns and that's not the way government should be run and then i'm the florida city government i'm so sorry um our vice mayor won't i just wanted to also say and then if they were successful there would also be an injunction that would be brought again that would be against the city saying that you cannot enforce so just wanted to let you know there's one more thing that it's worse yeah one more thing we won't tell you what the penalty we won't tell the penalties are but if you violate them we will hit you with a very big bat yes nice nice um oh is there any way that this matrix can run with the land run with the land so that if it changes hands that the requirement that they chose for this matrix have to continue so that helps with maintenance that helps with change in ownership it's part of the um approval so it's part of the the initial approval in order to be able to use it in that way and to construct that facility on that piece of property so just like any other site plan approval you have to be in conformance with it well at the time it's built right but and you go through that and you're a wonderful steward of our land and so you go through all that and then you send it to me and i don't give a rat's but so i i get rid of my bioswale i get rid of my solar i get rid of because nothing requires me to do that but if you have the matrix that has to stay with the land but when you send it to me i have to maintain that so you would end up um in code enforcement for doing that because you'd be in violation of your site plan approval you as the second okay so it does run with the land so it does run with the yeah yeah there we go thank you for clarifying and answering there we go thank you that's what i was looking for okay so we do have a little bit of a carrot there so it is just and thank you for your conversation that's a stick i think is that a stick that's stick that's not the carrot depends on who you are code enforcement is a stick um the rest are comments so thank you mayor for allowing absolutely and i know i anybody else on commissioner guard seem to have one quick one too yeah all right so the developer can choose which one of the versions they wish to use until this is resolved with the state is that correct in that application process if they get a score that's built below the minimum on the selection they made they won't get through development right you got it just want to be sure okay all right commissioner walker well let me ask this so is there any benefit in not giving them a choice or is it more of a detriment because we're going forward on two different paths that hasn't really been the the limitations the criteria has not been resolved by the state so we'd prefer to have a single scorecard matrix um for just because it's it's more clear to just have one path here's what you're required to do here's what you need to do um having the two paths is the option that we see as a feasible route forward under the senate bill so looking at this more under this under this light we're doing it this way if we're out of that maybe we can look at just one got it okay thanks okay um so i'm going to you good okay i'm good too so i'm good too all right so uh we're going to go to public comment is there anyone in the audience wishing to come forward and speak on this issue okay name and address for the record and three minutes hi good morning i'm linda mifsud and i'm with the first united methodist church of dunedin we're at 421 main street i'm also with a group that you mentioned earlier fast faith and action and strength together we have a few of our folks here today uh would you please stand not as many as you have seen in the past one of our members came here and saw the fire department vehicles and thought the building must have been on fire so i'm hoping that no one else left but i'm here to talk to you about the item on this agenda for the sustainability scorecard now we're changing our language too we support the sustainability scorecard and the inclusion specifically of green stormwater infrastructure measures by the city of dunedin we had a workshop in 2024 and we were so glad to see so many people from dunedin attend that workshop and get the good information we are very concerned about water quality and flooding in our communities and we were very happy to see you move forward and take a leadership role in this no one has come up with this yet we commend natalie's proactive approach to this and we were very happy with it prior to some of the changes that were made we understand the reason she's made a she's made lemonade is what she's done she's done a very good job of trying to move forward with this we understand the language is just prohibited and it's an attack on your home rule constitutional rights and there is a lawsuit that is underway as we speak there there are 25 counties and cities that are challenging this they happen to be in the treasure coast south florida and an orlando area and the orlando area worked eight years coming up with their vision 2050 for their long-term plan this state told them that certain sections of this which were more restrictive and burdensome were no longer legal they were null and void and that is what the state can do they can determine that your land use development code change is null and void we we were hoping that you could have one matrix we really support one matrix we understand why you don't we do hope this is egregious error in this challenge of the home rule constitutional right for our cities and counties will be changed we hope that that's the case we think that the all category approaches is much better you need to get points in all categories we like that approach we understand why that is difficult we also like the weighted point system that she has come up with and we think that is a good way forward in the interim but i will tell you we have really enjoyed working with natalie i will tell you that you have our full support for the updated matrix and we will be continuing to work with you we're glad to help you um with the challenge that you had mentioned earlier we're here to collaborate with you until the job is done and the job is not done in our opinion until you have one matrix one scorecard thank you thank you very much thank you very impressed how on top of things you are too thank you we appreciate that that's so helpful um okay anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue okay seeing none we will move forward with uh final comments and i will turn to vice mayor thank you mayor you know i i don't look forward to the time when we have one matrix if these certifications lead florida green building coalition etc are the higher standard i i look for a time when we don't have our matrix anymore that we can just say you need to be certified to to build here i think that would just be wonderful uh i'd like to thank fast for showing up this morning thank you all for being in the house um frustrated at at senate bill 180 um but if we're doing whatever we can i i like the phrase we're making a lemonade and i'm assuming the lemon is is 180 senate bill 180 um but uh natalie we can't thank you enough thank you for being here thank you for choosing dunedin you consistently move us forward so thank you for everything that you do okay uh commissioner sandbergen final comments not much other than uh very supportive as long as um city attorney and everything is uh in agreement and understood and we're doing things correctly i'm definitely in support of it thank you natalie and commissioner walker thank you mayor uh natalie i just want to say thank you for for really approaching this from a much more pragmatic and uh insightful way because i you know this this is this is a confusing topic and we have an uncertain environment with state and um going forward with two different uh scorecards right now is is i i i understand that path um so you know and you know what that shows to me is you're fighting the good fight and i appreciate that um i i too i and thank you fast for being being in chamber today it's really great to see you guys and uh i uh i i also of the opinion that our job's not done until we have one scorecard and uh i i know we will get there and i know you having you at the home is exactly the way we're going to do that so i'm i'm very impressed natalie thank you appreciate it thank you and you just can't wait until you're up in front of one hundred a couple hundred fast members again right that's not in your life away that was an amazing experience thank you thank you that it is commissioner dugard thank you mayor um when i first read this i didn't understand it i sat here i'm not sure i understand it yet but it it's confusion is associated with changing wins relative to this particular sustainability issue from two different perspectives that happens all too frequently um and then we have to scramble it's unfortunately something that staff has to deal with and thank you for dealing with it um i think we're holding our breath until this senate bill is resolved uh and then i worry about things if it's not um that being said this looks like a good patch until then thank you thank you thank you commissioner um well obviously i'm very very supportive of this and yes i wish totally wish we were going with one you know i was going to start out my questioning before thinking of senate bill 180 of just is it have we challenged developers enough is the point total where mac that you have to get to enough um but we're in we're in a little different world right now um and um but i do think we should be ready for when it changes or expires that we can get our one in there and make sure we're on top of it i think um appreciate the comments by fast about um the productivity for the need to be on top of it i think it's so important um unrelated to this is our rebate program that we're that we do now and as somebody who just got back into their house just ready to landscape and you know my landscape guy knew immediately about the city's program and how by doing kind of native plannings you could get you know reimbursements and rebates so but again i think this is the same vein being proactive with developers um i think it's smart business for them anyway but again being ahead of it and requiring it and making sure we're moving this forward um i think it's just very important so i'm very supportive and again i also want to thank fast for being here and i really i do i was impressed that you're on top of that issue as much as you are because i just think like there's a lot of things that the state does get into home rule and the average citizen doesn't really understand how it hampers what what they want us to do here locally and then it ties our hands so i really appreciate that a lot and look forward to continue to work with you on that but uh natalie you know you you're amazing so you just are amazing and you do such a great job for us so really appreciate that so i think you guys have your consensus uh direction right oh go ahead can i just say one other thing and i i should have mentioned it earlier but just with regard to um natalie's effort and when we were talking about senate bill 180 she had like a herculean effort to try to go through this and and figure out where we were where there could be problems and we work together and i mean i just can't thank her enough yeah kudos kudos thank you okay thank you okay we'll go on to the next item then thanks that i like a lot again natalie and nicole keep keep doing your thing up there in dallas help us okay we're going to go to city commission review of the city multimodal transportation plan including bicycle and pedestrian updates and we're going to go with staff presentation i'll turn it over i guess to george and kathy hi thank you for having us i'm kathy gadamer i'm the community development project manager and today i'm here with hannah schaefer and trevor pool and they are our our consultants for the update to the multimodal transportation plan which was adopted back in 2020. this project was a bpi project that went through a fiscal year 2025 budget process and was approved by the commission thank you thank you everybody one of the purpose of this project was to update the bicycle master plan which was um heard way back in 2011 and incorporate into the new um expandable expand the network the multimodal network as well as develop streetscape standards so i'm going to turn it over to hannah and trevor and they can answer any questions thank you great welcome mayor vice mayor commissioners thank you for having us today we're really excited to present this to you hear your feedback and guidance moving forward in this process so i know kathy kind of summarized for the purpose of this plan update this is updating the 2022 city-wide multimodal master plan as we know trends change within transportation as projects are completed that requires us to update the plan and identify new projects and opportunities and another purpose of this project was to incorporate everything that is in the 2011 bike ped master plan so that way all the multimodal plans are in one place and it's one guiding document for the city and as i mentioned we really focus on updating strategies and recommendations to reflect current needs challenges and opportunities within the city and then developing the street street scape standards was a big addition as part of this project as well so we kicked off this project in the spring really looking at which policies and recommendations we may need to update given current trends or existing conditions and throughout this process we've had several engagement efforts and also developing the streetscape design standards was one of the big pieces and we've been utilizing the existing conditions information and community engagement responses to update the recommendations within the plan so we'll talk a little bit more about these in the presentation today i'm going to turn it over to trevor to talk about our existing conditions update for the plan thanks to start off this plan we did look at the existing multimodal network throughout the entire city um so just a few takeaways from this map here um what stands out the most is of course the pinellas trail runs the entire length of the city is the is your microphone on thank you okay good there you go all right so to start out um you'll see the pinellas trail uh runs the entire length of the city and is really a multimodal anchor for the rest of the system um another uh something we saw was the sidewalk network um it's really well connected and tight-knit throughout the downtown area and south of downtown and as you move move further outside of downtown you'll see some disconnectivity there and lastly the bike network is fairly strong on state and county roads with um bike facilities on street although it lacks north of skinner boulevard and it lacks some of those connections to the vanilla trail as a whole next so also to start off we uh analyze some crash data to uh figure out where the challenges were in the multimodal network where these hot spots were um and how we can we can better make really meaningful change to some of these high crash locations so from the previous plan we did update the data to have