City Council - Aug 06, 2026

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopely Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4, and Council Chair, Lisette Panowitz, District 5, Deborah Fick Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Gibbons, Jr., and District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Richie Floyd. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the August 6, 2026 City Council Meeting. Clerk, could you please go roll? Boyd? Here. Gerdes? Here. Cabard? Here. Harding? Here. Panowitz? Rick Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Gibbons? Here. Thank you. Please, we'll have our invocation given today by Imam Askiya Akil, followed by a moment of silence. Then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Lovely to see you. Thank you. Good morning. Shalom alaykum. Hax vobiskum. Assalamu alaykum. Peace be with you. Peace be under you. Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you. Merciful Redeemer. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. All praise and thanks are due to you, O God, for allowing us to wake up, to greet this new day, and to peacefully assemble here at the hub of our municipal government. Remind each one of us, our Lord, of our obligation to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with each other in your presence. Help us to not forget our shared responsibility, so eloquently stated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, quote, to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, close quote. We thank you, O God, for our city council chair, vice chair, and all of our honorable council members, for our mayor and cabinet, the city administrator, administrative support personnel, plus the thousands of hardworking public servants, our neighborhoods and institutions work, sometimes at great risk to their own safety. And we dare not overlook, O God, the approximately 266,000 residents, the taxpayers, business owners and investors, family members, faith leaders and worshipers, the gifted and talented men, women, and children, the common folk, including those who sleep on our sidewalks, whose common interests and concerns you are here to represent. Lord Pyotr Alexeyevich Dementiev, or Peter Demons, as we know this unhappy Russian aristocrat and entrepreneur, was determined and guided when he traveled 5,300 miles from his native land, helped bring the railroad from Jacksonville and Orlando to the Tampa Bay area, then, 133 years ago, named this new city after his hometown, St. Petersburg, Russia. Now, during our contentious 2026 election season, we come before you seeking your guidance and perfect peace, recalling that this is St. Petersburg, Florida, not St. Petersburg, Russia. Remind us here today, our Lord, that this is City Hall, not the Roman Coliseum, nor even the St. Pete Coliseum. We are called here to think, reason, and work together, whether we agree or disagree on the issues at hand. Lord, where there is confusion, grant clarity, where there is intolerance, fill our hearts with grace, where anger and frustration threaten to take root. Replace them with mutual respect, self-restraint, patience, wisdom, and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Guard our hearts and minds so that a temporary competitive democratic exercise does not produce a permanent and irreparable divide. Help us, our Lord. Help us to see one another through the lens of your love, remembering that human dignity and respectful, trusting relationships are far more valuable than positions, and long-term unity is more precious than short-lived victory. Give each person the disposition to listen, the courage to speak their truth in love, and the discernment to seek what is righteous and most reasonable. Our Lord, let every decision be guided by integrity, transparency, accountability, justice, and compassion, as you caution us that accountability, transparency, and justice require that we give proper credit where credit is due. So, above all, Lord, let your will and the will of the people be done. Grant the outcome that best fulfills your divine purpose, that brings glory to your name in omniscience, and that builds your kingdom on earth in our city, state, and nation under God. Oh, Lord, may we as a united people and society trust that you are working all things together for good as we grow in submission to the simple truth that passionately arguing, advocating, and competing don't mean fighting to the death. Our courageous 12 police officers sued, our sanitation workers marched in the street, our schools rebranded and rebuilt to move our formerly segregated southern town forward to becoming the Sunshine City. Senor, en toutes circonstances, faites de nous un instrument de votre paix. Our Lord, in every circumstance, make us instruments of your peace. Amen. Amen. Join us for a moment of silence as we honor Detective Herbert R. Sullivan, end of watch, August 18th, 1980. Welcome to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much for the invocation. Council members, we have an agenda before us. Do we have a motion for approval? Do we have approval? Second. Will the clerk please open the machine for voting? If you vote, say that all present council members have voted, will the clerk please call in an ounce of vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. We also have a consent agenda. Do we have any cards? Vice Chair, we do not. Oh, cards for the approval. Excuse me. I think I heard a motion. Second. Okay. I definitely heard a second, and I think I heard a motion. We have one person. Council Member Bristol. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I just, I didn't want to pull this. It wasn't necessary, but I did want to ask about CB5 regarding the agreement between the city and Rowdy Soccer for the one-year term. Hi, Beth. Sorry, I just, I simply didn't have a chance to ask you about this before the meeting, but the one-year term, I was really hoping that we would be able to move conversations forward for a longer-term agreement so that we can rest assured that the Rowdies will find their home in St. Petersburg for a long time, and so anything that you could lend to that, and maybe if there's a peek at what might be ahead for us, that would be great. Sure. Well, unfortunately, I can't speak to the long, long term. I do know the Rowdies are here, and they're doing well, and so we're, knock wood, starting to talk about potential postseason play, so it was important to the Rowdies to get at least a year. You know, they let us know a couple months ago that they wanted to get the year under the belt, so that is what we're here for today, and certainly the door is open for continued work for a longer term, so I think we would all like that. Ryan Helfrich, the president of the team, is here today, and we work very well together, so we're hopeful for that, but I don't have anything to report today, unfortunately. Thank you. Sure. We are grateful for the partnership. We are grateful for our Rowdies, and I hope that as you move forward, you know, with, like, beyond the one year, that we can talk about what each side needs to do to ensure that St. Pete is where the Rowdies call home for a long time. We appreciate that. We've been here since 2011. This is considered our home. I'm a St. Pete resident, and we look forward to moving forward with you all. All right. Thank you so much. That gives me great reassurance. Thank you. And that is all. Thank you. Thank you for that question, Council Member. I was curious as well. All right. We have a motion and a second. Will the clerk please open the sheet for voting? Council Members, enter your votes. Seeing all present Council Members that voted, will the clerk please tally and announce a vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously, with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. All right. First, I'll make a note here that I'm chairing the meeting because the chair's unable to because she is picking her daughter up from camp in North Carolina. That is the note that I've been passed. We'll move on to open forum. Clerk, are there any speakers for open forum? And if so, can you please read the rules? Absolutely. If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing and quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual who wishes to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you're speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. Applause is not permitted except in connections with awards and presentations. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the hand-raised feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you have reached the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments. The requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum. If live public comment is disrupted by the violation of the rules of decorum, the Chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by email only. And, Mr. Chair, we do have a couple of speakers. The two speakers is Jason Jensen and Ruth Ann Harrison. Jason Jensen, please go to either podium, state your name, address, or crossroad. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address Council. Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jensen with WJ Architects today representing the Bergbid and 132 Mirror Lake Drive. For us, we're just glad to be considered for the developer position, but more importantly, as stewards of the potential historic gas plant district redevelopment, we want to make sure that we do this the St. Pete way. We want to make sure that that starts with listening, collaborating, and community partnerships. For that, we want to make sure that every one of you know that our door is open, that your communities know that the door is open, and that we want to invite you to the table. The response has been tremendous. We've had hundreds of potential partners reach out to us, which is great for St. Pete. We have a vendor check-in sign-up with the historic gas plant, and we've already had hundreds of vendors sign up just at the Build St. Pete the other day. Great event. Hundreds have signed up to be part of that. We just announced this week, Power Design, our largest workforce development, is going to be on-site, partnered with us, helping skilled trades and training on-site. St. Pete College is committed to partnering with us, construction management education and apprenticeships on-site. Together, these efforts prepare local residents for approximately 30,000 jobs. We need to start now on that effort to make sure they're ready. We have a bunch of partnerships that's going to come. On the housing front, this is exciting. We already have identified and secured multiple off-site parcels that can move forward before the lease of the raise expires, so we can get moving on that 3,600 affordable housing units sooner rather than later. I'm also proud to share that we won a design award. This is actually the highest design award that AIA gives out for design and urban design, and that recognizes excellence in design, sustainability, respect for history, the potential for the project to create a lasting impact. But I want to make sure that everyone understands that that recognition doesn't mean that we're finished by any means. It just means that we're building on a strong foundation. Like the peer, this vision will continue to evolve through community input. We welcome the recommendations of the Urban Land Institute. We're meeting with them next week. We kicked off our visionary advisory panel representing more than 25 organizations. We met with the chamber, descendants, many others. We value the guidance of this council and the public at every step of the way. Our goal is simple. By the time this plan comes before you for final approval, we want everyone to feel that it isn't our plan. It's the St. Petersburg plan. We want the fingerprints of the community to be all over it, this descendants of the historic gas plant neighborhood to the children who will one day call it home. Together, we can honor the past, create opportunity for the present, and build a future worthy of St. Petersburg. I want to move St. Petersburg together. And thank you for the time. Hello and good morning. I'm Ruth Ann Harrison from 4151 Sunrise Drive. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak to all of you. Thank you for all you do for our city. I'm here today because my neighbors and I are watching our street regularly flood with seawater. It's pushing backwards out of our canal. We're on Benita Bayou. I want to be entirely clear. This flooding is not a simple issue of rainwater failing to drain. It happens on sunny days. We've witnessed the water on a sunny day just flowing up from the canal through the checkpoints or the outflows, whatever they're called, and flooding our street. I had submitted a letter earlier this week to the mayor and council. I hope you all got to see that. I also have multiple pictures here of, I don't know if you can see it from here, but this is in front of my house. This is the street in front of the house, completely inundated with seawater and also the sidewalk. It comes up my driveway. This is a picture. This is the base of my driveway. And you can see all this green muck and all this at the foot of my driveway, which is coming from the water standing. The issue creates all kinds of problems for our community. The outflows mainly giving us a problem in front of my house. One is at 4151 Sunrise Drive. The other one is at 4201 Sunrise Drive. However, there are outflows all the way along Sunrise Drive. I'm sure other neighbors are having problems as well. I've been reaching out to the city for four years to address this issue. And the city workers are wonderful. They come out, they check it. In 2024, they put check valves in, which do absolutely nothing. So it's failing infrastructure on the part of the city, and it needs to be addressed. It's causing hazards to our community in that when the road floods, emergency vehicles cannot get through the street. We have, I don't know if you're familiar, but we have kind of a wraparound from Coquina Key through St. Petersburg. And the flooding affects walkers, dog walkers, bikers, also creates health hazards with the standing water sitting in front of my house all the time. I really would appreciate if perhaps this could be passed on to the PAS program and involve the Army Corps of Engineers, because after four years of not getting any satisfaction with the flooding, I think we need to kick it up a notch. So any help from any of you would be most appreciated. And one last thing, I know that my letter was distributed to all of you. The email address that I've been using for 100 years for some reason is not accepting return emails to this address. Can I just give you a new email address? I'm sorry. Chair, if I could, and just to let council know that Mr. Tankersley has been in touch with Ms. Harrison. We continue to work on this. And I think there was an email sent. So we could certainly try and get you her proper email in the future. Yes, please. You can provide it to... All right. And they can share that for me. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for your time and for all you do for our great city. Appreciate it. Chair, we'd have to be on Zoom. Okay. Would you like to speak? Maya Ragsdale, we can enter you into the meeting space. When I do, please unmute yourself. Name and address for the record. And you'll have three minutes to address city council. Maya, can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Perfect. All right. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. My name is Maya Ragsdale. And my address is 1951 Northwest 7th Ave, Miami, Florida 33136. Maya, you have to be a city resident, owner of property, or employee in the city to speak at Open Forum. I was going to, I represent a nonprofit organization that has workers based in St. Pete. I wanted to speak on item F5 about the Pride contract. You can't speak at Open Forum. However, you can speak when the item comes up on the agenda. Okay. All right. Perfect. Okay. The next speaker is A.B. A.B., I'm going to enter you into the meeting space. When I do, please unmute yourself. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. A.B., can you hear us? Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead, please. Hi. I'm Lexi. I live on 10th Avenue South and 47th Street South. I'm here today because the city approved plans for utility people to utilize my front yard to house utility infrastructure. The first set of approved plans included an encroachment that cut 10 feet behind the right of way using my corner lot as a shortcut, and they tore up my yard and numerous projects to relocate it, then left all the damage behind with no resolution. We called for a site meeting before they began construction, and despite the fact that they edited the plans a little, they still encroached, and we believe the line is still encroaching. It's expensive to fight contractors in court and get surveys. Furthermore, the city has not been cooperative in allowing me to have the copies of the permit plans stating that they're not on file with the city, but this is not true because the contractors have approved copies. The city engineers had the decency to come to my house once, and they said that if they encroached to call them. The city has since not returned one of my dozens of phone calls or emails. It's very apparent they don't care about my property rights. Beyond just my yard, the way these utility projects were handled were inappropriate. Nothing is in accordance with national safety guidelines. The power line is too close, and the other lines are too close to the stormwater infrastructure. The other side of the street where the line runs through is a large sinkhole. We needed a dig once policy and a conduit raceway if we wanted to do it the right way. We will see more lawsuits like mine in the near future if we don't change the way we handle utility infrastructure. Shame on the city for approving contractors to use my property without asserting a new easement. I hope the people hold these contractors responsible for the damage they leave behind. Thank you. No more speakers. Thank you. All right. We'll close open forum and move on to council committee reports. First item here is Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Vice Chair. I am respectfully requesting city council approval for a resolution authorizing the BF&T chair and city administration to negotiate an agreement with Baker-Tilley Advisory Group for a management evaluation of the billing and collections department. I'll move approval. Second. All right, seeing we have a motion in a second and no request to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members enter your vote. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce a vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-1A passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. And we still have five minutes until we can start our... Chair, if we could go to F2? F2. Oh, okay. We're prepared for that if that works for you. Okay. I don't think it'd be that long. Okay. If that's... Yeah, that's fine with me. So, I guess not. Yeah, that was the plan. All right. Take it away, Ben. Yeah. Thanks. Sorry, guys. Good morning, Vice Chair and City Council members. Carly Piniella, Operations Support Manager for the Housing and Community Development Department. What you have here today is a resolution asking for the assignment, assumption, and global modification of city loan documents for the Sky Isle property, which was formerly called Viridian. It's actually right on the street, just a few blocks south. So, I have a presentation just to summarize the memo because I know I gave you a lot of information. So, I will get started. All right. So, the development, it was built in 1971. In 2009, 2010, that's when the city entered into the deal. It was renovated through bonds issued by the HFA of Pinellas County, a loan from us through various funding sources and the Florida Housing Finance LIHTC equity. It's comprised of 188 senior affordable units, 83 studios, and 105 one-bedrooms. All units are reserved for 60% AMI and below, and most of the units that live on this property are using project-based Section 8 vouchers. They currently have a one-and-a-half-year wait time. Obviously, the location is great, has access to everything, and, you know, residents are really happy there. So, this is the request, or we'll do it in pieces. So, the first part is the assumption that the loan will be assumed by Preservation 518 LTD, which is pretty much Sage Partners, as the developer on the group, will also still be in partner ownership. In the packet, I gave you guys an ownership detailed breakdown that you can look at. They want to extend the loan maturities from July 1st, 2044, to July 1st, 2049. And next is the amortization, which can be a little confusing. So, when you're extending the loans, we're resetting the amortization to start again in five years with a subsequent 30-year amortization period. And it really means that over 30 years, what would that cost be shrunk down into those additional years. And then it's a balloon payment in the end. So, yes, it's 30, like the amount is extended for 30 years, but it's actually broken up into the years that are left in the loan maturity. And then for the restrictions, we're extending the affordability period from December 31st, 2060, to June 1st, 2075. So, really, this is all to say is that the city is not putting any new money in the deal. We're just asking that we can extend our loans and defer the payback for a few years and then have the affordability restrictions end. So, that way, they can do this really amazing update to the property. So, let's talk about the rehab, about resiliency and sustainability. So, they're going to basically be modernizing the whole inside of the building. They did that back, like I said, 2009 and 10, mainly in the common areas, but it's the units that really need some love now and some of the major life safety systems and some infrastructure like windows and the boiler and the roof. And then the process. So, there will be no relocation of the residents outside of the building during this process. They will reduce by natural attrition and then they will move residents on the floors that they're currently renovating into other units. And the way that they're doing that is they're going to take pictures, right? We know seniors are very comfortable with what they have. So, they want to be really sure that they're making sure they know exactly what the unit looked like, move them to another unit, set it up the exact same way, and then when the unit's ready to move them back into their unit that they were in before. The transaction details. So, in this transaction, there will be tax-exempt bond financing for $27 million, which provides for the ability to access the 4% tax credits as long as 25% test is met, which it is. The bonds will be replaced with permanent debt for Freddie Mac after the rehabilitation. We'll be assuming and extending the existing debt from Florida Housing Finance Corporation and the City of St. Petersburg. And then our seller note in the fifth position in the amount of $5,500,000. So, this is the location. Like I said, it's on 5th, just 3rd Avenue South. This is what it currently looks like. So, you can see the interior units are a little outdated. They have really beautiful windows and views for every unit throughout the whole building, which is amazing. And then here are the renderings for the renovations. So, the outside will look like this. And then the inside will look like this. So, you can see there's new floors, new windows, new kitchens. Like I said, these are just studios and efficiencies or in one bedroom. So, generally, this is what the living space looks like. So, staff and administration recommends approval. I have Debra Kohler here from the partnership. If you have any questions for us. I have approval. Second. Council Member Grissel. Thank you. And thank you for bringing this forward. This one really made my day. I used to live just a couple blocks away and made many friends who were residents of the building. Actually, my dogs made friends with the residents of the building, if you want to be honest about it. Amazing. And we actually got to the point where I always made sure that I walked by that building because you could tell that a visit from two little dachshunds was something that made people smile. And you got that great patio that's right out in the front. There were times when people were really worried that another developer would buy the building and kick them all out and make it into luxury. And I have that concern with several of our senior apartment buildings that are downtown right now. The most fabulous thing about apartment buildings like this is that it gives people access, gives people the ability to live independently as they get older. They have easy access to CVS, to Publix, to a coffee shop, to the library, to the Sunshine Center. It is the best case scenario and it's something that we should want for all of our seniors who, you know, especially those who maybe don't have family to go live with when it's time. So seeing this being extended is wonderful news. Seeing the renovations, seeing the modernization of the apartments, it just, it brought tears to my eyes because the folks who live there absolutely deserve it. And it really makes a statement about how much we value them. And so this work reflects the respect and the value that we have for our seniors. And I just, I can't wait to vote yes on this. The one question that I have, and if someone could please ask for this mic to be fixed, I'm hearing, yeah, thank you. While the renovations are taking place, I mean, it's full. There's a wait list. There's a year and a half wait list. It's like, I'm going to have to get on that wait list soon. Um, cause it could be, um, where will people go while the renovations are taking place? I know it won't be all at once. I think you said two floors at a time. Yes. And so where, where, where did those folks go? Yeah. So the plan is that they do have a natural attrition rate and I'll never speak to that if I, if I say anything wrong. Yes. I understand that. So every time a unit becomes vacant, when they're working on those floors, they just plan to move them into the other units. They've hired professional movers to move them the exact way they were into another unit, the exact way they were set up. And then is it a choice that we can go back to their unit or they just automatically? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They're comfortable with where they live. And then do you happen to know, and I can't remember if it was in the material, how many, um, handicapped accessible units there are in the building? Sorry for the pop quiz. Yes. Good morning. I'm Debra Kaler, president of Sage Partners. And again, what you said warms my heart because that's why we're doing it. Yes. Yes. And, um, we have under the, uh, federal regulations, we have a 5% or a hundred percent UFAS, which is a hundred percent accessible, but we took all the bedrooms and bathrooms and made sure that we added, um, the, uh, uh, wheel, uh, wheelchair turning radiuses as well as right now they have bathtubs, which is just not really conducive for seniors. So we are doing all, all walk-in showers with lots of grab bars. And I can just tell you over the period of owning this building and my parents have aged and I have learned so much about aging in place. And that's what we're creating now is we're taking it to that next level. And, uh, the other thing that we're focusing on is wellness and telehealth. We, um, my father-in-law just got out of Bayfront hospital and we were like, what in the world? We got to now make sure he gets all the medicines and we're doing, uh, we have a social service coordinator and they're going to follow up, uh, anytime they have medical issues that they're going to be there to age in place. So that's what we hope for all of us, our parents, and eventually I'll be there is to make sure that, uh, they can age in place healthily. All right. Thank you. And thank you for all you're doing on this, um, this property and this project. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. That's all I have. Thank you, Chair. Councilwoman Harding. Thank you, Chair. I am sure that this project has been fully vetted and I am fully in support. Um, but, but, but I, I, I want to ask in this forum that, um, the, the, the company who owns and runs or manage, there is no, there's no distress, um, or, or this project isn't in any type of jeopardy based on the health of the company. Everything is, is, uh, is sound to move forward. We're not covering, we're not, we're not, we're not paying off or we're not using any of the proceeds to do anything that, uh, that should have been done R and M wise, or you see where I'm going. Uh, I can assure you, uh, this is my company. We're in very good financial, uh, situation, but the, I think the main thing is making sure that the building is economically viable, which is the financing that we put together as well. And, uh, as we talked about our residents, most of them are on section eight. Our average income is extremely low. Our average income is basically $17,000 a person. They are living on social security. So we make sure that they have all the other services that they can access to make sure that they can live comfortably, but we're in good financial condition. Thank you. I am fully in support and greatly appreciate what you do for the community. And I don't mean to touch on that. I just want to confirm that, that, that, that us, uh, extending this is solely based on the, the phenomenal upgrades that, uh, that you plan on doing. Yes. And I'll add to that is that Florida housing finance corporation is a partner in the deal. Um, and they also completed a credit underwriting report, which brings in that all information to make sure it's viable. Obviously they're a big stake partner and they have the same exact issues as us. Um, and so we went off their credit underwriting report and, you know, we have full faith in them. Uh, Sage partners is a really good partner to have. And we're really excited. I just wanted to hear it out loud. Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate what you do for the community. And, and I echo what a council member Driscoll said. This is a, a, a, a, a, a, a gem in an area that, uh, that these folks deserve to be there. So thank you for that. Thank you, chair. I appreciate it. Great. Seeing no further requests to speak. Uh, we have a motion in a second. Yeah. So clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted clerk, please tally and announce the votes. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. Thank you both so much. Uh, we're going to move into our public hearings for today. Um, we have item E1. We have Dr. Slyker. Good morning. Oh yes. Excuse me. Um, go ahead. Uh, we'll start with council member Curtis. Thank you by share. Uh, quickly, um, before I recuse myself, uh, I just wanted to thank all the community members for being a part of, uh, the consolidated plan, our application review, uh, just thank you for your time and your service to the city. Uh, I will abstain from voting on agenda E1 to avoid any appearance of conflict, given my employer's client relationship with Casa Pinellas, because the plan includes funding for Casa. So I'll be recusing myself. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Figgs-Anders. Thank you. And again, uh, I do want to thank the committee as well. I will have to recuse myself because of my position with the, uh, potential, uh, Pinellas continuing with care because they are also HLA receiving funding as well. Thank you. Nobody else leaving. Then there were, uh, I don't think we can. Yeah. Yeah. We're all staying here now. Yeah. Uh, okay. All right. Go ahead. Good morning. Good morning. Dr. Avery Slyker, director of housing community development. And we are here today to approve the resolution for our fiscal year, 2026, 2031. Consolidated plan and our 2026 annual action plan for HUD. This resolution is going to authorize submission to HUD for execution of documents necessary to implement these plans. We're going to start with a brief overview of what the consolidated plan is, and then wrap up with the annual action plan and selected projects for funding. Our consolidated plan is a comprehensive planning document. It addresses long and short-term strategies to meet the housing and community development needs. This is a five-year plan. It will run October 1st through 2026 through September 30th of 2031. This consolidated plan is a foundation of our city's annual action plan and our CAPER reporting. It is ensuring accountability and measurable outcomes to HUD. It also serves as guidance for our city's Florida State Housing Assistance Plan. This consolidated plan demonstrates our continuing commitment to expanding housing opportunities, strengthening neighborhoods, and improving the quality of life for residents with the greatest needs. Our commitment in our community. What's very important about the consolidated plan is that it has to be held in accordance with our city's citizen participation plan. Through that plan, the citizen participation plan, residents, service providers, nonprofits, community stakeholders, all contributed to this plan through public hearings, community events, town hall meetings, informational sessions, neighborhood meetings, and surveys to help identify what are the local priorities and funding strategies that went into the plan. Draft plans were also made available for public view and comment in accordance with the participation. It was advertised St. Petersburg Times, La Gossata. I hope I said that right. I know I didn't. And it was also submitted for publishing with the Weekly Challenger, posted at all city libraries, and online. Our consolidated plan priorities. Preserve and expand affordable housing with housing development, rehabilitation, home ownership, rental, and utility assistance. Reduce homelessness and improve housing stability with outreach, homeless prevention, emergency shelter, coordinated services. We're here to improve our neighborhoods. We want to do that through public facility and infrastructure improvements, accessibility upgrades, and targeting resilient investments in low and moderate income areas. We're also promoting economic opportunity with public services, workforce housing initiatives, and partnerships. And lastly, support housing stability and crisis response. We do this through our Fair Housing Act, disaster recovery, mitigation activities, lead hazard reduction, and long-term housing affordability. This leads us into our annual action plan. Our annual action plan is submitted to HUD that supports the needs and services, again, that were identified previously in the consolidated plan. This year, our goals are to support affordable housing, homeless service and prevention, public services, neighborhood revitalization, economic opportunity, housing preservation, and special needs populations. The focus of this is through affordability, activities that provide affordability in many variety of different ways in the lives of low and moderate income people throughout our city. It can include investment in infrastructure, creation, or maintenance of affordable housing for both rental or home ownership. It includes sustainability. It includes