February 11, 2026, meeting of the Ford Pinellas Board. If you'll please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next, we'll go around the room with introductions, and we'll start to my left with our vice chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Brian Scott, Pinellas County Commission. Good afternoon. Councilmember Patty Reed with the City of Pinellas Park. Hello, everybody. Mayor Mo Franey, City of Dunedin. Proud home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Spring training time. Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters. 21st. Deborah Feex Sanders, St. Petersburg, City Council. Mike Eisner, Vice Mayor, Tarpon Springs. Chris Johnson, Vice Mayor, City Largo. Brandy Gabbard, City of St. Petersburg, City Council. Chris Shear, Pinellas County Commission. And Whit Blanton, Executive Director. And I am Gina Dreskel, St. Petersburg City Council member, and proud to be serving as your chair for this board this year. Tina, do we have any citizens who wish to be heard? Yes, Madam Chair. We have David Ballard Geddes, Jr. Thank you. Good afternoon, sir. Hi. Good afternoon. It's nice to be here. It's good to see everyone. My name is David Ballard Geddes, Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. The framers of our Constitution established it as a ship of war, currently conducting peacetime operations in Article I, Section 10, held in secrecy in Article I, Section 5. And that's called a constitutional reproach. A sneak attack, constitutionally, if you will. Initially, they've declared to eat us out of our subsistence of water in the Declaration of Independence, intending to capture the water supply. In Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, and with it, capture the religion of Christianity and its constituted reproach, the 14th Amendment births this secret ship of war as a water jurisdiction, taking the liberty, the property, and the life of Christians, as deduced in the 14th Amendment. Federalist paper number 79 states that in order to control man's will, you must first control man's subsistence. That's water. Death to the voice of justice and consiguinity as written in the Declaration of Independence. Hamilton's first constitution, our current constitution, is seen as a useful art for limited times in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. George Washington, in his Farewell to Christianity address, states that we are being given a useful lesson on our heads. Federalist paper number 64 states that our current constitution is inexcusably defective, inexcusably. As this constitution, our current constitution is hypocritically being used as a bill of attainder, as a letter of marquee, as a form of reprisal of such in this constitutional reproach. The surveillance corridor that's been established throughout this nation, based on the questionable actions that led up to the Patriot Act, reminds me of a pre-war buildup in World War II. The roundabouts on Alternate 19 look eerily similar to a Nazi checkpoint. Only problem is, the Christian population is the one that's being subjected, and the tyrants are not the Germans. Moving forward on such questionable foundations is not advisable. Thank you. Thank you. Tina, do we have any other citizens who wish to be heard today? No, Madam Chair, we do not. All right. Thank you. We will close that section of our meeting and go on to our recognitions and announcements. Unfortunately, she's not here. Right. But we will recognize that Commissioner Renee Flowers has been elected as the next president for the Florida Association of Counties. And so if you'll all join me in congratulating Commissioner Flowers. Next, we have our five-year service, staff service award. This is really one of my favorite things to do. So I'm really pleased. There you are. You're over on that side. I'm really pleased to announce that Nusheen Rahman has been here now for five total years with Pinellas County. So we count all of her years of service because she had to go find out what it was like working in the private sector for a little while. So she left us for a year and then felt like we were family and she came back and we really appreciate that. And so I have a neat little pen there for five years and a plaque for congratulations. And I just want to let the board know and everybody who's watching that Nusheen is a special projects planner who is a multidisciplinary planner who can take on transportation, land use projects. And she does everything with a great attitude and really is adept at building partnerships. And she's kind of our point person on some of the more thorny things that we've dealt with, such as the water ferry service, waterborne transportation, and just dealing with a lot of issues in places like Indian Rocks Beach and just a lot of good communities. So, Nusheen, we're glad you're still here and still willing to keep at it. Thank you for the kind words, Witt, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for taking the time to recognize our milestones in service. It obviously really matters to me that I work here because I clicked my heels twice and came back. And I really appreciate working at a place where we're encouraged to be innovative and collaborative in our work. It's really important to me to have those values in my work and even more so that we get to do it in the public interest. So, thank you for this recognition, and I look forward to the next milestone. Thank you, and congratulations. All right, next up we have our consent agenda. Do we have any board members who would like to pull any items from the consent agenda to be handled individually? Otherwise, I'll entertain. Oh, I'm sorry. Tina, do we have any members of the public who wish to speak on this? No, Madam Chair, we do not. Okay. Move approval. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Who moved the motion, please? I didn't catch it. I'm sorry. I thought so. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our public hearing items, item 6A, proposed amendments to the transportation improvement program. And for this, we have Ryan Hutton joining us today from Ford Pinellas. Good afternoon, everyone. Do we have the PowerPoint for this? Sorry. We have two amendments for you guys today to the transportation improvement program. So it should be in your packets there. But the first amendment is to add FTA Section 5339 funding for a backup PSTA generator. So they currently have a generator at PSTA facilities, but it's installed on the road level, and it's vulnerable to flooding and storm surge. So this project that we'd be adding to the tip with this amendment would just be for installing a backup generator on an elevated platform to reduce that flood risk, improve the overall resiliency of that project. And the second amendment we have would be the transfer of the FTA ferry grant from heart to PSTA. So that funding would be used for the purchase of ferry vessels to support that cross-bay ferry service between downtown St. Pete and downtown Tampa. And so these projects are in FDOT's work tables. So this would just be adding consistency to our transportation improvement program, adding it to our tables as well. And I can take any questions about either of those projects. If you have any questions. Motion for approval. All right. So we have a motion and a second. Tina, did you get that? Right here. Okay. Thank you. Sir? Just not sure if you know the answer to this. Is it a purchase or is it a lease on the generator? I do not know the answer. I can get you that information, though, for sure. Okay. The only reason I ask is we just went through this, and the lease is just so much more expensive than the purchase. So that's what I was curious. But that's it, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. And do we have any members of the public who would like to speak on this item, Tina? No, Madam Chair. We do not. Okay. Great. We have a motion and a second. This one is a roll call vote. If we can go ahead and move forward with that. Commissioner Scott. Council Member Reed. Mayor Freeney. Yes. Commissioner Peters. Council Member Floyd. Mayor Love. Yes. Council Member Figgs Sanders. Vice Mayor Eisner. Yes. Vice Mayor Johnson. Yes. Council Member Gabbard. Yes. Commissioner Shearer. Yes. Council Member Driscoll. Yes. That carries unanimously. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go next to the Pinellas Planning Council public hearing. And those are conducted as follows. I first ask the board members to affirm they have reviewed staff report materials provided to them for Pinellas staff is available if requested for a presentation and to answer any questions. We do have the applicant local government here for questions if needed. Next, I would ask for proponents of the proposal to speak, then opponents, and then finally any other citizen who wishes to speak on this item. After that, the board can ask questions. I close the public hearing and the board will deliberate and take action. So, we have item 6B1 regarding the City of Largo. I want to affirm that all board members have received and reviewed the staff report and the materials that were provided on this particular case. Do any board members request a presentation on this item? No? Okay. And we do have City of Largo staff, if questions do come up. Tina, do we have any proponents, opponents, or other citizens wishing to be heard on this item? No, Madam Chair, we do not. All right. Thank you. We'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Board members, do you have any questions on this item? Move approval. We have a motion and a second to approve this item. Tina, is this one a roll call vote? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Thank you. Next, we have our presentations and action items for today, starting with item 7A. That would be our PSTA activities report. Normally, we have Vice Mayor Reed, who offers the report and entertains questions and comments. Did we have, in his absence, was there someone else who is providing the PSTA report today? Yes, Madam Chair, Council Member Figg Sanders. Thank you. I will call on the Honorable Council Member Figg Sanders and the Chair of PSTA to provide that report. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. So, the PSTA Board of Directors' meeting summary. We met on Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. PSTA recognized outgoing board member, Commissioner Chris Latvala, for his service to the agency and welcomed two new incoming board members, Commissioner Vince Zawicki and St. Petersburg Council Member Richie Floyd. The PSTA Board approved several action items during the January meeting. These included, one, a 2006 PSTA Gillick bus donation to the Pinellas Technical College for their commercial driver's license, Class B instruction, and maintenance training program. Two, exercising the first-year option for the Access Paratransit contract with TransDev, which provides door-to-door transportation for people who cannot utilize the fixed-route bus system. And three, an interlocal agreement with the City of Dunedin for a cost-share of new artist-designed shelters along Skinner Boulevard. PSTA will be happy to work with any other cities that may be interested in a shelter-cost-share partnership. The PSTA Board deferred approving a one-year contract extension with a commute with Enterprise, the VanPool service provider, until the February Board due to request for additional information about the VanPool program. The Board also received two information-only presentations. One, certification of a general administrative expenses, which highlighted the PSTA remains very efficient in administrative costs compared to other Florida transit agencies. And two, an overview of the February service changes with updates on new routing and schedule improvements for several other routes. And that concludes the report, Madam Chair. Thank you. Any questions on the report from the Board? All right. Thank you so much. Next, our regional activities report provided by WIT. Okay. Well, this is a busy week in regional transportation circles. We have a meeting on Friday with the Transportation Management Area Leadership Group. And I invited this full board to that, as well as the representatives of our larger cities of Clearwater, Largo, and St. Petersburg. But the focus of the meeting is really on the TMA representatives and the principals who are able to make a decision about re-designating or de-designating a metropolitan planning organization. And those principals are the four counties or the three counties of Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough, and the City of Tampa City Council. We do expect there will be a good turnout at this meeting on the 13th. And what we are seeking to affirm are the preferences of the group on how we apportion the board to the consensus position is of a board potentially as large as 25 with two seats off the top for the Aviation Authority and the Port Tampa Bay in Hillsborough County. Because they act as regional operators of transportation and then to allocate seats based on population after that. The main decision that we have not reached yet, and even those decisions on the size of the board and the makeup of those operators, is still dependent on final action. So it's tentative. The other decision that needs to be made is how do we handle the smaller cities? So that will be a focus of the conversation on Friday. And there are several options that have been developed and will be presented for feedback. Those options all provide a structural mechanism for small cities to be a part of the regional MPO. And under all those scenarios, that small city representative would be a voting member of the regional MPO. The question is whether we form a small cities advisory committee and that body elects the small city representative or whether it's left to each county to determine the best method of involving smaller cities as in that structure. And we've been very careful that under that scenario, it would still be a direct vote of the small cities and not subject to approval by, say, the Board of County Commissioners. So just wanted to make that clear. There will be other opportunities for the participants to engage in conversations about this. And from the actions on the 13th and preferences on the 13th, staff will be developing a recommendation about the makeup of the governing board, the apportionment plan. And we'll be presenting that to the Joint Board of County Commissioners sometime hopefully in March at their next meeting. And then we would like to then schedule this item for a vote of the four principal bodies before the end of June. And if that happens and it's an affirmative vote, we would move into phase two of the study, which would get into some more details about the structure of the regional MPO, the staffing plan, whether it's an independent or hosted arrangement hosted by a local government, and whether there would be some sort of local revenue source provided. So there's a lot of detail still to be worked out that would also entail legal agreements and operating agreements for the regional MPO. And that work is scheduled to be finished by the end of this year. And the goal then would be to, if there's an affirmative vote, is to then move forward in 2027, potentially with the merged MPO. So I encourage you all, if you're able, to participate on the 13th. If you're not able to and still are curious, there is a live stream option available so you can watch and listen to the discussion. And then I'll be sure to report back at your March meeting. We are scheduling, by the way, before we take this to any of the counties or the city of Tampa for a vote, to have each of the MPOs also have an opportunity to vote on the recommendation. So if it doesn't pass the MPOs, there's not much point in going to the principals with this. Are there any questions on what's up for the 13th or anything that I covered in that next steps? Yes, we are at the Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority in downtown Tampa. And then the next item I want to mention is Commissioner Johnson and I attended the MPO Advisory Council meeting in Orlando at the end of January. And it was paired with the Florida Metropolitan Planning Partnerships meeting, which happened the day later. The MPOAC meeting was, I thought, very well attended and very informative. Commissioner, is there anything you want to say about that meeting? No, I mean, there wasn't a ton covered in that particular meeting, but it's been great attending so far. Really appreciate you taking the time to drive to Orlando and make that trip. I know you had a federal update on some legislation that's passing through, and I did want to bring to your attention, you have a handout in front of you from the Association of MPOs. There has been legislation introduced in Congress on the reauthorization of the federal transportation program. It's called the Basics Act. And I guarantee you this is not the only legislation that will be filed. There may be other bills filed, and this may also be amended. But this is a bill that MPO very strongly supports, and it has some really good provisions from my perspective in it, with more of an emphasis on formula-based transportation programs as opposed to discretionary grant programs. Five years ago, when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed, it was a real departure from tradition of having primarily transportation funding through formula programs based on population or ridership or things like that, and just a big shift towards discretionary grant applications. And I don't believe Florida has seen its fair share of those funds through the discretionary program, and we would be more guaranteed to get a return on our tax dollars by having a more formula-based program. This also puts more money into planning programs and provides more authority for MPOs to make decisions. So obviously, AMPO supports this bill. There are rumblings that there will be other bills that are less favorable to MPOs and multimodal transportation. So stay tuned is my best advice on that. And I also want to mention that at the MPOAC meeting, I was elected vice chair of the staff director's advisory committee, which I don't think will be a huge commitment, but it is an opportunity to help shape statewide decisions on how MPOs function and operate. So I look forward to that opportunity, and to serve with my old client, Greg Slay, who used to be the MPO director in Marion County, and now he's in the Tallahassee Capital Region. And then one final note, I was able to lead a session with FDOT at the meeting the next day, Florida Metropolitan Planning Partnerships on Land Use and Transportation Case Studies, and it was very well received by the group, and it was a real honor to be asked by DOT to do that. So hopefully we'll have more opportunities to showcase what we do here in Pinellas County. That's my report. All right. Any questions on that? Well, thank you for that, and congratulations on the vice chairmanship. Sounds like a really good opportunity. And you always represent us very well at these things, whether it's that or it's FDOT. I just, I appreciate you. We can go next to item 7C, which is committee communication. I will handle that as well. And, you know, we've been trying to do a better job as staff of bringing to you items that our Citizens Advisory Committee votes on that are not items on their agenda, but things that they want to bring to the board's attention. And we have a great CAC. They are increasingly a diverse group since 10 years ago when I was hired as the executive director. And they are very committed to addressing our transportation issues and needs here in Pinellas County. And they bring a lot of good ideas and communication to the table. And so we have asked them to make sure that when they do this that they are actually voting on it because we don't want to just bring something that two or three members thought was important. We really want to reflect the strength of the body. And there's been a lot of discussion in these meetings about safety, particularly vulnerable road users. But there are a lot of concerns about electric devices on our trails and on our roads. The number of crashes that we've had has drawn a lot of media attention. And then the fact that even automobile drivers still are at a very high risk here in Pinellas County because we are consistently one of the highest crash and serious injury and fatality rate counties in the state. So the CAC requests that the Ford Pinellas Board encourage stronger partnerships with local governments to support sustained education and traffic enforcement. And they also added the requirements to have car insurance in the county. I think there's a sense that some people might be able to show insurance, but then they cancel it afterwards and then they're not paying for it. So that's not really in our purview, but certainly safety and education are. And I think they directed this really to the attention of you all as local government representatives in hopes that you would work with your respective law enforcement agencies and other organizations to really just continue to encourage safety, enforcement, and education on the roads. And as we've heard the sheriff and others say, that even pulling people over and giving them a warning is an education moment and an opportunity for people and can encourage good behavior. So if there are questions about the CAC's motion, I'll be happy to entertain it, but I think they would be very pleased to hear your reaction and provide any further guidance. All right. Any questions on that item? Well, I do. First, I'm happy to see that the CAC is taking this work so seriously and that they're prioritizing safety. And from this report, it looks like they had a great discussion about it. And it did catch my attention that it's kind of a call to action to those of us who serve in local government to see what we can do at our respective levels to enhance enforcement and education. Can you tell us, did they have further discussion about that, get into details, throw around ideas? Is there anything more that you can share with us that they talked about regarding what that looks like? Well, I think the direction was really for you all to be ombudsmen effectively with your local government and kind of carry that message kind of back from the MPO to the local government. But, Chelsea, I don't know if you want to come up and speak to any specifics because she was at the meeting and I was not. Good afternoon. So the CAC conversation was really just as Whit had explained. And there was a lot of conversation about the lack of enforcement and the law enforcement agencies countywide. Not really focusing a lot on enforcement and education and the desire that the law enforcement agencies particularly take a little bit more of an active role in helping to kind of spread that education and also, again, the enforcement angle. Also, they talked a lot about a lot of the roadways throughout your jurisdictions, our local government roadways, and also just investing then in safety enhancements, not just focusing purely on capacity and technology, but really doubling down on the safety message. This all stemmed from their conversation on the safety performance measures and targets that you all approved in your consent agenda and really just trying to drive the number of fatalities and serious injury crashes down to zero. And I know as a board, Ford Penelas, we're prioritizing a lot of multimodal projects to help to get there. But what we're doing here as an agency isn't enough. So it's really a call to the local governments to also carry that back to your own boards and your own jurisdictions. If I can add something, Madam Chair. Also, I should mention that we are in the process of updating our Safe Streets Pinellas Action Plan. We received a federal grant for that. That works well underway. And in the last week, we have sent out a survey that's been promoted pretty far and wide on social media and in other channels. And I encourage anybody who's watching and all the board members to share that survey and pass that around. And I'll be sure to mention that when I'm out and around the county. But you can find that survey on the Ford Pinellas website if you go to FordPinellas.org. And there's a tab called Safe Streets. And you can find the action plan. And there's a link to that survey. And it asks questions about areas that are problematic from a safety standpoint. It asks about behavior that's problematic from a safety standpoint. And you can get very specific on locations. And so we'll use that information to develop a prioritized set of recommendations for improving safety in our county when that's finished. And those recommendations can be capital. And they can be operational. And they can be educational. And cover all those aspects. And also, if I may, that survey was also posted on our social media. So if you want to go there and share it with your own followers, we would appreciate it. Thank you. Vice Mayor Eisner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I did also want to add to this. Being that the conversation pretty much across all of Pinellas County is a conversation about e-bikes and lawbreaking and people speeding. We had a group of people, Nick Fiorentino, and a number of rotary clubs got together. And they put together and got five e-bikes for our police force so they can actually go out. Because there's no way for them on foot or with police vehicles to be able to track them down. So I was there for this. I thought it was a great idea. They're fully outfitted. They don't have to show up perspiring and, you know, trying to pedal to catch up with one of these e-bikes. They refused to tell me how much motor power the e-bike had to catch these goody two-shoe people that speed by. But they're equipped at least to enforce. So if you're going by Tarpon Springs and you're doing over the speed limit, we're going to get you. So thank you. These are Mustang e-bikes, right? Yes. Souped up. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that idea. That's clever. And I'm happy to hear the Rotary Club was so supportive and helpful with that. Actually, it was the Seminole Rotary Club. Because, you know, I was an ex-district membership chair of Rotary. And you get extra points if you do something for a Rotary Club or an affiliate that is not your club. So there's brownie points for doing what they call in Jewish double mitzvahs, where someone doesn't know what you're doing for them. I like that. Thank you. Mayor Freeney? Yeah, a couple things came to mind. And so I know, and I think it happened across the county, but I think it started in Duneen, where they were targeting the trail. I think February 6th they had one. They got another one coming up to, like, really go at the e-bikes and, you know, different individuals. They even had an arrest because an e-biker wouldn't stop, and then he wouldn't cooperate. So it's interesting. But anyway, they did, like, a statistical thing of all the warnings that they gave. So I thought that was kind of good. And let's see what else. And I have been spreading the word about the trail czar, but I haven't called it that wet. The three-year planner, which I think will give a big picture because that seems to be one of our hugest problems. We actually used to have stricter restrictions on golf carts than the state, and we weren't allowed to do that, so we stopped doing that. So that's unfortunate because, obviously, that's an accident waiting to happen. And then, of course, Skinner we do a lot because of the new roundabouts, so people don't go through it versus around it. But people continuing to love the roundabouts. So much safer. But, I mean, I think we can always do more. I think it's a really good point. And I'm not sure what we do about insurance issues. I'm not sure how that – I mean, I guess we can speak to it, but it's hard for us to get involved with enforcing it. But anyway, other than that, as I was listening to you, I was thinking it's the 30th anniversary of Dunedin Contract with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. It's a good way to save money, and they're great. So I just thought I'd throw that out. With the conversation about e-bikes and the trail, I'll just highlight that it's not just e-bikes, but we are having a coordinated law enforcement day on February 21st that will look at behavior along the trail, and a lot of different law enforcement agencies are participating in that. We did it last year, and there was a lot of support for doing it again. I know it's been suggested that we try to do that more often than once a year, so that may be something that the trail planner can continue to work on a little more frequency. But I just wanted to let everybody know it should be a beautiful day. Hopefully the weather will be great, and there will be a lot of opportunity for education on the 21st. All right. Thank you. And I know you're about to present to St. Petersburg City Council an update from Ford Pinellas, so I appreciate that. And maybe if this is brought up at that time as well, if you don't, I will. And that can sort of kick off perhaps some conversations with our police department on what we might do as well. So please thank the CAC for us. Will do. I'll also be in the city of Bel Air Bluffs presenting to their commission in March, so I'll make sure I make a mention of it then as well. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on that item? Okay. All right. Next we'll go to item 70, visualizing redevelopment. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, board members. Great to see you all in the new year. I think it's my first presentation of 2026. I'm Nicole Galasso, principal planner, and I am really excited to present to you today about some of the new technology that we've been incorporating into our local technical assistance work with ArcGIS Urban 3D modeling. So I will start by providing some background on our local technical assistance work and what ArcGIS Urban is, which you may hear me refer to as just urban throughout this presentation. And then we'll dive into how we've used 3D modeling to work through zoning changes in two of our communities. And finally, we'll talk about how this modeling tool has added value to our agency and what's next for future use cases, maybe in some of your municipalities. So as you all know, one of our roles as Forward Pinellas, specifically on the Pinellas Planning Council PPC side, is to provide hands-on technical assistance to all 25 of our local governments when asked. And the scope of these activities typically includes GIS work, navigating the countywide land use and transportation planning process, updating comprehensive plans and land development codes, and also conducting some special planning projects at the request of the local government. So if you don't see your city's logo or icon up here, fear not, we are happy to provide you with local technical assistance. You just have to ask us and invite us in. And one of the things that we have been working on in the past year, since last March, is to incorporate more innovative and immersive technologies into that work to better support our local governments. And one of the ways we've been doing that is by learning the program ArcGIS Urban, which I'll explain a bit more in just a few slides. But first, I want to kind of take a step back and talk about why are we talking about this? So I know that I don't have to tell you all this, but one of the key planning challenges that we face here in Pinellas County is that we are our state's second smallest county by land area. But we are home to nearly a million people, which makes us one of the most densely populated counties in the southeastern United States and the most densely populated county in the state of Florida. And because we're nearly completely built out, because we're a peninsula within a peninsula, almost every planning challenge that we face involves redevelopment as opposed to greenfield development. You know, we're not Manatee County or Hillsborough who have a lot of greenfield room to build out. We face more redevelopment challenges here in our county. And so that lack of undeveloped land means that we need to look at infill and adaptive reuse strategies, as well as balancing market pressure with citizen concern about change and a loss of character. So, you know, this map series is kind of just illustrating how our county has become built out over the decades and how now us as the countywide planning agency works with our local communities to kind of help to solve some of the issues that come along with these redevelopment challenges. And so one of those pressing questions or challenging question that we find ourselves asking is how can we find more effective ways to demonstrate the effect of regulatory and policy changes so that our elected officials like yourselves and residents, other stakeholders, can truly understand what it is we are proposing and therefore more meaningfully participate and engage with the planning process. And so I'm sure maybe some of you have asked yourself this question when you've been hearing any of our land use cases. What is what exactly does 40 dwelling units per acre mean? What is 60 units per acre? What does it mean to go from 10 to 15 units per acre? And the reason that's hard to answer is because the answer is it depends. All three of these housing typology examples are actually equal to 40 units per acre. So when we're talking about things like density, where should we guide growth and should we increase density in certain areas to accommodate additional housing types or additional population? This is why it's difficult to kind of help even ourselves as planners conceptualize what does that mean to increase density. And we think that we have gotten a little closer to finding a better way to do that with ArcGIS Urban. So ArcGIS Urban is a software web-based modeling tool from Esri. They are kind of the leader of GIS mapping software. And it uses GIS data like property appraiser data, zoning districts, land use districts, to basically create a digital twin of a city or a special area or a specific site. So cities can use this tool to visualize development proposals on a specific site, which allows them to evaluate it in the context of the surrounding area in 3D, like what you're seeing here on the bottom graphic is an example of an actual building. I think this is in Boston, where the modeler is showing what it would look like if the architect of this development proposal made certain changes to the building massing and scale. It also allows cities and planners to design what-if scenarios and test proposed zoning and land use policy changes. And that helps us better understand the potential impacts of our decision-making. And then communicate, of course, proposed changes and development concepts with 3D visualizations to the public, which can be published online. And that just helps to enhance collaboration between ourselves as planners, yourselves as elected officials, and then those that we represent in our communities. So now that we understand a little bit of what ArcGIS Urban is, just as a modeling software, I'm going to dive into how we've used that to help two of our local communities work through their own zoning and land use policy questions. So the two communities I'll be talking about are Indian Rocks Beach and North Greenwood in the city of Clearwater. And our work with both of these communities actually began several years ago when they approached us to engage in some local technical assistance for Indian Rocks Beach to support the 2020 Gulf Boulevard Visioning Study and in Clearwater to help develop the North Greenwood CRA plan. And although those two communities are different in many ways, both of them wanted to use our technical assistance service to work through some zoning changes and facilitate redevelopment that would generate economic return for their respective communities and help to meet the goals that residents set in both of those prior visioning efforts. So when we began developing the urban models in March of 2025, both communities had that clear vision already set up through the 2020 Gulf Boulevard Visioning Study as well as the North Greenwood CRA plan. And so when we came in with ArcUrban, we weren't just using it as a visualization tool but to actually help make decisions about, okay, we know what the community's vision is. Now we need to implement and make zoning changes. And urban, the urban models helped us kind of visualize what that could look like and really mean in both communities. So when we set out to develop the Indian Rocks Beach model, our goal, what we were tasked with is to propose zoning changes. So our local technical assistance request was to actually develop new regulations for the city to facilitate mixed-use redevelopment that was aligned with the goals set out in the 2020 Gulf Boulevard Visioning Study. Unsurprisingly, that included maintaining the coastal community character that's very important to many of our beach communities, attracting new businesses other than short-term rentals, and also providing legacy property owners, current property owners in the city, with the opportunity for multiple revenue-generating streams on their property through redevelopment. And so we started by just picking two properties, one of them a small 7,200-square-foot lot in a kind of professional office zoning district, and the other, a larger piece of property, which is actually where Crabby Bills sits today in their business triangle. And we chose these parcels because they're actually owned by individuals who, one, have operated their businesses in the city for decades, and they were really supportive of seeing what opportunities could exist for them on their properties if the city were to move forward with changes to facilitate mixed-use redevelopment. So that also helped to, their insights, given that they're their properties, helped to inform our work, but also make the case that these changes that we were tasked with helping the city develop are community-driven as opposed to an outside developer coming in, and that was an important point to emphasize. Before we even touched modeling, though, we wanted to run a financial feasibility analysis, and this is something that we're hoping to include in some of our future technical assistance work as well, because we wanted to make sure that the hypothetical development that we modeled could generate economic return and would be grounded in market realities. So we put, we kind of developed a pro forma type of template, included some inputs like lot size, how large the development might be, what its uses are, got some estimated cost information through research, and then generated an analysis of whether that proposed kind of development program would be financially feasible and generate economic return or not. And what this revealed to us and helped to inform our modeling was that the cost of land, if you have to acquire land versus it being an owner-driven redevelopment, really affected whether a project would be financially feasible or not, whether you had the ability to construct residential units in addition to a commercial component, which, of course, was good for us to have in mind as we were tasked with looking at mixed-use regulations, knowing that that residential component is really what makes a project financially feasible, and then also the type of parking. If you were doing surface versus structured parking would play a huge role in whether a development was financially viable. So with all of those things in mind, the community's goals from the 2020 Visioning Study and the kind of research and background data that we gathered, we set out to develop our 3D model of those two specific properties. So like I said, what ArcGIS Urban does is it creates a 3D massing model based on the actual physical characteristics of the property because this is basically a digital twin, right? This is an actual aerial of Indian Rocks Beach. That's Gulf Boulevard. And those white buildings you see in the back are 3D models of the buildings that are there on the ground today. And then you input some zoning information, density, intensity, height, and you basically click a button and you get that. And that allows us to see, okay, so if we tweaked density, if we increased height, if we decreased height or decreased intensity, what does that mean for the type of development that could be built on that property? And what does that look like in the context of what's there today? So another component of this that we wanted to add to take a step further is to integrate this urban model with CityEngine, which allowed us to put this kind of realistic architectural facade on it. And that really helped us to see not just the kind of massing, but what could this really look like if it was built in the community? Community like IRB has that coastal architectural style. So we applied that to it. And the impact of this is that it helped us start to visualize what this could really look like in the community. And then instead of debating an arbitrary number on increased intensity by 0.5 or lower building height or increased building height, we were able to really just see what that would mean and start talking about other things like walkability, placemaking, economic and environmental concerns. And what you see here, especially on the image on the right, is that something that might have sounded scary if we were just looking at the numbers, you start to see that that development actually fits well within the context of the existing built environment. The white buildings that surround it are much taller than what this proposed zoning change could be. So that's just one example of how that's kind of helped us communicate that. And also helped the community and the city's elected officials react to it and give us feedback. Is my button control? Sorry, tech issue. Not sure why my... We're frozen. Hey, tech. Oh, thank you. Can you hit it again? Sorry. Or I can try. Okay. Thank you. All right. So once we presented that first iteration of the model to the Planning and Zoning Board, we then received their feedback. They brought up concerns about parking. What does it mean to have a walkable pedestrian realm? If we elevate buildings for flood resilience, what does that mean for those who are trying to walk around and go to different restaurants? That means the first habitable floor is above their head. So we were able to kind of explore and dig deeper into all of those topics and then offer options for what, I guess, what they could do in their code to address those different things. And so we then went and developed three different scenarios. Of course, the first being what if you did nothing? This is a hotel or temporary lodging use that could be developed there today. Now, if they move forward with mixed-use regulations, you might get something more like scenario two or three. And it allowed us to kind of explore what that means. And also, because we had the financial feasibility, that these would be grounded in market realities and actually something that is feasible. And then we put it into experience builders so we could look at the differences in real time. What are the differences between impervious surface, your parking ratio, and number of units? And all of those things helped us ground our code discussions in data and, you know, a kind of really educated guess as opposed to just, again, some numbers on a page. And so I'll quickly kind of go through a similar process in North Greenwood. Now, of course, this community is quite different from Indian Rocks Beach and had their own set of goals. They really had an excitement for change in North Greenwood. They had been yearning for many years to get their CRA plan in place so they could start working on redevelopment along the Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue corridor and return that as a focal point for local business and community gathering. And then they also wanted to promote and fill missing middle housing in the adjacent residential areas as the housing stock had fell into disrepair over the years. So the City of Clearwater asked us to provide local technical assistance to refine the zoning changes that they were already working on. And so here in this video, you're kind of getting a little behind the scenes of what our process looks like. Now, you all usually get to see the fully finished project, but this is a video of me just actually working on my computer and running a parcel suitability analysis, which allowed us to identify the properties within the CRA that would have the highest potential to catalyze redevelopment and reinvestment. And so we used different data sets from our online GIS hub to identify the parcels that would be most appropriate for missing middle housing types, as well as commercial mixed-use projects. And this really helped us to just kind of hone in on where would redevelopment even happen? You know, it's not like the whole CRA will redevelop. So that was the first step. And then once we understood where those opportunities existed, we started testing how they could actually take shape. So what you're seeing here is that the city submitted to us actual development concepts and site plans that we were able to render in 3D and then assess how those development concepts performed with respect to their proposed zoning changes. So, for example, this particular development on MLK Avenue Corridor, this is something that is aligned with the community's vision, something the community wanted to really see. But in modeling it, we were able to show that there were certain areas of their proposed zoning regulations that would actually make this type of project difficult to achieve. So we were able to work through that with them and point those things out and come up with a solution so that we weren't accidentally making the types of projects that are really desired by the community infeasible. And then finally, the last kind of piece of this that has really added value to our local technical assistance work is that it's created an iterative process of modeling, reviewing, and refining. So we have a local government who has a proposed set of regulations. They give that to us. We model it. We send them back kind of our key takeaways of what would happen if you chose this number for density, intensity, or height. What would happen if you did, you know, this other scenario? And then they send that back to us. We try something new. And that iterative process has really helped to, one, just enhance collaboration, but also build transparency and trust and bring more people into the planning process. So just to summarize, what Arc Urban has really helped us is that we're not just modeling for the sake of modeling. Well, one, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? We could put a lot of these things in comments, but that simple visual often said more than we ever could. And it also really lowered that barrier for entry into the planning process and to right-size our zoning regulations so that by the time a final proposed zoning code draft makes it in front of you all as elected officials or the public, we can feel as practitioners that, one, it's grounded in market and physical realities. And, two, that this is, I guess, fit for the context of that community because we could actually look at it side by side with what's built today. And so what I'll end with is beyond the value it added to our local technical assistance work, it's also added value to our agency and yielded a strong return on investment for our people and our reputation. So, for example, we strengthened staff capacity through this process. We all participated in a three-day knowledge transfer workshop where we all learned these skills to conduct 3D modeling. We were also recognized regionally recently at the APA Suncoast Chapter Awards for best innovative planning methods. And we've also extended our impact as a countywide planning agency by showcasing our work on a local, regional, and national level, which is really positioning us, I think, as a leader in 3D scenario-based planning and community-centered redevelopment. I did include this in your staff write-up, but I do encourage you all, if you'd like to hear a little bit more detail on both Indian Rocks Beach and North Greenwood, to listen to the podcast that Rodney and I were both on. There's a link in your agenda packet. You can also look it up on Spotify, maybe on your drive home. It's been an incredible opportunity to share our story from our county to national audiences, maybe international, who knows. And so what's next for us? We're currently going to be working with the county on the downtown Palm Harbor kind of form-based code area to deploy an urban model and visualize opportunities and assess any barriers to redevelopment in that particular area. And we also see this as something that we could help assist all of your communities with in implementing our housing regulatory toolkit, showing what it means to have infill housing, and also just to kind of add this as a standalone service to our local technical assistance work, where if you have development proposals that you really want visualized in 3D, that's something that if you have a site plan, we could extrude it in 3D just like that. So I'll just end with saying that it's really been an honor and super cool just for me personally to be kind of the planner behind the model. And I want to really thank my colleagues, but especially our executive director, Witt, and our planning division manager, Rodney, for supporting this work and trusting us to try something new, create these models, and kind of elevate our technological and staff capabilities. So it's been really cool to be a part of. Thank you all for your attention, and I'm happy to take any questions or comments you might have. Thank you. This is really exciting. Mayor Franey. So are you doing this for free? So I can share that our agreement with Pinellas County is free for the new model that we'll be doing in downtown Palm Harbor. And for our work with North Greenwood and Indian Rocks Beach, that was actually part of a different contract that we had with Esri to learn the software. So I think it would be worked out on a case-by-case basis, but right now is a good time, I guess, to inquire. Yeah. Well, you know, we've got some interesting stuff happening with Skinner now that the Complete Streets project is done and how that's going to evolve. We've got a big project right now that's on the books, so it could be really interesting. I like it. It's interesting. Yes, we'd be happy to even just do one property or one development proposal just to kind of trial it with you all. I have to also say we've thought about the same in the city of Tarpon Springs because I know you all have a lot of development proposals that come up in your historic downtown. And this is a tool that can really help kind of those historic or special unique areas that have a unique context that they want to maintain and give you all confidence as elected officials that if you're approving a development, you can feel confident that it is within the scale and, you know, compatible with the community's vision. Thank you, Vice Chair, Scott, and then, yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a great, great presentation. Really, really cool and exciting technology. So I'd be really curious to see how that shakes out with Palm Harbor because we, a couple of years ago, we approved form-based code hoping that was going to, you know, create some redevelopment and it really hasn't worked out. So Palm Harbor needs something. So I'd be real curious to see how that shakes out. And then just a question. Did you share the results with the two businesses that you looked at? Did you share the results with them? And if so, what was their feedback? We did. So we shared with both of those property owners and they were very receptive. I think one of them might have even shared our model with maybe their architect because we saw a development concept come up that was very similar to what we had kind of outlined. But that's great. Just coincidence, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. Great minds, right? But I think that was the whole point, to show what those opportunities are and kind of help people step outside of the box of what's become the norm and see where those new opportunities may exist. So we certainly hope to do the same in downtown Palm Harbor. And that one will be an interesting one because of the historic preservation element. So that'll kind of give us an opportunity, too, as staff to expand our skills and look at it through that historic preservation lens. So we're excited to start that. It could also be an interesting exercise with the county's downtown properties here, too. That's actually a great point, especially as we think about the new county center opening in a few years and what will happen to some of this land that we're on right now. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Eisner. Thank you, Madam Chair. So let me teeter off the free comment. So here's the situation I just don't understand. You're competing with architects, with designers, with planning and zoning boards. You're competing with a whole lot. And what is, have you thought at all about possibly getting inundated by all of these cities about, hey, do my this and I need this? Or is this something more so where you're going to train local cities to do this on their own? What is, I love your presentation. I'm just trying to see what you're planning on doing with it because I know there's no way possible you can handle all of Pinellas County's wants and wishes. So, and if you say you do, I've got a laundry list of things to hit you with. So I just was curious, the purpose of this, was it just to help out certain areas that we're going to deal with? Is this for, you know, you mentioned Tarpet Springs. So that's kind of where I'm going with that. So, thank you for your question and for being concerned with my workload planning because I am just maybe slightly delusional enough to think that I can do it for all of Pinellas County. I agree. But, you know, I think the real purpose of adopting this new technology is to grow staff capacity and put us as Pinellas County, forward Pinellas, on the front lines as a pioneer of innovation in land use planning. We're not trying to compete with architects or developers. You know, those are trained professionals who are, you know, doing something very specific for a property owner on a specific piece of land. We're doing something similar, but this is much higher level. It's really showing building bulk and scale in the context of the surrounding area. So it does lend itself more to what we do as planners as opposed to that fine-grained kind of site-level work that you would see with architects and engineers. But I think that the purpose of it is just so we can better support our local governments as we offer local technical assistance. It goes back to that slide of what does 40 units per acre look like? We're asked all the time by various local governments to come in and help assist with code changes and land use changes. And at almost every single public hearing, what it comes down to is why are we going from 20 to 30 or what does that really mean, right? Why are we going from 20 units per acre to 30 units per acre? What does an extra five feet in height really look like? And this is really just helping us answer those questions more efficiently. So then just to teeter off that question then, are you planning on giving us a list of what you're prepared to offer to the individual cities? Yes, and hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn, but you all have a copy of a scope, kind of an outline of scope of services, the city of Tarpon Springs specifically, since we had the opportunity to meet with your planning department a few months back. But I'm also happy to share the scope that we put together for downtown Palm Harbor with all of you. We can see about maybe getting that added to your agenda minutes, just so you can see what a typical scope for this type of service would look like. Now, granted, downtown Palm Harbor had its own unique requests with looking into market feasibility, but you could imagine, you know, swap out their unique request with what yours would be in Tarpon Springs or whatever local government is interested. So that's something I'm happy to include in the agenda minutes I can get with Tina. Well, you got my wheels turning, so thank you. Good. Appreciate it. That was the goal. And I just want to mention that, you know, we are going to meter this a little bit and just make sure that we have the staff capacity to do it right. We don't want to take on too much work and we're not looking to put anybody else out of work. This is a tool that I think some other consultants have and so you can go that route or you can work with us. And, you know, mainly what we wanted to do is demonstrate you all to get you all thinking about this, to see the possibilities because I know this comes up every conversation we have. You know, we're going to be looking at the Alt-19 corridor and I've been asked to come and present to PSTA about that. And I do hear concerns about overdevelopment and, you know, nobody wants any more residents living here. But we do have a vision for redeveloping in this county in certain ways in certain locations. So this helps flesh out some of those details to give people a little more comfort. It's not going to make every decision easy, but it will give people more information to make an informed decision. And that's what we want to take out of it. Anyone else? I had a couple questions. Chair, thank you. Commissioner Scherer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just real quick, first of all, wow, my mind's blown on the whole presentation. And one particular question was the proformas with the cost estimates and stuff, is that part of this service that you're using, the ARC? It can be. We have the proforma template that we developed for Indian Rocks Beach, and it's something that we hope to kind of continue to flesh out as we get better information and even some specific cost information from development proposals. So it certainly can be a part of it, whether it's free or not. It all gets down to the details of writing, of scope writing, and just the level of effort it would take. Now, are you collaborating directly with this ARC? Or are you working with them to modify what they already developed? So you mean in the... Sorry. I think he means Esri with Esri. Oh, are we working specifically with Esri? So we did. Over the past year, we had a contract with Esri to learn how to use this software. Esri is kind of the owner of ArcGIS Urban. So we had a contract with them to learn the skills, and we learned so many skills that we're no longer consulting with Esri, but they are, of course, always available to us as a resource because of the county's contract, ongoing contract with Esri and our Aegis team. So who has the contract with Esri? Four Penelope or the county? The county has the contract, and we are able to use that contract. Is it the terms of the contract? Is it like date and the amount of data you use, or is it the time you're on their system, or is it just a... We have a license agreement, I believe. The county has a license agreement. Rodney, maybe Nicole can address that, or Rodney. It's a bit complicated. There are credits, and those credits are exchanged for a certain amount of consulting hours from Esri staff. We'd be happy to kind of share the piggyback agreement that we had for this effort with you if you'd like more information. Well, I'm just wondering how you're going to... what you're going to ask the cities to help contribute to the use of the software and things like that. Oh, well, we own the software now. Like, we have access to this. Everybody does, honestly. Anyone with an Aegis accountant who has one of these licenses, I think we only have maybe seven licenses total, but at Forward Penelis, we have most of them. I think there's a few Aegis staff who, of course, have it, but it doesn't cost... Every time we build a new model, it doesn't cost us more money. Like, we already have the license agreement for the ArcGIS urban software. Does that make sense? I don't know if that was... Okay. I'm trying to understand the structure because software... It's something we would have to renew. You probably read about it later. Software can be tricky buying the right software licensing agreement, so making sure you got it. All right. Anyway, well, anyway, fantastic. Whatever they taught you, they're doing a good job, so you... Thank you. Wonderful. Thanks. Anyone else? I love this, and we'll be... You may get a request from the city of St. Petersburg to give us a quote for, like, a six-month residency in our city to help us. I would love that. I've been dying to deploy a model in St. Pete, so... All right. We will talk. And Dunedin and Tarpon. See, I told you I was just delusional enough to think I might be able to do it all. Great. Can you pay my rent? No. I'm just... We've got a lot of breweries, so... Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Oh, that was just so exciting. Next, we will have item 7E, requesting approval of the consultant agreement for the RFP for state government relations support. I'll handle this one. At your January meeting, the board approved our selection of the Southern group as the top-ranked firm for the RFP for state government affairs support and authorized us to negotiate with them. We did have a meeting following last month's board meeting, and we came to an agreement on the term and the price per year. We have the team that's now been outlined in their proposal, and I'm really happy to have Jon Stewart and Emily Colon here today. and so today's action is for the board to approve the agreement. It's a one-year term. We do have the option of extending it by two additional 12-month periods, and we're very satisfied with this agreement thus far, and we look forward to working with the group. I would like to invite Jon and Emily up to the dais if you would like to come up to the podium, I mean, and say a few words, and then we'll need an action from the board. Madam Chair, I just got some, I met with Seth McKeel in Tallahassee last week, and after that meeting, I have total confidence in Southern that they're going to do an outstanding job, and I just wanted to make that as a public comment. I just have total confidence after meeting with Seth that they're the right ones for us, so just wanted to make that comment, and when the time is right, I'd like to make a motion to approve. Okay, thanks. Let's hear from the team first. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having us here. Jon Stewart, Southern Group, and we're very excited to start working with you all. We had a great initial meeting with WIT, and look forward to working with you all. And Rodney, sorry. All right, thank you. Do any board members have any questions either for the Southern Group or for WIT regarding this item? Yes, Madam Chair. I had a question. Okay, so we have a motion and a second, and you have a question over there. I had a question, Madam Chair. And we're going to go to Commissioner Scherer. Okay, thank you. John, Emily, thanks for coming in. I was reading your contract last night, and Exhibit A for the scope of services is a blank, so I'll just really quickly. What is it we are hiring you to do? I mean, what is the agenda you're going to be pushing at the legislative level? Do you have like a top three? This is what we're trying to accomplish. This is what we're working on. I really don't know what you're going to be doing for us. Yeah, absolutely. Well, just to start off, we had an initial meeting with WIT kind of outlined the things that y'all were looking for. We're going to continue to have those conversations as different things come up, but as of right now, we've only had our initial meeting, so it'll continue to evolve. I'm not sure why there's not a scope of services in there, but we're going to continue to work with y'all. I'd like to see a scope of services. So right now, you have not been given any instructions on what you're being hired to do, what you're being hired to lobby for? Well, I can answer that. We did. outline the purpose of selecting a state government affairs consultant, and primarily, it's preparing for next year with the preservation of the Pinellas Planning Council and the special act in Pinellas County to have community planning for all 25 local governments. There is a concern that's been expressed that if the MPO does merge, and we now have a regional MPO, that the special act and the Pinellas Planning Council will no longer have a governing board, and so it will cease to function. Right. So that is a legislative matter, and so we know that navigating that can be a little tricky, and so we wanted to have some experts who were beholden to us who could help us navigate that process. But it has, I want to be real clear, this is not on behalf of the MPO. The MPO cannot lobby. We're prohibited by federal law to use our federal funds for lobbying. So this is really to focus on the land use agency and the Pinellas Planning Council and its responsibilities and potentially amending that special act to be consistent with the fact that a merger may happen. And if a merger does happen, I'm hopeful that there will still be a desire among Pinellas County leaders and the public to still retain countywide planning in Pinellas County, which has been in effect since 1964. Okay, but the direction is not to work on the merger until they've been given a green light to work on the merger. They are not going to work on the merger at all, in my opinion, other than how it relates to the Pinellas Planning Council as a legal agency under Forward Pinellas. Also, I'm going to cover this a little bit later, but we do have a list of bills that we track every year, and there are some bills that typically pop up every session that have a dramatic effect on home rule, that have a dramatic effect on land development and transportation. And it's difficult for me as the executive director to have the influence that so many people have in Tallahassee without a conduit who can work with our legislative members, not just those from Pinellas County, but find alliances around the state. And, you know, we've done our best. I think Council Member Gabbard expressed that at our last meeting, that, you know, we go up to Tallahassee and we piggyback and we try to meet with whoever we can meet, but it's not a sustained strategy. And so this would give us a little bit more of a sustained presence. Well, having spent three days in Tallahassee and seeing how hard Tristan works to track bills, I can understand what you're talking about. Absolutely. I just wanted to find out what we're doing. Yep, yep. And, you know, I want to be real clear that we have not brought them on with the specific direction to go do this for us. That's going to be teased out as we talk and as things pop up because we want to be responsive. Very well. To follow up on that, so the team we put together through the scope of work, we have our FDOT experts, our legislative experts, our local experts. So we put together a full team to best suit for you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Madam Chair, I did not catch you made the second. That would be Council Member Oh, then I did. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have, Tina, do we have any members of the public who would like to speak on this item? No, Madam Chair, we do not. Okay. And can we do a voice vote for this one? Yep. Does anyone request that we do a roll call vote instead? Okay. We have a motion and a second for this item. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. And congratulations. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. All right. We will, move to our director's report. Okay. I'm going to be fairly quick on this. I just got a couple things. One is we try to have an item, every agenda for you, a minute in focus that is a little bit deeper dive into some data and analysis that we've performed. And for you today, it's the Pinellas County school age population trends. I'm not going to read this whole thing to you, but I do think it's kind of an economic time bomb. The way I look at it is that we are losing our school age population. It's having a dramatic effect on Pinellas County school district properties. They are looking at consolidating or closing several underutilized campuses. And, you know, you might dismiss this as, well, it's, you know, charter schools and there's a lot more charter schools. And that's true, but it's really more of a population-driven issue. And, you know, Pinellas County is not growing as much as Hillsborough and Pasco and other surrounding counties because of our developed nature. But the growth we are having is largely with older people moving into the county, people with more income, people without kids. And it's also difficult to find affordable housing in this county. So our workforce population, people in their early 30s, and I'm a brand new grandpa as of last week, so I've got a 32-year-old daughter who's had her first baby. And, you know, it's that demographic that really is struggling to find affordable housing here in Pinellas County. So they are moving to Pasco, they are moving to Hillsborough, they are moving to Manatee, and then they are trying to commute 45 minutes to an hour, in many cases, for a salary that pays under the median income, $60,000, $50,000. And like I said, it's an economic time bomb if we don't provide more housing choices for people in the right locations because we will lose our workforce. And when we lose our workforce, I'm worried that we will lose our employers. And so we've seen our manufacturing employment drop from number one in the state not too long ago to now we're somewhere around third or fourth in the state, and that is a direct reflection of that. We've done a pretty good job holding onto that manufacturing land compared to some other counties, but, you know, as we see development trends change, you know, that's another risk as well. So we just highlight this issue as sort of a symptom of maybe a larger issue that we need to pay attention to. And we're a long-range planning agency. These trends did not happen last week or last year or two years ago. These trends have been building for a couple of decades, and it'll take a couple of decades to work our way out of these trends. So again, no action required, just information for you today. You want me to go on? Please. Then I will. The next item is our legislative update, and that comes on the heels of the last action from the board. I do want to highlight a few bills for you. One is House Bill 399, which addresses public hearing procedures for local government transmittal and adoption of comprehensive plans. Our staff is concerned that this could change the way that the Pinellas Planning Council operates in reviewing and recommending land use changes to the Board of County Commissioners acting as the County-wide Planning Authority. This bill seems to really focus on restricting local governments from having super-majority requirements for certain land use changes, such as extending the urban service boundary and things like that. Not something we have to worry about too much here in Pinellas County, but it has the potential of taking authority out of the County-wide Planning Authority by some of the language in there. And that's subject to interpretation, but we do want to have our new lobbyists to help us take a look at this and perhaps educate the sponsors on the implications of this bill. We also have a glitch bill for Senate Bill 180 that we've talked about for a few meetings now. That bill has passed a few committees, but there are some growing concerns that that bill will not pass, which will continue to put some unreasonable restrictions on local governments as far as advancing planning projects and proposals in the community. There are a number of land use preemptions related to encouraging housing. There is an ADU bill that would allow accessory dwelling units by right in single-family districts that's moving along. And then there's another bill, the Florida Starter Homes Act, that has passed. It's been referred to three committees, but it may look like that may not pass this year. But that has a pretty serious set of preemptions for local government in terms of parking requirements and setbacks, height and density, all the things that Nicole just talked about. We have a bill on advanced air mobility that I think I mentioned last meeting that seems to be moving. And then there's some transportation bills related to e-bikes that is setting up a special task force to potentially develop some policy recommendations for next session. My only comment on that task force is, you know, I think there's some value in taking time back to study the issue of micromobility, but we already have a statewide safety coalition that represents all these people that are going to be on the task force. So it seems like it might be a redundant and potentially wasteful. And then I am not going to detail all the property tax bills. I am sure you all are following these very closely as representatives of local government. And we are too, because it does potentially have a pretty big effect on our revenue. And I'll try to take any questions you have, but John and Emily, these are the first few bills that we'll start talking about here shortly. Thank you. And then would you like to move on to any other informational items? No, nothing really that I need to cover there. We do have committee vacancies. If you know of anybody who wants to serve on any of our committees, we always produce the fatalities map. And then we give you a list of any correspondence of interest in CPA actions. All right. Thank you. And any upcoming events that you'd like to talk about? I will. I already mentioned Friday. Friday is going to be a lot of fun. I look forward to Friday and getting through Friday. And then we are going to be in the great city of Tarpon Springs on April 25th for our next Biker City event. And we pushed it back a couple of months to make sure we had the Elfer Spur ready to ride over. So we're excited about that. And then I do want to highlight the MPOAC Institute for Elected Officials. That will be held May 1st in Orlando and it will be paired with the next meeting of the MPOAC Governing Board. And then the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council in May is having its next Resiliency Summit. We usually participate in that as well. And if any of you all have items that you wish to make us aware of, we'll be glad to put it in the next agenda or you can let us know now. Witt, did you want to bring any attention to Tania's email or no? Tania's email. To the Senate Transportation Committee. Oh, is that in correspondence? Thank you very much for reminding me. So we did have a conversation with the Lieutenant Governor's office at the request of Commissioner Starkey. So Commissioner Starkey is a Pasco County Commissioner related to the MPO merger. We had a request a year ago from the Lieutenant Governor when he was a State Senator, Jay Collins, and he offered any assistance we might need to support the merger and offered to hold a town hall meeting. This was when he was a State Senator. And one of my counterparts, Tania Gorman, who's the MPO director in Pasco County, had a phone call with the Chief of Staff to the Lieutenant Governor and just wanted to let her know that the state is watching and paying close attention to the merger and wanted an update. So she drafted an email. She shared the draft with Johnny Wong and myself and sent that on to the assistant. and they shared that information. And I think the main message was you really don't want the state to force this issue. So they were very supportive of us pursuing it and continuing to work on the merger, but, you know, gave a little bit of caution to make sure you get it done and don't have the state do it for you. So I take that seriously and, you know, we may not do it. It's still a possibility, but this issue, as I said before, will continue to come back and be revisited in future years. So I do think that's important correspondence to share. Thank you. Anything else? Yes, Vice Mayor Eisner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to add to what you had said earlier, Whit, about the economics of the youngsters that can't afford to live here. I'm sure we all realize due to Hurricane Helene, also most of the one-story economically strapped people are the ones that also cannot come back. If they come back, they can't afford insurance. So that's caused a huge problem with people, you know, if you have money, but, you know, if you have money, if you have money, you're not going to be the dishwasher or the server at the local restaurant. So we've lost a great deal of people like that, too, that I don't know how that's going to survive, you know, some of these restaurants that are going to come back. So I just wanted to add to it because it's not just the young people who are affected, it's the older folks that are looking for second income that are gone as well. Thank you. That's a very good point. All right. Anything else? All right. Well, thank you, everyone. This was quick. I appreciate everyone's participation today. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.