Forward Pinellas Work Session 9-9-26 - Sep 28, 2026

We will call to order our Forward Pinellas Board work session for September 9th, 2026. Just a couple of reminders before we get started. This particular meeting is being streamed live, so just be aware of your mics. We wanted to make sure that since this is a topic that has regional implications, there were some who wanted to, you know, tune in, and so we made that available for everyone today. So I just wanted to give you a heads up about that. And we are going to go ahead and move on to our introductions. We'll start with the vice chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Brian Scott, Pinellas County Commission. Commissioner Renee Flowers, Pinellas County Commission. Mayor Mo Franey, City of Dunedin. Kathleen Peters, Pinellas County. Tom Shelley, Deputy Mayor of Bel Air. Mike Menino, City of Clearwater Council Member. Karen Love, Mayor of Goldport, Florida. Deborah Fitzsander, City of St. Petersburg City Council. Good morning, Vice Mayor Tom Reed of the City of South Pasadena, representing PSDA. Chris Scheer, Pinellas County Commission. And I am Gina Driscoll, St. Petersburg City Council. I'm proud to serve as your chair this year. And we have with us Whit Blanton, our Executive Director for Ford Pinellas. And he will go ahead and kick things off for us this morning. All right. Thank you so much. Well, good morning, everybody. And thanks for being here today. I know it's a long day for many of you. Some of you even have a board meeting this evening. So apologies for making your day extra long. What we're going to do today is focus on the draft deliverables that have been developed for the potential merger of our three MPOs serving Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough County. And before I get started with the presentation, I want to acknowledge Sarah Kaper is here. She is the project manager for this effort, formerly a Ford Pinellas employee. She works for the Hillsborough TPO currently and has done a great job really kind of navigating this whole process. And it's been a study management team. Chelsea Favreau of our staff, who's out today, was our representative. And then Tania Gorman and Casey Campbell from Pasco have been part of that study management team. And they've been working with a consultant, the White House group, that has really produced these deliverables, but it's been very interactive with a lot of feedback, a lot of edits, a lot of revisions, some of those revisions based on staff feedback, most of those revisions based on what we've heard from you all as elected officials from around the region. So you have a lot of material in your packet. And it's funny, I had one aide to a commissioner say, I'm going to print out the most important things. What's the most important things? And it's really hard for me to say. So there's a lot in here. There's an MOU for MPO redesignation that is part of the legal requirements. We have an updated interlocal agreement to address the merger. In the startup documents, there is a draft set of bylaws that will be ultimately approved by the board once it's established. There's an org chart, staff roles and responsibilities, estimated startup and operational funding costs, personnel policies and rules for regional MPO. This would just be something that we'd get the new organization started quickly because we know some of these things could change. And then there's a lot of background documents, series of tech memos that were developed along the way that informed the development of these deliverables. Each one of these tech memos had a purpose. They compared what we do today as three different organizations. While we all carry out federal planning requirements, and they're very prescriptive, if you've met one MPO, you've met one MPO. We all do it a little bit differently around the country. And even in the state of Florida, where, unlike a lot of states, we have a very thick set of statutes that govern MPOs here in Florida. I've worked in other states that had no federal statutes, and you were just left to the federal or no state statutes. You're just left to the federal rules. And it's a different landscape entirely. But that still allows for a lot of room for personality, and I think that's an important point to make. We have examined different organizational alternatives. We've looked at different organizational structures that, you know, assumed how we would fund the organization, how we would operate the organization. And then, as I mentioned, you've got those personnel policies as well. So what we are going to do today is just have a conversation. And we are here documenting your questions, your concerns, your comments, your observations. And then we are going to compile those from all the three discussions Hillsborough and Pasco met last week. So if you want to hear some of their considerations or questions, Sarah will be happy to come up and talk about some of those. And we're going to take that material to the TMA leadership group at its meeting on October 2nd and see if there's consensus for any changes. That should be made. Assuming that there will be some consensus on changes, we'll then make those and then hand this off, essentially, to the three county commissioners, county commissions, and the city of Tampa. And then it'll really be up to those four organizations to either move this along or not. And so that's kind of where we're at. We feel like we've accomplished what we set out to do and fulfill the scope of services. Um, but I'm certainly, you know, looking forward to your feedback on that as well. The timing, this is really the first step, uh, is having all these documents is what you said you wanted. We're going to provide them to you. Um, and then, uh, there will be, um, other steps in the, in the timeline that I'll get to in a little bit, but ultimately it's going to come down to approval by the governor. Um, and, um, you know, the governor will have feedback with, with you all, and then we will have about six months to stand up the MPO if the governor approves it. So some key points, um, we, through this process, uh, we've established that we've got required signatories for proceeding with the regional MPO. Uh, the governor is the fifth. Uh, we, uh, have identified the boundary area, which is the, the planning area of the three counties, um, and this is basically what's all in the MOU. The apportionment plan that, uh, has been voted on by all three MPOs and has been advanced over two and a half years of discussion, uh, has a 25 seat board, uh, that has the port, uh, uh, and it's port Tampa Bay and the Tampa International Airport. Uh, those would be represented by staff, the CEOs of those organizations. Um, and then you have 10 seats for Hillsborough County and you can see how Hillsborough County proposes to allocate those seats. Um, then you have, um, Pasco County with five seats, four would be for the board of county commissioners and one would be a rotating seat for smaller cities. And then in Pinellas, we've proposed that we have eight seats with two for the county commission, two for the city of St. Petersburg, one each for the city's over 50,000 population and then one seat for smaller city. Um, and you'll hear in the formal meeting that, uh, with the work of the subcommittee, we're recommending that the Pinellas Planning Council be the forum for appointing that one rotating seat. Uh, and, and I should mention in Hillsborough that they would have one rotating seat between Plant City and Temple Terrace, two of their smaller cities. The interlocal agreement is the next document, uh, and it provides the framework for redesignation and agreement to establish the MPO. Um, it, uh, has an approval path that entails the signatories of the, uh, all the MOUs plus everybody with a seat on the board. And right now in our interlocal agreement is signed by all 25 local governments here in Pinellas County, uh, because we have rotating seats that represent them. So you would need to capture all those rotating seats as well. And this would happen after the MOU. The interlocal agreement also establishes the MPO boundary area, but it includes additional information. It includes the apportionment plan, sets out the MPO's purpose, authority, and responsibilities. It creates, uh, requirements for official action. Um, in this, we've included the majority provision for those in attendance from each county for the two most important documents that an MPO produces, which is where, uh, we dictate what projects get funding, uh, dictates too strong of a word, uh, but where we set out and set forth, uh, which projects get funding, um, and they have to be in the long range plan to get federal funding. And in the TIP, the transportation improvement program, uh, that is your five-year budget where dollars begin attached, being attached to those projects. Um, and then we've noted, uh, that negotiation is needed where changes in state law are required. So that provision, that majority provision of those in attendance, uh, is inconsistent with state law. The state statute for those documents, and you've done it a bunch of times, says that we need a roll call vote, a simple majority by roll call vote. Um, now it has been suggested, uh, by our Hillsborough counterparts that maybe we just go to a super majority of 60% threshold. That would also require a change in state statutes. So we are keeping a running list, um, of things where we might need some statutory relief or flexibility. The bylaws document, uh, this really communicates how the board functions, uh, the role of the executive director. Uh, this would be approved by the regional MPO, not by the signatory. So once you seat the MPO, uh, then they would approve the bylaws. Um, and this would happen as soon as the board is established. Uh, Sarah, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that we have a majority provision by each delegation for amending the bylaws. Okay. I thought that was in there. So, um, there was some concerns expressed that once you establish this new board, that the board and its majority could just do whatever it wanted with the bylaws, but that would still come back and need the approval of all of the delegations as well. Um, the key points in this document are the roles of the officers, um, and we've established, uh, a nine member. Is it nine or six? I thought it is nine. Okay. I, I lost that. I'm sorry. I'm going to go with the words on the slide. Uh, a nine member executive committee, um, the, we tried to mirror the Tampa Bay water model in that hearing from many of you that we needed something that looked more equal. So in addition to those nine, we have identified that you would have a chair, a vice chair and a treasurer as part of that nine group. And then you would have, um, at large, um, from, uh, making up the rest of them. And then you would have one representative from the city of Tampa and then one city in Pinellas County. We chose not to choose, not to pick a certain city in, in Pinellas County because we have so many and because the population differentiation for so many of them aren't that that, aren't that large in the bylaws. We also established the membership participation rates impacts on not participating. Uh, it describes the amendment process to the bylaws and it confirms the role of some non-voting advisors, uh, the Florida department of transportation and our three transit agencies. A little bit of difference there. Go pass go is operated by the board of County commissioners, heart and PSTA or independent special districts, but they are treated equally as far as being non-voting advisors. Um, this establishes the meeting date, time and procedures, recognizing, um, the role of advisory committees. Um, although we do not specify in depth all the advisory committees that the MPO could appoint, um, it really just identifies that they're, they can establish these different, um, advisory committees. And then the expectations and duties of the executive director and general counsel, the org chart and staff roles and responsibilities, uh, provides, uh, information about the estimated cost and operating framework for the staff activities for the MPO, um, and ensuring that the MPO fulfills its state and federal obligations. Uh, the approval for the, uh, org chart and staff roles would be the executive director once that decision is made. Uh, and the timing would be after the hiring of the executive director on that in this, we have established, uh, uh, an org chart that is about 37 full-time equivalents. That is, uh, just a couple more staff members than all three MPOs today have. I think we were at about 34, 35 and, um, it's all fully funded by federal dollars and those federal dollars come to the MPO for planning activities that can't be repurposed. Uh, those dollars can't be used as a match against other federal grants. So you're basically spending those dollars on staff or you're spending those dollars on consultants and it's not an increase in money. This is based on the money we expect to have based on what we already get for the three. What happens today is that the Florida Department of Transportation sub-allocates the money that comes to the urbanized area to the three MPOs. Um, and so this would effectively rest with the MPO. There are four divisions that would be established under this draft org chart, uh, planning and programming, uh, data and technical services, uh, outreach and engagement and, um, operations and administration of the organization. Um, and then we've identified some areas to contract, which would include things like, uh, ensuring we're part of FRS, uh, and having employee benefits that would most likely be with a, an existing government agency because they'll be able to negotiate better benefits than a small organization would, um, outsourcing are legal to a, to a vendor and then same for human resources. Uh, here's a graphic of the org chart that I know you can't see up on the screen, but it sets out those, um, uh, four functional areas and there is a deputy executive director that's established over each of those. Um, and similar to the setup each of the MPOs has now, there's an executive secretary, um, and you can see how that all filters up to the board. When we looked at developing the cost estimates, um, you know, we had to really dig deep into the operations of each MPO organization, uh, so the salary ranges that are established here are based on current data, um, anticipated employment policies and benefits and statewide data sources. The consultant did a lot of deep work into, into this area, um, and we've described the roles and responsibilities of each of those functional areas, um, and we've intentionally tried to build a career ladder for the organization so that younger staff, junior staff can advance through the organization. Um, the point here I think is really important is that we are trying to build a team, a cohesive team, uh, that can really provide leadership, um, to, you know, serving at the direction of the board, um, and really stepping up, um, to, um, fill the needs of a, of a rapidly growing large urban region. Um, and right now, you know, we're sort of separated. So we're going to lean into this regional role, but I think I've told all of you and the chambers and everybody else that I've met with, this is going to be an organization that's going to need to telescope and be effective at not only the regional things, but also to continue to do the work in each county that, um, it has that individually we've done because there's really, um, not a backup plan for, um, transportation planning activities. If the regional MPO just focuses on regional activities, um, I'm not sure how many transportation planners that we have in this county outside of, uh, I know there's one position in the city of Clearwater. There's a couple of positions with the city of St. Petersburg, and I think that may be about it. Um, there are some engineers who do planning with Pinellas County, um, but there would be a void created. So this organization is intended to continue to still be that, um, telescoping, some things are granular and some things are big picture. Uh, the estimated startup and operating cost document, um, outlines, um, some funding needs that we have. Um, so there is a request to provide, um, some initial, um, startup cost, um, and then ensure that we've got, uh, ongoing costs to support or revenue sources to support the ongoing cost of the MPO, um, and this will be balanced with the potential funding. So this will, um, be, uh, decided on by the executive director and or the regional MPO board, uh, and the timing would be after the interlocal agreement and the bylaws are approved. So the key points in the startup document is that we have first established a spreadsheet, uh, that can be easily adjusted in the coming months or, you know, uh, as this organization gets started as assumptions or inputs change. Uh, it provides a starting point for these discussions and then we'll be certainly subject to negotiation among those, uh, formally charged with creating this organization. Um, and then, uh, we have identified a one-time initial subsidy and capital float from the Department of Transportation. Um, and then for local funding, we've outlined a per capita local government contribution of 55 cents. Um, there would be an exemption for smaller cities under that. Um, and then we've worked on a formula for the port and airport to provide similar kind of funding level based on passenger and planements or tonnage. Um, and that's still, uh, a work in progress. Uh, we did get some feedback from those organizations about that and we've allowed for the ability for in-kind contributions such as providing staff space, uh, office space, uh, for that function. I know the timing of this is not great with amendment three on the horizon and everybody, you know, looking at pinching pennies, the Orlando Metro area, um, Broward MPO, Palm Beach MPO, Lee County MPO all have a per capita local government charge. Uh, this would be up to 55 cents per capita. It wouldn't necessarily start out at that level. Similar to the org chart. It wouldn't necessarily start out with 37 full-time equivalents, but we wanted to see where we would ultimately go with that. It'd be easier to start lower or back down than try to raise that level. Um, these dollars would be used primarily for, um, matching funds for grants. Um, so we wanted to have a robust local source of funding that could be the match for local grants rather than trying to find a partner, uh, every time a grant opportunity appeared to be the match. Um, and that'll get a little more tricky on the regional scale. Um, and then the additional thing is that the federal and state statutes really limit what we can spend our federal dollars on. Um, and the state statutes really limit what we can spend our federal dollars on. So having that flexibility, um, allows us to have coffee at our meetings, things that the state would prohibit, um, to have, um, lunch provided. You know, those are just examples, but the real bulk of that would be. To match the grants. Uh, and, and Orlando, I think has a 50 cents per capita. And most of those that I mentioned have a 50 cents per capita. Lee County, interestingly, um, has up to 50 cents per capita, but they only charge 11 cents per capita. Um, and, and just a reminder that Lee County, Charlotte County, and Collier County are also being requested to look at this merger as well. That was in the 2026, uh, legislative session. So key points here, uh, a one-time cost that would cover things like the lease and security deposit, um, current obligations to agencies, uh, PTO and leave payouts for any staff that depart, um, an existing organization and come to the new organization, transition for the IT program, legal, financial, and administrative management. Um, and then example, annual operating costs would be, of course, salaries and fringe and benefits, uh, office and IT supplies, rent, the vendor costs, uh, insurance and risk management. Um, you actually have an, an insurance bill on your, on your agenda later today to approve, um, training and communications. So we are asking for that one-time startup subsidy to be 2.5 million in startup costs, a one-time capital float of $5.5 million. Um, and then, uh, annual grant matching funding would be about $10 million from federal sources and state sources. Um, the majority of that is federal, um, overwhelmingly. And then, uh, annual local funding would amount to about $2 million based on our estimates. The, uh, personnel policies and rules, uh, is really a starting point, as I mentioned earlier, for the operations and internal controls of this organization. Uh, the approval path would be through the executive director, uh, unless otherwise determined by the regional NPO board. So there is some flexibility here in how all this is handled. Uh, for instance, that could be an additional role of the executive committee. Um, and then the timing would be after the executive director is hired. And the key points for this one is to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations. Um, we have a provision in here for all employees to be employed at will. Um, but that has also been a subject of conversation at the Hillsboro NPO meeting, so we can talk about that as well. Um, and then benefits, uh, to include the Florida retirement system, uh, social media policies, and internal controls, uh, as we have here at Ford Pinellas. So those have all been established, um, in draft form and certainly subject to, um, continuing refinement as this organization might move forward. So I've already alluded to what's next, but just a reminder, um, today we're looking for your feedback. And, um, you know, I know not everybody's a fan of what we've laid out and that's fine. Um, but we want to hear from you. We want to understand your concerns so we can make sure we have those captured. Uh, and then we can bring everybody together to discuss how we want to pivot or, or modify things. Um, that will go on October 2nd to the TMA leadership group. Uh, and then, uh, depending on how that discussion goes, it could come back to the MPOs. Uh, but I'm, I'm really mindful of trying to avoid chasing down every, um, every area of disagreement. Um, at some point, uh, we've got to say, okay, we're going to hand it to you and y'all can figure out what you want to do. And I think the path there would be for one of the principles to take up this, uh, set of recommendations and then vote on it. And if you have specific changes that aren't included after the TMA meeting, then vote on those specific changes and see if the other counties or the city of Tampa take you up on that. But I think that illustrates the difficult path that I've been navigating and Sarah's been navigating and our staff because what makes Pinellas County happy might not make Tampa or Hillsborough or Pasco County happy. And that's been, you know, the last three years of my life. Uh, and before that, we went through this in 2015 to 2018. Uh, and before that, we went through it after every census dating back to 1990. Um, so we have gone further than we've ever gone in the Tampa Bay area. And some of you, I see Tom Whalen over here. He probably remembers 1990. Uh, and you know, the governor telling us you need to merge the MPOs. And there was a lot of stonewalling about doing that. In 2018, we got very close and Commissioner Eggers is in the room. I want to acknowledge him wherever he was. Yeah, there he is. Uh, remember the last meeting we got to in 2018? We had two workshops, um, that were pretty well attended. And then we said, all right, while we weren't getting that much attendance from Hillsborough County, let's go over to the channel side. And we met over there, not one elected official from Hillsborough or city of Tampa showed up at that one. And that very clearly signaled where their intentions were. Uh, that's changed a bit. Uh, we've had a little bit of change in, in, in electoral, uh, makeup since then. And they've been much more interested than they were in 2018. Pasco County is more interested. Uh, you know, those dynamics are something we're always going to navigate. And the next election will probably bring some additional dynamics. So there's never a great time to do this. Um, so this is the time. Uh, and if we punt and don't do it in some shape or form this time, it'll be back. Um, you know, I'm not sure if it'll be two years, five years, or 10 years, but it will come back. Um, the MPO staff, as I said, we are going to prepare a transition plan. Uh, we need to look at some of the impacts to our host local governments, the Pinellas Planning Council. We've had a tremendous partnership for 12 years now, um, with this aligned MPO and land use planning activity. And, um, you know, I think you'll hear later today about some of the transitions that we envision for the Pinellas Planning Council. We're going to have to do that for everybody. And I think, frankly, the biggest impact could be Pasco County, uh, because their MPO does a lot of work for the county on local government activities. Um, so, um, I'm going to turn it over to you all. Um, I do want to note, uh, in your documents that we have a letter from State Representative Michael Owen. Uh, there is legislative intent, um, to ensure that a merger happens. Um, that I can't predict if that'll be successful or not, or what kind of sponsorships will, will emerge, uh, but he has said, if we don't act on this by the time of the legislative session, he will file a bill. Uh, and, um, you know, you'd have to talk to Representative Owen to know his deep thoughts on that. I don't know that he's shared too much, and I've only heard things secondhand. Um, but I have talked to many of our delegation members, and they're aware, uh, of that initiative. And as I mentioned, the legislature has already directed this activity to three other MPOs, and, uh, I do think we're a precedent, and we're going to set an example for how other MPOs might follow it. I'm getting pretty regular emails from the MPO director in Lee County, um, who's following our process closely. He's probably watching. Um, so, I'm going to turn it over to you all, and we're going to take notes, and I will do my best to answer questions, but I am going to call a friend if I need to and invite Sarah up, because she's a little bit more, um, in-depth with some of the documents. And, Chair, I'll let you decide how you want to handle things at this point. All right. Thank you so much. This was a great overview, and, um, I appreciate all of the supporting documentation that was given to us as part of the backup for this. Um, we'll go to Commissioner Flowers first. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I had an opportunity to speak to the incoming speaker, uh, Representative Garrison, who's the incoming speaker, um, and he does support the forward movement of this, so I'm sure that whatever bill Representative Owen files, with the exception of maybe some tweaks here and there, it'll, it'll pass, because it's on their radar. Um, I just have some very simple questions. So, um, on the benefit side, when it comes to, like, insurance payroll, things of that nature, you probably have already thought of this, but, um, would you agree that it might be more feasible to link into either Pinellas County's benefit package or Hillsborough County's benefit package so that you are able to take advantage of the cost savings because of the number of people we employ versus the 35 or so that'll be on board here. And that'll help you with some of those costs as well as HR, you know, onboarding, all of that good stuff. 