sustainability. Activity is aimed at improving communities, neighborhoods, increasing their livability, and providing benefit to persons of low and moderate income through multiple activities and services and to sustain our community and those neighborhoods. Accessibility and availability. Activities that make public service, infrastructure, housing, public facilities, and shelter all available. Our first funding source that we look at today is our Community Development Block Grant, our CDBG. We had $802,857 for capital projects. We had $261,155 for public service. We did have some city funding. The city funding is set aside in case any of our capital projects needs additional funding or if there is a need identified throughout the city with an infrastructure project. This year, our CDBG public services will be funding CASA Emergency Shelter, Catholic Charities, Pathways Homeless Prevention, Catholic Charities Pinellas Hope Emergency Shelter, the Bollie Safe Haven, New Frontiers of St. Petersburg Substance Abuse Treatment Services, West Care Gulf Coast, Florida, the Mustard Seed Inn Transitional Housing, West Care, West Care Gulf Coast, Florida, Turning Point Emergency Shelter, and the St. Vincent de Paul's Emergency Shelter. Our CDBG public infrastructure will be supporting the Bollie Center's Moorshore Apartments, Window Replacements, Park Inc., Emergency Notification System, Pinellas Affordable Living, the Owl's Nest, replacing a fire escape, Pinellas Affordable Living Parkside Units, replacing a kitchen in five different areas. The James Sanderland Family Center, the final construction drawlings on their new education and service building, CASA Transitional Housing for window replacements, Park Housing Inc. for Burt Mueller to get security cameras, and St. Vincent de Paul installing hurricane windows at their emergency care center. Next, we have our Home Investment Partnership Funding. Through our Tenant-Based Assistance Program, Rental Assistance, we have $405,741. Through our Community Housing Development Organization, we have $108,374. We do have $90,000 in city funds that will either go to the Community Housing Development Organization if they run into some problems and maybe need some additional funding, which we would come back to you all and amend their contract for, or it will go into our multi-family fund. This year, Home will be funding Bollie Centers for their Tenant-Based Rental Assistance Program, and Bright Community Trust for their Coral Diamond CHODO, which is the Community Development Housing Organization. We also have our Emergency Solutions Grant this year, ESG Funding. ESG, we had $61,338 for homeless services. That could be homeless prevention, rapid rehousing, or the Homeless Management Information System. And then we had $80,505 for public services. And this year, ESG will be funding West Care, Gulf Coast, Florida Turning Point Emergency Shelter, the Homeless Leadership Alliance for their Homeless Management Information System, HMIS, and for St. Vincent de Paul's Emergency Shelter. And lastly, we have a brand new award this year. This award is around $1.7 million. It is for HOPWA. This stands for Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS Program. This is a federally funded program through HUD, and the purpose of HOPWA is to provide housing assistance and support services for low-income individuals and families living with HIV and AIDS. Now, HOPWA was not included in our competitive process. The reason is, is that for year one, this is a three-year contract. For year one, our purpose under HUD is to plan our HOPWA program. We currently work with HUD and HUD-TA to put together our policies and our procedures and to create our NOFO for the following fiscal year, which will start October 2027. So what do we do with the current Pinellas-funded HOPWA projects? Tampa Bay, Tampa, the City of Tampa has always been the HOPWA provider in what is called the Designated Eligible Metropolitan Statistical Area for HOPWA. I know, we get lots of new acronyms here. The EMSA. However, this year, HUD took a look at the Pinellas County statistics for HIV and AIDS and said, no, Pinellas needs to become its own area. And so the City of St. Petersburg was awarded those funds. The City of Tampa had already held their competitive process and made their awards this year. So in agreement with HUD, the City of Tampa, and with the assistance of our technical assistance provider through HUD, the City of Tampa will hold the contracts this year. We will be entering into a memorandum of agreement with them. The funds will transfer over from us for those projects to the City of Tampa, which will then go to the projects themselves. And the City of Tampa will manage the contracts for year one while we are building our project. We are working extremely collaboratively with the City of Tampa. We have phone calls almost weekly. They're going to come over and spend a day with our team and literally teach us this program. We've met with several of the partners already, along with the Ryan White Coalition. We've been working with them. So this has been a wonderful experience for us, and we're looking forward to those funds and bringing them to you next year. With that, we conclude our public hearing, and I believe that the resources that we've shown today expand affordability for housing, addresses our homelessness, preserve housing and revitalize neighborhoods, plans provide the strategic framework for our investments, ensuring federal resources are directed at the highest priorities, and staff and administration respectfully recommend approval for restoration. Thank you. We'll go to Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you so much, Vice Chair. Thank you so much, Dr. Slaker and the entire housing team for all that you all do. I know it's a tough endeavor, but you all do it so well and make it look so easy. I do have a question. So kudos to the City and our Consolidated Plan Committee for figuring out how to allocate these dollars, because I know it's tough because everybody is so deserving and we want to give more, but we can only do so much. Can you give us a little background for those who are just chiming in and just listening? How did we get to this dollar amount per organization that was allocated? And if those dollars aren't expended, what happens to those surplus funds? It's a very long process that begins in January. Actually, it begins before that. It begins at the end of this month. As soon as we submit this plan to HUD, we start all over again with asking community members if they would like to be a part of the committee. We then work and put together a committee of council members and community members. This is the committee that is going to review and rank the projects for the funding. In January, we hold several public meetings. Half the meetings are just to inform how we're doing on our plan. The other half of the meetings are to inform in regards to the new RFPs that are going to be out for funding. We always have to wait to hear what we are going to receive from HUD. If we don't have the funding award, we go based on our current year. And projects know when they are applying, they may have to adjust their budgets accordingly. Projects also know when submitting their applications that we do ask and hope that they bring a flexible budget with them because we do have to break down funding amounts based on the HUD formula. So Community Development Block Grant is an excellent example of this, where we are only allowed to put 15% of those funds into public services. And so once applications are submitted, they then go to the committee to review. The committee has several weeks in which they review these applications, they score them, they come back to us here at Citi, we rank them, and then we have a fun-filled day where we sit on committee and we discuss these applications. We bring the applicants up and ask them questions if we have them, and then we make some very difficult decisions. And, you know, I'm happy to serve on this committee. This is my second year now, and it's been an interesting process. And I'm happy that you've explained it so thoroughly and so well, Dr. Slaker, because it is a long process and it's a tough one. And I'm happy that we have members of our community who help advise us on these tough decisions that are required by HUD. But I do want to mention HOPWA because I'm so excited to see these dollars come into the pot now. And again, these are funds to help individuals who are living with aid. And again, you talked a little bit about Tampa and the work that they've done, and I'm glad you mentioned this MOU. Do you have a timeline on that when we can expect to take over and start receiving those funds when that MOU goes into effect? Is it 2028? The city of Tampa currently has the MOU. They're working on it in legal. Once they finish it, it will be submitted to