See, it didn't take you long, did it? He said he would do that right away. Mayor Rector, if you'll lead us in the pledge, please. Well, just for personal reasons and professional reasons, the word of the day is gratitude and thanks for the constituents for my race, but just for getting out and voting. We had one result last night that I think there was a one-vote difference or two-vote difference, so the adage that every vote matters couldn't be more true. And also just the gratitude for the staff over there and the work that you all do to make sure that our county keeps being attractive to a lot of folks around the world. So thank you for what you do. With that said, we'll have a motion and a second, please, for the approval of the minutes for July 15th. Motion by Commissioner Hubbard and second by Mayor Gattis. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Do we have any public comments? No public comments. All right. No public comments over there? All right. We got a few presentations, and we'll turn it over to Brian. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we are going to start with Steve Grimes, who will provide an update on kind of a recap on 727 Day this year. Good morning, everybody. Nice to see you all. Well, just as Brian said, a super quick recap on what's rapidly becoming Pinellas County's favorite holiday, 727 Day. And so actually, before I jump into this, just a quick shout out to two folks on our team that are not here, Jessica Morrow and Bailey Carlson. Both worked unbelievably hard on pulling all of this together, and they're now back at the office working on next week's Besties, so could not be here for this. So I'm sort of doing this in their stead. So quick recap on why we do 727 Day or why we focus on it. It's really to thank residents for being amazing hosts to the 15 million tourists that we get here every year, and to sort of remind them of the impact and the power of tourism in the community. So we use it to drive awareness, but also give back. So we work with all of our hospitality, restaurants, and amusements to create deals where residents can go and save some money during that 727 period. We engage with various giveaways and other promotions, and then for the last few years, we've been working with a local artist to also highlight the arts scene in the area as well as part of 727, and hopefully you all received your 727 shirt. If you didn't, come see me. We can hook you up with a shirt. So this year, as has happened each year, it's been bigger and better than the previous year. So we had 170 different deals available for people, more than 10,000 people signed up for our mobile passport, 3,500 of those checked in and redeemed coupons. We gave away 800 shirts and a couple hundred prints, all sorts of different deals, whether it was a 727 cocktail or a 727 deal on Starship there. From an activation point of view, 725, with 727 landing on a Monday, we decided to make the whole weekend a 727 celebration. So we kicked it off at the Rays game, where we had given away tickets to the game for people who attended the, through, actually, let me back up. We were going to give away tickets through the Ice Cream Festival the weekend before. The Ice Cream Festival got postponed because of rain, so we then scrambled to give away those tickets through local radio and social media promotions. So we gave away 1,500 tickets to the game. Then, when you got to the game, first 1,500 people could get a 727 shirt. We also had the T-shirt cannon firing, so driving around, firing out the T-shirt. Anyway, and at least as of this date, it was the second most attended Rays game of the season so far, so that was great. We then followed that up at the rescheduled Ice Cream Festival the day after, where, again, people could participate in various games, win prizes, including the shirts. And then, on 727 day itself, our friends at Karwa gave anybody that walked in the store a free cup of coffee between 727 and 827 in the morning. So what's that done for us? Well, it's got us a lot of attention. Hopefully, everybody saw some amount of 727 coverage over that period. Almost 23 million local impressions across the media, which is just fantastic. Our website, as you can see here, up 75% year over year, almost 55,000 views to the website, and 127,000 social media accounts reached. So as far as telling the world and this community that 727 day is something they should be celebrating and also thanking them, I think it worked very well. So there you go. Here are all the numbers. 3,500 shirts, 500 coffees, 10,000 passports. Overall, very happy with how 727 has grown. And that means that next year, we've got to go bigger and better again. And because it's 2027 next year, it means that the entire month of July is 727. So stay tuned for what that means. We're still working on the plans, but bigger and even better next year. And that's all I've got for you. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate that. Any questions for Steve? All right. Great. Thanks. All right. Go ahead, Brian. All right. Next up, Kylie Diaz will come up, and she's going to present an overview of some of the meaningful travel initiatives that she's been spearheading. And this will continue to build out, but we're off to a great start, and we want to highlight some of those as soon as the screen comes. There we go. Take it away, Kylie. Good morning. I'm Kylie Diaz, Vice President of Community Engagement with Visit St. Pete Clearwater. I'm excited to be here with you to talk about meaningful travel today. And I'm going to attempt to explain it. So have any of you ever been on a vacation where you were able to immerse yourself in the culture, the history? Maybe it was the people or the sense of place or the environment that really just left an impression on you. This is what meaningful travel is. And so let me just forward this. If you can imagine yourself waking up with a cup of coffee with the shoreline at your feet, you're looking out at the gulf. And then after breakfast, you're able to tour historic ruins. And then after lunch, you can jump in a kayak and go look at marine life. This is an experience that you can have right here at St. Pete Clearwater at historic Fort DeSoto if you're camping there. I