100%. Um, you know, I've really valued, uh, Pinellas County, um, in my time here, not just for the benefits, but the role of HR, all those functions. And, um, you know, that's going to be incredibly difficult for a new organization to do. And I was a small business owner before I took this job and, uh, insurance and benefit costs can kill you. So, um, having that, um, ability to link with a host organization. I want to also answer your question with a little more nuance. Um, you know, we, we are fully hosted organizations now, like Pinellas Planning Council is part of the unified personnel system, part of Pinellas County as a, as a dependent special district. Um, we are looking at sort of a hybrid model where it would be an independent MPO, but I believe all MPOs are independent, um, meaning that the board hires the executive director and the executive director hires the staff. There's not a path through the county administrator or anything like that, but, um, the hybrid function would be, as you suggest, by partnering with a local government, such as a county to take advantage of those benefits or cost savings, uh, as well. And being part of FRS, that's, we're going to lose all the staff if we don't stay in FRS. So it's, and that would just put us in a very different situation. And what about your IT technology component pieces? Um, because this will be more expansive now, so you'll probably need to add, um, some, um, technology pieces in there that would allow you to be able to tap in regionally. Well, I, I love BTS. They've helped us a lot here and, you know, we've had no virus threats or, you know, we've had threats, but we've had no issues. Yay, Jeff Ross. Yeah, they've, they've protected us. So, uh, you know, I think that's something that is flexible. Um, we could partner with an existing entity, uh, that, that provided those services, or we could bring that internal to the organization. Um, you know, I, I dealt with that in my company and we had one person and that person was a whiz at GIS and all those things. And eventually he didn't do that anymore. He did a hundred percent IT and we, you know, just need to be mindful in a small organization how much time that can take. Okay. And then, um, I, I may not have heard you correctly. You said between Hillsborough, Pinellas and Paschal, there are about 35 employees, which is far less than some others. And then part two of that is, are we looking at keeping that, um, group? Um, and if not, are you asking individuals based on the, um, org chart that you showed us, are you asking, or whomever the executive director is, would they be asking for people to reapply or you haven't gotten that far yet in the process or? I don't want to speak, you know, too definitively about that because we haven't really discussed it in detail. We've generally talked about it. And I think what our goal would be to keep the staff we have, uh, and give people the opportunity to either move with the regional MPO or stay with the local organization that they're at. And I think the planning commission and the Pinellas planning council are both open to those. I think Pasco County government is open to, to finding spots for people. That's going to be a challenge with amendment three if it passes. So, you know, that's the landscape where we're going to navigate. Um, but yeah, that would be the first choice. And the way we set the org chart, I believe is a way to transition effectively and efficiently. So the, there would be one executive director and then two deputies, the theory being, and no assumptions are being made that if one of the three is chosen as the executive director, then the two would be deputies. They know Pasco and Hillsborough and Pinellas better than the others do. Um, so I think that would be helpful. Um, so. And you, and you, through that, you answered my last question, which was amendment three, because I'm not sure if this would fall under like the transportation piece. That could be funded according to the elements that amendment three says, if it should happen to pass. So you pretty much answered that and it's a weight gain, you know, like everybody else. I believe it could be covered because it's infrastructure, um, planning. Um, but again, the, the, the new organization would be 100% federally funded, but we have to pay the bills. We have to pay the rent. We have to pay the salaries because we get reimbursed every quarter. And so that's part of what that local match is for. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Mayor Feeney, did you have your hand up? I actually have a few, so I might as well, I didn't, I wasn't going to ask him this early, but I will, um, just kind of some simple stuff. Um, so I, I'm sure this is, uh, too early to ask, but where the offices would be located, would they all be together? Yes, we have talked a little bit about that. So there is a strong preference among our staff team that everybody be located in one office. Uh, we had toyed with the idea of having some staff embedded in each of the three counties, but from a staff cohesion standpoint, the executive directors all felt and the staff, we polled our staff and they all want to be together. Um, so what we have identified in the org chart, uh, are three intergovernmental liaisons that would be assigned to each County. Uh, and that's probably a bigger job in Pinellas, uh, because of the local governments we have, but it's a, it's an important job and an important function. Uh, what I envision is that, um, you know, maybe on Monday they come to the main office and then the rest of the week they're out and about and meeting with the local governments. Um, that'll be determined later, but yes, as far as location, we have not talked about that. Um, we've talked generally that boy, the airport sure would be a nice location. Um, and you know, we're going to have conversations with them to see if they'd be able to accommodate us. I know Hillsborough County has also expressed some interest in finding space for us, maybe not downtown, maybe somewhere closer to Dale Mabry and West shore. Um, so those conversations have happened. Um, I have not talked to anybody in Pinellas County specifically about that, but you know, we are, uh, building a new office campus, so there's probably room to accommodate if, if need be. I mean, geographically, you know, not thinking about any of the politics geographically, what's the best. I think the airport is such a central location. If we could be in that area, either on property or nearby, that would be convenient for most everybody. It also kind of keeps you from being embedded in any one county agency too, in a way. So, yeah. Okay. Um, so, um, and then the exemptions per capita for, um, small cities, why? I think it was just recognizing that that was maybe a heavier burden for, for a small city under 10,000. Uh, they don't really generally have a lot of planning functions already and may not see the same value proposition as a larger organization. Uh, the way we're looking at it is based on this organization's ability, uh, prospectively to, to win grants and be successful at bringing transportation dollars to the region, the larger organizations are probably going to benefit more from that. And so from a value proposition, it makes sense, uh, that they would get that return. Whereas a smaller pick can a city as an example, if they found their way on the board, uh, you know, we have awarded some planning funds to them, but it hasn't been a lot over the last 12 years. So that was the rationale. And then when you say port and airport contribution based on operations, what does that mean? Uh, if I remember right, we were looking at tonnage for the port, um, like an amount per so much. So you're trying to figure out the best. Yeah. Um, and, and we did get a little pushback from both of those that that seemed, you know, for one vote, one seat, uh, that might be a little much. So we're reworking that, I believe that's how we're doing it. We haven't made any decisions yet about that. So I know this isn't the reason that we're talking about it because it's more of a consolidated thinking and planning for getting, drawing more money down. But, um, do we know, like, is there really cost savings in this or is it just really the ability to draw more money down? There is cost savings in this and I'll give you a good example. We're all, we're doing things now in triplicate, all the federal requirements, uh, the adoption of separate plans, adoption of, uh, separate policies takes a lot of time, a lot of staff time, a lot of staff effort. Uh, they might be bigger documents, but adopting one long range plan for the region, adopting one UPWP, adopting one congestion management process, all these things that are required of MPOs, I believe will save us a lot of time and a lot of money. Um, we see, you know, I've done a lot of work over my career merging organizations, looking at transit agency mergers and others, and you almost never merge just to save money. You merge to create something better, stronger, that's, that's able to meet the needs of an area. And, um, you know, you, I looked at the Sarasota Manatee transit system a few years ago, uh, when I was a consultant and, you know, you think about it, okay, one less executive director, one less director of operations, but the goal was to enhance transit service in the two county region. So you'll save some money, but then you're going to expend more resources and maybe on more buses and more operators and things like that. Same thing for the MPO. Um, we are not doing a great job today planning for the region. It's a second job for everybody because our focus is planning for each county. Um, and we get together and we do it and it's a little ad hoc and I'm going to confess, you know, it catches up on us every quarter. We've got the TMA leadership group meeting. Oh, we've got to, what's on the agenda for that. It's not part of our routine as much as it could be or should be. So we want to lean into that role much more than we've done before. And as I said, not abandoning the work we're doing for our cities and, and our county here. So, um, two other questions. They're a little bit more, you know, out there a little bit, I guess. Um, let me, um, so I don't know, can you think of the most controversial thing you can think of between the three counties and how that would work through, you know, that, uh, they, everybody would feel protected no matter how controversial it is. Well, um, I don't want to speculate on a specific project because I've been very clear. We're not doing this for a specific project. On the first project I mentioned, oh, that's what you're going to do. Right. So, um, but I will say this, um, you know, there's been a lot of controversy about, well, you know, um, one county might have too much power objecting to a project or not supporting because their project's not in or ranked high enough or something like that. What we as staff would probably do is say, all right, let's set that project aside. If that's the rub and let's adopt the long range plan, let's adopt the TIP so that the dollars flow for the projects that don't have controversy and then let's work on that project and let's see if we can through the executive committee, find consensus and then bring that back to the board. And I think of it as a little bit like, you know, you're working with the finance and tax committee. It doesn't go to the floor for a vote until the finance and tax committee says it's ready and they voted on it. So we would use the executive committee sort of in that function. They feel like they've got consensus. They've got the votes and then they would move that forward. We've put in provisions for that majority vote by delegation, as well as the overall board majority to protect that. In addition, as I've mentioned before, the Florida Department of Transportation is required annually to certify that the five-year work program is equitable by population for every county in the district. And they have to do it every year when it develops and adopts the five-year work program. And so we would look to that. And if we had a particularly controversial project, as I said, we would just set it aside maybe for a few months, maybe for a year and bring it back. Or we would say, you know what? This region's not ready for this project. And it doesn't advance until the region's ready for it. And my last question is just like, and I know, you know, you've talked about this, but just give me your best shot at explaining why, you know, small cities should feel like they could win or lose in this deal, become more, you know, obscure in the background, not listened to, or they'll be fine. Well, and I hope I answer it as well as I did at Dunedin, you know, because you asked that question or it got asked. You know, I feel like every one of us is committed to serving the needs of our component organizations. And so we will not just rely on the intergovernmental liaison position, but we will meet regularly with our local governments around the region. And we will understand what's going on in those communities, what their needs are, what the pulse is. Right now, we have a program where we have an open call for projects. And anybody can apply, and they can apply for planning funds, they can apply for capital projects. I imagine that we'd have some form of that with the new MPO, and we would not only announce the call for projects, but then we would go individually and meet and say, what are your ideas? What do you need? What's going on in the community? Where would federal dollars help you? One of the bigger challenges that we have with use of federal dollars is only a few local governments are really able to take advantage of those dollars because you have to be, certified through the local agency program. And, you know, you had the fortune of getting state dollars for state roads. And so the state went through that process and navigated that for you. But we only have Pinellas County, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg that are certified, maybe Pinellas Park for a project. And so a lot of our other governments aren't able to take those dollars unless they have a partner. So that would either be one of the counties or it would be the state taking on that project. And that's for construction, not planning. So that's a navigational challenge. And I'm hopeful that the regional MPO could be able to handle some of those activities. And that's something we need to talk about. But in addition to that, I would say we could model ourselves after what the Orlando metro area has done. They've established a municipal advisory committee that is comprised of all of the municipalities that are not on the regional board as voting members. And they actually elect somebody to serve on the regional board. We chose to do something a little bit differently here. But it doesn't preclude us from establishing that committee and inviting them to be a non-voting advisor, for instance. So it's not envisioned right now, but that's certainly a possibility. And we heard clearly, those of you who went to Orlando, that that works well for them. Thank you, Whit. Commissioner Scherer. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation, Whit. I wanted to just take a few minutes to explain to you my hesitancy towards some of the specific details on these documents. And the first thing I wanted to bring to the attention of this board is page 505 of your Memorandum of Understanding at the bottom. That's the apportion page. And there's a little blurb at the bottom. It's also on page 15 of the interlocal agreement. And it has to do with the census. You know, we have a census coming up in 2030. And under Florida statutes, the apportionment that we're agreeing to today will be reapportioned on July 1st of 2031. And it'll be based on population. Now, I have done the population, I have estimated the population based on our current growth. And based on that growth, Hillsborough County is going to be somewhere between 1,700,000 and 1,750,000 people, which will entitle them to 50% of the 23 votes for this board. Plus, they'll also have the airport and the port authority, which will give them 14 votes out of the 25, which is 56% of the voting membership of this proposed MPO. That's a non-starter for me. But I also wanted to point out that based on the static growth of Pinellas County, we actually lost population last year. I expect that it will change. But static growth, we will actually lose two votes. Pinellas County will lose two votes. So yes, to your point, Mayor Mo, I believe that the little cities are going to get lost because we're going to lose two votes. We're going to go from eight to six. That's the way it is, based on population growth. So I wanted to point that out because the July of 2031, Hillsborough County will be in charge of this MPO under the structure that it's under now. So that, I don't like. I know it's based on state law, but we can change state law. On the bylaws, we have a bylaws page here. And I know that the bylaws look decent. But the truth is, we're not going to get to vote on the bylaws. And neither is the county commissioner. The bylaws will be adopted by the MPO board. And I have a problem with that. They actually adopt the bylaws after we say, OK, go ahead and let's form this thing. And that's silly. So I'm not, I can't deal with that. And then on the interlocal agreement, one of the reasons, one of the things I really want to, you know, we cannot afford to make a mistake like this. Because under, on page 10 of your interlocal agreement, you will, we'll see there's a withdrawal procedure in case some members are not happy with the MPO withdrawal. But excluded from the ability to withdraw is Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, and Pasco County. Once we do this, once we sign this, once we get joined this, we can't leave. It's over. So we really, really make sure that we're happy giving Hillsborough County control of this MPO in 2031. Because if we're not happy about it now, we shouldn't do this. And then finally, you know, I saw the letter that you had written, got written from the representative in Hillsborough County who's pushing for this deal. And I agree that he should be pushing for this deal because it's great for Hillsborough County. But rather than take it as a threat or anything like that, I think it's a good thing. Because I've been saying since the beginning, this, I would rather this go to the state for approval. I would rather this go to the state because we need a Tampa Bay water model. And we can't do it on our own. We need our state representatives to get involved and say we want an equal vote per county. We want to set this thing up like Tampa Bay water. We want the bylaws to resemble Tampa Bay water. And that's what we want. So I think it's a good thing that you got a state representative involved from Hillsborough County who says, yes, let's get to work on this. Because I think it will be a much more fair result than this deal, which I can't support. I don't think I'm, I know I can't vote for this is on this reapportionment. And I don't think you're going to get four votes on the county commission, but that's just me. I'm hoping you don't because I don't like the deal as it's written. And I know if you worked hard on it, Whit, and I appreciate you got three years in it. But I really think if we get our state reps involved, I've spoken to our delegation and they support a Tampa Bay model and they're willing to work on it. So that's kind of where I am on this. And I just kind of want to let everybody else know. Thank you. I appreciate those comments. If I could just respond a little bit. The apportionment plan is the, the census, forgetting the word, the reapportionment. Yeah. The reapportionment. I'm looking to Chelsea over there. Now I'm looking to Sarah. The reapportionment plan is a federal requirement that we have to do after every census, but it does not mandate. It's state and federal law. So it's a federal. Yeah. Can you put your microphone please? The state law does require reapportionment decently and it is based on state law and we will have to do it. It's in the, it's in the proposed bylaws. Right. So we will have to do it and you're not going to be, we can't, we can't change the state law here. It's got to go up there. And so that's why I think it's a good thing that the representative from Hillsborough wants to get involved because we need their help to make this a fair deal for all of us. I hear you. I'm just pointing out. It is also a federal requirement that we reapportion after every census. Right. So, um, so that, no, that's a guideline. That is not a law. That's a guideline. How would, how, that, that, that is, we're supposed to consider. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to, I'm going to stop everyone right here because this is a back and forth that should not be happening. Um, I, and for both of you, you need to, if you're going to go back and forth, you need to do it in order. You need to do it respectfully. Is that clear? I'm as respectful as I can. Is that clear? Yeah, that's fine. All I was pointing out is that when you do the reapportionment, you are not obligated to change your structure. You look at it, you evaluate it. You could decide we don't make any changes. And that's what's happened. All 27 MPOs went through reapportionment. I think maybe two changed in 2020. Polk County changed and we changed. 25 did not change. So it doesn't mandate the change. It is a conversation point. That's fair. And, and also want to clarify, we did not get the state representative involved. We didn't seek him out, but, but, you know, we welcome that conversation as well. Chair, may I respond? Yes. Okay. Thank you. The Pinellas County attorney opinion is still state law will require reapportionment after the census. If reapportionment shows that the population has changed and warrants it. State, uh, federal statute does not require it. So that we look at it. So, but she's here and she studied it. If you want her opinion. Thank you. I have a question about that. So when we did reapportionment of this board for forward Pinellas, was that because it was required? It was required to look at. We did not, we weren't required to make any adjustments and the population changes in our county didn't justify any changes. We made the changes to make things a little more equitable and a little more inclusive and a little more fair to the smaller cities that had rotating seats. We added a year to their term and we broke up the number of rotating seats into smaller rotations so that they could have more access to the board. And then we expanded and then we expanded to include Tarpon Springs because they were very strongly interested in being a part of this body. So they were, I guess they were window drapings around the apportionment plan because the population numbers didn't change significantly enough to warrant an additional seat here or there to take one away. Commissioner Scherer is absolutely right. If the population numbers justify those changes, it's going to be a conversation, but that's ultimately up to a recommendation from staff and the board and approval by the governor. It's the same process as designating your MPO. You still have to go through those processes and this MPO could say, you know, we're good. We feel like we're capturing the growth in this region, the way it's structured. Again, that's a potential outcome. Another potential outcome is exactly as he's outlined and that could happen. So the requirement is to look at it. Is that the same for the regional MPO? That would be the same for the regional MPO. Hillsborough, Pascoe and Pinellas all did it after the 2020 census as did the other 24 MPOs. So there could be a scenario, and I hate to look down the road when we don't know what the census numbers are going to be, but I do think it's important to look at the what-ifs on some of this. When that comes around, the regional MPO will need to look at it, but there is a scenario where it's decided that because the regional MPO is young as an organization and because the members recognize the value of the numbers as they stand and there aren't major changes in the population that they can decide to leave it alone and let's keep going because we haven't been doing this long enough to make big changes yet. And if there were changes proposed in that, you know, after that census, would Hillsborough be able to run roughshod over it and take two seats and, you know, like, what do they call it? Like spill the apple cart over this? Well, with the way the board is proposed to be structured, there would be 13 seats between Pasco and Pinellas and 10 in Hillsborough, if you include the port and airport, there would be 12. So I don't think so. I also didn't really mention this before, but I think it's an important point. You know, you come to the MPO to kind of lose some of the boundaries and think about the region, and that's really here at Ford Pinellas, I've been very proud of this board and boards before you. We didn't really fight too much about what St. Pete got and Clearwater got and the county got and Safety Harbor got. We came together to look at what the needs of Pinellas County are, and that's the purpose of looking at a regional MPO is to scale the organization to the needs of the region, the Tampa Bay region, which has been, I think, left behind in a lot of transportation investments as we've had this rapid growth. You just look at what Orlando has built over the years and what Miami has built and what Jacksonville has built, and we are behind based on that growth. So that's really where we're coming together to, and investments in Hillsborough County, good example is the West Shore interchange by the airport, one and a half billion dollars that is in the Hillsborough TIP. That directly benefits Pinellas County probably more than any investment in Pinellas County does. It's our gateway. You know, we all know how a nightmare it is getting over the Howard Franklin and getting to the airport on State Road 60. The department is working on that project now, and it'll be finished in a few years. So that's how we need to look at transportation in this region, and that's what the MPO's focus would be. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Peters? Thank you. I have a lot of questions, so if that's okay, if you'll indulge me, I have a list. Sit back and relax. First, to go on that appointment, I truly believe that if Hillsborough wanted to take us over, they could, with the apportionment, because Pasco's going to gain seats, Hillsborough's going to gain seats, and they can take them from Pinellas County. So I see the scenario that Commissioner Shearer has stated, and I, too, I've served on Tampa Bay Water now for seven years. And it is divided equally among the three counties. It doesn't have to be nine people. It could be 12 people. But it's equally divided, and Tampa Bay Water works. We don't have an issue. It works incredibly well. And even when ideas came up that we didn't like, it was hashed through very well, and it never became non-regional. Tampa wanted to do something. Not everybody agreed, but it was always a regional. Everything was always regional about our water systems, and it all worked out the way it should have. So I have no, I just don't understand why we're even talking apportionment and not setting up a model that works incredibly well. And my experience sitting on that board has been nothing but positive, all regional, and never selfish, and never territorial. So I am in agreement with Commissioner Shearer totally. So aside from that, I want to get some of my questions that I'm not going to get to. So I'm looking at, let me start with a couple of things, and these are just thoughts. You wrote that employees that work remote should be available from 9 to 4. Why is it not 9 to 5? They get an hour lunch. Why isn't it 9 to 5? Government hours are 9 to 5. Why did you put 9 to 4? So that's one. Then you've got, it's a drug-free, smoke-free, firearm-free. The county is fragrance-free. We're having more and more people that are having problems with not just asthma, but with the toxic chemicals and fragrances and perfumes. So why not be fragrance-free? So those are just some things I'm throwing out I would like to see put in there. You didn't give us a total budget. You said it was two-point-something to start up. You put in a bunch of salaries, but you didn't give us a projected budget. And I'm interested in what the projected budgets would be. And I know you talked about FRS. I understand it's easy. It's more cost-effective to go 401k. I'm not sure why, since you're an independent organization. I get why employees wouldn't want to lose their pension if they're going over. But if we're going to be cost-effective, 401k would be way more cost-effective for the long-term viability financially for the organization. Just something to consider, for everybody to consider. The shared government costs, I think, until the election's over, I have a little angst. The other question is on costs. So is it just jurisdiction that you're charging, or are you charging all county and then counting charging cities? So that would be double-dipping. So it's just jurisdictional that the cost would be? Is the county only paying for the population that's unincorporated? I want to confirm that. PTO. Now, I was really surprised on your PTO. It is almost double. I mean, it is significantly higher than Pinellas County. And I was really quite surprised how much higher, that a starting employee gets two floating holidays and three weeks vacation, I thought was very incredibly generous. And again, is that really realistically cost-effective? Because that is different than what our county does. Giving 480 hours a week accrual. So if somebody quits, they get 12 weeks of paid, of accrued pay. To me, I'm from the mindset, and I know I'm a different generation, but I'm from the mindset that you get so many weeks vacation, if you don't take it, you lose it. And I don't know why we're doing this accrual. So they can retire, get a great pension, and then get 12 weeks paid. I don't necessarily agree with that. Because we're government, and we should be streamlined, and we should be, this is taxpayer money, and I think we should be more conservative in our approach. So I do not agree with your PTO recommendations. I don't know whose you're following, but you aren't following Pinellas counties. I mean, I think Pinellas counties are incredibly generous. But these are significantly different than Pinellas County. And I don't think that's mindful of taxpayer money, in my opinion. And the employees might feel differently about that. But I think when we're talking about taxpayer money, we should be thinking differently. And even if you follow Pinellas County, which is very generous, this is way more. Way, way, way more. So I completely disagree with that parameters. And if you followed the county's parameters, I would be way more comfortable than what you have here. Because I think, you know, again, this is taxpayer money, and I think we need to look at this in a more conservative way. And then I'm going to say something that's probably going to be controversial. You're going to have people here that disagree with me. I don't understand the points of all these committees that you want to. You said finance committee. You said executive committee. You said all these committees. Now, I serve on PSTA, and I think it's the biggest waste of staff time and our time that we should have to go to so many meetings a month and not do a workshop, right? So, you know, on PSTA, some board members have five committees. They spend more time at PSTA than the elected position that they have. And then when something comes to the board, because it was decided in a committee, because not all of us have the time to go to five committees a month. So when it comes to the board, we haven't had any of the presentations. We haven't had any of the conversations. We haven't had any of the anything. And then we're expected to vote on something when we have no background on it. And I think the amount of time that the staff have to do to go to five committees a month is a waste of their time. I don't think it's efficient, and I think it's very costly. And I think you could do the same thing with a workshop like the county does. I don't know how the city does it, but at least the county does two workshops a month. We have two meetings a month. Now, I don't know if you only need monthly meetings. Maybe you need one workshop a month, and then two weeks later have your meetings so you have time to do everything. But that way everybody's engaged. Everybody's part of the process. They know the finances. They know the planning. They know everything. And you're streamlining your staff's time because your staff doesn't have to prepare for three to five meetings a month. Spend three to five meetings sitting in a room while they listen to the meeting is totally, to me, inefficient and not cost effective. Yeah, I think we're really just envisioning the executive committee, and there may be some other committees. But we are required to have a citizens advisory committee and a technical coordinating committee. So those make sense because they aren't necessarily board members, right? They're not board members, right. So to me, that makes sense. And if by law, your staff have to go to those, but then why would you add more committees that your staff have to spend time in instead of doing their job? Your point is very well taken. When we expanded this board to 19, I asked the board what you wanted, and you did not want committees. And so we have workshops as today. So to me, that's real effective, and everybody is abreast of everything, where when you do it through committee, not everybody knows. I agree. And so to me, that's just more cost effective and more effective for the board members. So those are my thoughts. I heard you mention all those committees, and I went, do we need a finance committee, really? Do we need an executive? Do we really need all of those committees? Because to me, it's not cost effective. And if Amendment 3 goes by, we need to be as conservative and streamlined and cost effective and really do diligence to the taxpayer money because they're demanding it now. They are not just taking us for a word. They are demanding that we are very mindful of how we spend the taxpayer money. And so I think we need to do this in a very efficient and effective way and not not. So there's my thoughts. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Yes, go ahead. Only because I'm dealing with Darlena now because she's going to be leaving me in February. She's retiring almost 30 years. But anyway, I'm just going to share with you because I had questions. So according to our policy, it's Rule 4, page 4-6, time off, effective July 1, 2025. The rules change. Unless otherwise required by law, the use of annual leave in conjunction with separation of employment is prohibited except when all the following conditions are met. Number one, the employee is leaving employment in conjunction with retirement from the Pinellas County employment and will not be employed full-time by any other employer during the period of time in which they remain an employee of Pinellas County. Number two, an employee who is retiring may use up to eight weeks of scheduled annual leave if the budget is available. Additional unused annual leave will be paid per Section K of the above for calendar year 2025 only. The limit will be 12 weeks. So the max you could do is 12 weeks. And then number three, the employee must give at least 60 days prior notice to be eligible unless an appointing authority has a written rule requiring more notice, in which case the written rule becomes a notice requirement. So they can't get, and this is our thing, so they can't get up to 12, but it's... Wade just sent it to me, so I have it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was just sharing, you know. Yeah. But again, the discretion is up to the board, you know, about whether or not you want to allow them to do that. Right. Now, I do agree, because I've worked in human resources where you don't use it, you lose it, or where persons will separate, but they will use their vacation time, sick time, or whatever, up until the last day of their employability. So they may not be in the office, but they're getting a paycheck, you know, for the last 15 hours or 20 hours or six hours, whatever it is. And then I've had other cases where if you don't use it by the time your retirement date or separation date, you don't get it paid out, you don't cash it out like some people do. So anyway, I was just, I didn't know you had that, sweet. I was just sharing, because I just learned that myself. I texted. Okay. All right. Thank you. Vice Chair Scott. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Whit, for, you've been trying to thread a needle for a couple of years here, and I just want to give you the courtesy and respect of stating that I know this has not been an easy thing for you to try to navigate. So I appreciate all of the work that you're, that you've been, that you've done and are, and are doing, and also trying to manage a lot of different interests and personalities and things along, along the way. So a couple, a couple of thoughts and questions. So the, the official action required to create the MPO is, is affirmative votes on the three board of county commissioners in the city of Tampa. For the port, the airport, and the expressway authority, are they just coming in by local agreement? I assume their boards would have to have some kind of a vote in order to do that as well? No, that would, no, they would be, it would be apart from their boards. They would just be invited to join. So we would just invite them. So then, so they could remove themselves if they wanted to, probably unlikely what would happen, but they could remove themselves if they wanted to, right? They could choose not to sign the interlocal agreement, and then they would effectively not be in that role. So yes, I believe there's a mechanism for that. Okay. And I, I'm still digesting the bylaws, but I'm just trying to anticipate if something like that would happen, you know, where, where would those votes go at that point? We haven't contemplated that. So that would be something we'll need to discuss and see, you know, they've both written letters saying they feel like they need to be part of this organization. Right. So I think that's unlikely. I do want to clarify that both the port and the airport are voting members of the Hillsborough MPO today. Okay. So we're not giving them anything they don't have. Right. So they, they value that role. And, you know, we've talked about, you know, the fact that, you know, the airport has a lot of Pinellas County emplainments, you know, people arriving and departing and the port providing gas throughout the region. But also, you know, they have a lot of freight rail traffic. And if we ever looked at a passenger rail line, for instance, you're going to have to coordinate with them because they depend on that freight traffic. So there's, there's some roles to play there. But I think it's, you know, that's an interesting question about them not choosing to be part of this and we'll have to cross that bridge. Yeah. Like I said, I think it's probably highly unlikely that that would happen, but just, you never know what the future could hold. While you're on the subject of those boards, I have, you know, acknowledged that, you know, their board composition does not include Pasco and Pinellas representation currently. And so that is something I've talked to our legislative delegation about. It's something we've talked to the airport about. Right. And could we either expand their board somehow or modify the appointment responsibilities so that the governor could appoint somebody from the other two counties to serve on those boards? I think that's a fair, legitimate question. Right. And like I said, I've had some receptive conversations with legislative members. Right. Okay. So if the smaller communities under 10,000, if they're not going to contribute, and notice there's a clause in the bylaw that states that any member who has not paid their dues, so to speak, then they're not allowed to be a voting member as an officer. I would think that that should also extend to, if the community is not paying, they're not participating, then they, I would question whether they should really be, have a board, a vote on the board at all. Okay. And that's, you know, kind of a soft conversation. We've sort of had a PSTA as well. I mean, we've got some board members from communities that are not participating within PSTA, and should they really have a say in that? So I would think that if they're, if they're not paying, if they're not, they could choose to be a dues-paying member, right, and then they can have a seat on the board, or an option to have a seat on the board. So I would, I would, that's just kind of my thought on that. The, we've probably talked about this before, but just refresh my memory, would the PPC millage go away then? No, it would not. Okay. The PPC millage supports the work of the planning council staff. Okay. And the, maintaining the countywide plan, providing technical assistance to the local governments, undertaking special projects. And, you know, they need, they need those resources. What, what they have is the ability to sort of bank those dollars for the MPO reimbursement. So we have a staff services agreement with them where the MPO, when it gets the federal funds in, reimburses the PPC 100%. Okay. Okay. And on the, on the board apportionment, we're, the way I see it, correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong here, is that we, we can't do a Tampa Bay water model because we're required to do it based on population. We are required in state statutes to do that. Now, there is a provision for an alternative path that is not defined. Um, and so, um, Miami-Dade is the best example I think we have in Florida, having done that. And they have every one of the county commissioners on, on that MPO board. They are a unique charter county. Uh, they actually have zoning authority within the cities. Um, and so Miami-Dade, Miami city has one seat for 500,000 people on that board and they have five gubernatorial appointees. Okay. So it's a totally different setup. It's not a model I would favor. Yeah. Right. And it's, and it's one county. Um, they have quite a few cities in Miami, but they are not all represented on the board. Yeah. Um, and I'm still digesting the bylaws, but if to change the apportionment, would that require a super majority of the, of the governing board to do that then? Um, I don't believe we've anticipated that. Maybe Sarah can address that question. I said I would call a friend. Good morning, Sarah Kaper with the Hillsborough TPO. So, so the apportionment plan is included in the interlocal agreement. So that would require a change to the interlocal agreement as it is right now. The, the regional MPO board itself could not change its voting membership. The interlocal agreement would have to be adjusted, which would require the signatories of the interlocal agreement to be participate in that. Now that said, I think that's a legal question and we'd have to get the lawyers involved in all of the details related to that. Okay. So theoretically then that would require the four, the three county commission city of Tampa to agree to that, all agree to that. So technically anyone who signs the interlocal agreement would have to be involved. And in order to be a voting member on a regional MPO, you would have to be part of the interlocal agreement, even if it's a rotating seat. Okay. So you'd have to go through every single signatory of the interlocal agreement to make an amendment to it. Okay. So that sounds like that would be, you've got to have everybody on the same page. You get one holdout, right? And it's not going to happen. Yes. Okay. As I understand it. And I think it's a legal question really at the end of the day. Right. From the different attorneys. Okay. I'd like to get a legal clarity on that. I think we'd probably all like to get a legal clarity on that one. And just to follow up on that, when we apportioned our board to 19 members. Right. We had to go and get that interlocal agreement signed by all 25 local governments. Okay. Okay. That's right. And the governor had to sign it, right? And the governor had to approve it. Yep. Okay. And what happened last time is the governor approved all 27 apportionment plans at once. We got it. Okay. So we all got the letter on the same day. Okay. And then my last question is, so the flow of money. So funds are kind of set aside based on population, right? So Pinellas County would, we're not, we're not losing anything in terms of funding, right? By joining a regional MPO for local. I mean, we're still going to get, we're talking, my kind of perspective on this whole thing is, is that we're coming together so we can be more competitive for state and federal funds for large regional projects that we're still going to have. We're still going to get our share of the pie for Pinellas County. Yep. So I don't know if we have, well, we have DOT people. I'll, I'll see if they need to come up if I say something wrong. The way that works is every year the department has to certify that the five-year work program is equitable based on population. Okay. Now that's state, federal funds, private funds have to be included in there if we have any. Local funds as well. We have to acknowledge all that. And so that's, that's where that certification comes in. Um, and that's a five-year work program, but it's done annually. So in one year, you know, I told you we have the $1.5 billion West Shore Interchange Project. That might look like Hillsborough is getting a lot more money in that one year. But we have the Howard Franklin Bridge in ours. And so that kind of balances that out. It's not quite as expensive, but it's pretty close. We have the I-275 Project. So, you know, those, that's, that's what the department looks at in a five-year window. In any one year, you might have it a little skewed. But you're absolutely correct that a lot of transportation funding is formula-driven based on population. So that'll come to the regional MPO based on our urban area population. Okay. But it's, and we'll allocate those dollars, you know, for the things that, that we, we need at the local level for projects. But it's really getting together to go after the competitive projects, which can be state projects using primarily state dollars, or it could be federal funds that the state pursues as well. And I can't break down any given project, but I will give a good example, the Gateway Expressway that we opened here a few years ago. That was a combination of federal funds, a lot of state funds, and actually funds that are discretionary for MPOs that only MPOs can take advantage of. And so we contributed funds to that. And there was a little bit of horse trading, and I'm not sure, you know, that that was, you know, everybody agreed that that was a project that was a priority. But we made that a priority through the MPO process, and that's where those MPO funds were unlocked, here in our county. Right. And I think that's, that's the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Council Member Fig Sanders. I get to turn my head this way. Well, mine aren't that complicated, so you're not going to be this way long. Well, first of all, good morning, everyone, and thank you, Whit, for the presentation. So the first thing came to my mind when you were doing the presentation is on slide 14. Again, the whole, my only pause on some of this is the timing, but if you go to slide 14, where it says, confirms the role of non-voting advisors, and there was a comment that you made when you spoke about them being non-voting. However, one of them do have elected officials on their boards. Explain that to me again. Yeah, so GoPasco is kind of like our airport here. It's under the purview of the county commission. We talked about it, and initially maybe there was a discussion that just Hart and PSTA would be the non-voting transit advisors, but we expanded it to include GoPasco because they are a transit operator, and so they would provide a valuable operating perspective. And a good example, I think, of why that's important is we are currently conducting the U.S. 19 corridor transit study, which is looking at State Road 52 down to our airport, and both transit systems would be engaged in that effort and would probably be asked to operate some service in that airport or in that corridor. So that's why we felt like it was important that they be there. And while they're a small system today, in the life of this regional MPO, who's to say that they could not become an independent organization and separate from the county? And we've had merger talks between Hart and PSTA over the years, too. So there's a dynamic that could happen, and we just wanted to be as broad and inclusive as possible. Thank you, and I appreciate that. And I do, again, I hear what Commissioner Shearer is saying, and even if we're looking at the implications of how the votes would be weighted toward one region versus another, I also look at the unintended consequences of how votes can be weighted from one region to another. So I hear exactly what he's saying on that one. And so then I go back to the timing issue that was also brought up. We're not going to have input, if I'm looking at how this is being presented, as to an input on who the executive director could be, because depending on who that person is, as to how they may weigh to one county toward the next, we're not going to have any influence or vote on the bylaws and how that finally rolls out. So I think the timing for me, some of the other things I can deal with, but it's the timing I'm trying to find justification with moving forward, because once we say yes, we say yes to whatever comes after that, and it's not a rollback. And so if I'm misunderstanding that, please share with me how we can ensure that our vote will be heard moving forward in these different concepts as to what we're being asked to approve. And then as chair of PSTA, I have to respond. I do appreciate committees, because you can have committees and you cannot have committees, and you still would have the same thing happen on the dais, period, whether you have a workshop or not. What I appreciate about the committee aspect of it, though, is that you have specialized conversations in regards that we're not having full body. Once you've had it in the committee now, if you are willing to have a conversation in regards to narrowing down your committees, because staff are at work, we don't have committees outside of nine to five, so they're at work anyway. If you're looking to conserve, because when I hear that some of the electives are spending more time on PSTA committees than they are their own jobs, and we need to reconsider who we're electing, because our committees don't last that long. And so if we need to look at condensing the relevance and the value of the committees that you're actually proposing, then we can do that. But I do believe in having some of the smaller set-aside committees to work out some of the kinks before you present it to the entire body. I think it does work. And if you want to open it up for conversation into doing work groups, because the difference about this is that you have so many people coming from so many different areas of the region. So that was an apples to oranges comparison for me. But if you have so many people coming from a distance, and you don't want them to come multiple times, I can see that. And I can truly agree with the workshop concept of that. But there still are some committees that you, the executive committee meetings, you still have to have those. So those are my two cents on that one. But again, I'm still with Commissioner Sherrill on the unintended vote influences, outweighing one region to the next. And unfortunately, I can only speak on it. I don't have a fix. But that's my two cents on that. So hopefully that's an additional conversation that you can have. I appreciate those questions and comments. Regarding the timing of things, we did put in the provision for the bylaws that they have to be approved by a majority vote and of each delegation. So that does provide a little bit of control there. Those other provisions regarding the long-range transportation plan and the transportation improvement program were meant to ensure that there couldn't be this tyranny of the majority discussion because those are the two most important documents when it comes to what projects get funded and where they go. Again, it was a response to concerns that this body has raised, and Commissioner Sherrill in particular. So it's not a perfect solution, but I think it's a workable one. And if there is a preference to go to a supermajority of 60%, then I'm okay with that, too, if people prefer that. We did get a little bit of feedback, I think, in Hillsborough that a majority of each delegation, let's say two Pasco County representatives, show up. Well, they have enormous power because you need both their votes. And then they could gum things up a little bit. So a Hillsborough County suggestion was to go with the supermajority. Again, both couldn't be done today with state law, so we would have to seek that change. And regarding the executive director hiring, you know, we have met with other MPOs that have merged. And at least in one, they were kind of told who the executive director was going to be. And so there's a number of pathways here. I'd prefer it be the new board. But you also, you know, then you lose a lot of time getting an organization up and running if you don't have one until the first board meeting. So we're going to have to figure that out. And, you know, maybe Sarah has a magic answer. But I think that still needs to get worked out is, you know, when do we make those decisions? Because on day one, when the governor says go, we've got six months. And it's really hard to get a full staff and everything in place in six months. So I think we're going to have to use next year to maybe figure out where that staffing, what that looks like and where there's consensus. And thank you for that. I would appreciate spending time up front to selectively find an unbiased executive director prior to being told and then regretting that process. Because once you get them in, you won't be able to get them out. I think the example I used was it was a smaller MPO and a larger MPO. And so that was a little easier. It was just two. But, you know, you also want to respect the knowledge that people have of the region. So I'm not dictating anything. But that's kind of been our thought process as we've talked through it. Thank you, Chair. All right. Vice Mayor Reed, I think you were next. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I'd like to thank everybody, Witt, for your presentation and all the insightful comments and suggestions and concerns today. It's been very enlightening. And I share the concerns of all the concerns that have been mentioned, actually. As Vice Chair of PSTA, it's a concern of mine when we do have, as Commissioner Scott pointed out, voting members that do not contribute. So I do think if this were to go forward, that any city that wants to have a seat at the table should pay the, was it, 55 cents per capita? I mean, for my city, that'd be $2,750 a year. I think we can handle it to insure ourselves a seat at the table. But I am extremely concerned about the apportionment, not only just for the small cities, but for the county as a whole. I just can't wrap my head around how it's going to come out equitably when you've got the kind of imbalance that is inherently going to be there from the get-go. And then Commissioner Shearer brings up the legitimate concerns of possible reapportionment. Ford Pinellas has a great name. It takes Pinellas Ford. I worry that if this goes forward, we're going to be looking at backward Pinellas. That's a legitimate concern that I have on the apportionment. Everybody's gotten into a lot of the great details and I appreciate that. But from the 30,000 foot view, I've just got some really serious concerns about the apportionment. And I just want to share that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd, your mic isn't on. Try again. Not red? Yeah, it's lining up here. Look at Tina. Oh my goodness, you have a spare mic. We've had this problem before. Incredible. Wow, okay. All right, can you hear me okay? No. No, hello, hello, hello. All right, I guess I'll just lean right into it. Raise the mic. Okay, yeah. Okay, just a couple of things. Actually, I think Vice Mayor Reed just made a good point about the low cost for local communities, so I wanted to agree with that. I've got a few things written here, so it should be quick, but I'll do my best. To the point about the majority of each delegation for the votes, yeah, I do see the problem if you have such a small delegation from one county and maybe only a couple of people show up. You know, I don't know if it's possible. I mean, obviously, we're going to have to do some sort of legislative change to make that a reality in the first place, if it's possible to have some caveats to that majority. So it's like, you know, if we do get into a situation where not many people from one county are showing up, we could default to the 60% or something like that. It's been discussed at the Hillsborough meeting. I think that there would be, if that happened, then a 60% majority could override that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's something we'll take up at the TMA meeting. Okay, cool. Let me get clarity, and I've heard a little bit of this, but first, where does that rule that we just discussed actually live? Is it in the bylaws? Is it in our local agreements? Is it legislature? We put it in the interlocal agreement. Okay, we put it in the interlocal agreement. So that rule, for that rule to be changed, then All the signatories. Yeah, all the signatories would have to change. And just keep in mind, the bylaws, we have not modified our bylaws a lot, but we've modified them four or five times in the 11 years I've been here. We've modified the interlocal agreement, to my knowledge, one time. Okay. So it's a higher bar. Anything in the interlocal agreement is going to be harder to change. Okay. So and then so, you know, realistically, reapportionment happens. We have these rules in place where it still requires a majority vote of each delegation or some sort of super majority if there's some outstanding circumstance. So, you know, just because you might have 50% plus one, you still have to get those majorities in each delegation, assuming it were to go through like this. That's the intent. Okay. And then at the end of the day and then, again, so let's go to bylaws, too, then. So and what I'm trying to do is just figure out where all the protections are for this model. And then so we go to bylaws. Bylaws require what does bylaw require change? It would require each delegation to approve. Okay. That's how it's written in there. So not just the majority of the board that might be skewed one way or the other. Yeah. And that's written in the bylaws? In the bylaws, yes. So Or no, it's yeah, it's written in the bylaws requiring that. Okay. And so feasibly that could be removed by a majority of each delegation. Right. Okay. But Only by a majority of each. Yeah, I can see the context there. Okay. And then in addition we have the rules set aside by FDOT about the funds being expended in an equitable fashion, no matter what the makeup of the board. Okay. Right. And that's a DOT rule regardless of MPOs. I mean, that's rural counties as well. Okay. So, you know, just unless I'm missing something, having said all of that, I don't see how the worst fears that I'm hearing could come to fruition. You know, I'm trying to imagine what it looks like if we were to reapportion and Hillsborough were to have 56% of the seats or something like that. And I just am not imagining it. Well, I mean, PASCO is growing as well. So, you could imagine them balancing that out. I don't know the exact details other people probably do as to what the rate of growth is between the two counties. The rate is higher in PASCO, the numbers are higher in Hillsborough, I believe. Okay. Okay. Oh, that's interesting to think about. Just because it's already a big county. Makes sense. Yes. Okay. Um, okay. You know, I mean, all of that brings me comfort for what you've presented here. Uh, I'm not like super opposed to changing it to some other model. Um, but, you know, we have gone through this process collectively and landed on this as best as you could. I mean, I understand it's been a lot of people involved and a lot of conversations and difficult work to do. Uh, so I'm comfortable with where we've landed right now. Again, I want to reiterate if something else were to come that we could all work out, uh, I would entertain that as well. Um, but I will just say one thing directly is that, you know, I mean, as five years as a local legislator, if we get something passed down from the state, it's not, someone is going to be unhappy. Someone's going to be very unhappy about it. Um, and I just struggle to imagine the state being able to dictate something to us that, uh, brings everybody as much comfort as something we collectively decide together. And so, uh, that's been my experience so far, uh, and, uh, I'll, I'll leave that there. Um, but, you know, uh, this is my feedback and I'll be at the TMA to discuss it as well. I really look forward to hearing what the other counties feedback are because I feel pretty comfortable knowing what everyone here thinks at this point. Um, but, you know, ultimately this is a vote for county commissioners and the city of Tampa. And so, uh, that's who I'm going to be listening to. But I do think that I see where the, um, protections have been put in here and I appreciate that. So thank you. Yeah, I do think that doing this through state law will get messy in a hurry. Um, could be a strike all amendment, even if we have the best intentions and everybody's agreement with that first draft to strike all amendment could come in. And then you never know you all have more experience. Some of you than I do. Um, the other issue is reconciling state and federal law. Tampa has absolute veto power in this by federal law. They just do. They, they, they are the largest city in the region. So if you did something that Tampa did not support in that state statute, do they sue in federal court? I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but you know, those are, that's, that's the difficult challenge we have of navigating this process. And finding something that builds consensus. The last little point I'd like to make chair, if you will allow me is we all took a little field trip to Orlando. Um, last year, I believe it seems like it's recent. Not everybody went, but those who did went, did go, I think found a lot of value in those conversations. Orange County absolutely dominates that region. Orange County has 1.5 million, 2 million people. We heard from, uh, Seminole. We heard from, um, Osceola County. We heard from smaller cities, Winter Garden, Oviedo. They did not feel that Orange County dominated that discussion. And I grew up in Orange County. First 30 years of my career was in Orange County. And it didn't always used to be that way. I mean, Orange County threw its weight around a lot. And, uh, they're, um, they have, we modeled some of our processes after them. Um, so that our executive committee kind of mirrors how they have that rotation among the three counties. And to a person. And, you know, maybe they were just being nice because we were all visiting. But they sung the harmony of how that region works. And the trust factor was 95 out of 100. And, you know, I'm sure every now and then there's a project that goes askew that somebody gets mad about. And there's a fight over this or that. But everything I've heard from the state DOT and others, legislators, is Orlando has its act together. Orlando knows what its top three priorities are going to be for the region. And they've been consistently advocating for those top three priorities. And they got them. They got them built. That's the model we're trying to follow without naming the priorities because we don't know what they are yet. And that's what this region struggled with is a lack of trust, a lack of cooperation. And it hasn't really had a vehicle to build that trust other than the Tampa Bay water model, which, you know, I think is laudable and it's wonderful. But we need to figure out a way to bring chambers of commerce together, to bring visitor convention center groups together that have all camped out in each county. Bring economic development people together that all have camped out in each county. And create that forum, that regular forum where we can discuss these issues. That's where staff is coming from with this. And I've told every one of you, I love Ford Pinellas and the organization we've created. And I'm sure Johnny and Tania love their organizations. But we're trying to do something for the greater good. And that's, we've landed on the best thing we can come up with. A lot of room for improvement. And I've heard each of you. And we're going to take all these concerns and we're going to hash them out at the TMA. And I just want to thank everybody for being thoughtful and being respectful and being mindful about your interests and the interests of the Tampa Bay area. So, thank you. Thank you. I believe Council Member Floyd wanted to follow up real quick. Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things that I was going to say was basically exactly what Whit was just saying. And I want to reiterate something. So, I've been supportive of this through the process because, you know, I have seen compromises offered. And people work in good faith from all three counties. And that's what's most important to me is the culture that we go into this with more than any structure that we come up with. There's no structure in the world that can overcome distrust or bad faith actors. And so, that's why I want to be specific and reiterate that if we can't come to a decision with this kind of structure and, you know, boards decide they want to go in a different direction, I would hope that we still continue down a path in a different direction because I believe that everyone's come at it in good faith so far. And as well as that, I also believe that parochialism and focusing on what's just at home is not going to be healthy for our region. It hasn't been healthy for our region for a long time. And it's not going to be healthy long term. Like, the biggest transportation issues that I encounter in Pinellas County are connecting to the region. And I feel like we do a good job of, you know, the best we can in Pinellas County. But without, you know, regional thinking, I think it's going to cause our economy to stagnate, not be what it should be. The growth in the region, I think part of the reason that growth in Pinellas County is not doing what it should be is because of how difficult it is to get back and forth to Tampa and Pasco. And so, I think this is in the best interest. This is my personal opinion. But I also think that the process that I've seen has been one where everyone's engaged thoughtfully and positively. And if we can't get it across the finish line with the model that's been described today, I would hope that we continue with a different model that, you know, people here that have expressed concern could be comfortable with as well. And maybe, you know, there is no model for some people, but I would hope that, you know, we can get to a point where there is regional collaboration. And I think we've done a good job getting there so far. So, thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Scott. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will be brief because I'm sure Witt is tired of standing up there. But I went on that field trip last, I guess it was October last year, right? It doesn't seem like it was that long ago. But, and that visit helped inform, you know, my thinking on this process because everything you said about that was absolutely correct. There was nobody in that room that felt like they were being neglected or left out or being overpowered. In fact, I remember one of the big projects that they settled on in one of their work plans was a bridge over the St. Johns River and going into Belusia County, which is not even part of their tri-county MPO because they identified that as affecting the region and affecting the three counties within the regional MPO. So, they picked that as one of their key projects. It wasn't even totally outside of their boundaries. So, I think that's just a great example of regional cooperation and things that I would hope a merged MPO can accomplish in this area. And then just kind of one final comment on the changing the apportionment with the interlocal agreement. And I definitely want to get a legal clarification on this. But to me, that sounds like a pretty high bar. If every signatory on the ILA has to agree to that, it means that everybody there, every signatory has a blackball vote and could stop it cold right there. To me, that seems like a pretty high bar, which I would hope would provide some comfort. So, but I definitely want to get some legal clarity. And I think you're right about that. I would say it's probably even more so for the larger jurisdictions. Dallas County, City of Tampa, City of St. Petersburg, maybe less so for a real small city. I mean, it's like, okay, they're out. But who's going to go forward if one of our three counties says we're out? Right. Right. We're not. I mean, and I, and, you know, the actual threshold for getting this done is 75% of the, of the residents in the urban area. That's, that's what the federal rules say is that we've got to have elected officials representing 75%. We just made it, you know, the three counties in the city of Tampa. Um, but I was asked that question early on at a county commission workshop. Could we do this without having Pinellas County supporting it? And there's probably a way to get 75% of the region's population, but why would we do that? We wouldn't do that. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? I have a few, just a few comments. Um, I'm glad that we're, that this is happening the way that it is with the three counties starting from a place of peace and a cooperation. It's interesting whenever, um, comparisons are made to Tampa Bay water, I can't help but think about the fact that it was born from conflict. We're not in that position right now, and we're very fortunate that we can do this from a place of cooperation. I often, when I think about the apportionment, I usually compare it to this board here, especially since I represent St. Petersburg, and it is by far the largest city in our county. We have four representatives on this board. That wasn't done 10 years ago. That was done with our last re-apportionment just a few years, maybe two years ago. About that, 2023. Time flies when you're having fun. But not once have I felt like there was any kind of tension or, um, uh, an approach or a feeling that St. Petersburg was, um, you know, exercising dominance and not caring about the other, the other cities. Um, if something comes up on our agenda as a board that affects Pinellas, that's taking place in Pinellas Park, I'm going to ask Vice Mayor Butler. I'm going to listen to what he has to say because he has to live and breathe this stuff based on our decisions. I don't think it would be, I don't think this is ever going to be perfect, but I don't want perfect to be the enemy of the good. And I think we're at a good place right now. One question that I have is, um, could you tell us just a little bit about where the Southern Group is and all of this? Because we've got, uh, state, uh, house rep that's sent us a letter. We have gubernatorial appointments to the, um, Tampa International Airport and Port of Tampa that we, we need help with. Yeah, the Southern Group is far away from this one because this is MPO and I am not allowed to lobby with my federal funds. Okay. So they're, they're the PPC's legal or legislative consultant. I got it. Okay. Thank you. And they're helping us with the special act that's needed to account for the potential merger. But that's it. Um, so, um, yeah, that's a little bit of a hamstring that MPOs have is we are not able to, um, engage legislative council. Having said that does not prohibit, you know, people like Tristan summer at the County or your folks at the city of St. Petersburg for helping. Um, but I can't direct that and I can't use my dollars to help that. Yes. Yes. That makes sense. Thank you for that clarification. I was just kind of wondering about that. Um, and I do hope that that can be addressed with the airport and the port. Um, it just seems only fair that if, you know, with the forward movement of the regional MPO, that those two boards be a little bit more equitable. I am very optimistic and I have to be as a planner, you know, cause I'm looking out 25 years in the future. Um, I'm optimistic that if you form this regional MPO, whatever the apportionment plan get beyond that, that it'll open and unlock so many doors of cooperation and collaboration in this region that have been kind of closed. Uh, global Tampa Bay is a good example of where that collaboration has begun to form among county-based economic development organizations. Um, but we can do more with that and, and we can build on that model. And I think we'll see a lot of good collaboration for this region. And, and we've had report after report. The only thing that's holding back Tampa Bay is its dysfunction as a region. Yeah. Um, and you know, I heard about those reports when I was hired, so that may be getting a little dated now, but I think it still holds true. Thank you. And I, I actually think that taking this regional approach is one way that we can, um, that the, the county would be able to address the change in population, which for me, it's a concern. And I think we need to start looking at why that's happening and what we can do about it. And that is, um, this is, this is, to me, this is one of the ways that we address that. It goes far beyond that, but this is just one problem that I think it can help us understand better and work towards a solution. We all know how great Pinellas County is. We've got to figure out why everyone else isn't seeing that the same way. All right. Um, that's all I have for my comments. Did you have, um, final thoughts or, um, some ideas on what you would like to propose for the next workshop? Great. Uh, you're looking at your agenda. Um, I open to suggestions from the board members. If there's a topic that you think we should tackle, um, our next workshop probably wouldn't be until January or February. Um, and so there might be some different faces around the room, but I am certainly open to those conversations. Um, we have, um, we have talked a lot at a staff level about our demographic challenge that we have in Pinellas County of the growth that we do have is largely older. Um, and we're struggling to retain and, um, house and, and provide jobs for younger, younger people who are graduating college or high school and want to work in Pinellas County. And I think that demographic time bomb is really important. Um, so we can look into that. That would be one suggestion I have, but I'm open and we don't have to, if you don't have an idea right now, we can come up, you know, you can email me. Right. You have one. Sounds like it doesn't have to be solved today. Commissioner Flowers. That's you. Yep. Um, thank you so much. I forgot to, um, bring up, but thank you for putting that screen back up. The state of Florida itself is an employment at will work state. So for the key point, was that for, um, the committee or the board to determine if it wanted to implement employment at will or. Right. Okay. Yeah. Because the state of Florida is so. Yeah. You know, unfortunately. Well, we have protections in the unified personnel system here in Pinellas County. Uh, they're exempt and non-exempt or classified. And, um, I think the thinking was we want to attract and retain the best talent we can. Certainly. So that might be, you know, a little more salary, a little more benefit, but you're employment at will and we want to make sure. But I've also heard concerns about that. It came up at the Hillsborough meeting. So maybe some thought about some protections for folks. But these are all, uh, and, and like commissioner Peters's comments on, on this, it's a starting point. And we're certainly open to revisions and looking at that because we've, we've had to work with three different organizations to kind of couple something together. Okay. And, um, the question or the concerns about the approval of the bylaws being done by the new proposed body versus, um, others just want to share from my experience and going through workforce with the merger between Hillsborough and Pinellas. So I'm sure people read the articles in the paper, I was fighting for Pinellas to retain some, um, authority, if you will, and a presence because Hillsborough was pointed as the lead because of their population over us. Um, and I wish our conversations initially were as civil as our conversations are here. They were not, um, um, once we kind of got past that, um, we've been able to operate, um, on a very decent level where, um, we are looking out for residents on both sides of the bay. Our contention right now, um, is because the state, um, put in certain pieces that does determine, um, funding allocations and it gives greater recognition to Hillsborough County. It wasn't the board. That's not what we wanted. It was the state. I'm just simply saying this for those who say they want the state to come in. It was the state and the way that they addressed it. Hillsborough County receives more funding than Pinellas County does. However, Pinellas County has consistently utilized all of its funding sources in the training areas and the specific categories that the red and green report says we need to, and we are overperforming in those areas, but we don't get any more money. And there's no mechanism for Hillsborough County to say we don't have, uh, use for these dollars. So we'd like to give them to Pinellas. So now we are lobbying the legislature to find a way that someone can address language that would allow for that switch over. So I'm just using that as an example, current example, where the state set these parameters, it ain't working. And so now we're going back to them saying, can you fix what, what's not working? And it's difficult to do that, um, based on the way that you need to be able to ascertain those votes. So, but I don't, I don't have a problem, um, with, um, with this body or whatever body addressing those, um, the bylaws that then whatever the new group is, we'll have to abide by and live by. Because I would hope that all of us want to make sure that they address fairness and equity across all three, because Pasco is much more rural than Pinellas or Hillsborough, uh, Tampa, you know, to get them on board, that was a masterful feat. And I am thankful we were able to, to at least get them to this point. So I look forward to the continued discussion and all of the comments that have been made around the table are very valid comments. The last thing I'll say is I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with the upcoming census, because you already have people that are so apprehensive about filling out the census form anyway. Um, and so we have a large undercount. So now with the things that we have with ICE and other situations, we may have an even greater number of people. I don't know that, but I'm just thinking, um, a greater number of people that are apprehensive about filling out that census count because they don't want to draw attention to themselves. And that typically is, you know, I don't want to lose my benefits. Um, I, you know, I'm applying for, uh, permanent citizenship. This will put me on the radar, you know, things like that, that we've had to overcome even before all of the things that are going on now. So I'm not quite sure how those numbers are going to roll out, whether it's Hillsboro, Pasco or Pinellas when it comes to the census, because there is an apprehension. People are talking about it right now. Um, and, um, so we'll, we'll see how that works, but I just wanted to throw that in because we typically have an undercount, which does hinder even the financial remuneration we get from the federal government for services because they do it based on the census counts. Um, so anyway, thank you for allowing me to say that, but I do appreciate your presentation today. And I appreciate all the comments that have come forth, um, from everybody here. Thank you. Mayor Franey. I promise I won't talk long. I know everybody's got their lunch. Um, no, no, I appreciate everybody's side of this as well. Um, and, and the concerns as well, open to whatever, but I really, uh, council member Floyd, I thought you, you brought a lot of, you know, good thinking about getting it done and no system works without trust anyway. And, and so to put something together and make it work together is good. And I know we're going to also get, we'll get legal clarification on, you know, the whole census, forced apportionment, that kind of thing. So that'll get that off the table. So the one burning thing I just wanted to say too, because, you know, uh, uh, Commissioner Peters brought it up and as a former HR person, I'm assuming every member that would be involved in this merger of employees is in the FRS system. Uh, yes, they are. Well, all the existing staff are. Yeah. I just, you know, to me, to not stay in FRS would not, you know, that just in terms of wanting to keep your top people, that would not be a good way to go, but just, uh, and that's it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you all. That's, that's my summation. All right. I get it. Fantastic. All right. Thanks everyone for your, for your input. It's really helpful to hear from everyone at this, at this point in the game. Um, the board workshop is adjourned and our board meeting will begin at 1 PM. Thank you.