Jackie, Administrator Foster, and myself. We will then review it as a city to make sure we agree with the terms. Once HUD releases the funds and we do come to an agreement and sign that, then the monies can transfer over to Tampa. Now, 100% of those funds are not going to Tampa. We are reserving funds for the city because we need them for our planning purposes. With those planning purposes, we have already started our needs assessment and our listening sessions. We have a listening session next week with the Pinellas Continuum of Care. So we are setting those up. And our HUD technical assistance told us this week that out of the four projects she has, we are her third dream project, because we actually volunteered to do the assessments and weren't told that we had to. We were like, we're doing it. Here's where we're doing them at. So they're very happy with us. That is really good news to hear. And that's what I was getting towards. So I'm glad to hear that we voluntarily are doing this assessment. I think it's going to help us significantly to determine where the needs are and who needs to help the most, especially when we're talking about the types of applicants and the types of programs that we can subsidize with this. I'm excited to see us expand partnerships. I'm not sure if we're already talking to BOLI, Catholic Charities, and even some of the other faith-based organizations that are doing a lot of the work to combat HIV and AIDS. So I look forward to working with you all on combing out this agreement in the near future. So thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation and for all the work that you've done on this. And thanks to all who served on that committee to make it happen. My questions center around St. Vincent de Paul. When you do these, when we do this funding, there's an agreement that goes with it, right? Are there any stipulations in the agreement for on the side of the recipient organization that go beyond how they do the actual work? Like, let's say, the hurricane windows or, you know, the other things. St. Vincent de Paul is receiving a good deal of money in different areas here, as you've shown in the presentation. Is there anything within any of those agreements that requires them to act as a good neighbor in their community? We do have very strict contracts where it has all the scope of work of what they need to do. And then we monitor these contracts and we monitor them in many different ways. There are desk monitors. The contracts for the services are very interesting because they're for case management. And so that is what we are monitoring is specifically to what we fund. And so we do monitor. We do hold conversations with St. Vincent de Paul on a very regular basis to ensure that they are upholding their contract appropriately. If we would find where they aren't, we would sit down with them in management and place them on an action plan that they would create and tell us how they're going to solve the issue and the problem. If it does not resolve, it would move up to a corrective action plan. Do they have an action plan in place right now? No, they do not. So you think they've been doing everything just fine, according to the agreement? Based on our agreements as of right now. Councilmember, I think, you know, we talked this morning. I think you and I will have some conversation in the next couple of days around this. Our current contracts do not have stipulations about being a good neighbor. We certainly can look into that. They are currently drafted around scope of work and will need legal to weigh in on our ability to hold them accountable to that and what that would look like. I can tell you that staff meet regularly. They're actually on the phone with them right now. They meet almost weekly with them. We have a tour next week to look at the issues. It has been a conversation with codes and neighborhood relations recently. Helen and I both are going by two and three times a day. I think we also need to have some conversations with our police partners. Many of the issues we're seeing have increased since police have abandoned that building. And we also have our contracted staff from Bowley meeting with police right now this morning about their partnerships and how they can better that. So I think we can have a more robust conversation offline. These contracts for what you're approving today have not been drafted yet and will not be drafted until we receive the award from HUD. And so we do have the ability to look at future contracting, but past contracting did not have that language in it. Okay. And when those contracts are done, or even though we're approving this today, are the individual contracts brought before city council for approval as they are created? No, they are not, man. Once you approve today, that's when we move forward with it. All right. We can provide you copies with them. Yeah, that would be, that would be great. I have a really hard time approving funding for an organization that is being such, that is not being a good neighbor. Just, just this week alone, I have met with representatives from two neighborhood associations that are adjacent to the facility and I have had conversations with PD. Everyone is frustrated, including me. And the, some of the problems are so easy to solve. And the vibe that we're getting from St. Vinny's is not our problem. Thank you. The funding, the fact that the city provides funding and can't even get them to do the very basics to be a good neighbor is enough to make me want to vote no on this entire thing today. And so what I, what I am insisting on is please get with the city attorney's office and these agreements to, to any legal extent possible need to include very specific requirements and the funding needs to be on the line. If they do not meet those requirements, we want to provide these services for folks who don't have anywhere else to go. We want to help the organizations that are doing things the right way and helping people who need something every single day. But we also want to have neighborhoods. We also want to have residents who own a home nearby who can go out in their front yard without being approached by someone asking them if go inside their house and heat up their microwave meal for them or ask them if they can go inside to take a dump. And when they say no, they do it on the corner right in their yard. And walk away the litter. They say, oh, we don't let people leave with food. No one then could explain why neighbors time and time again on a very regular basis all the time, paper plates, plastic forks, litter strewn all around sidewalks, yards, everywhere. And they say, oh, we don't let people leave. That tells me that we have a troubled relationship. And I believe they have a troubled relationship with the truth right now. And I want this to be resolved. I will support this today because I feel like I've made my point. And I know we have many conversations to come. I will be checking. And I want my colleagues to know I am going to be trying to figure out how to bring PD back to that area where they were before. It left because of funding. This is something we need. And so we're going to figure out how to make that happen again. It is not the only answer, but it made a hell of a difference when it was there as opposed to now. So we've got a lot going on here to solve this problem. I want to make sure everyone's aware of it today. And I want to make sure that everyone is aware that I will not stop until this is resolved and the neighbors can live in peace. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So first of all, just say thank you for elevating the concerns around St. Vincent de Paix. I think we have all heard this for quite some time. So I certainly support whatever efforts come before this council to remedy. Um, but let's kind of twist it a little bit back to what I had pushed my button for, which was the positive side of the work that happens within, um, this consolidated plan. Um, you know, I, I think, you know, first of all, I want to thank the council members who served because I mean, this, you know, the packet that you get, um, I did this a couple of years when I first started and that is an enormous, I mean, it's bigger than our council backup. Um, and, um, I want to thank the organizations who put their best foot forward in these applications, the volunteers, but especially our team. Um, you guys, I mean, I always look at what you do is like building a puzzle with so many different pieces of funding, but even then the need is so great. The resources are so finite and you find such a way to try to address the areas of greatest need with the limited resources we have. So I just wanted to Dr. Seiker, thank you for leading the team, um, administrator Foster, especially, um, you know, just for everything that you do. And I wanted to share just a quick success story over the break, uh, that we had in June. I had the time to finally go out and see my friends at park and, um, got to actually see the, the money that I had approved all those years ago when I sat on the committee and the project that actually came to fruition from those dollars. And so, um, I encourage anyone who is, you know, looking at this and seeing these dollars going to these organizations to reach out to the organizations, because I think that what you will find is that even though it doesn't, every single dollar doesn't always end up being utilized the way that we would have hoped or the outcomes maybe don't look the way we would have hoped overall, these dollars are going to projects that keep people with services that they need that would not exist otherwise. And when you can actually put your eyes on it and see the results and see the people living within these spaces, it just shows you that in totality, the work that we are doing, this is not just a simple button push to say, yes, this has a direct impact on everyday people's lives. And so I just want to thank all the organizations, even those who we may need to still do some work with. Um, I just, I really, I see what you're doing. I see our staff and I just want to thank you for leading the charge, um, because this work is not easy. And like you said, it starts all over again, right? So, um, thank you chair for the opportunity just to, um, kind of end our council comments on a positive note, um, and just share that these dollars, um, really are doing the most good. And so I'm very happy to vote yes today. And chair, if I may, we do have a meeting today with the administration of St. Vincent de Paul at three o'clock. All right. Thank you. Uh, I'll just real quick say, um, that, uh, I frame this, um, I I've been through this process as well. I understand how we got to this point. So I'm going to support this today. Uh, but, uh, I guess to council member Driscoll's point, I'd frame it slightly differently, uh, and just say that there's probably in my mind, a big conversation around, uh, how we do services for people experiencing homelessness and, uh, you know, all sorts of other issues that, uh, are tackled by this funding. Um, and I'd be open to a very broad conversation about what's the most effective way to spend our money. And, um, and are we allocating enough? I know this is CDBG dollars, but there's that aspect of it as well. Um, but I'll leave it there for today because we have a proposal before us. It's been, uh, brought to us by committee. And I look forward to continuing to do, uh, everything we can, uh, to make these dollars do a good job and, uh, maybe make them as effective as possible in the future. So I'll leave it there. All right. Second. All right. We have a motion in a second. Will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, enter your votes. Double checking. Yes. All present council members have voted. Will the clerk please tally and announce votes? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item E1 passes five to zero with council member Hanowitz being absent and council members Gertis and Vic Sanders abstaining. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. Uh, we're going to move to item F1. All right. We'll give it just as then. Why not? All right. Cool. Take it away. Good morning, council vice chair, members of council, Lance Stanford, public works services manager. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing us to provide a brief update on the proposed fiscal year, 2027 utility rates program for the city utility rates program, um, for the fiscal year. On this slide here, you'll see, uh, FY27 proposed utility rates of the typical usage on the monthly bill for residential customers using approximately about 35,000 gallons and the stormwater tier two, um, the typical residential customer without reclaimed water would see an increase of about 6.86%. Whereas, uh, including the reclaimed water, uh, typical residential customer would see an average increase of about 7.71%. Next slide here. You'll see a quick, uh, summary of the affordability analysis that we did during this year's rate study process. Every year we take the opportunity to evaluate the city's affordability through various different metrics. Um, this year we took a pretty deep dive into affordability through several different metrics and you'll see that the city, uh, really fought continues to fall between the low to medium affordability burden range. However, you'll see that there's several indicators that remain in the low burden range, but they're on the cusp of the medium range, which is why, uh, it's important through the collaboration with city council and administration, uh, looks at the city utility rates on an annual basis. Um, to weigh infrastructure needs and the affordability in the community as well. Next slide here is a summary of the, uh, proposed rates for the fiscal year 27, where we have water resources remaining at a 50, 50 cash to debt ratio. Um, the overall increase is a 7% across water at a 7.5 wastewater at a 6.5 and reclaimed water at a 9.75 sanitation with overall rate increase of 6% and stormwater, uh, for a period of five years, uh, reducing down to 30, 70 cash to debt funding ratio with a plan to increase 5% back to get back to the 50, 50 funding ratio of 20 by 2031. Um, and the overall rate increase for fiscal year 27 was proposed to be a 8.5%. This line here shows a quick update on our communications throughout the, uh, throughout the process. Um, it's always our goal to pursue a comprehensive public communications program through collaboration with city council and the marketing department to ensure that the customers understand the proposed rate adjustments, uh, before they take effect. The outreach includes updates to the city's website, informational materials, social media, customer bill messaging, and other educational resources that explain not only what is changing about your utility bills, but why these investments are necessary. The goal is to provide a clear, transparent communications, um, process and to give customers information. They need to understand the utility rates process and the values of the services that they receive through that process. This year we are developing, um, and are in the final stages of collaboration with the marketing department and understanding your bill handout, um, that we will, uh, once that's developed and passed through administration, um, bring to council, um, through a quick update on email to show you what that, uh, would look like as we provide it to the customers. Um, and lastly here, I'd like to thank you again for the opportunity, uh, and the time to present this report. And throughout this process, we appreciate the council's collaborative effort and look forward to, uh, moving forward to the next step in the process, which would be the first reading, uh, August 13th. All right. Council member Gabbard. Thank you. Um, no public comment. I take it. You're fine. Yeah. I mean the whole purpose in us bringing this here to, um, you know, the council meeting at this point is because we've already had a couple of committee meetings, right? And we've had one-on-one. So many years ago I kind of started advocating and I think many of us thought that coming here hopefully would give the public another opportunity before we get to actually approving this to kind of engage. So I hope that people are listening. Um, even if they don't have comments today, I look forward to continuing to hear from people about their thoughts around this. And the reason that I pushed my button today was because I had a question from a community member who I was not able to, I think properly, um, you know, kind of answer. And I wanted to bring it here today just for clarity and understanding. And first of all, Lance, thank you. Um, you're doing a great job in the role. Um, you know, you've really kind of taken ownership of it and you're doing a phenomenal job and thank you to the entire team. And thanks for the deep dive that you guys do with me every year. Um, I know I probably, you know, kind of dig on especially the affordability piece of it because I understand now that, um, kind of study that you're all doing all that different, different methodology. And I really appreciate that. So thank you for that opportunity. Um, but the question that I had was specific to the fact that we are asking the voters in November to approve the GoBot. And the question was, so you all every single year for the last several years have been increasing and making that decision to increase the rates, to be able to, um, invest in stormwater, wastewater, potable water, and all the other things that we have to pay for, which I think, you know, there's the education piece around it includes sanitation, right? It includes for some people reclaim to making sure that people understand everything that goes into it. But the question was this year, is it not possible for the city to not increase the utility rates and let the voters have a choice in November if they want to bond these dollars? And what I understand is that what is being presented to us and the plan that we have agreed to together does not increase capacity for more projects. It is simply just to maintain status quo based upon the cost of everything for the city going up. Is that accurate? Can you speak to that? Because these are the questions that people are asking. City council is going to ask us in November to tax ourselves, but why would we want to do that whenever we're already getting increases every single year? I think we need to have a real transparent conversation about that and the differences between annual rate increase and what that does and the go bond in November. So I wanted to bring that for conversation today. Thank you, council member Claude Tankersley, public works administrator. As with everything we do in public works, it's a little bit complicated, but I'll try to simplify it as much as I can. Thank you. So when we do these analyses every year, we're looking at both the capital program as well as the operations. And so part of this increase that we have is to make sure that we can continue the operations as they've been going on. We're not really adding anything at all to the operations. We haven't added any staff. We're not adding any new operational activities. We're just staying current. But as everybody is throughout the United States and throughout this community, our operations is being hit by inflationary pressures also. So if we did a zero rate increase this year, we would have to look at how we would reduce those operation costs. And I don't know how we would do that without having to cut staff, to be honest with you. Yeah, thank you for that. And that's what I kind of tried to fumble through responding, but you are obviously the expert. So I wanted to give you that opportunity for clarity. Because I mean, I think that there are valid points to be made within the fact that we are not adding on new staff, we are not able to do these massive multi million dollar projects that we're talking about with this limited pot of funding. And so it is that balance, right, to make sure and I think that when that message is communicated, hopefully, what people remember is 2024, and what we lived through, and what we are being challenged to do, which is to be creative and find ways to do more projects. But at the end of the day, we at least have to maintain what we're doing today. Because to not do this would mean we would be going backwards. And we'd be cutting services, potentially cutting projects, right. So I just I really wanted to have that conversation here in the sunshine on the record, so that people understand that, just like everyone else, and what they're seeing with rising cost, we see it too. And so that delicate balance of trying to make sure we are being good stewards for our residents, but making sure we can continue to still provide those services. So thank you for entertaining the question. I appreciate it. And thank you for the presentation today. Thank you, Chair. Yep. Councilmember Curtis. Thank you, Vice Chair. Just to Councilmember Gabbert's point, I really appreciate the question. I think I've, I've tried to explain it very similarly, where it's like, listen, the rate increase lets us continue operations in the current CIP five-year plan. What we're trying to do with the GO bond is to add 600 million onto the current five-year CIP plan. And, and there are two very distinct things and I, and you hit it on the head where if you, if you don't increase, we go backwards. It's a backwards step. And so I, I, I appreciate the transparency of that, of that question, Councilmember Gabbert. I just quickly, frankly, wanted to thank staff and my colleagues. We were having this conversation a year ago. I was pretty staunch on 50-50, staying on 50-50 and through these conversations, we've obviously come to a different decision, which I'm in full support of. And I just think it shows the importance of having these discussions about the utility and, and affordability and all of the things that surround those things and staff's willingness to meet with me multiple times about it. Because again, I, I, I personally saw all the work to get to 50-50, my family being a part of that conversation to get there. And then, and now I think we've made a very wise decision on how to move forward. So I just, I just wanted to say thank you to all my colleagues and to staff for, for pouring into that time and effort to get us where we are today, because it is difficult. I understand it, but I would much rather deal with some of that pushback than actually go backwards. And so I'm just very appreciative. Thank you, Chair. Great. Thank you. I've got a couple of comments first. I know people will be here for the public hearing. There will be public comments. I've been warned already, I guess to say. And so, you know, people aren't here now, I think because the advertising is mostly around like when it's going to come for the hearing. I, you know, appreciate the work every year. I've advocated over the years for us to move in different directions with some of the ways that we fund the utilities. And this year's no different. I still think, you know, we could do more to encourage, we could do more to encourage conservation by shifting the base rate, maybe lower it on people who can lower the cost for people who can conserve a lot, continue to disincentivize high usage. And I think we could still evaluate payments in lieu of taxes and fees. And I think doing those things will make it a more progressive payment system for everyone in the city. And I also think that we need to do this. A lot of this, I know we, you know, we've come to the end of the rate study already. None of these things are going to happen this year. Which, you know, leads me to, all right, I have to make a decision about what I want to see happen this year. But for next year, I think these things can happen. So there's a payment in lieu of taxes and fees, base rates. And then I think it's time to look at an analysis of all of the increases that have happened over the last 10 years, had a constituent call me about this. And they framed it in a way that I found really useful. You know, when we talk about a 50-50 split, we talk about trying to equitably spread the cost out. But with the amount of increases we've had over the last decade, if we looked at, you know, that cumulatively, it does look like a really large burden being placed on one generation. For the last decade, our increase cumulatively, I don't have the number in front of me, but it's significant. And so when you are, you know, all of us in the city right now, we feel it. And we feel like we're more than making up for maybe a lack of investment in the past. And I thought that that was a fair analysis if we like look at it cumulatively. I'm sure that that happens. But I think that should be more of a focus of the discussion next year. And especially when I continue to offer ways for us to soften the blow and recognize, I think like we've recognized with the referendum that property taxes might be a more progressive way for us to spread this burden equitably. I've made my points. So I'll continue to advocate for that as we go into the next year. And I'll, I'm, I'm happy with how we hash things out. But I'm still a little frustrated by the outcome because, you know, every year the increases, when I have put forward things that I think could ease them, they, they bother me. And, and I think that's understandable. But I appreciate the presentation today. And I look forward to how we continue to move things forward. Thanks. All right. That's not an action item. So we will move on to, that was F1, uh, F3. Yes. Uh, go ahead, councilmember Curtis. Uh, with this item just being a milestone and this project being shovel ready, I'll go ahead and move approval. Make sure. Okay. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Um, do anyone want to see the presentation? Okay. All right. Well, we have a motion in a second and no request to speak. Uh, council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted. Clerk, please tell me and announce the votes. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mark. We will, uh, move on to item F4. Take it away. Board and council. Uh, my name is Ted civil. I am the parking manager for the transportation and parking management department. And I'll provide a brief report on the administration's request for council approval to renew existing agreements with the three vendors that help, uh, manage parking and traffic for our major special events. Thank you. Um, I see now this was an item, uh, pulled by council member Harding. Did you have anything you wanted to add council member Harding? