We've got a relatively busy day, and we're a little shorthanded. Commissioner Scott and Commissioner Latvala will not be here this morning and will not be participating. Commissioner Peters will not be here either, but she is participating virtually. If we get a motion and a second to allow that to occur. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. So Commissioner Peters can participate virtually. And before we get started, and before I forget, I wanted to thank Corporal Thornton, Deputy Winnick, and Deputy Manley for taking care of us today and making sure that everybody in the room is safe. Appreciate that. Okay. So we are going to start with the Competitive Arts Tourism Grants update. Barry, did you want to introduce anything or just bring? I'm Brian Loix on his way up. This is a result of the changes we made last year with Creative Pinellas. And so Brian took that back, has been working with them and with other organizations, talking about the way we handle art tourism. And he's here to present his ideas. Thank you, Barry. Good morning. Brian Loix visits St. Pete Clearwater. And as Barry mentioned, next Tuesday you'll have an item on your agenda. We're going to be bringing a funding agreement to you for this Competitive Arts Tourism program. And today, just want to make sure that you guys are all up to speed on the direction we're going with this. This is the presentation that we gave at the November Tourist Development Council meeting. And want to make sure we have the opportunity to roll it out to you and answer any questions that you've got. Before I start, I've got to recognize the team that's with us today that worked on this. Joining us from Creative Pinellas, we've got Todd and Margaret. And from St. Pete Arts Alliance, we have Helen Beth up at Beth and her staff from Clearwater Arts Alliance also worked with us to put this together. And we started really last October into November with multiple meetings where we had discussions. And I learned a ton from them, and hopefully they learned some from me as well. And that's what got us to the work product we've got today. All right. There we go. So, as a reminder, you all allocated $500,000 in tourist development tax dollars to visit St. Pete Clearwater budget for 2026 to come up and create this Competitive Arts Tourism program. And so, this is what we're doing with that. We know that we have world-class arts and culture here throughout the destination. It's something that appeals to visitors for the destination. But we also know we have need periods, specifically through September, October, into late December. And so, how can we take this asset that's our amazing arts community and use it to drive visitation and awareness to the destination during a need period? So, what we did was we came together and we created essentially a program. It's going to be a month of the arts is what we're calling it. Don't get stuck on the month because it may be, you know, a month and a half. It may be two months. But a month of the arts during that need period in the fall or winter to award these grants to themed arts experiences and performances and installations throughout the destination to really market to visitors to come see, make this a must-see arts destination in the wintertime. Program administration. And this looked a lot better when it's right in front of me. I shouldn't have done the yellow and the white text. So, my apologies. My eyes can't see that far. So, what we're going to do is we're going to work with the three arts agencies. Creative Pinellas is going to take the lead on this. But working with St. Pete Arts Alliance and Clearwater Arts Alliance, they're going to put together the grant package. They're going to do the advertising of the grants. They're going to work, do the call for artists and applications. They'll review the grants and then make recommendations for awards. And Creative Pinellas will take the lead. We'll do a direct funding agreement with them. And then St. Pete Arts Alliance and Clearwater Arts Alliance will work with them in a support function. So, we have it broken down. 75% Creative Pinellas, 15% St. Pete Arts Alliance, and 10% Clearwater Arts Alliance. You can see here, here's that program breakdown. So, of that $500,000 that was budgeted, $100,000 of that will go towards administration of the program. And you can see the breakdown there, 75, 15, 10. And then $400,000 of that funding will go directly towards grants. These will be competitively selected events for experiences, installations, performances, up to $50,000 apiece. The award feature. So, when we talk about what are we looking for, these have to be experiences that are going to increase Pinellas County's appeal as a premier arts destination. It's got to be an arts experience. It's got to take place here in Pinellas County. And it's got to really tie into the theme that is selected for this month of the arts. How are we going to select these? So, working together with the arts agencies, we're going to come up with some guidelines and some KPIs, measurements, to make sure that we're getting good ROI on this program. So, we've got some of these listed here at the bottom, whether it's occupancy rates during this event, number of attendees, number of visitors, number of check-ins. There's some pretty innovative ways we can track effectiveness of these events. Some of these will be at the overall just during the time of this event. And some of these will be at the individual grantee or experience level. So, we'll track those both. In year one, we'll evaluate this at the end, see what moved the needle, what did not move the needle, and what are some better ways we can track this moving forward. So, that's what we have. I think, again, this is a high-level overview of the program. We've got a funding agreement that will come to you next Tuesday. And then once, if that proceeds, then I know the arts groups are already working as we speak to put some of this into place and get these grants ready to rock and roll. So, the timeline for this, the event this year, is proposed to be in the November-December timeline. And if you've got any questions, I'd love to answer them. Yes. Mr. Flowers. Thank you very much. So, for the program evaluation metrics and each of the criteria that you have underneath there, I guess I'm just always stuck on the occupancy rates during events. There are some of the smaller artists that I'm sure will be submitting for whatever installation or whatever it is that they're doing. That doesn't require, nor would they have an opportunity to specifically have people come here that will be staying in a hotel room for their installation. It could be that they are here for something else, and as a result, they come by and see the installation or whatever. So, I'm wondering what will be the weight for that because I do feel like that one piece might hinder some person's ability to participate. In the RFP and be funded. So, a couple things on that. These are just examples. These have not been agreed upon. These are just examples of some of the ways that we can measure effectiveness. And I think the occupancy rate, when we talk about that one particular metric, it wouldn't be based on the individual artists or experience. That would be more so on the total program. So, over the course of this event, did we increase occupancy rates in the destination? Not so much tied to that one specific experience, if that makes sense. It does. And I thank you for the clarification because, you know, again, this is a whole different program. Smaller dollar amounts that will be given to each one, and, you know, unless it's an artist that someone already knows or whatever, and they will be coming here specifically for that. If that were a major category, I think that would disallow some individuals to participate. Thank you very much. That's the only question I have. Thank you, Chair. Hey, Brian. I think this is a great program, idea for a program, for our need periods. Specifically, it looks like it could be great and successful. But jumping ahead, I had a chance to look over the agreement that's included in our docket for next week. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of prepaying somebody, an organization, $500,000, hope they do a good job. And if they don't, ask for our money back. I'd kind of like to see it phased. You know, rather than just writing a check for $500,000, that's what the agreement calls for. There's a one-time payment every year. Here you go. And then if you do a good job, great. And if you don't, we'd like to get our cash back. So, just that. I don't know if anybody else saw that or not, but it just seems strange to me. Any comment on that, Brian? You know, we talked about that because typically the way that we would do a program, whether it's elite events or capital funding, the other programs that we administer, we would do them on a reimbursement basis. However, with this program and the grantees, the thought was we've got to, in many cases, give them the money to put on the experience up front as opposed to them front the money and then we reimburse them after the fact. So, this is, we went back and forth on it. And this is something that we were comfortable with, the clawback provisions that were put in place there. And that's where we landed. I just, for me, I was thinking, well, they have to develop the program first. So, you fund the development of the program and then you're happy with the program and then you fund the grants because, you know, that's just, I'm just one guy. This seems a little strange to me. Also, I was wondering if you could tell me on the $400,000, what percentage of that's going to be grants and what percentage of that's supposed to be for event productions? We don't have a breakdown of that. We just, we combined it into one. We said $400,000 of this is going to go to the actual experiences. So, the production or the experience, that's all covered under the grant. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think, you know, again, my only thought was that a program like this is going to take a couple years to get some momentum. I mean, again, not to, I'm not trying to go back in time, but that effort that we did last year kind of deflated a lot of folks in the community. So, I'm hopeful that this thing kind of starts to get folks re-energized and excited again. And I don't expect necessarily if we're trying to up the ante in terms of certain slower times of the year that it's going to have an explosive impact, especially that first year. So, I want to be careful that we don't have expectations that are out of line. And a lot of these are smaller groups. So, I don't have any problem, especially this first year, fronting the money, making sure the product gets done like we're talking about. See, and evaluate it and make sure that we're comfortable so that going forward, concerns that Commissioner Scheer brought up, we can kind of say, okay, we obviously have this down. We've got the programs, the places are coming through. And they did a great job and we're comfortable with that or the opposite. And so, I think the first year we're going to have to give it a real good shot here because, again, we've got to release the energy that's going to be here. We don't know what the metric is on the sense from the art world about Pinellas County's commitment to the arts. So, I'm excited to see this thing kick off and start to re-energize that group. I'm not sure how we test the pulse of that, but I certainly hope this is at least a step in the right direction and that we do what is really important to this county. So, thank you for the work. Thank you all for pitching in together. I don't know if any of them had any comments or it's really anybody. Commissioner Eggers. Yeah. Oh, Commissioner Peters. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Flowers told me you had your hand up and I just totally ignored it. Sorry about that. It's quite all right. It's quite all right. And I don't mind you shouting out. I really didn't think I'd talk much today. But so, I know Renee would remember this. Dave, I don't know if you probably would too. But remember when we had the Monet exhibit in St. Petersburg? And we had Monet banners all over the city, just like Clearwater does when the Phillies arrive, right? And what I would like to see is kind of, you know, instead of, because we gave grants to artists and it didn't accomplish what we wanted, but something like bringing in really amazing exhibits. And I will never forget, I want to say about 20, 20 some years ago, I was in Amsterdam and they had a Rembrandt exhibit. And it was the coolest art exhibit I have ever experienced. And it was very, you'd think, very AI kind of as it is now, but it was 20 years ago. And I took a group of 13-year-olds and it changed their life. These 13-year-old boys who didn't want to go to this museum and see Rembrandt had such an incredible experience that they've never forgotten it. I've never forgotten it. And it really was an educational thing to understand what made Rembrandt great. Why was he great? He was the first artist to bring motion into paintings instead of stills. And they did it in such an incredible way. And so I worry that if we're just doing grants to artists that we end up falling into the same trap we fell into before that didn't work. But if we really took our art groups and really focused on bringing in something amazing, you know, we had brought Chihuly in one time when we first started with Chihuly. I mean, those are the kind of things that you can promote it countywide to get people to travel throughout the county and come to those events. And they could be held at any number of locations. It could be held in two locations where you could go and see, you know, some part at one point. You could do a lot of things. And I'm hoping that this group is going to look at a grand scheme of something like that and not fall into the same trap that we fell in before with grants. And that's just my comment and thoughts. Commissioner Peters, I would add to that we agree. And I think that I did a poor job at explaining during the presentation that this is not just going towards individual artists. And the hope here is to go after large-scale exhibits and galleries and experiences. And, again, it won't happen overnight, but we want this to be something that this month of the arts is not going to be exclusive to this grant program. This is a starting piece, and we've got to tie in the museums, the entire creative community to really turn this into something destination-wide that we're proud of. It puts us on the map nationally, internationally, and we can grow that into larger experiences. So we're on the same – of the same mentality as your comments. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Sure. Go ahead. Hi, everyone. I'm Margaret Murray from Creative Pinellas. So exactly what Brian said, this is a grant that encompasses the whole county, and it also includes organizations of all sizes. So part of this is allowing museums to bring in something to supplement one of their amazing exhibitions or think about an exhibition or a program that is slightly out of their reach. So this will be able to drive that as well as smaller organizations to be able to step up their game and create programs and exhibitions that can serve as economic drivers for tourism. And I also wanted to talk really quickly about the accountability metrics that we already include in all of our grants. So when an artist or an organization receives a grant from us, and we do this with county funding, with local funding, private funding, all the way up to the federal funding that we receive, the entire process has built-in metrics that they have to meet. So there are milestones. They have to provide information. So we have never had an instance of an artist or an organization not being able to fulfill on their grant agreements with us. Thank you. Appreciate that. Does anyone have any other questions that I can answer? We're all set. Thank you, Margaret. Thank you. Okay. I think we have gotten all the questions out. Go have a good day. All right. We're going to move from art to buildings, or maybe more art. I guess we'll see. Okay. County Service Center consolidation update. So, commissioners, so we have two projects that Bill Greer is going to present for you today. So, Bill is our director of construction and property management. We have two projects that they're going to provide an update on, and also on the agenda for approval. But the North County Service Center, which consolidates, and they'll go through that, all of our functions up off of 19, and then the Palm Harbor Recreation Center. Both of these were penny projects, planned projects. They've been on the books for many years, and they're now finally coming to fruition. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Bill. Before you get started, let me just say one thing. I appreciate all the work that's going into this. These are big projects. We've got our new campus that we're talking about. We've got the North County. We've got the Palm Harbor piece. And, again, we're going to take each one of these. But I think at some point it would be nice to have that kind of overall, and I'm looking at Chris, but sense of financial analysis. In other words, we've got a North County project that's coming up with some dollars, a new campus, North County. Then we've got land sales that we want to accelerate because we're using those towards the purchase. We've got a lease cost that we currently have that we're going to be getting rid of, and then we have unusual expenses to take care of these old buildings that we have and getting rid of those so that we have a sense of what that change is. And when we bond it, what that's going to look like annually for our taxpayers because, obviously, we're just trying to get a sense of what we're loading on and taking off and what that net change is. So I know we're not necessarily going to talk about that today, but I do think it's an important component that we fully understand as we look at all of it. He does have the lease amounts in for this and the presentation, but the other piece, which is the return on investment that the commissioner has asked for, we will fully outline that as we bring forward the incremental change. Our overall project. And how we're planning to fund them. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill. Bill, go ahead. Good morning, and in true military fashion, I brought the whole squad, so we'll introduce them. So good morning, Chair and Commissioners. I'm Bill Greer. You are Department Director for Vertical Construction and Property Management. So we appreciate the opportunity to update you on two big projects that have been waiting in the wings for quite a long time, well before I got here. But this one in particular is the consolidation of three major services within North County. So you've got the tax collector, you've got the property appraiser, and the clerk activities being consolidated. This update serves to both introduce some of the history to our newer commissioners, as well as an update to some of you who have several years behind you understanding what has gone into this project. We have six slides for you, so if we can go to the next one. The purpose of this discussion today is to get your final approval on the guaranteed maximum price. The guaranteed maximum price is within our capital penny project total budget allocation. So it's been quite a lot of work to get there. Before we go to the next slide, I do want to take a minute to introduce our county partners. So today with us, we have a representative from Mason Blau, Mike Mason, who's been with the county, in the county operating as a designer for over 20 years. We also have Jim Cassini representing creative contractors. He is our construction manager at risk, so no pressure. But he's here to deliver this project on time and under budget. In addition, I also wanted to introduce, as a result of our partnership with CBRE and Turner Townsend, and a lot of collaboration, lessons learned through that team on how to approach building and set structure in place and standardization. This project, as well as the campus, give us an opportunity to really garner that expertise and bring it into play. Well, Sean Terrell is our newest PM, senior project manager with 30 years of construction experience, who is going to directly oversee this project for us for that delivery. And then, of course, we have Tim Llewellyn, who's been our interim director for construction services. So I just wanted to recognize you've got a really good team. I'm aware of the history, and we want to do this right. And that's my commitment to Barry, and we're putting the controls into place. So jump to the next slide. As you know, most of this is self-explanatory, but just to rehash, this original facility, over the years has housed county functions, including the clerk, tax collector, but for a period of time, courtroom space. When consolidated court facilities were completed at the criminal justice center, the courtroom functions moved to there. And then over the last couple of years, we've gotten everybody out of North County so we could prepare for this build, and we've put them in leased space. So that's where you're going to see we have a lease cost that we're currently incurring. So for the background, just so you can see the length of time that's gone with this project, the concept, I think I got it right, has started around FY14. In FY19, Mason started the feasibility study and preceded that with Penny4. The feasibility study was completed, but we hit a pause X due to COVID. So we lost some ground. But in FY21 through 23, we went through a programming exercise, design, and it was during that time that the requirements got a little bit heavy, a little bit too big. And the team here had to go back to the drawing board with all of the stakeholders and whittle that space down to something that was manageable within the county's ability to budget that. So that was a success. The design and programming was completed in 24, and then we got our first GMP from Jim's company. It was significantly over where we wanted to be. So we embarked on another exercise in partnership with all of the stakeholders, the designer, the engineer, as well as the contractor, to prioritize where could we make reductions and not sacrifice capability, not sacrifice durability, and not sacrifice the space that all the time had gone into. We were successful in bringing that to Barry. We met the budget requirements by making selective cuts without any serious sacrifices. And now we have our final GMP. Creative contractors worked very hard to get within our price that we needed. So we're thankful to them for partnering with us. So we're ready to put the shovels in the ground. What will substantial completion look like? One-stop shop is really the essence of the story for this, to provide citizens in the north communities a one-stop place where they can get their business done. Overall, some great capabilities that will be added to this are power backup generation, central energy plant, and you're going to have a parking garage with about 380 spots total. Actually, just go back real quick. One other thing. The cost per square foot, very reasonable within industry standards, moderately across the industry for government builds, 531 a square foot. So under 600 is generally a good range and is close to where we are with the campus. That does not include the parking garage. That's just for the inhabitable space. So that would be a standard to think about. Next slide. And just a sneak peek for you, some renderings that Mike's team was glad to give us, what the exterior will look like, and just the front lobby just to give a taste for what we're going to bring to the table. It's going to be a modern, efficient, customer-focused service center. Okay. And so the final is really just a breakout of what our GMP looks like and what the timeline looks like. We're put shovels in the ground in May with a substantial completion at the end of 27. So to summarize, we just wanted to make sure we gave you a background, also show you what the building is going to look like, and prepare you for any questions so that we can get your approval. We're excited to get the project started. So that concludes this part of our presentation this morning, and ready to take your questions. Mr. Flowers. Good morning. So first, a comment. You know the Judicial Center on 49th Street now is going to be jealous because this is really a beautiful-looking facility here. So thank you for your time. First question, most government buildings that are being built now have – I'm trying to put this delicately – have features in front, so if something were to try to come up and drive into the building, it would stop them. So the same thing is kind of like out at the Judicial Center. Are any of those things being mapped out and planned other than – I see, like, the little poles, I guess, but I'm not sure how big those may be. They may be larger than what the photo shows. Good morning. I'm Tim Llewellyn. I'm the interim director for construction services. And, yeah, we do have bollards out in front of the building. I believe at this time they are rated for small vehicle impact. Okay. So, yeah, we've taken that into consideration. As well as, although it's not shown in the rendering, we have the infrastructure for mags and those sorts of security precautions built into that lobby as well. We're not implementing them at this time, but upon request by, you know, you folks or the folks with the tax collector or our stakeholders, we can implement that at a future date. And then my last question is, I don't know if this will go to Barry or someone else, but is there any reason why SOE didn't have a little space in here? Not needed. I mean, this was program space, so it was designed based upon the needs of the campuses. Just because usually they all flow together, you know. Yeah, no, these are these kind of centralized functions. They've had a north now that we have a south, right? And so it made sense. But, you know, with the SOE, there wasn't a need for space up there. Yes, ma'am. Looking forward to it. Commissioner Wicke. Thank you, Chair. Just hats off to Blaine and Bill. I've heard a lot of compliments from the stakeholders around this building, and they've all reached out to me saying that you guys are working good and diligently and no complaints. So hats off to Blaine and Bill for your hard work on moving this, you know, multi, you know, long project forward. And I think everyone's ready to get the shovel in the ground. So keep up the good work and, you know, thank you. Thank you. So what's the current square footage that we're using for our facilities? And what is this? This is going to be 79,000 square feet, Dev. Yeah, right around 60,000. That includes all of the lease space. The lease space and what's in this old, what was in the old building. Right. They're really packed in. So this is going to, this will accommodate everybody. It seems reasonable. Orientation. I don't see a site plan, or at least maybe I missed it while I was looking down. But I assume that the building is facing 19, and that this little courtyard comes in off of 19, and it goes from the front to the back kind of thing? So in the, that's the existing access road coming from 19. So our building kind of, the back is kind of 219 as the cars pass, but it allows for a presence there so people can see it coming. The front, the back side of the building is towards 19? That's correct. So it gives it more, more frontage in that direction so people can see it. As you know, with the widening of 19 visibility, there are all kinds of issues with that. So that allows us to put some signage out on that and to give people a moment's notice before they get to the turnoff. So we're looking kind of from the interior of the site. The parking garage is on your left, and the main building is on the right. And just underneath the blue banner on the main building is the main entry. So we have some surface lot parking there at the front and then the garage to the left. And we maintain cover between the garage and the main building. But yeah, it's, so it opens up to the interior of the site. Once you get into access road, then it starts to reveal itself. That in the entrance area is kind of facing south, right? Yeah, it's facing southeast. And it's the nature of the property. It's a deeper property. So are we getting, is the training area in the back still going to be in play? Yeah, we're not touching the driving range in the back as well as the solid waste electronics return monthly. I'm glad somebody had some planning forethought that we don't waste a lot of money back there. So it's good that we have that in place. We can still do the recycle efforts and all of that in North County. Um, type of construction is, is this tilt wall? Is this, what, what kind of construction are we talking about for the building? Primarily precast. Um, tilt wall was, was our first, uh, first approach, but as large as the site is with the buildings that we're putting together, uh, there wasn't enough space on the site to do the tilt wall. So we had to go with, uh, precast. Explain that real quick. So for tilt wall, you have to have extra space on your site for the casting beds where you actually cast those walls, but with all of the activity that's going on there between the parking garage and the building itself, there just isn't enough space to set up those casting beds. Okay. But it is, it all precast. So it's not going to be block and all that. That's correct. Right. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. Um, okay. I think that was my question. I don't see Kathleen's hand up. So any other questions that we have before we let these gentlemen go on item number two, I think we're good. So let's move on to item three, which is the rec center. So we're, we're, we're on our second of two very long awaited projects. So the Palm Harbor recreation center edition. So good morning again. And, and thank you. So, uh, for this particular project, we have the, uh, Diaz Fritz group that has given us the most competitive price out of the responsive and responsible bidders. So we're, we're prepared now, uh, just like North County to move forward with shovels in the ground. And I know Palm Harbor is, uh, very excited to get this moving. Uh, so we are within again, our, uh, CIP penny total project, uh, budget allocation. Uh, so as soon as we get your approval, we're, we're ready to go. And, uh, with a scheduled substantial completion of May 27, uh, our design firm on this project is Wanamaker Jensen. And, uh, so they've been working together and, uh, they're, they're ready to move. So the background, just a quick background on this, uh, property. Is it moving? There we go. So this, this building's a year younger than the last one. Uh, so, but it, it, uh, has, has been around for quite a, quite a while has served as a community classrooms, activity rooms, other recreational uses, but the most significant shortfall that, uh, became a decision point for this was, uh, the lack of shelter, uh, capability. So, uh, this was actually conceptualized back in 2010. So a little bit longer than the North County Service Center, but it was tabled for penny for, um, the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency had a desire to expand the rec facility and build shelter space, but, uh, it worked better, uh, in the community plans for vitality and safety to go ahead and push it into penny for. So, uh, by 2024, we started the design with Wanamaker. They completed that design and in October, uh, the plans went out for bid. We received the most competitive bid from, uh, Diaz Fritz and with the final bid, we're ready, uh, to move forward. So what, what will it look like? We didn't do as many renderings, but just to give you, um, an idea and this picture or a version of this picture is actually already out on their website. They've announced the coming of the building to the community. And that is another thing I failed to mention earlier. We're, we're going to be doing some, uh, we'll work with communications to make sure that we, uh, make it known to the communities that these projects are coming. Uh, but already Palm Harbor has, has been, uh, putting a foot forward on that. So the, the, the big, big capability changes here are you're going to have shelter capacity for almost 500 people, fully operational kitchen backup power. Uh, the facility will withstand 170 mile hour winds, uh, a very diverse amount of capability that's being added gymnasium, the, the recreational space elevated walk run. And so it's, it's going to be quite a facility, uh, again, this facility right around the $530 a square foot mark. Uh, so we're, we're in that sweet spot. And with that, uh, that, that basically concludes this and we're ready to take your questions. So the, uh, the per square foot that you had on the last one and on this one, it's all in, right? It includes FF and E in the building too, everything, all furniture, all fixtures, all equipment, um, and not just construction costs all in. Um, what's the capacity should this place need to be used for shelter in case of a hurricane? The shelter, it's 498. That's good. Oh, I'm sorry. That's what it is for. I said 500. So that probably, no, when I saw the numbers, I wasn't sure what those numbers were for. So I see it up there. What, what you're referencing now? Um, I do apologize. And, um, do you know the flood zone, um, ABCD up in that area? I'm not mistaken. It's either E or, or not in flood zone. Um, I, I don't recall off the top of my head. It's not in flood zone. Okay. That's, that's really good. This, this looks really nice compared to what they have right now. So. Well, when you got, when you have, um, parents like, you know, I mean, this, even you talk to parents during this week of spring break, having to like take vacation, stay home, uh, when you have step down shelters to get these schools cleared and get parents back to work. I mean, that's, that's a big deal. Um, and so I'm, I'm really excited that we're going to have this in North County. And we, we, we, we've got nothing really. Well, and I, I skipped over one of my notes. You, you, you hit it. So thank you. Uh, the, the, the shelter is, is obviously there for during the storm, but the other intent was to provide a place for, for the schools during recovery period. So if they, they needed that as a backup, that was a part of the scope. Parents are always like screaming and yelling, like, get us, get us back to work, please. And get these kids back to school. So having step, you know, all you have is one or two schools that can't, you know, we have people in them, then the whole school systems waits. Right. So it's nice to be able to get that back. And that's a, obviously from a recreational standpoint, a big deal, uh, just don't have the space up there. So it'd be great. Well, I'm excited to be part of two, two of, of your biggest projects that, that are coming, coming about here. So it's, it's going to be a good next couple of years getting these finished for you. Mr. Nowicki, sorry about that. Thank you, chair. Um, yeah, very excited. I mean, it's going to be a great asset for North County. And I think the community is really looking forward to it. You know, the shelter capacity is amazing. Um, though I just remember last year, you know, there was brief conversation. I thought about when this was like talking about and the YMCA, I mean, I don't, you know, this, there was some back and forth or something. So, I mean, I don't know how we talked to the YMCA or have they been involved at all in this planning or just, you know, being neighborly, just kind of including them in some conversations. So there was operational issues, um, regarding that, but this goes back a couple of years. And, um, my understanding is that they, they met and talked about their individualized space to where they're not competing, but collaborating and working on programming together. From my understanding, those issues were resolved. Um, we had that at budget time, um, what I think year before last. Um, so my understanding is those issues have been resolved, um, and I haven't heard anything for a long time. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. Commissioner. Oh, you're good. I'm very happy about the project. I think it's a great asset. I can't wait to see it start. I, too, talked to the YMCA and they seem very happy with what's going on. They kind of buried the hatchet with their neighbors and everybody seems happy. Yeah. Yeah. It was good community effort. Yeah. Uh, between the two different groups of folks, so yeah, Commissioner Flowers. Um, Barrett, please forgive me if you already provided this answer for us. When we have projects that take a moment because of a number of factors and it's penny money, which is, um, what's being used in this and the last one. And we're setting those dollars aside so that we can have it. Is it set aside in a fund where it's gaining interest or anything, or is it just, we're just line item visualizing, but not accounting? No, we account for, we account for, um, the interest that, I mean, that, that stays with the county. And so that, uh, that, but that stays in the fund. Yeah. Okay. So I'm looking back at Chris to confirm, but yes. Okay. So, um, so the interest and, and, and obviously the penny is a, a, an estimate. And as we get into more years, we refine that because, uh, that, that is collected over a 10 year period. So, um, but this is, this was part of that original planning. We're going to just like next, we're going to start doing that this, this coming year to start planning for the next penny on what type of projects we're going to be looking to accomplish out of the next penny. We'll start that process early. And this was envisioned before, obviously this one was before, um, as they started that planning process. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to circle back since we're, I seem to have answered all the questions here. So, um, I'm just, you know, again, I'm looking at the financing piece in my mind. I'm just trying to get my hands around it, arms around it. So, um, again, I know we're not going to talk about just a special emphasis here to talk about these three projects. I mean, these three, for instance, right, are big ones and they're intergenerational. They're not, these projects are going to be here a while. Um, so it's a shared concept with, you know, generations to come so we can keep those costs down and we don't have to overburden the penny. Um, what's the thought process on all of that? Um, well, these were planned as part of the penny and so they, uh, they, the relocation of the county campus was not. Um, and so that's when we discussed the county campus that it would, it should be paid for by current and future generations, right? Because it'll serve them. Um, that's where the idea of debt for the, that, uh, for the county campus, new county campus, uh, came from, um, these were planned as part of the penny. And so we, we did not recommend those because in fact, they're funded. Well, I, and I understand. I still think it's something in our, again, I'm not, I, I'm not in the bond market. I'm not in the construction, you know, the, the financing piece. Um, I know enough to be dangerous and I, but I, but I do think it's important that we understand the cost of these projects on any one particular year, though planned. Correct. Uh, you can relieve that pressure on penny. We keep talking about trying to find money in our penny, um, for projects. I just trying to understand that, that, that different path. They're both coming online the same year. Um, we would, we would have to, to change that. We would have to start that now because we'd have to do an inducement resolution to be able to issue bonds at a later date. We haven't planned for that, um, for these two projects. I understand. We could. And then that would add to our debt that we'd pay at, that we would have for the general fund over the next, you know, 20 years. Right. No, and I get that. For, for over time. I get that. So, but we'd have to change that pretty quickly. I just like, yeah, I just like to understand, and even if you do it, you know, just give us a sense of what we're talking about. I just, I just don't know. I mean, if we bonded, you know, what's that annual burden going to be regardless of where it comes from? And that may end up being the key piece, right? Yeah. We may say that. General fund's going to be tight. And that's where you, and that's also where you've asked us to roll back. So it would, it would become then another obligation. I have a fancy 12P, 12C, HP 12C here. And we can do some rough estimates. We can absolutely do that. And figure out what that's going to look like. And then again, like I said, it may be less expensive to do the bonding, but we may, you know, we may have to go back to the penny and take care of it. I get that. I just want to make sure we're, we're kind of understanding that. Okay. We, we, I mean, I can do rough calculations. Let's not do that here. No, no. I'm not asking for it here. We can do that though. But I think it's important that we get just a feel for that, those three big projects. So, okay. The philosophy behind it's no different. Yes. So. All right. Thank you. So these two, definitely we, we, we do that. The third one. Yeah. The next one up, you really don't have a choice. Well, no, this is a big part of our, we don't have this as part of the penny. And no, but it is part of our financing. It absolutely is part of our finance. So looking forward to talking about the downtown Clearwater parcel disposition. Next. Ready? Yes. We're ready. All right. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Next up commissioners is, is to talk about the downtown Clearwater parcel disposition. And so here to talk about that, we're going to let Blaine kind of kick that off. He's going to introduce the team that's, that's talking. I only see one up right now. So I guess it's all Leanne, but with that, I'll turn it over to him. Let us get going. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I have Leanne course with CBRE and some of her team in the audience that have been with us since the ground floor of these exciting projects. And I'm going to offer a brief framing and then hand it over to Leanne to go through the substance of, of the presentation. The matter we're bringing before you today is the county's disposition of the downtown Clearwater parcels. But at its heart, it's a more significant use of a public asset to help reframe downtown Clearwater's future. From the outset, our aim has been to pursue a strategy that protects the county's interest on several fronts at once, maintaining a very strong partnership with the city of Clearwater, honoring their vision for downtown, maximizing the value of these parcels for the public, creating a competitive process that reduces uncertainty and ensuring that the successful redevelopment proposal comes with meaningful accountability and enforceable commitments. That's what we've been pursuing. And this process begins and ends with elected officials. We've had conversations with both bodies to hear about what the goals of the redevelopment should be and the vision for downtown. And ultimately, this commission will select a successful developer. This morning, Leanne's going to walk you through several things. The framework that, that we're proposing to support the outcome, the redevelopment goals provision, the proposed request for negotiation structure that we're offering, and an anticipated timeline and path from solicitation to evaluation. So with that, I'll turn it over to Leanne. Good morning, Leanne. Good to have you here. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioners, glad to be here today. As Barry shared, Leanne Corst with CBRE. And Blaine mentioned, we have been along this journey now for, I think, the better part of the last three years. And so this is an exciting milestone here today. So the goals of the downtown redevelopment have been set forth pretty clearly. And Blaine mentioned collaboration and discussion with City of Clearwater. And they really helped inform the goals of the RFN, specifically the development goals that I'll talk about in just a moment. So it's been really important and valuable to maintain those open lines of communication. Of utmost importance is the financial return to the county. And to do that, we want to make sure that we maximize competition and we minimize uncertainty. And, you know, of course, we need to make sure that any proposals we bring back to you all for consideration are from an experienced and qualified developer. I'll talk a little bit more about the information that we want from those developers and the submission requirements to vet them. Accountability is obviously very, very important in this redevelopment effort, as it is with any. We want to make sure that the development commitments that were proposed are built, and not just built during the stabilization period, but for the long-term operation of the development. On this page, we talk about some of those development goals that we have collaborated with the City of Clearwater on. And it's really been nice to see the alignment with the county goals as well. We heard not just an activated mixed-use downtown, but one that complements tourism. You know, days one and two, when you're on the beach, you get sunburned, and so it gives an alternative for days three through five. And a goal of diversifying the local economy to introduce new industries and creative sectors that complement the existing tourism base. We want to make sure that the development and ownership and occupancy conditions are met to ensure that long-term mixed-use continuity and ongoing tax-based expansion, that's obviously, those revenues are obviously important to help offset the cost of your new headquarters facility. We want to, you know, I saw a Tampa Bay Business Journal article that was published March 1st that was great. No, the timing was great in terms of all the investment, capital improvement investment that the city is making in the downtown. And we want to strengthen that connectivity between Coachman Park, Cleveland, Osceola, and build on that city investment. And we want to require those protections, deed restrictions for permitted and restricted uses, and enforce the development and occupancy timelines with reverter clauses if timelines and occupancy standards aren't met. As for the actual structure of the RFN, an RFN request for negotiations was chosen as the procurement method because it's flexible. A complex sort of procurement of this nature requires negotiations. And so, some of the submission requirements are really vetting the developers and the proposers when the submissions come in. So, we'll look at respondents' experience. Do they have the financial and experiential capability to perform? Do they have the sources of debt and equity to be able to pull off a project of this nature? And we want to know that they have comparable project experience. So, we'll be asking them for examples of delivered projects of a similar size and complexity. Of course, regarding that development vision that we just talked about, we want to make sure that we understand the uses, the densities, the phasing timeline, and the compatibility with the RFN development goals and vision. And, you know, a project like this won't, we're talking about 17 properties, nearly 25 acres. It won't happen in one fell swoop. So, we want to understand what that development timeline and horizon looks like. So, we plan to release the RFN in mid-April of this year. So, coming up very quickly. And we'll allow 90 days to respond. We've been asked if 90 days is enough. We believe it is in our experience, having released nearly 20 of these similar solicitations over the last several years. If a developer is qualified and experienced, they should be able to pull together a development team and respond within that 90 days. If they can't, they're likely not experienced enough to pull off a project like this. We'll then go through several months of evaluation, clarifications, and interviews potentially with those respondents. And we'll come back to, after that analysis is complete, we'll come back to the board with qualified developers for you ultimately to make that final determination. And then, after that determination is made, we'll move on to negotiating those binding legal agreements. And with that, our presentation is concluded. And we're happy to answer any questions. Yes. Thank you, Chair. Leanne, we've been talking about we want to work with the city on their plans. And has the city provided anybody with their plan for their properties and our properties together? I've never seen their properties located on a map next to ours. I have no idea. I just don't have a feel of what. They have provided all of their CRA and city-owned properties. And we have mapped them alongside the county properties. They're obviously not included in the RFN. These are county properties in a county process. But we do have a map of them. And they did actually provide one property that they said, hey, this is a property that we think could be accretive to the county's efforts. And so what we've done is we've highlighted a page in the solicitation that just says, this is a city-owned property. It's not included in this particular solicitation. It's a county solicitation. But the city does have some properties that you might be interested in and that could be accretive to this redevelopment. So the request for proposal or negotiations will not include any contingencies to work on city properties and make them part of ours? That's right. So it will be separate. But we strongly encourage them to work. There are city properties. Yes. We say there are city properties that could be accretive to add some critical mass if a developer is interested in pursuing that. And have you considered some of the properties that we own, the county owns, are kind of outliers? Have you considered just letting them put together the highest bid on those properties which aren't going to be – why do we have to have a package on all the non-adjacent properties that we have? Well, and you're right, Commissioner, there are several nodes, if you will. They're not all adjacent to each other. And our thought was just to go through the process and see what redevelopment visions that developers could bring back. Of course, at any time, we could pare back some properties or others. I know that, you know, we still have to find uses for certain tenants, like the clerk in the Swisher Building. We've heard his concerns about parting with that property at this time. So, we want to see what a master developer might envision for all of it. And then, as decision-makers, we can decide to pull back on some and push on others. And, Commissioner, I might just add to that. We've – a development agreement has been signed on a project that we're working on across the state. And it's 70 parcels, and they're not all contiguous. But what the developer – selected developer has done is some of those outlier properties, they've started to acquire the properties in between the critical mass and the outliers so that it does aggregate some more. So, I think developers can get creative and then they can actually go out and, on their own, add to the assemblages to connect some of those dots. And I think the point you brought up, though, I think is a good one. And as long as we're working closely with the city, you know, somebody sees a piece and, boy, if it was just a little bigger. Well, the city has a piece and does it make sense for the city to dispose of their property. That communication is going to be critical. So, Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I think there was a map very early on I saw with the city and the county. So, I'm sure that's easily accessible to give. I know we talked about in some of our meetings, like that outright sale, long-term lease. You know, is there, I don't know, it kind of seemed a little, I didn't understand. Like, were we, is staff recommending just an outright sale of all of the parcels? Yeah, so. Because I know we saw, like, slides of, like, pros and cons of. Yeah. You know, we have been a part of transaction structures that are long-term ground leases. We've also been part of transaction structures that are fee simple sale. In our experience, what a fee simple sale does is it allows for better financing abilities. A ground lease becomes a complicated financing structure. So, in our experience, you will, we will result in more competition if it is a fee simple disposition, because that financing is easier to achieve, particularly on uses like for sale residential, where it's difficult to get. It's not impossible, but it's more difficult to get financing on a condominium use over a long term. What happens in year 70 when the, you know, there's only 30 years left on the ground lease? Does somebody want to buy a condo with only 30 years left on a ground lease, for example? So, in our experience, we believe you're going to have better competition if it's a fee simple disposition. All right. Can you talk about how to make sure we get the outcome that we're looking for? So, the other question underneath all of this is what are we trying to accomplish with either approach? And I think they really boil down to two. One is control of the property and one is revenue. And we have had numerous discussions with the county's attorney's office on the control piece. And they feel a fee simple approach can accomplish most of those protections that the ground lease could otherwise. So, we were, and I know Leanne's probably going to share some specifics with you, but we've asked very pointed questions and gotten some great counsel back. You know, what if in this situation, what if in that situation? And we feel like, as staff, that that can be accomplished with fee simple. I think that qualifying piece. So, for instance, let's say that what we've heard from both elected bodies, we want to activate it downtown. We want folks moving around, engaging in commerce, spending their dollars, you know, enjoying themselves. And so, what would prevent a developer? They set up a retail shop. It goes under. And they just never fill it again. Well, there are occupancy targets and timelines. There's reverted clauses. There's things that can be baked in through deed restrictions and the ultimate agreement that can help govern those things. So, we've tried to foresee hearing what the goals of the redevelopment are, what some of the concerns, the corollary concerns were, and we've gone down some paths with staff and our attorneys, and we feel confident that fee simple is a good approach. Thank you for that clarification. And then, you know, I don't know if this is an online or offline conversation, but do we have a benchmark value of, like, what this land is worth or, like, what we're expecting? We did some broker opinions of values, and we established some ranges. And we not only established some value ranges, but then we took some buildable densities, and we then projected out what the potential tax revenues would be for that ongoing tax revenue component. And the value ranges on the low end ranged from $61.6 million to, on the high end, $83.4 million. So, that was the value range. We like to provide a range because market conditions are ultimately going to dictate. And then the total tax revenue, again, we looked at buildable density on a low, medium, and high range. We had some massing plans done to show what could be possibly built on the site. So, based on the buildable densities at a low, medium, and high range, the annual tax revenue generation was projected between $4 and $6.7 million. It is, yeah. That was at the time that we did our headquarters report. All righty. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Latvala is not here, but he had penned, apparently, a note that he would like Barry to read in. Well, it's continued discussion or just for the record, but just so we'll let him know that even in his absence, he's taken up time. So, this is what he always says to me. So, in any event, please go ahead, Barry. Yeah, I know that he hates not being here. This is obviously near and dear to his heart, you know, in the community that he loves. So, his statement reads as follows. The residents of Clearwater have long envisioned to revitalize downtown. This is their moment. This project deserves more community involvement, not less. We should be actively engaging residents through listening sessions to gather meaningful input. As a single member commissioner representing this site and the majority of Clearwater, I am willing to lead those efforts alongside county staff. There's no shortage of innovative ideas in our community. For example, a local college student recently shared a vision of downtown with me. A park that connects the beach, downtown, and transit to improve access, reduce congestion, and boost economic activity. Exactly the kind of forward-thinking input we should be encouraging. This project has the potential to create a true downtown core for Clearwater residents while enhancing the experience for visitors traveling to America's best beach. Let's be clear. This will be one of the most significant and inherently political decisions we make. And that's okay. That responsibility belongs to us. No one forced us to run for office. We were elected to make tough decisions and remain accountable to the voters we serve. For that reason, I do not support turning over this process to a committee of unelected individuals to determine the future of the project. And so we're clear either to staff. This committee is utilized, or if a committee is utilized, I would support a structure where they narrow proposals to five finalists, with the Board of Commissioners retaining the final decision-making authority and the flexibility to add applicants if deemed necessary. Additionally, I believe it is important to ensure fairness and transparency in the process. Our current state lobbyist, who represents both the county and the City of Clearwater, should be excluded from representing any developer on this project to avoid a potential conflict of interest or unfair advantage. Given the likelihood of state funding involvement, including potential support from FDOT, maintaining that separation is critical. On a note, I would also encourage the inclusion of Representative Barfield and our state senators in this process, should they wish to participate, as the state will likely play an important role. As for my vision, I support a balanced approach, selling a portion of the property, and particularly the most valuable waterfront assets while retaining ownership of a portion to lease. This ensures the county maintains long-term control, protects the public interest, and holds developers accountable to deliver on their commitments. At the same time, I remain open to creative ideas and proposals from developers that align with our community vision. And that's his statement. Okay, thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Back to Commissioner Nowicki's question or comment. I do recall some dialogue about leasing, some extensive conversation about leasing properties. I know that I was apprehensive because now that puts us as a landlord and do we have, A, the capabilities to do that, B, you know, how would we address maintenance issues and, you know, all of that stuff that comes with being a landlord versus receiving whatever net we would out of the sale of the facilities, different buildings and those funds going towards our new location, which would help us lower the cost of any dollars that we may have to borrow should we have to borrow any money. So I do recall that those conversations, and they were good, robust conversations. I like some of what Commissioner Latvala has interjected when it comes to the community having some dialogue and input in the process. I am apprehensive when you start adding layers of other elected bodies because getting individual schedules and the timeline that we're on, I think that could be a bit tricky. No offense to any of our elected legislators because they are also residents of this county and they have been very generous to us in supporting things that we have put forward for funding or whatever different projects in the state. So I'm not completely opposed, but just worried about when you start adding people to dialogues and conversations that then extend, could potentially extend your process. And I would like for us to stay on the timeline that we have indicated as it relates to construction and development of this new facility. But again, I don't think it would hurt. But again, I don't think it would hurt. I know we've done that before. We've had conversations with the community with CDBGDR funds. We had conversations with the community, which I felt were very good, very well attended. And the dialogue that they brought back to us, I thought was immeasurable. And it also allowed us, too, to share so that any misconceptions that were out there about what we were doing and why could be clarified at that point. So that's my two cents, two fifty cents. And we'll see where it goes from there. But I do have great concerns about us leasing, you know, holding on to certain properties and then leasing them and taking and becoming landlords, if you will. I do have a concern about that. Thank you. Did you have something? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. So that's the reason I asked Leanne and Blaine to address that. We did look at that. And one of the things we asked is we heard that from Commissioner Lavalla, from Commissioner Scheer, about leasing. And we were trying to get to what is the intent. And it was really to make sure we deliver the outcome that we were looking for. And so they went back and looked at that, talked with the county's attorney's office, but also looked at Leanne's own experiences, CBRE doing these across the country. And determined we really could accomplish the same thing through the sale. And so they did consider that and looked at that. And again, that is staff's recommendation based upon that review. Yeah, just one second. I wanted to ask a couple of questions. I'll be right to you. So market driven, right? I mean, we're trying to figure out, and I like the request for negotiations structure. I think it goes to what we're trying to accomplish alongside of what the city leaders have kind of weighed in on. So we're trying to make sure we're running dovetail with them. So I think that's important because it kind of separates the wheat from the chaff. You know, we're trying to make sure that we get the right people doing the right kind of work for the right outcome as best we can. Have you all taken a look at the zoning and land use of our properties? Anything that you see that are like low hanging fruit that would be easy to change to maximize the property that we have that stays in line with what the city's trying to do? I mean, I'm not trying to delay the process. I know that takes some time. But I mean, if we have, you know, a piece that's light industrial. I mean, I'm just trying to get a sense. Are we okay that we're getting we've got proper? Okay, you're nodding your head. Yeah, we did a zoning a full zoning analysis. And, you know, there's no height limitations. And the city is a great partner. And we're there might be some parcels that are government use that need to be rezoned, but we don't see any issues, any issues with that. That's reassuring. I mean, I think we want to make sure that we're helping the process along and that we don't get somebody that has to roll the dice on whether the city's going to do. Okay, the negotiations process. And then I'm just going to make one more comment. And then I promised Chris and you and Barry that I won't bring up the bonding thing again. But I do think bonding 101 for us to understand what that looks like is important because as we I don't know when we have to bond for the big building or campus when that has to happen with the technical pieces are. And when we have to have monies available to minimize that bonding amount so that, you know, this land stuff can take some time. And I know, you know, from a timing standpoint, just understanding that's going to be really important and how those other two projects that I mentioned today either fit or don't fit. So something just so we understand those. We're good. We've actually had initial discussions on that. And it will bring you a more refined timeline. I know Chris and and our financial advisor are working, you know, on that. Okay. And it's likely to be kind of a hybrid because, you know, you may get parcels that would move quicker than others. And things like that for like, for instance, the Swisher building. Well, before we move on that building, we've got to find an agreeable space for the clerk for all his record storages and stuff. And so there's other component pieces to it. But we'll we'll bring that in. And what we would probably do based upon that is some type of a short term note, a lot of long term bond for the component pieces that we're going to sell off. Right. I think that's a good idea. Right. And so we're not carrying long term debt. We have some either an internal borrowing. It could be an internal borrowing or or an external. And so those are the type of pieces. Let us put that timeline together for you and kind of the financing structure. Maybe one of our workshops is still bonding 101. And we can do that because it would like that you're going to have a short term finance. And we'd likely would we have cash that we've set aside for the downtown campus that'll take us through. We'll do an inducement resolution that will enable us to borrow at a later time. Right. And pay us back for those costs. Yeah. I'd like to understand that. And so we'll bring that to you shortly. Okay. Perfect. Commissioner Scheer. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. First, I know I was listening to the Chris Lafala's letter and I think he had two requests. One would that be would be the board's appointed go to guy for this project and any committees that are formed between us and the city. So I would be in favor of that because he is Mr. Clearwater. But so anyway, if he wants to bring that to us next week, you know, at a meeting, I think that'd be great. We could as a group agree. He's the point guy for the commission. Number two. Hold on. If, if, yeah, he wanted to serve on the commission or whatever committees put together to work on this, I think he wants to be a representative of the county commission. And I think that kind of conversation, we're going to have to really roll up our sleeves and decide if we want to be a part of that community conversation or when it's sold to a buyer or a buyer that they go through that process with the community. I mean, again, I asked a question about the zoning and land use that we have in place. It seems to be in line, at least that's what we're hearing. So regardless of that vision of what a developer has, it's not going to affect that part in our disposition piece of it. No, I'm just telling you. Unless we're going to put restrictions and I don't think we are going to get into that. We're going to get into that. There's a trade off between doing that input. And I don't necessarily disagree with getting some input. I'm just not sure how we are part of it. The seller of a piece of land has, has that role. We normally, the buyer does that. No, I'm not talking about the sale. I'm talking about what I'm referring to is communication. Like we can't go to these, any meetings between the city and have a conversation. I'm going to be having somebody sitting on that. Yeah, because we have sunshine laws. There's no way. That's fine. Perfect. I understand what you're saying. We need a representative to go. I mean, I don't know that that's all bad or good, but it's a different. I mean, I think, and Commissioner Laval is not here. So, you know, we can, we don't have to decide this today, right? No, no. But to, if, after we get, you know, proposers back, if you want to hold, and I think that's what he's referring to, hold some public meetings to get people's input based upon that. That's fine. Then I think that that would inform you as a policy board about people's views on what's being proposed. And that way they're reacting to something, right? Yeah. I think that's what he's referring to. Yeah. I didn't mean to cut you off. I know you had something else too. No, that's a, the other one was that he wanted to, he mentioned that he wanted to preclude our lobbyists from participating with the possible buyers. And I didn't know if he was going to make a, I didn't know if he was going to present something to the board to vote on to make sure that happens or not. I think we can, we can probably handle that directly from Tristan to, to ensure that that is enforced. Yeah. That makes sense. We would simply, I think it's a great. I do too. A great point. We would have, we would just make it clear they would have to conflict themselves out. Right. The lobbyists would recognize that on their own, but I think just a reminder would be helpful. Well, I just wanted to make sure that the commissioner a lot of all I knew that I paid attention to what he said because. Oh, I don't, don't let him know that. Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, chair. I think he had more than two things. He said about the board being able to add an applicant as well. Um, and that also, um, to lease some of the land in addition to selling some. I mean, I think we should just kind of put a, a pause on this, maybe until the April 2nd workshop and bring it back when there's a more, uh, higher, you know, quorum or voices here. Um, so we can really flush out those details with more folks here. Uh, cause I thought he brought up some good points. I mean, I'm just hearing these comments now. So, I mean, I don't want to give direction or anything to staff without, you know, commissioner Scott, commissioner, a lot of, I mean, they may have other feedback on it too. So, you know, I would just kind of like to hold off on that maybe until our April 2nd workshop or a meeting next week, um, to kind of flush out all of the points, um, instead of giving any direction to staff right now would be my, um, and I think I, I don't have necessarily a problem with that. I just, again, remembering what we're trying to do here, right. Just move property. Right. Yeah. Um, and we're going to get some input at the critical hours. Um, I think the leasing piece was brought up and the things that this request for negotiations has addressed, I think really takes care of that without getting into all the reasons that we were looking for land leases. Um, so I think that's one of them. And you mentioned another one. What was the other one? You said to add and the board would be able to have the ability to add. And I'm not sure how that works. I mean, if we're going to go out for RF, uh, RFN and they bring in the five projects come that you guys rank at what time, I mean, that may be something that we can find out. Would you let another one slip through outside the process? See, the process is in place for a reason. I'm, I'm a little bit concerned about, um, after the fact allowing entry points. I mean, Mr. Chair, we, we would certainly need to take a look at that from a legal perspective. I'm not sure it would be allowable. Yeah. Yeah. That's legal. I'm just talking even more practically for fairness to people who are engaging and weighing in early. So I'm not. Well, and I think commissioner has a point when we can get, we can have, uh, this discussion ongoing, but you know, one thing that's going to happen with this project, I mean, as he said, this is a generational project. Um, anybody that proposes here, whether they're qualified or not, are going to hire lobbyists. They're going to lobby you. They're going to get local people. They're going to lobby you. Right. I mean, and, and so the, the one thing we want to make sure is that we have a formal vetting process to where the people that you're considering, um, can actually build and deliver on the pretty pictures that they're going to promise. I mean, that process is real important or I'll be retired and in the audience watching you still struggle with being able to deliver, you know, on the project, you know, that was, that we talk, we're talking about here, that process, as long as, as long as you do that, however you do that and legally, whether you can add that or not, you just want to make sure that that process and, and they have CBRE has a, a process that they've used to be able to be able to do that. Yeah. And to me, if you're going to do this fairly and people are going to put their best foot forward and show their cards, so to speak, and you have somebody come along after the fact, I mean, there's a problem maybe legally, but I do think it goes against the spirit. I don't have a problem though, bringing it up on April 2nd. Again, we can still move forward as though that dates in play and we can always push it. I mean, again, you're not going to be announcing, you're not going to be marketing it. You're not going to be doing anything. We're going to have the April 2nd meeting, have further discussion. Yes. And then, and then we say at that point, okay, we're ready to go. Okay. I think that just, it gives our other three colleagues and I think that's a good point. We have three other colleagues that weren't really here and Kathleen has had her hands up so patiently. Again, Kathleen, Commissioner Peters, please go ahead and ask your question. My apologies. You're, you got to unmute. I, um, I, I just want to concur with Commissioner Nowicki and, and wait, and that's pretty much what you just said. So, uh, I, I think we wait until Commissioner Latvell is in person and, and when we have Commissioner Scott here, um, it's a big decision and I don't think it matters if we wait a couple more weeks. Totally agree. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. And you too, not just the two guys. Um, did you have something? Uh, yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Don Kroll from your county attorney's office. I just wanted to touch on two pieces. One, uh, as far as adding proposers once the, the period is closed for accepting the proposals, that's typically going to be a bid problem, a competitive solicitation problem, but also within this particular area, most of the property is within a CRA and there is a specific statute relating to disposition of properties within a CRA and timeframes and notice provisions and things like that, that would all apply. Not to say it's impossible. If we got down to recommendation came forward and the board didn't want to do that, you can always stop and start over, but it would take stopping and starting over. So I wanted to be clear on that. Second, the other issue that I wanted to touch on was the lobbying issue. The county's, uh, law, uh, purchasing process and the purchasing ordinance, which applies to this contains an anti lobbying provision that requires that lobbies. There is no lobbying while the, uh, RFN is out there and before there is an award based on the RFN. If any of you are lobbied by, uh, anyone for supporting any of the respondents, it disqualifies those respondents. I'm going to say that again. It disqualifies the respondents. So if they're hiring people to come lobby you, they've cut themselves out and we're going to make very clear all of this within the documents that go out there. So everybody's aware that there's no exceptions to that. The way our purchasing ordinance is written to, you know, state reps or anything like that. It doesn't matter. If somebody is coming in lobbying on behalf of a proposer under our ordinance, they're out. So I just wanted to kind of take some of that out there and put it out there in public. So everybody's clear and aware of this. So thank you. Appreciate it, Don. Okay. So we are going to come back on April 2nd workshop and we're going to have this on the topic again. And, uh, we'll see our CBRE folks back here, hopefully, um, and have further discussions, uh, and maybe some direction at that point. And maybe not. We'll see. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks. Uh, colleagues for that conversation. I think it was really good. Um, okay. We are moving from Clearwater to Laelman. Um, and we're going to talk about initiatives and partnership exchange update. So hello there. Good morning, commission. Um, Amy Davis, community coordinator with the Laelman areas. And happy to be before you this morning to, uh, talk about the Laelman exchange project. We are in project, um, year four now, but this is a wrap up of project year four, three. And then, um, uh, we're going to have, uh, our community partner, St. Petersburg Foundation, give the second part of the presentation. But I first wanted to acknowledge, um, the community foundation of Tampa Bay. We have Jesse and Maureen with us. And then, of course, our primary, uh, partner in this project, the St. Petersburg Foundation. We have Amy and Joe. And Amy Sianci is going to come up here and give the bulk of this presentation. I'm going to start with just going over a brief background and the framework of our agreement. So the county purchased the Laelman exchange in 2018. We refer to the building as Lex. So I might slip in Lex versus Laelman exchange. So I apologize. I wanted to just kind of throw that out there. Um, the, uh, uh, county conducted a strategic planning process in 2021 in what we envisioned the facility to serve as. And, um, it was a very extensive. And then we issued a letter of interest to implement that strategic plan. The St. Petersburg Foundation was selected to manage the Lex under the collective impact model. Amy is going to talk a little bit about what the collective impact is. Um, the Laelman exchange master lease and management agreement with the St. Petersburg Foundation was approved in 2022. And then just to talk about, um, the framework of the agreement, it was an initial three year term. It was extended five years last year. So it goes through September of 2029. The St. Petersburg Foundation leases and operates the Laelman exchange. They are responsible for the day to day facility maintenance and repairs. The operating costs and programming costs of that facility requires, um, a financial audit annually. And this facility does, um, come under, uh, county control when there's a event of an emergency. And it does operate at shelters from time to time. And it has both served as special needs shelter as well as step down shelter. Is that audit on the building alone and the contract that we have, or is it on the CRA that we're talking about? The audit is, um, off the, uh, St. Petersburg Foundation gets audited every year. Oh, they get audited, which includes this work. Yes. So in the, um, master lease and agreement, they, it says in there that they are required to do an annual audit. All right. So at this time, we're going to head into the, what's been happening at the Laelman exchange for project year three. And I'm going to introduce Amy Cianci from the St. Petersburg Foundation to, um, go through the rest of the presentation. And we'd be happy to take any questions afterwards. Good morning, everyone. I am thrilled to be back here, uh, in front of you guys to, uh, to our annual check-in on how we're doing out at the Laelman exchange. Uh, first, I just want to say, this is a report on project year three. We did extend year three to an 18 month project year to sync us up with the Pinellas County fiscal year. Uh, prior before that we were doing, um, we were doing an April 1st to March 31st project. And that just was really difficult with the financial reporting. So that's the decision was made to extend year three to 18 months. Um, which was, uh, which was great. It gave us a lot of, uh, a lot of time to really settle into what we were going to do with our year three project. Um, every year we give just a little bit of a theme. Year one was foundations facility and fact finding. Year two was people partnerships and programming. This extended year three was energy expansion and essentials. And what that basically meant was we went back to our strategic plan. We really dug in on all of the things that we had hoped and dreamed for the, the Laelman exchange property. Now that we were settled, we had a system out at the property. We are now fully tenanted, meaning every space that was available to rent is now full. Um, and now that we have such a great solid core partnership, we were able to expand our programming, test new programming ideas, and then go back to the community. Just as we had promised from the very beginning, um, to see how we were doing. Just to make sure that everything that we had talked about initially with the community, we were following through on. We've now decided to do that annually, and we call that Lex Listens. So every year we're going to go back to the community. We're going to open up the discussion. We're going to review what we're, what we're doing in the community center. Make sure that we're, we're reaching the right people. And make sure that when we are reaching them, we're reaching them in an easy and convenient way so that they can find the information they're looking for. And that everybody knows that the community center is for them. We're still finding people in our community that say, oh, I didn't know you guys were here if we have an event and they show up. You know, we're, we're now four years in, and I know we're going to hear that onesie twosie, but I'd love to have everybody throughout the CRA and into West Loman know that that community center is not only there, has services, but it's there for them no matter what it is that they need to stop in for. So some year three highlights as we're creating programming, we're also creating year over year, sustainable programming and long term plans. The exchange itself is fully rented. We have lots of fantastic partners. We'll talk about that in a minute. We developed the Loman voice, which is a local newsletter that goes out every other Friday. We're soon to expand that to every Friday and our readership increases every single month with that newsletter. We started our Loman farmers market last year. We are now in year two. We have the farmers market one Sunday a month, and we're growing and expanding that reach. We initially started that farmers market for two reasons. One, Loman is a food desert. We wanted to bring healthy food options directly to the community. And two, we wanted to bring more attention to the community center itself. So we started the farmers market at the community center. Now that the farmers market has grown a reputation, we've actually moved it into the Loman neighborhood park right on 54th Avenue North. So that the farmers market itself can grow its own personality and have its own, you know, kind of front row seat in Loman so that you see it on those Sundays when you're driving by 54th Avenue North. Our Loman Steam Day, bringing science, technology, engineering, and math adventures to the Loman community. We do this every summer now. We are planning our fourth annual Loman Steam Day that is held in the gym in July. All of our community kiddos are invited, including all of the summer camps that take place in the Loman community and the surrounding communities. And last year we had a couple hundred kiddos enjoy 12 separate learning stations and then a pizza lunch. And it's just been growing and it's been developing into something really, really fun for the kids. Our Loman swim program, this was one of our programs that was grown directly from a feedback session from the community. While we are only minutes from the beach in Loman, there are so many Loman kiddos who have never, ever been swimming or even put their foot in a pool. So I can't build a pool in Loman, but I can bring the Loman kids to a pool. So we partner with the YMCA. We had funding from our partners at Community Foundation Tampa Bay to support this program. And we start with six years old. We have the kids come in and learn swimming on Saturdays. If the kids are strong enough swimmers and they're interested, we have an extension program that will teach the kids and certify them for lifeguards. What's wonderful about that is it grows into jobs because we have a lifeguard. We don't have enough lifeguards out there to to service the local pools in the summers. So as soon as one of those kids get certified with lifeguard, they immediately have a job offer, which is wonderful. And then our Loman community health outreach. We're constantly working on that. We do have a Hagee machine in the Loman Center. We have partnerships with the Heart Association and Baycare Health and Evra Health. And so we're expanding that into our upcoming years. As I said, we are completely out of space. When I first started at the LAC Center, it was kind of a little bit of a wasteland. There was lots of empty, available space. We took our time. We vetted our partnerships, made sure that the nonprofits that were going to join us on property were going to be the right service partners and the right tenant partners. And now that we are full, it is active every single day. It is active every single weekend. The Wounded Warriors Abilities Ranch does adaptive sports. They use our gym. They have an office and a workout room and a storage space in Building B. The Family Center on Deafness has rented an entire wing of Building A upstairs. And they provide programming to the entire deaf community from birth to adulthood. Public Works Training Institute is a relatively new partner. They train potential employees for all of our public works departments throughout Pinellas County and beyond. They work with every municipality in the area to get people good long-term supportive jobs. And then Project PUP trains therapy dogs. They go in and out of schools, nursing homes, and hospitals, and provide much needed therapy through their animals, which is just great to have everybody on property with us. This is my favorite slide of the package. This is the heart of this project. As Amy Davis mentioned, this is a collective impact model. And what that means is that we bring a lot of partners to the table. The St. Petersburg Foundation is the backbone of this project. We don't create programming. We create partnerships. There are so many nonprofits out there doing all of the things that we need for Lowman in a great way. It's their mission. They're good at it. So our goal is to bring everybody together at the same table with a collaborative mission to provide those services to the community. So you can see that there are concentric circles outside of the Lowman Exchange. We have our tenant partners. They have their services. Outside of that, we have our Lowman organizations. There are so many awesome nonprofits doing great work in the Lowman community who have been there, some of them, as many as 30 years. So we partner with them on a daily basis to provide extensions to our own programming. And then outside of that, we have in those other concentric rings, other programming partners where they might come in. They might do a special event. They might do weekly programming. They might come in to teach classes. They are not tenants per se, but they are solid programming partners where they're there recurringly. And then outside of that, we have other nonprofits that are in what I keep calling Rolodex, which my Gen X partners or Gen Z partners are rolling their eyes because they don't know what that is. But our Rolodex of nonprofit partners is so important to us. We meet people where they are. If they come to the community center, we don't know what they're going to come in for. They might come in for a code violation on their property. They might come in for post-storm assistance. They might come in for just a simple question about, hey, I just moved here, and I don't know anything about the community. Can you help me out? So all of our partners in that Rolodex are important to make sure that whatever that person who joins us at the exchange, whatever they're looking for, whatever they need, not only can we provide a referral, but we can provide a phone call, a warm handshake, an introduction, and make sure that that person who's come to see us gets the services that they're looking for. As I said, we are busy all day, every day. This is our regular programming. We have senior movement classes. We have open pickleball. We have open basketball. Every day we have something, a little something for everybody. We have cardio drumming on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All of this is free. We are able, through our programming partners, through our funding partners like Community Foundation Tampa Bay and others, to provide all of these great services to our community for free. And any time we have the opportunity to extend that free programming, we absolutely do. However, this is a small slice of what's going on at the Lomond Exchange. Every weekend, special events, we have all kinds of things going on. So please do check out our online calendar and come visit us if you see something fun that you want to participate in. A couple of other programming highlights. As I said, there are so many great nonprofits in the Lomond community that have done a lot of work there for a lot of years. We realized this Christmas that the kiddos in the Lomond community are very, very well taken care of at Christmas. We have the fire department. We have the Florida Dream Center. We have the Lomond and Asian Family Center. They provide, you know, presents and family support and food support for those families at the holidays. What we realized was missing was our support for our local seniors. So this past Christmas, for the first time, we became a Silver Santa's tree sponsor. And we sent gifts to 80 seniors throughout the Lomond area and beyond. So we realized that this was an unbelievable success. You get it just like any other tree project. You get a tag. The gifts for the seniors are written on the tag. And some of these gifts are heartbreaking. Some of them are asking for like lotion and razors and T-shirts and socks. These are not a hard lift. So we reached out to our partners. We said, we've got these 80 seniors we want to be able to give a great Christmas to. And they came to us in droves. We had more gifts than we even asked for. So we will continue to do that. And we're going to grow and expand our reach with that project. We've hosted the Scripps Regional Spelling Bee in our gym. We had hosted NASA Steam Day, which was a wonderful experience. The Hibiscus Society annual show is now going to be with us every year. They really enjoyed their experience in our Neary event room. And the Pinellas County Death Fest will now be an annual project that we tackle. Amy, hold on one sec, please. Commissioner Peters has a question. I just wanted to know if you could put us on the mailing list for your newsletter. Absolutely. Because we certainly would like to know what's going on. And we haven't received anything like that. So it would be wonderful. Thank you. I would be happy to. Absolutely. I'll make sure I get you that link. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Go ahead. We did some facility improvements. So the building did sustain some damage during the tropical storm and the two hurricanes in 2024. We did activate as a shelter for 28 days, which was unheard of. We were not only a shelter for Helene, but then our shelter people were not able to get shifted out of that shelter situation when Milton occurred. We added additional members to our shelter operation. So it was about one month where we had, you know, an ongoing shelter operation in our main Neary event room. And I have to say that every single support person that came to help us at that shelter operation was fantastic. We had nurses and emergency personnel from all over the country come out and support. And in addition to our Pinellas County partners, you know, our partners with the Department of Health. It was an unbelievable deployment. And I kept hearing the word unprecedented. So it is something that, you know, none of us had ever lived through. We were making decisions daily and sometimes minute to minute with how we were going to handle, you know, that many people sort of living in a room that wasn't designed for it. But it was incredible. And at the same time, we did sustain some damage to the buildings. We have now officially replaced all three roofs on the buildings because they all leaked. And we've done some additional repairs and updates to the building, including the opportunity as part of the ceiling of the main building that you see there, the two-story building, to change the colors. So we were able to repaint that building as part of the resealing process. And now the colors match our Lumen mural, which is on the generator building in the parking lot. So that was a nice boost after the storms to have that facelift. We've made some updates to our Neary event room to make it more conducive to the events that are taking place in there. So we put a new floor. We did a new coat of paint, just freshened the room up. We had some grant money to support us with that. And then we continue to make upgrades to the access control systems out there. While we are not a school, we do have a K-12 school as a tenant. And, of course, we've got the YMCA Daycare Academy on property as well. On any given day, we have over 200 children joining us on property. So we do behave as a school. We have all the safety measures in place and the training, the annual trainings that Pinellas County Schools does so that we are, you know, we're vigilant and careful and we're being safe for everybody who comes out and joins us. We did some different communication improvements over the last 18 months. We have said before in my updates that Lumen's a hard community to reach. The biggest hurdle for us is to make sure that the community understands that there are services. There are free services. There are lots of things that they can participate in that could support what's going on in their lives with little or no cost to them. So we're constantly testing new marketing channels. We're constantly testing new communication channels to make sure we're reaching the people who need to be connected to the services that we have. So these are just some of the ways that we have made improvements over the last 18 months. And finally, looking ahead to year four, we got a grant in partnership with Community Tech House to provide computer classes. We got donated 18 laptops last year for St. Petersburg College. It was just in time. We had a computer lab upstairs in the building that had been installed right before COVID that had reached the end of its lifespan for technology. And so we've decommissioned that. We've rented that room to Project PUP. And exactly in the right moment, we were able to get the donated laptops so that we can continue our outreach with digital inclusion and digital learning. We are kicking off the Lealman Roots Historic Society. We have been gradually collecting lots of historic information about the community over the last four years. And we look forward to, you know, expanding some of that knowledge sharing and learning. Our gym bathrooms are sorely in need of a facelift. And we got some grant funding to support that. So that work will be starting in the next three weeks. We just did a walkthrough on those repairs yesterday. And then we had a playground donated to us from Pinellas Park. When they decommissioned Youth Park, they had a playground that was only a couple of years old. And so we took that as a donation. And now we are working to get funding to install that. So lots going on. Any questions? It's a lot. Yeah, we got a lot going on out there, but it's fun. I really like the Lex Listen part. I think that's going to be important. I was thinking about all of the efforts that you all are making and the money that's being spent and accountability measures. And there's probably nothing better than, well, metrics, I guess, is one thing. But hearing from your residents that live in the community, hey, I need more of this, or I didn't understand what you had. I think that's a great way to do it and get that feedback annually. So that's good. And then so I see the word pickleball again. Yes. Everywhere we go. And, you know, I thought it was more for seniors. And yet I'm finding kids, young teens are playing, 20s, 30s. So this is really an intergenerational sport. It is. We've got a hardcore pickleball group that comes Monday and Wednesday mornings. You should come out and join them. It's good. They're a little ruthless, though. I'm just wondering. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure they are. Any other questions for the folks? Great work. Thank you. Appreciate all the effort. And thanks for the update as well. And thank you guys, all of you, for your ongoing support of this project. It's been very meaningful. And it's working. Thank you so much. I was at a meeting last yesterday in downtown Palm Harbor, downtown Palm Harbor, who they're trying to galvanize a main streets program and just trying to scrape by and, you know, do some things. And Tom Almonte was there and we had a few people that just came out. We had a great turnout, community turnout, to kind of go through all the different, you know, concerns and interests and excitement. And so having that energy level and galvanizing it together is really, really important. And so I just, I want to continue to explore the possibilities and keeping our minds open to making sure that downtown Palm Harbor, economic recovery, development of the vacant lands, galvanizing communities based on the strategic plan that we put together and helping this main streets group made up of a lot of volunteers really pull together. And so in any event, just, just one, that was just one little, I thought I'd piggyback off of the, the Lailman effort, because I do think the model is really good. It doesn't fit completely for Palm Harbor for sure. But there needs to be a little bit of, of, of assistance to the community as well. We'll talk about that more down the road. Okay. Okay. We've talked about Lailman initiatives. We're going on to critical infrastructure, flood vulnerability assessment. Wow. There's a mouthful. Hello, Kelly. Welcome. All right. I realize I'm between you, the agenda briefing and lunch. So I will be as quick as possible, but I do want to take a moment to acknowledge our, our county project team here. I've got Josie Benwell and Harrison Netburn from our capital improvements team who, who ushered this project through. And we also have with us Sharon Wright from HDR, our consultant project manager. All right. So today I'm, I'm sharing the results of the critical infrastructure flood vulnerability assessment, which is required under the resilient Florida statute. This assessment helps us understand how flooding affects both our public infrastructure today and how those risks will evolve over time. The vulnerability assessment had three major goals, to identify flood risk to our public assets, to prioritize those risks, and to recommend strategies to reduce it. Completing this assessment also ensures we remain eligible for resilient Florida grant funding. And just for some context there, our utilities department received over $25 million for the wastewater collection system upgrades at those priority mobile home parks. And they also received about three and a half million for utility reliability upgrades under this program. Public works received $129,000 towards the living shoreline project. That's protecting the Philippi Park shoreline, $27.9 million for the Joe's Creek Greenway project, and an additional almost $13 million for the Cross Bayou Canal cleanup, Cross Bayou Canal improvement project. So what is the vulnerability assessment? It is a county-wide multi-jurisdictional study that evaluated flood impacts over three time horizons. We have 11 participating communities and several partners that were either critical infrastructure owners, such as the airport, or were technical reviewers. The other cities within Pinellas County are completing their own vulnerability assessments through the Resilient Florida grant program. In completing the vulnerability assessment, again, I mentioned the compliance, I mentioned the unlocking of the future funding opportunities, but it also gives us a roadmap for prioritizing infrastructure investments and designing those facilities that can withstand storm and flood impacts. Public engagement was a significant component of this work. We held a county-wide workshop. Our staff attended numerous community events, collected surveys, and hosted a virtual project meeting. Over 500 survey responses were collected, and this feedback helped shape the assessment and ensure that community concerns were reflected. Residents told us that flooding has significantly disrupted their daily lives. Many reported increased stress, travel disruptions, and reduced satisfaction within their neighborhoods. Roads, electricity, communication, and buildings were their top areas of concern. So as we moved through the vulnerability assessment itself, we began first by collecting data from county departments, cities, and regional partners, such as our hospitals and PSTA. The exposure analysis looked at whether the asset was impacted by floodwater. Was it inundated or not inundated? And we looked at 21 different flood scenarios over those three time horizons. The next step in the effort was to look at the sensitivity analysis, which considers additional characteristics of the asset, the site, or the area, like land use density or criticality of an asset. We considered not just whether it was flooded, but at what depth the different asset types were flooded. We also considered how critical a facility was based on public safety. So all the assets in the study are important, and they were included for evaluation. But relative criticality, we looked at a fire station is obviously a lot more critical than, say, like a restroom in one of our parks. We then looked at exposure and sensitivity analysis visually. And this is not to scale, but it's just a way to visualize how flood depth might impact a facility like a fire station. So in this case, you can see at approximately an elevation of 12 feet, this would impact access points into the fire station. As well, if the equipment was there, the undercarriage and the tire area would be impacted at that 12 foot of elevation. So these flood scenario maps are looking at different types of flooding. The first one just looks at tidal flooding. So we're talking about high tide flooding, king tide flooding, under current conditions, as well as those future scenarios. And we start to look at storm surge. And this is that 100 year event or the 1% chance flood. The 500 year, which is the 6% or 0.2% annual chance of flood. And we looked at significant heavy rainfall events like Milton. And then we looked at groundwater. And Commissioner Eggers, this one might touch you at the beginning of your time as a commissioner. We spend a lot of time up in Old Keystone and the groundwater issues coming up from the ground. So we do have areas in the county that do flood from groundwater conditions. So the takeaways were that across nearly all the scenarios evaluated, storm surge is the dominant driver of flood risk. I don't think that's any surprise compared to the other types of flooding. Regionally significant assets, including the airport, our solid waste complex and evacuation routes, show impacts in multiple scenarios. And there was just one emergency shelter with some potential impacts. Looking at our transportation infrastructure, it is particularly vulnerable. More than half of our bridge assets and over a third of roadways are exposed during storm surge scenarios. And this really aligns with what we observed during the hurricane season of 2024. This snapshot here highlights which asset types are most affected in the near future storm under storm surge and extreme rainfall. So you see our parks, our drinking water facilities and fire stations show some notable exposure, while our emergency shelters perform very well. So for example, about 24% of our fire stations are exposed under this scenario. So our next steps are to look at developing adaptation strategies for priority focus areas and submitting the final vulnerability assessment to the state of Florida by March this month. We then have to finalize the adaptation plan and submit that to the state by September. And then, of course, we're going to focus on trying to bring additional Resilient Florida grant funding to our capital programs. It's very, very helpful. It's allowing us to really extend the penny out and do more great work. With that, I'll take any questions. Thank you, Kelly. Any questions? Questions? No. No questions. Wonderful. Thank you very much. There you go. Thanks, Kelly. Kelly. Just a second, Kelly. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, and in my urgency to get my computer to work. I think I just forgot it. So many of those fire stations and police stations got damaged in Helene and Milton, and I think a lot of the smaller cities are planning on rebuilding them anyways. Do we have an estimate on how many are rebuilding? Like, I know St. Pete Beach is building a fire station. Treasure Island, I think, is going to build a fire station. I'm sure a lot of them that got flooded out are looking at rebuilding more resilient. So do we know future plans on those or not? We do not have the information on that, but the cities do have the information from the study. They're part of our project team. They have the information available to them to make those decisions. I mean, we can reach out if you'd like us to and see if there's any information on adaptation strategies that they're putting into place. Right. Because if we have 24% of our fire stations are at risk, right? Am I reading that right? Correct. Yes. So, you know, I know of at least two or three that are planning on building. I think St. Pete Beach is building this very soon. Maybe, you know, that might take it down to 18 or something like that. If we knew future plan. I mean, granted, it might take two to three years to get them built. So I guess this, I guess it doesn't matter. It's a, in five years, it'll be different. Yeah. We can definitely just, again, we're, we do have staff, um, from those cities participating and, and we can inquire with them, um, because you're right. If they are, I'm sure they are elevating. Um, and there are other means of, you know, protecting access points, um, uh, from flood water. So we can see if they are, you know, considering some of those things and you're right. It would remove them. It would at least, um, minimize their exposure under certain scenarios. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Kelly. Okay. We can go right into the agenda briefing. I guess we're going to have, um, some lunch. Sandwiches to go. The lunch has been ordered and available. So we go ahead and we can put it out. We'll finish our, um, area. If people want to hang out and eat before they leave, they can. We thought it might be going a little bit longer. So we'll go ahead and get that out. Thank you. We'll do the, uh, our meeting. Okay. Uh, so you have a developmental disabilities awareness month proclamation, uh, Florida surveyors and mappers, um, week proclamation. Um, various, um, reports, um, throughout down to the first regular item is item 21. It's the rank of firms with land and water engineering science for engineering services for the Starkey channel five bank stabilization project. Item 22 is ranking of firms, um, with ASR, uh, LS four. Okay. So this is a compliance injection. Well, so this eliminates the surface water discharge. Jeremy's talked so much about over the last several years. And we really only have that issue at South cross, but, uh, this is to be in compliance with Senate bill 64 under the regular agenda. Um, item 24 is public transportation grant agreement with the Florida department of transportation for the design and construction, uh, with passenger terminal improvements. So this gets us additional grant funds for our passenger terminal. Item 25 is amendment number one. Uh, this is a guaranteed maximum price for the North County service center that we just heard a presentation on. Item 26 award of bid, uh, to Diaz and Fritz group for the Palm Harbor recreation center that we just heard. Item 27. So this is declaring surplus, um, um, um, this multiple county owned, uh, surplus properties. Uh, so this is one that you'll want to put on hold, uh, pending the April 2nd, uh, um, discussion. Yeah, we can bring that to the next commission meeting. And we'll just put it on for the following, but you'll have to take an action to table it to the, to the next agenda. Yep. Okay. Item 28 is another one. You heard this is competitive arts tourism grant program. Item 29, um, uh, lead event funding recommendation from TDC for the St. Pete powerboat Grand Prix. Item 30 is revisions to the event funding program guidelines, uh, for, uh, next year. Mr. Chair. Just a couple of things about that. Um, I wanted to, since we're doing the eligibility requirements, I believe that, uh, the governor's getting ready to sign the Senate bill, the new Senate bill, which will affect funding. I wanted to make sure our, our, I wanted to make sure the, the, uh, requirements for the funding under that comply with that new law. Um, for which item or, uh, for the, we're talking about, uh, elite funding. Oh, the elite. So the tourism development tax. Yes. And I think that, uh, wanna make sure that the new requirements comply with the, the new law that the governor's gonna sign tomorrow. to sign tomorrow. Oh, you're specifically referring to funding around DEI? Yeah, well, that's the law, and I don't want us to be... So this is... Okay. Well, we'll have to comply, obviously, with any law. Why don't we look at that and discuss it on Tuesday? Okay. I didn't want to vote on the new requirements if they're going to not comply with the upcoming law. I don't think it impacts us, but I'll have Blaine look at that with Brian, and we'll have that available, and we'll give you a report before next Tuesday. I just thought I'd bring it up, because it's going to be done between now and then. I understand. Yeah, there were some carve-outs at the end. There were some carve-outs for certain events like Dr. Martin Luther King and others, because so many senators and House members spoke up on that, as well as there's a lot of ambiguity as it relates to just what do you consider something specific for a specific category of people. Representative Rainer introduced a bill that said as long as the event is open to all people or the activity is open to all people. And so henceforth, the lawsuit that's going forward. So I'm not sure... I mean, the governor can sign it, but there's a lawsuit against it anyway. But there are other categories, which I'm sure Tristan and others can provide to you that were carved out for that particular bill. I've heard the Senate bill 1134. I'm sorry, I couldn't find my note, but... No problem. We'll look at it and have an answer for you before Tuesday. Okay, great. Okay. Item 31 is affordable housing program funding recommendation for Skyway Flats, $6 million for land acquisition costs, 174 multifamily affordable apartments, and this commits... I've got a statement I'll read next Tuesday, but this commits $91 million out of the $94 million of the penny. Item 32 is affordable housing program project recommendations for 35 multi-unit housing for the homeless empowerment program. So this is actually specialized federal funds for from home ARP for funding construction. So this was a special grant for projects of this type. 33 is a letter of agreement with authorized Crime Stoppers funding for the 26 to 29 years grant award program. Item 34 is increase the upset limit with Amazon services for our online marketplace. So we buy a lot of material through that. A lot of it's actually local through this service. I thought there was $15 million remaining in the penny money for housing, but you just said this commits $91 out of $94 million, which would... So was there $15 million remaining or was it $7 million? No, it's... You got like $3 million. So... So did it drop because of these projects? No, it dropped because of the business rent sales tax, um, uh, provision that was passed last year. Um, and so that, that business tax that was reduced, reduced the program. I mean, it's a set. So it reduces, uh, the amount of money coming in. I didn't know that there was a drop because I was working off of the 15. He knows what I'm talking about. I was working off of the $15 million. That's why it... Yeah, it's been reduced from 90, uh, $99 million to $94 million from, in our projections. Thank you. I just, it hit me. Thank you. That's the, that's the bill that was passed last, last year. And we're realizing... Oh, Jesus. Okay. All right. Um, item 35, real property donation, uh, two parcels of submerged land on Lake Seminole. So from, um, these folks, and this allows us to have better access for, uh, Lake Seminole. Item 36, 20, 2026 surface, uh, transportation block grant funding application for East Lake, uh, road, south of Curlew, north of Trinity, to north of Trinity Boulevard. Grant requests a 71 man for construction. While the final design hasn't been decided, the project will reconfigure. So county match would be $70 million. But again, this is just to apply for additional funding. Item 37 is an agreement and certificate transfer with Ozark services for, uh, the purchase of voluntary clean-up. And Kelly would have to explain this if, uh, you have questions. Uh, item 38, uh, construction change order with KNR for 70, uh, first street north, uh, to, uh, for, let's see, uh, uh, covers additional, a replacement of a 24-inch reclaimed water main. That was unforeseen, um, 385 for unseen conditions also. This is, uh, next one's 39. This is a change order. This is for the same thing, but this is for Whitney Road and Wilford Road. Uh, so primary purpose, um, let's see, this addresses, uh, cost overruns associated with unsuitable material removal, embankment, um, an 8-inch water main removal, and 8-inch main installation and utility conflicts with Largo assets. Item 40 is emergency watershed protection program forms from, um, for natural resources conservation services for various, uh, so this is additional grant funds that we've talked about for various places throughout the county. Um, this goes back to funding that was applied for, um, back with, um, the hurricanes. Now, for Milton, uh, from impact from Milton. Item 41 is a fourth amendment to agreements with Jacobs Engineering. This is for engineering, uh, design services for Joe's Creek. Fourth amendment provides the final design permitting, uh, from the original agreements. Item 42 is local agency program agreement for the Portland, Florida Department of Transportation, uh, for, okay, so this is improvements, um, or for damage that was occurred during, um, from Hurricane Helene, uh, for repairs to Dunedin Causeway. Item 43 is agreements and disclosures with Duke Energy for, um, for the Dunn reclamation facilities. This is relocate, relocate, they're relocating a transformer, transformer, which requires us to redo the agreement that we have with them. Item 44 is change order number two with QRC, uh, for fiscal year 24 through 28 annual water and reclaim water repairs and extension work order. What was the bulk of that increase just, it went from, I guess, it almost doubled. Oh, additional years? Yeah. Jeremy Wall, utilities director. QRC is our emergency water contractor to do, uh, emergency water repairs. Uh, the, the current contract was fiscal year 24 through 26. Um, and that fiscal year we had the hurricane. So we used the emergency repair contract to do small repairs. They were above our staff level. So we used up the emergency repair contract dollars at the front end. And so this extension adds those dollars back into what would be our normal expected emergency repairs. Thank you. All right. Item 45 is approve a TEPRA hearing for multifamily housing. Um, this is for the rental housing project at Largo Station, $19 million. Um, no county general funds. This is 4% low income tax credit project. Second one is the same thing for Bay Point, uh, 15.7 million. Um, and again, this, uh, obligates no county general fund, 4% low income housing tax credits, part of it. Um, item 47 is TEPRA hearing, uh, by the housing finance authority for the Skyway Flats project, $21 million. This one also, though, has Penny for Pinellas, um, funds for the land costs associated with that, that you, that was previously in the agenda earlier in the agenda. 48 is the same thing. Um, housing, multifamily housing revenue bonds for Wingate Apartments. This is 264, um, multifamily rental housing. You can see the breakdown of the funding sources within your packet. County attorney has a lot. Um, under items 49, 53, and 54, those are all confidential items. Commissioner Nowicki, you and I will be meeting tomorrow to discuss those. Otherwise, I've met with all of you individually to talk about those three items. Um, under item number 50, I'm requesting authority to initiate litigation. This will actually be a cross-claim that we intend to file against Cigna. Um, we've been named as a defendant in a lawsuit. We have tendered them the request for them to indemnify us under the contract, and they have failed to do so. Uh, so we're going to file a cross-claim against them. Under item number 51, uh, this is, this is a request I'm bringing to you to waive a conflict for a law firm, um, that represents the county as outside counsel. I do not often do that because we do not often request waivers. We just don't employ the law firms, um, but this firm is one that has represented us for quite some time, um, on workers' compensation matters. They provide a secondary review once the proposed settlement gets to a certain dollar amount. Um, it's Banker Lopez is the firm. They, they are currently representing us as insurance counsel for a contractor that did agree to indemnify us and pick up our, uh, representation. Um, because they're insurance counsel, they do have other, many other entities that they represent. It has created a conflict in certain instances, not one that they think is going to be material, material to the representation. So, again, we're going to recommend that, that you all approve that. Um, item number 52 is a ratification of a case that was filed with the chair's consent on an animal cruelty case. And under 55, I currently do not plan to have any reports, but we will see what happens between now and Tuesday. Item 56, I will have a report, and one of the things I'll be asking for is, as we kind of got into that before, um, the amount of funding that we have available under the penny for the 4.15 percent has been reduced from 99 million to 94 million, uh, because of the Florida, the business, um, rent tax, uh, rent sales tax that was eliminated last year. Um, that, um, that, with that reduction, we've committed 91 million dollars, uh, to the 18, um, housing projects. We have a balance of 3.4 million dollars, and we currently have eight applications with a total of 37 million that have been submitted. So, you know, I'll be asking next Tuesday that we close down this program, um, because, until we get through those current applications, um, because why take more applications when we own, when we're basically closed out for the funding, uh, for that at this time? The additional eight applications are 37 million dollars? Correct. And we have 3.4 million dollars left. So you want to shut it down? Or we consider these? No, we'll close it down to any new applications. We'll go through these applications. We'll see what happens with these applications. If all of them fall off, then we can open it back up. Okay. But, um, no reason to create hope when, you know, you've already got 37 million dollars of applications out there. Um, well, I remember when we had this discussion and, you know, prior to 2020 when the penny kicked in, and I think the last time, um, in the last decade, it took us five or six years to deliver the first affordable housing project. That's what FAST and some of the other groups were complaining about. Well, we're in 2026 and we've, um, expended the funds. So that's a good thing, but you're right. It's going to create a pent-up demand for these projects. Um, then you have, uh, several appointments. You have appointments for the Housing Finance Authority. Um, oh, no, you have one appointment. That's for the Housing Finance Authority. And I missed one, and that was to the, um, construction licensing board. So those are your two appointments. Then we go into the evening. You have presentations from, uh, Clearwater for Youth. Um, going on to your public hearings. Number 61 is a countywide map amendment from public, semi-public to low-medium. Um, this is in the city of Largo. It's a historical, um, uses of in a church and a daycare, uh, contains an aging structure. The land will be subdivided in two residential parcels. It was unanimously recommended. Item 62 is a petition, uh, to vacate a portion of a six-foot drainage utility easement. And staff recommends approval. Item 63 is a petition from Bel Air Mobile Home Owners to vacate a portion of George K. Floyd Road, uh, declared to be a public road. Request for the vacation is for a portion of the 66-foot right-of-way, unimproved right-of-way. Um, the request removes an encumbrance on the petition's properties. Staff recommends approval with a condition that we be granted a new 15-foot wide maintenance easement. Item 66 is, um, from the future lane-use map amendment from commercial neighborhood and employment to commercial general, uh, applicant seats, uh, this amendment, uh, would be a non-conforming solid waste transfer station. So, um, this was, this came to you with a 5-2 vote. So, you'll be hearing this with, for outdoor sales, uh, proposed uses, uh, outdoor sales and truck parking. And then, item 65 is the companion zoning piece. Item 66, designate, designation of House of Seven Gables at Heritage Village as a landmark. 67, designation of Plant Summer House at Heritage Village as a landmark. And, um, 68 is reauthorization of the 9th cent, um, fuel tax for, um, this is, this does all of our, uh, ATMS projects. Uh, so all of our light, uh, interconnect lights and, uh, that project, that's how this is funded. So, this is just a renewal of that. And 69 is an ordinance amending the, um, fire, our fireworks ordinance as we discussed previously. So, it's our agenda. Okay. You rambled through all of that. I didn't see any people raising their hands for questions. Is there anything else? Well, I guess, um, I was going to bring it up, you know, in the future, but just maybe to plant the seed early. I don't know, you know, if it's something I could talk with Jewel maybe tomorrow. But for our fuel tax, um, you know, I thought we got, um, such a good response on the electric vehicle. We're moving it from our county buildings for free a couple weeks ago from the public. I don't know if there's any way to implement, like, an EV charging tax to help offset the cost of the loss that, you know, we're not getting from the gas tax to go towards, you know, this that they pay. So, I mean, it was something I was going to bring up to the board to see if they have any interest on or if we're even legally allowed to do that. But, like, an electric vehicle tax, when someone charges their vehicle in the county, that, you know, we would get. Yeah, I think, uh, knowing, yeah, knowing whether it's a state or a local. That came up at the state. I don't know if we have local authority. Like, our local. It didn't go anywhere giving us the authority to do it, or? No, local government doesn't have the authority to tax. Mike, please. Oh, I'm sorry. Local authority doesn't have the ability to tax that. It was a proposal that was put forth on the state legislature's side, and it didn't go anywhere. The proposal on the state legislature was to give us the authority, or what was it? It was to be able to tax. Oh, okay. Because the comment was, you know, people are buying these vehicles. We're losing money in the state of Florida because they're not buying gas at the pump. We've been telling them that for a while. Yeah, but it didn't go anywhere, it didn't get any movement. That's not to say that you can't be a part of a conversation for, um, our agenda next year. The delegation. Yeah, but it didn't go anywhere last year. My guess is that we do not have that authority. I'm being advised by staff that we do not have that authority. I'll confirm that and let you all know, but typically taxation has to come from the state. I think that's what I understand, but the thought behind it is right on target because we've been saying this to the state for, in all of the white papers that we give them, you know, the wear and tear that those cars put on our roads is huge. And they don't pay any gas tax. So, at least they need to share in their heart of that. So, yeah, that and the, you know, raising and indexing. This is also a good segue into when the Florida Association of Counties goes into their legislative session, anyone can propose language to a committee. You don't have to be a member of the committee either. Anyone can propose language to that committee or request for consideration. So, if that is something you would like to bring up, it was discussed as well through FAC, but if that is something you would like to bring up, then you can do it through the transportation committee with the Florida Association of Counties. It can be presented during the first conference that we have to set the legislative agenda for FAC, and then it goes through the committee, and if you can attend the meeting, you can speak on the bill. Not the bill, I'm sorry. You can speak on the proposed language, and then that committee takes a vote as to whether or not it wants to include it as a part of the FAC legislative agenda or not. This is all through FAC. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm just sharing a way that you can get additional support of that is something you want to consider. And then FAC staff also weighs in, based on what they're feeling from the House and the Senate in Tallahassee, your decisions can either be we move forward, it could be it's denied, or it could be that it is referred back to staff to work the language. So, that's another way, if you desire to move that down. I'm sure glad we have a high-ranking FAC board officer. We're just adding it to the list of things that you have to address for us. Thank you, Commissioner Norwich. Anything else? Anybody? Seth? All set? Food's ready? All right. We are adjourned. Thank you.