know all of you aren't campers, but it's a great experience. So we have partnered with Tourism Cares, which is a nonprofit organization, and they're dedicated to advancing meaningful travel initiatives throughout the tourism industry. The great thing about Tourism Cares is they actually vet all of the experiences. So if you apply to be a meaningful travel experience, you actually are vetted through this, and you have to meet very specific criteria to be approved. And so here's what we know. 56.1% of travelers either find it appealing or very appealing to participate in immersive, hands-on experiences that connect you with your destination's culture, history, or environment. It's a top travel trend for 2026. This is from Future Partners, the State of the American Traveler Report. We wanted this to be authentic. So how did we approach this? Of course, we had to involve our partners. So we convened our partners, including city, council, city attractions, arts and culture, nonprofits, students, and environmental organizations. And we brought everybody to the table. We knew we had partners that were doing really great work. They were all sort of running parallel. So we said, let's bring everyone together, get them to the table, and brainstorm and find out what meaningful travel means to them. And so what came out of this is actually the Meaningful Travel website and map. So if you go to our website, we actually have this map that you see here to the left listed. And we are up to about 20 experiences. This map can be viewed in 131 countries. So it's actually, there are experiences listed all over the world. And St. Pete Clearwater has 20. Some of these experiences include, we've got the Marine Arts Center, which is a brand new ad, Get Up and Go Kayaking, Tampa Bay Watch, Hubbard's Marina, which actually has another great camping experience out to Shell Key. And their company also gives back 1% to the planet. The historic St. Nicholas Boat Line and Tarpon Springs. You can take a walk through Heritage Village at the same time, visiting the botanical gardens. And I'd like to congratulate our very newest map addition, which is Florida Outdoor Adventures. They can actually curate a meaningful travel itinerary for you. So I would like to thank Steve Grimes and the marketing team. They were able to hire Sarah Finney and Sarah Finney has gone out into the destination to kind of bring together these, the idea of these meaningful travel experiences. From sunrise to sunset, the St. Pete Pier is the best place in the city to enjoy sweeping views of Tampa Bay. And if you've ever wondered what's happening below the surface, there's a place on the pier you need to see. Welcome to the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center, a stop that will make your visit to the St. Pete Clearwater area even more meaningful. It tells the story of Tampa Bay Watch and what we've done to restore the Tampa Bay estuary to help improve the water quality out here. Tampa Bay Watch Associate Director of Education Zoe Karoffi says a lot of people think the Discovery Center is just for kids. But all ages will leave with a better understanding of the estuary. Where fresh water and salt water meet to create a nursery for marine life. To get a real feel for what's in the water, spend time at the Tampa Bay Touch Tank, where you can interact with sea stars, live shells, and even horseshoe crabs. Their tail looks like a stingray, but it's completely safe to touch. They actually use that to flip their body upside down. Nearby, peer into a big tank with a large mangrove replica. It's a tree that provides habitat for many species, including hogfish, grouper, and snook. Now all of these fish in this tank are native to the Tampa Bay estuary, so you can find them right outside on the St. Pete Pier. In addition to education, Tampa Bay Watch focuses on restoration through living shorelines. Living shorelines use natural materials to heal eroded coastlines, and oysters play a big role in that. Tampa Bay Watch has a variety of projects to revive oyster habitats through shellbags, vertical oyster gardens, and oyster reef balls. You and your family can actually volunteer with the nonprofit, whether you live here or are just visiting. Anyone and everyone are welcome to come out and help us out. If a volunteer project doesn't fit into your trip schedule, you can still get out on the water with Tampa Bay Watch through their boat tours. On the 90-minute wildlife boat tour, marine science educators conduct real-life scientific research by deploying a net, tracking what they find, and giving guests an up-close look at the creatures living in Tampa Bay. Another big highlight was visiting a protected island reserved for nesting birds. We saw pelicans, double-crested camarons, tricolored herons, cattle egrets, and even a spoonbill. It was a birder's dream. You can walk away from the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center and the wildlife boat tour feeling really good, because all proceeds help support Tampa Bay Watch's mission to restore the health of Tampa Bay. Visiting, you know, Tampa Bay's estuary and coming out on one of our boat tours or participating in one of our restoration projects gives you that meaningful opportunity to connect with the Tampa Bay ecosystem and give back, and not just visit to see the landscape and the location. Instead, you're contributing to make meaningful change to the ecosystem out here. Be sure to check the caption if you would like to find out about more meaningful travel experiences in the St. Pete Clearwater area, like the Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center and their boat tours. So, this was just the beginning of the series, and one of the great things about Tampa Bay Watch is you can actually volunteer with them doing oyster restoration. So, if you're a visitor to our area, you can actually go on their website, find a day to do oyster restoration, and go out on the bay and work towards that. So, it's, and you could also come here and volunteer with Keep Pinellas Beautiful doing a beach cleanup. So, these are the types of experiences that we really want our travelers to experience and enjoy. We did have another video there, which was on Heritage Village and Botanical Gardens, but it's not working. And then, Sarah also was on Great Day Live for a back-to-school special, and she talked a lot about the meaningful travel. And she has just been having a ton of fun going around the destination, doing these stories. Just this morning, we got back the Dunedin Fine Arts Center, where we highlighted some of their experiences that you might not know about that are actually located upstairs, where you can do art projects, or you can actually learn cooking classes, like Italian cooking classes, through their chef. And, again, as a visitor, you can come here, look it up, and go take these classes. So, just a way to experience in our destination that might not be the norm and that people love. So, it's just a way to turn coastal tourism into a force for good. Does anyone have questions? Any questions for Kylie? All right. Well, thank you. Thanks. That was awesome. Thank you, Kylie. And next up, we've got Eddie Kirsch to come up and give a destination metrics update for the month of June. Good morning, and good to see you guys all again. So, I'll just jump right into it. For the June destination metrics, we once again saw a record-breaking month at $8.5 million in TDT collections, just a little more than what we received in fiscal year 2024 over the same month, but a large jump over last year, fiscal year 2025. So, we really saw some summer travel start and really continue through a very positive spring season for us. In fact, looking at our fiscal year at TDT to start, we're, with the month of June, almost at $80 million in collections for this fiscal year. That is above the previous two fiscal years. And you can really see from the past three months, the orange bar being fiscal year 2026, orange line, June, May, April, all tremendous months in terms of performance, and, you know, greatly above last year and solidly above the year before as well. So, kind of looking into our performance in the different areas of Pinellas County, again, vacation rental performance has really been a highlight this year and continues to be, especially over last year. But Clearwater, Clearwater Beach, St. Petersburg, I made a, or someone made a little bit of a typo in the Dunedin and that that is a positive change from fiscal year 2024 as well. So, you know, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, there's several areas of our community that have been positive over the past two years and several more that have seen a much improved growth from fiscal year 2025, which is also something to celebrate. Looking at some of the individual metrics of this month, we had just over 3 million recorded visitors using Placer that spent at least 90 minutes in our destination. That's a 6% growth over last year. It is shy of fiscal year 2024 by a little more than 3%, but the hotel occupancy is an improvement from the previous two years at 3% last year, 1.5% the year before. Hotel ADR is performing very steady to where it's been the past couple of years. Small increases, but essentially not too much there. And then the vacation rental occupancy, which is data that key data has scraped from Airbnb to understand the occupancy of the largest OTA of vacation rental data out there, has seen a 10% in growth over the past couple of years. Now, this is in part due to still fewer units than available the past two years, but a significant growth nonetheless. And then even more impressive has been the vacation rental ADR growth, which has been a 9% increase from last year and over a 17% increase from two years ago, really signaling that the rate that a vacation rental unit is today is much greater than it was two years ago, and people are still at a price point that people are willing to take their vacation in a vacation rental. Now, looking at sort of the origin destination from the past couple of years, and we're using geomobile location data for this as well, you can see kind of where things are at. We are above in Orlando from the previous couple of years, but kind of in between in some of these other key markets for us, particularly out of state. Now, the stress and the cost of flight has, you know, should be a notable factor there, but we are still seeing, as previously shown, over 3 million visitors through the area, but there are some key differences in where those visitors are coming from this June compared to where they were coming from two Junes ago. Looking ahead at the next six months, we think that there's going to be some positive momentum when we get the July TDT report as well. We've seen strong indicators as the hotel guest sample nights show over the past couple of years in July as well as August, and then very competitive in September through December. And then on the vacation rental sample pacing as well, we see a strong July, a strong August, and then a continued strong fall relative to the past couple of years from that market as well. I know I've been brief, but I'm happy to answer any questions for you guys. Any questions, Freddie? Oh, everybody's getting off easy today. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Excellent. Well, then bringing us up to our fourth one, well, it's listed under presentations. It's not exactly a presentation, but I did want to introduce some proposed changes to the Tourist Development Council bylaws for you all to review, have discussion, and if you all would like to take action, send that to the Board of County Commissioners. Over the last couple months, a number of board members have approached me and asked, hey, we've got two members that are coming up on term limits, and they've been on the board for a long time. They have historical perspective, knowledge. We're going to be getting, at the same time, potentially a number of new members to the board that likely have never served on the Tourist Development Council. And so, we're term limits a thing that we needed to kind of revisit. And so, working with Amanda in the county attorney's office, we put together some language that would really do two things. allow non-elected members of the board, so the industry folks, if they reach their term limits, which again is four, excuse me, three terms of four years each, so a total of 12 years, once they reach that, the Board of County Commissioners, at their sole discretion, may appoint those members to an additional up to two years in non-voting ex-officio capacity. So, similar to last year, we brought on a non-voting ex-officio member who's the vice chair of the Board of County Commissioners. In advance of that year, taking over as chair of the Tourist Development Council, this would kind of be on the other end of that spectrum to allow those outgoing board members to serve almost in an advisory capacity while those new members come on. And so, those proposed changes are before you. You've got the red line version. We think this was a good way to address some of the concerns that have been raised, and I've opened it up for discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, I was really excited to think about and contemplate the change. I think it's from twofold. New members coming on board, I think, need that guidance. And also, I hate to lose that institutional knowledge around these tables and all the discussions that we have. So, anyway, we'll open it up for conversation and comments or questions from anybody here. Oh, okay. Well, I was just going to say, as a new member, I really value that experience, and I think it would really help. So, I fully support that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's... Thank you, Trish. Yeah, I do. As a new member, it takes a while to really understand and get your grounds, and I think you can share that, too. It just takes some time. So, having that industry knowledge really, I think, would be fully supported. Thank you. Mayor? Yes, I think it's a great idea. Also, it would be a shame to lose that wealth of information, and I'm sure that the newbies could use some schooling from time to time. Well, we wouldn't lose it. They'll be still in the area and participating, but it's nice to have them around this table when we're having that conversation. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so thank you. Anybody else? Yeah, Phil. Yeah, I asked to have this brought up last month, not with the intent of serving longer myself, but just to address how long people could serve and to extend it somewhat. I think this answers that pretty well. When I actually looked closer at who's expiring when, it's pretty well staggered, and by extending it, it's going to, you know, if people elect to stay on two more years, if the commission chooses to let them, it'll stagger even better in the long run and keep that perspective. And as the new members of the board come up to speed, it really takes, I think it takes two to three years just to really get going here, at least it did for me. And so having that extra couple of years that new people can come in, still see people from the past, and extending it. If everybody stayed two more years, it would really push things out very nicely. Besides, what would these folks do not coming to this meeting? Yeah, I'm trying to roll every time. Every Wednesday. I mean, they'd be having free time, for crying out loud. We've got to keep them busy. So anybody else? I think from time to time, maybe you ought to give them a test and see whether they really remember or not. That could be questionable at a certain point. When you ask for time to, you know, what you do when you go off of this, I'm going to Sob Choppy, Florida, for a brim fish lunch tomorrow. There you go. That's what you do sometimes. But you're here today. I'm here today, that's for sure. Of course, our hearts are in it for all of us, and that's what's good about it. Amen. And I think it's still great to have both, not just the members that have been around, but the new members, and I'm looking forward to that. And I think that it's been proven the last couple of years with the new members and everything, with new ideas and questions and all, and I appreciate all that, too. Thank you, Russ. I appreciate that. Anybody else? All right. So I guess we'll take a motion from somebody and a second. So moved. Motion by Doreen. Second by Gillen. Final comments or questions? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. That's a great improvement, and I really appreciate you bringing that forward. Thank you. All right. Go ahead, Brian. All right. I've got four items that I want to bring to your attention, and I'm going to start with the first one as an introduction to our newest team member on the Visit St. Pete Clearwater family. And joining us today, if she would like to make her way up to the dais, is Emily Simon. And she joins us, the Sports Commission team, as the newest business development manager. And she is here this morning to say hello and introduce herself. So please join me in welcoming Emily. Good morning, everyone. Nice to meet all of you. I'm Emily Simon, business development manager on the Sports Commission with Visit St. Pete Clearwater. I'm very excited to join the team. I'm coming over from Polk County. Spent three years over there as a sales and events representative in the indoor and corporate partnership space. So yeah, just looking forward to this opportunity and joining the team and helping continue to sell Pinellas County as a premier sports destination. Good to have you here. Thank you. Good to have you part of the team. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead. Number two, I want to give a shout out to a team here in the destination that's very important in what we do and the success of what we do. Over in the city of Clearwater, their parks and recreation team were recently awarded by the Florida Recreation and Parks Association as the winner of the Excellence in Sports Tourism Award. And that's really important because, as you all know, events continue to drive more and more visitors to the destination and specifically sports events. And so the team, we've got specifically two really good city partners that have amazing parks and rec teams, and so it's always great to see them recognized from their peers. This is done by their peers from throughout the state, and they took the award for the Excellence in Sports Tourism. So we're glad that they're here, and we're glad to partner with them. And then number three, this Friday begins an 11-day celebration event down along our barrier islands. And Madeira Beach, the annual burger week, is back. And it kicks off this Friday, August 21st, down at John's Pass at the Village Friday event. And it will run through August 30th. And for those who aren't familiar with Burger Week, it is 18 different restaurants throughout Madeira Beach with 18 different specialized burgers just for this competition. And you can get a passport for Burger Week, and you go check out these restaurants. $10 gets you an amazing over the—I saw some of these burgers. They're over the top. And you go, you check, you order the burger, you get your passport stamped, and after you try three or more, you can then submit your passport, who is the burger of the year. I think they've got some specialty categories as well. So it's a great event that the City of Madeira Beach is sponsoring and hosting with their businesses, their restaurants. And we are looking forward to it. So if you have time this Friday or between Friday and the 30th, I recommend you get yourself a burger passport and go check out as many burgers as you can. Captain Hubbard? I'll jump in there. Thank you. Yeah, it kicks off this Friday from 6 to 9 is Village Friday, and that's the actual event. We're going to have live music and a party going on in John's Pass. And the Pinellas podcast guy, Mark, will actually be there doing a live podcast promoting that. And then also we're using it to also kind of jumpstart promotions for Seafood Festival, which is coming up in October, the weekend before Halloween. And the cool part about this is, again, it is only $10 for these specialized burgers. And you mentioned 18 restaurants. Madeira Beach isn't very big. So 18 restaurants is pretty much almost every restaurant is participating. So you can get your passport at one of the chamber offices, the City Hall, or one of the participating restaurants. And they're giving away crazy prizes to participants as well to try to incentivize people to go around to all the different restaurants. They're giving away – last year we gave away a big green egg. We give away a bunch of free trips and hotel stays and stuff like that. So it's a really cool way for, like, community engagement. And it's been successful the last – I think it's been – this is our maybe third or fourth year. And it's growing each year. So it's pretty cool. Thank you. Thank you, Captain Hubbard. Is there any insight on any, you know, burgers that are the heavy favorites for Burger of the Year this year? They are all so good. I was asked that yesterday when I was talking to the Pinellas Podcast folks. I'm a big guy. I like them all. Excellent. And last but not least, I just want to provide a reminder to this board and anyone watching at home that next Thursday it's back, the Besties, where we will recognize the best of St. Pete Clearwater in 38 categories. And I'm here to tell you more people voted this year than ever. In fact, we had almost 90,000 votes submitted for the Besties in those 38 different categories. So this is one of our favorite events of the year. We hope you all are able to participate in that. And we're looking forward to celebrating the best that St. Pete Clearwater has to offer in this amazing travel and tourism industry we have here. So, Mr. Chair, that's all I've got for you. Questions for Brian? Yes. Yeah, one question I had, Brian, was an update on the elite event funding discussion. I know we talked about it heavily. It went to the Board of County Commissioners. Where would we stand with that? Yes. So next Tuesday at the Board of County Commissioners meeting, I will be presenting on two items. And they'll be in the evening on the elite event. So first is a public hearing to amend the tourist development plan, which is required if the board were to take your recommendation of funding above the $3 million threshold in the elite event. So that will be on there. If they vote yes, then they have the opportunity to vote yes on your recommendation for the $3.3 million and some change million for elite events. And that way, all the events that were recommended and are eligible for their specific category, they would get funded at the max amount. So that will be on Tuesday's agenda, and I will be meeting with commissioners between now and Tuesday to discuss that. When we did the staff report, there were, like, three different recommendations in there and then the amendment of the plan. So I want to make sure that they fully understand that before they see it on Tuesday. Any other questions for Brian? Can you update us on the studies that we've been doing that are in active right now for sports and for, I think, the convention center? What the dates are, the next step in them? Sure. So we'll start with the first one, the Toy Town. We're still in an RFP process. We're in phase two of that RFP for developing Toy Town into a sports tourism complex. And, actually, next week we're scheduled to get that final proposal from the applicant. We, as you recall, late last year, you know, we needed more information on what was under the surface there, and there were some gaps in the data. And so you all authorized, along with the Board of County Commissioners, some funding to perform those subsurface investigations, see what's down there. We received those. We provided those to the applicant, and we'll get their revised final submittal next week is, I believe, the scheduled date on that. And then from there, depending on the results of that, we will have a path forward. Again, until we see that, I don't have an exact timeline, but the goal, if there is a favorable proposal, something that we're confident in and we want to proceed with, we would be engaging with the Board of County Commissioners later this fall and hopefully have something to vote on by the end of the year. Additionally, the RFP for the Convention Center Feasibility Study going on in St. Pete, they selected a firm, and the county and city, as well as the firm, have agreed to some language for a tri-party agreement. As a reminder, the county would use tourist development council or TDT funds to go in 50-50 with the city on the cost of that. So that agreement has been drafted and is in the process of being routed for signatures. I believe we've got about a four-and-a-half-month timeline from the notice to proceed being provided, and then we will have that feasibility study on what a convention center would look like in St. Petersburg. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian. Anybody else? All right, let's go on down to any Board comments. Yes, go ahead, Dylan. So one thing I wanted to bring up and have a discussion around here, talking to a lot of folks over the last couple months, we have a lot of discussions up and down the coastline of different municipalities celebrating the reinstallation or the fixing up of their resources along the coastline, and specifically piers. Fort Myers just recently completed one of their piers. You've got Safety Harbor completing a pier here shortly. There's a lot of these up and down the coast that have celebrated the reinstallation or rebuilding of their coastal piers. And piers are something that I think, in my opinion, drive a lot of tourism. It's a benefit to locals and residents, and it helps people enjoy their destination, and it adds more things to do. And in my lifetime, we have seen an absolute desecration or elimination of almost every coastal pier that was really worth something along Pinellas County. I mean, just to list a few, you've got the Reddington Long Pier, the Indian Rocks Long Pier, the T Pier down in Paso Grill, the John's Pass Jetty was taken away, the Gandy Catwalk Skyway Fishing Piers are now closed. Thankfully, we had a big win. They're going to be rebuilding those. But, I mean, there's almost every bridge you go by now has signs, no fishing. When I was growing up as a kid, you could fish virtually any dock in John's Pass. Now I struggle to keep my own dock open to fishing, and it's the last access, you know. It's frustrating to see this elimination of shoreline access to fishing, and that's how a lot of people get started. This was kind of brought, to me, to a forefront because a gentleman passed away recently, and he was a local influential captain. And these guys all got started on the Reddington Long Pier fishing together. I mean, that's how we see kind of the evolution of the fisherman is the kid rides his bike down to the pier, learns how to fish, then gets a kayak, then gets a boat, then starts fishing on a party boat, then eventually gets his own charter boat. And you see this evolution of the angler, and we are essentially eliminating that ability for that evolution to begin by removing shoreline access to fishing. And I don't think it's anything anybody's doing purposefully, but I think this board needs to potentially explore putting some of these piers back together. We've talked about funding beach parks. We've talked about ways to try to use TDT dollars to benefit residents. And I think creating some fishing piers and pier access, because I say fishing piers because I like fishing, but Johns Pass Jetty, for example, it's no longer there. But when it was there, I would walk down there all the time to talk to fishermen to get reports. Nine out of ten people on that jetty weren't fishing. It's just people walking. Residents love going down there. It's a beautiful view. Kids are attracted to it. I think it's something that we could utilize these TDT funds for that would really bring a lot of benefit, not only for tourism, but also to residents alike. And I believe that it's a possibility to use the funds for that kind of thing. So I just wanted to throw that out there for discussion. I think, I mean, obviously, piers have been incredibly wonderful to the area. So any thoughts, any comments? Yeah, Doreen? Question, Dylan, how do you differentiate between the privately owned properties, as in Indian Rocks, I believe, was private, and the Reddington Longshore area is private? How do you look at that in terms of, you've mentioned Fort Myers, that was obviously municipal, or our village, Johns Pass, Jetty, you know, municipal? So how do you see that? I mean, in my opinion, either or would be fine with me, just getting some of these piers back in and allowing potentially a lot of bridges used to have catwalks, the Gandy catwalk, the old Johns Pass catwalk. So there are specific structures built for folks to walk on or fish from adjacent to these DOT and municipality easements. But I think private or public or what I always, what, Johns Pass, for example, a lot of people talk about the cost of building a longer jetty or building a pier or something like that. To me, it's almost a silly argument because, yes, it might cost a lot of money to begin with, but these structures last a while, unless, God forbid, we have a really serious hurricane. These structures last a while, and you slap an RFP on there and let a private company manage it and put a fishing license on that thing. You can, for example, at the Skyway Fishing Pier, they charge, I think it's $8 a person to go out there and fish. And you can charge because you're covered under their license. The pier is licensed. And people pay it all the time. And a lot of, like, Pier 60, I believe how it's set up is you go out to a certain point for free, but if you want to go to this certain area to fish, you have to pay. And that money would ultimately fund over the lifetime of these structures, in my opinion. You're only net gaining. And to answer the question, would it be public or private, I think there's a lot of different opportunities to structure the funding to get us started and then potentially pay that funding back. Anybody else have a comment, Mayor? I'll just say, you know, the two major piers we have in the county, St. Petersburg, St. Pete Pier, and Pier 60, are two of the most iconic photograph places in the entire county. I mean, you know, I told the story before, but traveling on a Virgin Airlines flight from London to South Africa, and there's a picture of Clearwater Beach and Pier 60. The pier is probably the most photographed spot in Clearwater, and St. Petersburg, it's become that, too. So I think there's also, in addition to the fishing opportunity, there's just that scenery, that attractiveness that it adds to our county. So I would support, you know, the idea of exploring that further. Thank you. Anybody else? Any other comments by anybody we'd like to bring up? Dylan? So along that line, also, I wanted to have a discussion or at least a topic about what was discussed at the last county commissioner meeting. They discussed the potential of elimination or defunding. I apologize, Commissioner Lavala might have to correct me because I didn't pay as close attention to it as I should have, but I kind of watched the fallout from it. And there's a lot of rumors, obviously, spinning around, too. But the discussion around Shell Key and Wheaton Island and potential defunding or eliminating those county parks, and I think Pinellas County's county park system is something that is a huge asset to tourism. So as those discussions develop, I think this board should potentially be at the forefront or at least included in that discussion along with the county commission. And the discussion over changing the parking rates and boat ramp fees is a scary one, to say the least, because a lot of these boat ramps are still not fixed. I mean, we're coming up on the two-year anniversary, and most of the boat ramps, all of the boat ramps that are in my area have not been fixed. So we're talking about exponentially increasing fees from $6 a day to $3.50 an hour, and these facilities aren't even up to just par. They're not back to where they were before the storm. So it's definitely something that I think would be a huge detriment to tourism, and I think potentially we have some conversation around that. Thanks. That would be a great topic for the county commission chairman to discuss. Since I was out of the room. He was asking about or wanting an explanation over your ill-advised decision on Wheaton Island and Shell Island and also raising the parking fees and boat ramps. No, it was not the chairman's idea to do that. I was teasing. That came from the county administrator. But in his defense, we are facing a budget shortfall. And that is also, I will add, that's before any impacts of Amendment 3 in November. And so for Wheaton Island, it could be suggested that it's a state-run facility. We're giving it back to the state and letting them do it. Or it's a state land that we're giving back, so we're not having to run it ourselves. That, without speaking for my colleagues, I would say that that did not go over well with the Board of County Commissioners. I don't envision that perhaps happening. But we are going to have to make some adjustments to the budget. And during the meeting that we had, there were various slides that show all the different unfunded. And Council Member Gertie, since he's in local government, can talk about the different unfunded mandates from our friends in Tallahassee. But just on the county budget, the health care portion of the sheriff's budget, the increase in the health care costs just on the sheriff's side is more than what zero, if we just kept the budget flat. It covers more than that, just the increase on the health care side. And so, you know, there's all sorts of things that come down from Tallahassee. And being a former legislator, I'm not going to complain about that because I voted for a lot of that stuff because state government is smarter than local government, supposedly. But there is going to be a lot of discussions on, you know, what happens with our county budget. I suspect, and our chair can talk about this, I suspect that the parking rates will be put on the table. Currently, our parking rates are less than what a lot of the surrounding cities are. And I don't want to pick on Clearwater, but since I'm pointing everybody else out, Clearwater's parking is more expensive than, for instance, Sand Key's parking. Yeah, and to that point, I wasn't trying to ask for an explanation. I understand the situation we're in is potentially pretty dire without Amendment 3 and the potential of that change. What I was getting at is just, I think, this board needs to maybe potentially have a conversation around it or be involved in the discussion because I think it directly will impact tourism. And I understand completely, for example, Fort DeSoto, which I'm most familiar with, is $6 a day for parking. Just a few years ago, it was free. So I agree, $6 a day could be viewed as pretty cheap when you look at some of the other municipalities around the area. And the staff recommendation or the county administrator's recommendation of moving to $3.50 an hour is still, when you look at other municipalities, pretty realistic as far as funding. My issue or my thought is jumping from $6 a day to $3.50 an hour is a significant increase. And I think it should be something maybe we discuss about being tiered or something like that. So that way, the impact to tourism, because specifically Fort DeSoto, and I think a lot of these parks are something that people come back to every year. And I know Fort DeSoto, for example, they have that campground booked a year, a year and a half, two years out. And when people visit that campground, they're booking while they're there for the following year. And I've tried to book some of those campsites before myself. You have to, like, wait for the schedule to open, and you have to refresh the page. It's like trying to get concert tickets. So I think a lot of those people would be, I think, severely impacted because that clientele, if you will, isn't the affluent clientele that's going to be visiting Clearwater Beach and paying $5 an hour for parking or whatever the city is. So I think that's a conversation that needs to be discussed. Yeah, and I think, to your point, if Amendment 3 does pass, I think that I would not be surprised if the legislature allows counties to use TDC funding in a much more flexible manner than currently is allowed. Like, for instance, a lot of folks called me about us contributing money to, like, the Rays Stadium in Tampa. And I would say, oh, well, we can't do that because we can only spend it in our county. And then they would say, and these were, like, you know, legislators would ask me, like, legislators in Tampa. And then they would say, and then I would tell them, like, you know, this is the only things that we can spend it on. And because they knew that we had a ton of it, especially after what happened last year. And so I could see that being a very realistic possibility. Yeah, and I would just add that, you know, the idea, the thought that he just talked about is us making sure that we have a really good handle on our 60-40 split and what we want to do with our funds. And, of course, we had that conversation about the reserve account and the marketing side. And so we just have to be careful as we move forward in this kind of era that we're in, which is trying to be very, you know, cognizant of the spending and what's going on. In that same meeting, for instance, we had the firefighters come forward, and their individual budgets from next November would be affected somewhere in the 30% to 50% range, depending on the fire. And then our funding that funds some of the seats in those fire trucks will be funded or affected dramatically. So they were expressing their concerns. So if you go through that, there are people that really care about how our parks look and how our roads look. And we're starting to get calls on what we just started to make some improvements to our overall road system. And now, gosh, we may have to let go of those three little millages that we have for improving our roads. So I think we're going to get a lot of pressure because nothing is incremental in Tallahassee. It's, you know, rip the Band-Aid off. So your point about incremental and parking makes a lot of sense to me, that we step into it a little bit. And we'll have those kind of conversations, especially for next year. There is a thought that we're on dress rehearsal now for folks that say, hey, we haven't been able to trust you. So what's it going to take to have a full rollback here at the Pinellas County? That's another $10 million out of our budget that we'd have to do. So there is conversation that says, hey, if we can do a full rollback this year to tell our residents, of course, that's just one out of, what, 67 counties. But at least somebody's stepping up and saying, we hear that you want smaller, less government, and here's what we're going to try to do this year. So let us do it in an incremental fashion. To me, that's what makes the most sense. But bringing it back to us, I think it's great to have the conversation so we make sure that we're solid in how we feel about things, whether we prevail or not at certain decision points. But anyway, enough of that. Any other comments, questions? I think, if I may, thinking back, we've been through this many times over the years with the economy and everything. And I think that one of the big things that we have to be as this tax on hotels. And I think the hotel industry locally and statewide this year, this next couple of years, is going to be very much in a push-pull on whether to defend or whether to reject or whatever it is. And to say that this tax is on us and that this county here, we're very fortunate, the Board of County Commission has worked well with the hotel industry on this. We have a good reserve. We have a good working relationship on it. And I think we need to establish that we want to be involved, just like Dylan just asked. And I think that's the key to it, which way, we're not sure either. And we know you have the guidance to help figure out as this vote goes forward on Amendment 3. But we want to be involved as an industry, I think, is the key to this. I think we showed it a little bit with the money we just set aside for parks improvement and where that goes. Well, this is where we're going to have to look at some other pieces. What are the different factors of tourism for different levels of tourism and say how do we affect it? And what can we do to step up from our revenue source here to say we could use some of these funds this way instead of that way? And the Board of County Commission, I think, has been very good to us in helping us stay alive in this industry that's these cycles that we're in right now. So you're right on. I think you're on. I think you're warning us and everything is right on. And I think that we've got to look right down the end there and say, hey, we need to make sure we're really paying attention as an industry right now. And I know that Brian keeps us in mind very much so for both the political side, the government side, and the industry side. So we've got to work forward going forward this next year, I think, more than ever. Yeah, certainly a lot of work. And just so that we're clear here. We have our responsibilities around this room. And we all go back and have different responsibilities, obviously, but I think it's great to have these kind of conversations. And so I think we should probably look at it each month going forward because certainly we understand the issue with the two parks right now, and we've heard that for this budget cycle. But in the next month or two, as we start to prepare for November, and I don't know where the numbers are. We've heard from 60 percent, 54 percent, 74 percent. So it's kind of all over the place in terms of whether it's going to pass. But the message is the same. Smaller government is what we want. It's just how we get there. We had these two $50,000 exemptions for a long time. Maybe we introduce them more gradually, but we've got to get there first. So thank you. Anybody else? I don't know. Has anybody else weighed in or wanted to weigh in on the conversation? Did you have anything else, Dylan? I apologize. One last thing. I don't know if everybody caught it, but the Federal Transit Authority did just announce that they are giving a huge grant to Pinellas County's PSTA to build more passenger ferries for the Cross Bay Ferry Service. So a really big win for Pinellas County and tourism as a whole, that even more funding and direct impact from the Federal Transit Authority to PSTA. Yeah. It's always good getting the grants. I just always make sure that we can take care of them after the grants are over. Yes. And who's going to do that? And that's been the big thing that we've wrestled with, with the Cross Bay Ferry. Who owns it? Who operates it? How much funding is there coming from public sector and that kind of thing? So, but yeah, it's encouraging news. So, okay. Thank you, Dylan. Appreciate your thoughtful comments today. Anything else from any of the members? Well, with that said, it's not even 10 o'clock and we are done and you've got some free time. You can go ahead and get down there early for your lunch tomorrow. We are adjourned. Thank you.