a five-year crash analysis from 2019 to 2023 you'll see the total crashes were just over 2500 which is a decrease from when we last analyzed this data furthermore fatal and serious injury crashes did decrease although you do see a fairly high number um through this five-year analysis and uh pedestrian excuse me pedestrian crashes did increase in this uh in this five-year data compared to the last plan um you'll notice that there are clusters of crashes at key intersections mainly state roads county roads these roadways with high volume and high speeds so looking at intersection improvements along these roadways was really pivotal for this study and then lastly we've heard this a lot and hannah will talk about a little more but e-bike safety was a main concern in our community engagement and something we really wanted to highlight in this plan so i'll turn it over to hannah to discuss this yeah there's only so much that our data can show us about what opportunities or challenges there are occurring within the multimodal network so that's where community engagement is really key for us to form those recommendations and opportunities and address those concerns and challenges so we had several types of engagement for people to interact with us and for us to receive feedback we had a online interactive map and survey hopefully you all saw this and took this we had over 700 responses which is pretty incredible so people were able to go to this interactive map identify certain issues on the multimodal network or safety or opportunities that they saw so it really visually gives us an idea of where these hotspot opportunities or challenges are but also allows people to identify bicycle networks or pedestrian networks that they would like to see in the community so it's very helpful for us we also did a in-person event at the saint patrick's day festival so we got a lot of feedback from residents visitors and people of all ages about their current challenges and opportunities they saw in the city and we also had several stakeholder engagement meetings so we went to the public safety committee we talked with the committee members and also the fire and police departments were there so we were able to talk to them about what multimodal improvements we could make on the city's street networks that doesn't impact ems response times and but also increasing you know safety on our streets and slowing cars down as well so that was really beneficial for us to hear from them what what some of the opportunities are and then we also attended the for pinellas bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee so that was a more focused conversation about pedestrian and bicycle improvements and the pinellas trail i think when we do community engagement we always tend to focus on you know what are the challenges of the things that we can fix within the community but i do want to mention there are so many positive things about dunedin's multimodal network right now we received a lot of positive feedback about people who love to come here to walk around to bike to spend time in because you all do have a really good network in place so it's really looking at where those problem areas are things that we can really improve and you know take the city to the next level and some of the the main things we heard not a surprise is e-bike safety that was probably the number one thing we heard through our interactions with community members and the online survey is concerns for e-bikes especially on the pinellas trail but also on city streets as well a lot of concern about intersection safety and safer crossings especially at those major roadways the curlew and us all 19 intersection is a major we received a lot of comments about that because there's a lot of conflicts you have pedestrians bicyclists vehicles a lot of traffic at that one location and i'm going to turn it over to trevor to talk about the updates to the plan this is where we take all of our feedback that we've heard from the community and our analysis and really put into action yeah thanks anna um so this slide just represents a broad overview of some of those text updates that you'll see in the plan of course the introduction was updated with further background on previous efforts that dunedin has made section two the crash data of course was updated which i explained section three the community outreach was a big portion of this update because if you recall the previous plan was done during covid so we really couldn't get out into the community like we wanted to so we really made an effort to do that this time around section four the strategies and action section these strategies and actions are separated by mode of transportation so you'll see a lot of updated strategies and actions to reflect new travel behavior among the community especially e-bikes section five of course is the addition of an entire section in the streetscape design standards which we'll get into a little bit later and then section six is just the next steps in conclusion namely grant funding we've updated some grant sources and some things that the city can go after in the future so the overall strategies and actions section we've highlighted some main updates within this section here so first partnerships we see as a really valuable opportunity for the city to attack some of these problem areas in conjunction with county efforts in conjunction with state efforts where some of these high crash locations are so we made that a real effort to go forward with some of those partnerships furthermore we have some traffic calming measures that we've recommended along the trail so again these these happen in conjunction with the sheriff's office with schools with education so we've we've included that into the overall strategies and actions and then lastly just providing more opportunities for micromobility options e-scooters golf carts bike rentals so we've kind of updated that and revamped it to reflect some of those new travel patterns that we're seeing so one of the biggest additions to this plan was the chapter for the streetscape design standards and the intent of this is to really have consistent multi-molar networks throughout the city and be able to visually identify what that looks like and providing guiding dimensions and facility types for those different facilities so what we did was we assigned six street types throughout every city throughout every street within the city so this includes state and county roadways as well so that way the city can communicate should there be improvements through fdot or the county that this is what you all would like this to look like so this is showing an example of the downtown core street types you'll see within this chapter we include a rendering which identifies where these different zones are that we're applying those dimensions and facility types so we have the pedestrian zone that really shows the sidewalk area and the the baseline kind of minimum widths we would like to see and then also the preferred should you have the right-of-way space to do that and then we have the amenity zone this is where you could have street furniture landscaping trees bike racks depending on the context in the city obviously residential streets might just only have landscaping or street trees in these areas whereas the more urban areas would have more of those street furniture amenities and then we also included on street parking what that looks like depending on the context and then should there be a bicycle facility what that recommended facility would be and kind of what that baseline minimum would be as well then also looking at the roadway what those preferred widths are as we know wider lane widths do promote speeding so on certain roadways you want narrower travel lanes to reduce those speeds especially in those residential in downtown neighborhoods and this is an excerpt from the chapter as well so it's really just further identifying what these options are we know that every street is different it's really hard to lay general standards throughout the entire city recognizing there might be right-of-way challenges other constraints that we haven't foreseen so really providing some options and trying to identify what that vision is for that street type so the next steps in this process we'll take your feedback here today make updates to the plan and kathy mentioned she will be sharing the updated plan with the different city committees for any final feedback before taking this to city commission approval in december and with that we'll take any questions comments from you all okay um i guess we'll start with commissioner walker well i think uh i think the update was pretty comprehensive i don't know that i have any questions um probably more comments so i'll pass to my colleague here okay commissioner de guard thank you for your presentation how many modes of transportation are there we use the word multimodal it's a big badge over a lot of stuff i'd like to know how many modes of transportation there are um i can't think of a number but what we're talking about when we say multimodal it's walking biking could be rolling people using wheelchairs or strollers um vehicles obviously public transit even the micro mobility um what's a vehicle define vehicle for me um so it could be personal vehicle like your own personal car and freight traffic as well that would be a separate vehicle so we have self-powered bicycles and then we have assisted power bicycles are they in the same category we haven't separated them into vehicles we are lumping that into for this plan um bicycles so our e-bike recommendations are included in the bicycle section one of the biggest difficulties we have here in dunedin is the fact that there are pedestrians who walk at a brisk pace they might even get up to three and a half miles an hour and they're sharing trails and paths with vehicles that are doing 38 that's an unsafe circumstance and requires some open-ended thinking relative to what are vehicles what are multimodal and what are safe i'd like to see that more addressed in the plan okay and that's a comment i apologize for that okay no more questions okay uh vice mayor you probably don't have any questions do you you know i'm gonna actually very very few but um i did get lost in the plan so so thank you all very much uh one of them is uh during your fact gathering and in your outreach uh you had an interactive map where they could identify locations in the city and write comments about it is there a way that that can continue so there's a constant feedback loop of you live in the city and you have an issue walking biking etc you can go to a map and let your city know you know it's just what a wonderful communication tool in addition to being an outreach tool i i think that is wonderful uh in in your research and outreach when you were talking to pedestrians and bicyclists or any other type of feedback you were getting from them was there similarities in their concerns i would say the similar concern was concern for e-bikes um as mentioned pedestrians walking on the trail often mentioned um concern for e-bicycles and in faster vehicles which originally were not you know intended to be on there so that is you know when we did this plan five years ago that wasn't a trend like it is now so that's part of the purpose of this is is addressing that um so i think safety was the biggest concern between bicyclists pedestrians visibility um came up a lot so more street lighting for pedestrians and bicyclists along the trail and safer crossings so i would say those were the commonalities between the pedestrians bicyclists and how did both of them feel about cars i don't believe we received any particularly strong feedback regarding vehicles i think from the pedestrian perspective there's concern about visibility at intersections and being able to cross safely um for bicyclists we did receive feedback about where the trail intersects city streets um the lack of vehicles stopping for bicyclists but also vice versa um so we've heard that from both sides but i would say the biggest focus on the feedback was regarding e-bicycles okay and you mentioned the last five years and kind of the onset of e-bikes and also at that same time is when the county took action on a decision they made 10 years ago to separate or take away the separation on the trail so they've mixed everybody into one pot and now we've added e-bikes into that and um because i would say prior to five years ago even with that separation pedestrians still had an issue but then it was bikes you didn't have e-bikes so pedestrians are going to have an issue with anything that's faster than they are um and i get that um and the reason i ask about the similarities because i also think that um both bikes and pedestrians are on the trail because they're both scared of traffic and instead of fighting against each other they could fight with each other and to promote and and take action on multimodal transportation uh everybody would win there and create because the more space you give everybody less people will be on the trail because they're in the streets and doing whatever um but that's more comments than questions um i i really don't have any other questions i have lots of comments but thank you very much great commissioner sandbergen same thing um i really don't have questions i'll wait to my comments thank you okay um so jennifer i'll ask you this question um when's the last time we actually created a new bike path on a road now skinner not included obviously you know but literally went into an existing neighborhood or anything new and put in a bike path i do you know george i don't i don't know mayor all right by five and how about sidewalks where have we put in new sidewalks and we see in here a lot of missing connector areas for sidewalks when's the last time we actually like do we have a targeted plan for filling gaps of sidewalks so i think some of that's built into this but our engineering division actually may i know they have a sidewalk inventory if you will so i know we've worked with them in the past to at least identify some of those gaps and you we kind of look for funding or whenever we're doing a street resurfacing or something like that we'll look and see if there's an opportunity to fill those you know when the last time we actually did remember the last time that we've actually built sidewalk in the public right away and why do you think that is because we haven't no i mean i mean i'm baiting you part of it is because if you ask in some neighborhoods like don't put a sidewalk don't put that bike path in my neighborhood um but i just wonder like um you know just how much have we given up because of some of that feeling versus are we targeting enough so we find the sweet spots where it seems to work and everybody's good and it really is a better you know more walkable city yeah great question and i think where this helps us is so as you know our land development code is kind of our regulatory document and you heard about the design review process so how do we start embedding some of these policies and strategies into the land development code going forward and i think we can start to do that senate bill 180 as you heard is a little bit of a challenge at the moment um but i think because you're going to see a lot of new strategies in here regarding e-bikes and regarding sidewalk connections and we need to find a way to bridge that gap between this document and our land development code to actually get that done on the ground through our development review process and i think that's what we're working that's assuming new development i mean there's a lot of these connectors that are just because they've never connected and it would be the city's initiative that would have to probably connect them yeah and and so and that's a question i can bring back to our transportation committee too we've got that group formed that includes the pinellas county sheriff's office our engineering division and there may be an opportunity to work within that group to identify some higher priority areas if you will and maybe put that together and talk about how we attack those and i think that the higher priority areas of the safe routes to school and those types of things i know that there was a statewide initiative to that end as well okay now i just kind of be good to re-energize that focus because you know where you know nothing's coming up the only one that comes to mind right now is like an alt 19 it's like you pat you go past munchies and you come to the creek and you know you're in nowhere land you can't go anywhere um and um and so then that kind of forces people to walk back go across street go on the trail i'm just you know thinking of there's you know clearly probably some obvious disconnects that maybe wouldn't be too politically charged to try to connect and would be so much safer for our walkability so yeah we'll take a harder look at that now for sure okay um yeah i don't really have any other questions other than that other than just wanting to make it a living document and to me that's sidewalks that's pedestrian safety crosswalks that's the bike safe bike pass and you know the ever famous and popular expanded golf cart route which you know it's a two-edged sword because you know you you can only push safety so far and you don't want to do anything on safety at golf carts places um okay so i'm drifting into comments so i will uh i think that's all i've got um so i'm going to open it up for public comment so if anyone in the audience wishes to come forward and speak on this issue this would be the time come on down name and address for the record and three minutes how you doing my name is steve markle and i've been a resident of dunedin since 2017 and i live at 460 highland avenue i'm here because i have a passion for biking and in full disclosure i just want you to know that passion has led me to become part of the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee i am part of first presbyterian presbyterian church's joy rides if you're familiar with that at all and uh since february i have probably not probably i have biked over 2300 miles on the pinellas trail uh some people would say that's crazy like my wife and then there are others that that doesn't hold a candle to what others do on that trail so that's my passion and the thing that has brought me here is this uh um what do you call it the the multi mold in that on page uh 18 there is uh a summary of issues that i thought this hits exactly what i want to address uh there's the speeding the signs that and i just have a couple ideas that i am interested in promoting i hate signs speed limit signs all those kinds of things so one of my ideas is don't make them signs make them art so that you bring in the community and we're an artist community and get them to design some things that are attractive um another um uh thing is make a speed zone within the city because it is a number one in the along the pinellas trail for uh citizen interaction but if we had temporary signs that could be put up when there are parades arts and crafts fairs that kind of thing that would be beneficial another issue that i run into on a regular basis are the stop signs at intersections with the bike trail and and streets in the fact that there's confusion over the fact that bikes don't stop and cars have to so that's a couple of the things that i would like to bring forward and i would love to be part of this group right here if you can appoint me in some way i'd appreciate it okay thank you steve appreciate the input i'll let you figure that one out george as far as good input and getting steve's good words got some good ideas there though so um okay uh anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue name and address in three minutes lisa hunt 252 new york avenue apartment 312 um i concur with what he said where'd he go up there yes i concur um as someone who has worked downtown at every event with alcohol for the last two years i would say myself and um also the deputies that work with us on the trail as well as anywhere we have it roped off to have a wet area where we try to keep people in we are constantly having to dodge getting hit and we have seen strollers with you know moms and dads with strollers have to dodge even with a pinellas deputy standing right next to me renee pop renee pop you just say deputy renee so deputy renee i can't pronounce her nobody can pronounce her last anyway um she stood right with me and like we literally she goes you know what just just clothesline the next guy that comes by you know joking joking but it was just because um they weren't listening to her they weren't listening to me even though i carry a sword and an axe um it was impossible to do anything and i was i i feared for the lives of the civilians that were walking around us it was very it's very difficult during every event um i know it's been a lot of years but i am still a proponent of closing off permanently between um edgewater or between um straw hands and um pioneer park and pioneer park down to pisces i mean i know we tried to get that done for years um that's the way it's done in europe and i tell you it's called a walk plots where it's all walked nothing but walking and getting rid of all those those just those few places people park in front of the businesses i am still a strong proponent of that i still believe that it would be helpful for our city to have that and i think that despite what the businesses say i think it would bring more bit people out there not less um i myself do have an e-scooter i haven't ridden it in over a year because i'm scared to death i mean the speed limit on the trail is 25 miles per hour whereas the speed limit on douglas downtown is 15. i mean so it's it really it's just too fast i mean anybody going 25 miles an hour yeah it's just too fast thank you thank you very much lisa okay anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue okay seeing no one uh we will close public input i will go to commission comments i will start with uh vice mayor yay yay yay uh thank you mayor um i think multimodal plans are the best thing for communities i think they're wonderful i think they add to the quality of life i think they add to economic opportunity i think they're better for the environment i think they're better for everybody's health uh i'd be hard pressed to have somebody find a negative downside to multimodal transportation i just it's great for affordable housing it's it's just so so many things uh where the city has come since 2010 to today is just outstanding so thank you to the city manager thank you to staff thank you for you guys it is just wonderful uh skinner boulevard is our latest testament to the benefits of multimodal transportation and and really what it can do to communities and i think it will show over time for those that didn't see it really how skinner itself was such a division between north dunedin and our downtown and just the economic opportunity for people gaining access to our downtown is just wonderful um i love the attention that dreamscaping is is giving and the idea that you can't just build a sidewalk and say there you go we have to make these places attractable we have to make people want to walk on them you've got to provide the shade you have to provide the benches you have to provide the public art uh we talk about um the flats on maine and the affordable housing we're doing there and the opportunity they have to walk to win dixie which is wonderful but god it's an ugly walk it's just you can't just say there's your sidewalk use it and then when you they don't blame it on them as opposed to the space so many times you want to blame the person and not the space it's like make it attractable make it you know with with our hot summers you've got to put some shade trees one of my concerns for skinner boulevard if you look at it now when i look at shade trees i'm going i don't know that landscaping was considered as part of it but i don't know that shade trees were and so you're going to find opportunities that have been lost with the way we structured skinner and so it won't be as shady as it could um uh let me see please continue to reach out to the residents because it does as the mayor said this has to be a living document and we have to we have to treat it like that um thank you mayor for your recent questions about sidewalks i was waiting for budget to do that um but it's all those things i think when you look at i think george i think city staff should look at all the intersections throughout the community how many of those um crosswalks are worn down and tired and what that tells the bicyclist and pedestrian is that is car space i'm entering car space if we treat crosswalks correctly they should be telling the driver they are entering pedestrian space which is a whole different mindset you have to make the pedestrians feel safe and wanted in our crosswalks and i don't think we do and so it's a matter of attracting them um it's it's a matter of really going to each intersection and looking at sight lines and you'd be amazed at how many sight lines are obstructed and you don't see it's not comfortable as a bicyclist or pedestrian or even walking the crosswalk some of these where you come up and you want to turn right those cars have to drive through the crosswalk to get a good look left as opposed to so it really is look at everything the city is doing when you're out on the public roads from the mindset and through the lens of the pedestrian and the bicyclist and and the view drastically changes um and most of my stuff will come up during budget and so because a lot of this takes money right so and especially in in the budget tightness that we're in now and so that's very hard hard but again thank you thank you for all your work kathy thank you for the work on this and it really really really is a wonderful document i just hope that it's not just words you know that it's it really is it comes from the soul of dunny and who we are and what we can do to make continue to make this the wonderful community that it is there's a reason why people come here to to ride their bikes and to walk our cities um and that just shows you if you build it they will come so if we improve what we're doing now more people will come so thank you all very much thank you mayor okay commissioner sandberg final comments you know when i i see this map i guess it's it's maybe it's unfair but i immediately go to the pinellas trail because i i mean as recently as last week the you know i got that phone call got to do something about the the e-bikes got to do something about the safety got to do something about stopping at the stop sign you know and you know in that same seat where you are the pinellas county sheriff's office sat two or three what a couple weeks ago yeah is there is there a solution is there an answer to to calm the speed and that the danger down there what what what do you think can i so it's there's not going to be one magic answer it's a layered approach it's primarily partnering with pinellas county sheriff's department for enforcement it's education which can be done by the sheriff's department but also can be done by the city so awareness efforts outreach education especially for people who aren't from here and might not know so it's a partnership between the county in the city and raising awareness it's not going to solve itself overnight it's it's really creating those habits you know last week i had work done in my house and i'm not big about sitting around staring at contractors so i spent about an hour sitting in a bench down by cafe al fresco and i'll tell you man it's it it's it's like a drag strip through there and that poor bicyclist that's pedaling and really trying to get some exercise he's got to get the hell out of the way because they don't slow down for him coming up behind him approaching from the other direction and there's no hitting their brakes when they got to that intersection by the by the by the museum i mean they they got to be doing 25 30 miles an hour and it's not you know it's no longer if it's it's when you know that something's going to happen one thing that i saw in your report and i did notice in the time i sat there was the um and i'm i know this is would be on to penales county is the uh upgrading of that yellow line down the middle i mean there's people on they you know they're walking four wide where there's bikes coming from both ways and you know those electric bikes are quiet they don't even see it until the guys on top of them yelling at them and that so it's as small as that sounds that really needs to be passed on another thing that uh that i've noticed here in town and we're sort of a victim of our own success and that is golf carts golf carts have morphed into low speed vehicles and there is so much confusion out there right now because i live it and i see it you know i bought a golf cart and i had it tagged and i did everything i'm supposed to do so i know that i've i've really increased where i can go but right behind me is the guy that's got that cart right off the golf course with no tag and he's right behind me you know and and of course right now this uh with a roundabout on skinner there's a lot of confusion i sat in this chair and i told that deputy for months i've been saying you can cross skinner at highland and then it came back that there was i might have been wrong and i don't know questions answered today but you know i'm thinking if if you can't cross there i need to really start apologizing to people because i've been doing it and i've been telling them you know now you can take your golf cart all the way to eddies or even up further but then there's that that stop where you can't and i heard the other day about somebody who had their golf cart on dunneeden causeway and i know i should know the answer but i don't believe that you can get from where we're sitting to dunneeden causeway legally on a golf cart because of the speed limit changes so you know i i know this is we could talk for days about golf carts and the trail but uh you know i appreciate you coming up here today and whatever you can do i mean i i know what i can't speak for everybody else but i would definitely support just to keep it safe and also notice and i may be wrong it sure didn't appear to be locals they were on that trail that day it was you know these kids i should say kids i mean they're just they're young people and they use that like those those e-bikes are like a motorcycle and they're you know i mean it's it's they're a blur when they go by and uh whatever you can do to keep the residents of dunneeden safe and these people that are coming in with these e-bikes and using that trail i i shouldn't focus just on the trail but that's what i see every day so thank you hannah thank you mayor okay uh commissioner walker thank you mayor yeah i think uh you know a couple of examples i think uh for the most part the program is working and i we do have to periodically update the master plan and um case in point uh my wife and i were trying to figure out a way to take bike trails from here to safety harbor and by god there's a way to do that and uh you know i i um i i i and i really do think having that that um that type of amenity is is really important for the community in terms of accessibility and in terms of just pure livability um it imparts a whole different optic on the community um the one thing i would say though is and you know the issues we're facing right now and i know that the scope of the master plan is really about not only expanding the network but but safety and infrastructure and that's that's important uh and well it's the most important part actually because where we are at right now is is we have bicycles that are traveling up and down the trail that are fully powered i mean you don't even it's not there's there's a distinction between not not all e-bikes are created equal there's the pedal assist and there's the ones that are pure power and i i really think in terms of how we try to solve that problem i think there needs to be a classification of what's allowed on the trail and what's not that's just my my opinion um but and i i'll carry just to kind of carry forward a thought that uh commissioner sandbergen said we are victims of our own success because we have i know this trail is like it's it's awesome you know and people come from miles around to just drive up and down the trail and then they stop in denita and they spend money and it's all good um so i so just to kind of wrap this up um i i think there needs to be some sort of regulation on what is constitutes a bicycle and what's allowed on the trail um the other part of it is of course enforcement and the challenge that we all have you know it's it's a resource issue it's a cost issue is how do we how do we increase the enforcement on the trail yeah that's and that's to me two of the most critical items to basically addressing the challenges that we're facing right now so anyway but i appreciate the update on this um i think it's important and uh i oh the one thing is i did attend that uh the the thing in march on the saint patrick's day i thought it was awesome you need to do more of those because i love the little bell i got in the new water bottle so anyway thank you yeah we love doing stuff like that that's where we get our best engagement especially you know when people have a few drinks they get them get them talking more and people love free things too i hadn't been drinking yet so i just want that one he says that now right he says that now uh commissioner de gard final comments thank you mayor the way you use word final there sounded like you really like me to keep this short i just like to remind everybody i've got it i feel like cassandra standing at the gates of troy hollering at pyram don't let the horse in and we've let the horse in the horse is in it's running up and down the road it's the e-bike and it's dangerous and people are going to get hurt um personally my wife won't walk on the trail she considers it an unsafe area because she would rather walk on the side of a road because she considers that safer we are going to have casualties unless we find an answer i don't expect you guys to come up with it by the way in the next four or five years we'll have vitals landing in dunedin they're coming and because everybody likes these new technologies and the efficiencies and opportunities they bring they're going to be landing aircraft inside dunedin i'll guarantee it'll happen so until we find a way to overcome the inertia that we have on this issue and actually have walk-only areas that make expedient transportation from the southern part of our city to the northern part of our city fruitless then we will be in trouble i think i've said enough thank you okay well i would add um interesting i never thought he bikes belonged on the trail but um but i also appreciate what my colleague vice mayor reminded me about how important transportation wise that is for some people who'd have no other way so you know so i've come to terms with the fact that e-bikes aren't the problem the problem is we we've we've created the maximum amount of space for transportation in our cities with the roadway and they rule they rule they rule they rule and until we get away from the fact that they shouldn't rule you know it's going to be what it is and i think um and that's the problem now you see it in our you see it in our surveys it's when people talk about traffic sometimes if when you dug deep into the survey it was really about the interaction of so many types of vehicles the golf cart the bike the pedestrian and all these are good ways to do it but they're colliding in one main place right like and and a lot of the stuff on the trail the e-bikes the bikes and the pedestrians and the dog walkers and the you know stroller walkers are all colliding in one place and the problem becomes well that one place can't be for everything otherwise we are going to have something happen and you know i mean so um i don't know the answer but i do know that um we've got the ford pinellas grant that you know is going to hopefully help us look at that busy section downtown that would actually help special event stuff heard that loud and clear about special events it's interesting you know the extra care we may need to be taking during special events to make sure people aren't zooming through there that have no interest in the special event but they're zooming through our town um and um i you know as we look to our next penny i think like trying to create more connected connectivity with these systems to promote more walking and you know walkability and biking and things like that are going to be really important um i um and i i do i think that i look at this document of multimobile but how do we make it the living document how do we really say how do we create the connectivity we want to promote what we want which is walkability which is bicycling which are golf carts and how do we do that safely i mean that's that's the rubik's cube right that's that's what's gonna that's the tough part and um and i think that's a challenge we have to do and i think it's one of the things that when we look towards that next penny maybe there's some you know some some key places that we can actually do and make it work and it will help overall but um i guess that's all i have to say about it but good job nicely done i didn't get what he was talking about the what was it a light a bell uh well okay i guess i missed that but you know anyway okay yeah there you go okay anyway um okay so do you have what you need from us okay so i think we're good and um did i get commission like i asked for public comment or did i ask for public comment okay good then you just had one follow-up question one follow-up go for it how does this plan tie into the land development code or the land development code tie into this yeah great question vice mayor so yeah that's the idea so as with any plan just like our city master plan we're we're always looking for ways to bring that policy to to regulatory life if you will for lack of a that was a bad term but um we are always going to continue to through both the business plan initiative process which requires some financing to do some of this stuff but we're always going to look for opportunities to bridge that gap to bring these policies into that land development code and i know the mayor made a great point a lot of times that only falls to you know a larger scale development but there are ways to embed things in there to make to incentivize people to do these kinds of things and there are also structures now you know you know i've worked in other states and florida's a little bit different but there are methods and ways for especially larger scale developments to um require some of these off-site improvements that are consistent with your plans and regulations but they've got to be embedded into your document so that's on us we've got to look for ways to be creative and bring these things to life for you guys to get to this end goal of you know i think a real we talk a lot about the e-bikes today but a real key piece of this are those streetscape streetscape standards if we can bring those to life through the land development code then we've got we're going to be starting to create those environments that you talked about vice mayor where we've got a place that people want to come to and are attracted to and want to spend time in and i think that's the key and we need to start looking at 580 and we're doing that through the land development code update right now so a lot of these things you're talking about now aren't happening in a vacuum you know we're updating land development code we're thinking about these concepts and we're bringing the goal is to bring that back to you and show you how we're bringing these things to life in the regulatory environment so i hope that answers thank you oh it does thank you very much and we are moving on no no we're going to move on because we've we're down a couple minutes and we're going to do um informational and items city manager yes thank you uh mayor vice mayor and this is uh um i'm looking for uh support of a memorandum of understanding with the dean commons and i'm going to roll this over to george right away so you can kind of talk about what it is we're doing here and um this is an informational item mind you what we're uh we're asking we're kind of uh providing information for you in terms of the dean commons and the memorandum of understanding um and and looking for input to that end if necessary don't use the word asking right okay i'll be very brief um so this is um so as you probably saw in your backup there is a development agreement that covers the property over there at dunedin commons which is that area just uh kind of patricia and um beltrees kind of behind the the bowling alley in that particular area and where dunedin commons has actually developed for the most part um if you'll recall that development agreement included kind of really two pieces it was the major development which has been constructed and has been open to the public and then there was a four acre residual piece to the back side of that behind the bowling alley that was contemplated in the original development agreement as a target a target investment area so a certain kind of use was supposed to occur back there and the developer as part of development agreement so they would commit to that and they would market that for that purpose but it if it didn't come to fruition then they would want to look at that remnant piece for some other type of use so we've been working with the developer to to kind of work through that consideration they have done their due diligence tried to market the property couldn't get that type of use in there and um at this point uh we are on the eve of the expiration of the development agreement it actually inspire expires in in december so um this development agreement uh or this memorandum of understanding is basically uh a response back to the development team that basically says we will continue to work with you on developing that four acre remnant piece um once this development agreement expires in the middle of december so inside of the memorandum of understanding there's really not a whole lot that isn't already offered by the land development code so most of the language in there i would call for lack of a better word is perfunctory but it does give the the development team i think a little bit of reassurance that the city will continue to work with them on that remnant piece and i'll certainly look at the two jennifers if you have anything to add to that but happy to answer any questions on it okay and i know uh commissioner duard did have a question yes now as i understand it this is dc wishes to amend the da by removing the tec to enable the fx-h zoning for review by drc lpa and dcc so so yes so listen yes to most now they they're actually not asking to amend the development agreement at this point they wanted so the development agreement will organically expire you actually knew what i said yes i got it no that was you speaking my language see the beautiful thing you could have just said yes right because i think his point wasn't yeah and i didn't even use this ap once that's that's the way i play very good that's all i've got anybody else have a question about this okay no questions uh so you just needed to let us know and yes do i need to ask for public input on this or uh you don't have to but the the developers council is here it just well is there anyone in the audience wishes to speak to this issue you sat here all the time you might might as well at least say hi my name is angela halber and uh we represent the developer with help from hillward henderson uh 101 east kennedy below our tampa florida in case i need to say that but yes basically um just wanted to put a face with what we're doing here and thank you for your time and attention okay thank you appreciate it okay anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this issue okay seeing no one uh okay so we are so informed thank you okay and is there anything else that for the good of the order nothing further mayor other than our liaison do you want to announce anything about the game tonight well the beast of the american league east is uh i think going to break the hearts of the new york yankees yes it's not tonight it'll be this week and uh you know i'm keeping an eye on world series tickets and plane fares and hotels for the commission to go up there and enjoy ourselves but uh okay i it seems a little out of our budget you don't want to jinx well yeah everybody be on their own everybody be on their own dime yeah yeah a watch party uh i i think we got some good things coming so right yeah so if anyone out in the public hears us talk about the world series we're going to go it will be on our own dime it will not be on the cities but anyway but we will you know anyway very proud of them and uh and they made a comment how proud they are of you know to be partners with us so yeah yeah look things are looking good for us yeah they're very excited and the only thing i have learned from them is don't jinx us by you know you know just let things happen you know so we'll see but anyway yeah but i'm hoping they'll clinch tonight and make it a real statement too sorry yank fans but a real statement again so okay anybody else for the good of the order are we uh okay meeting adjourned oh yeah we're going to celebrate uh commissioner sandberg's birthday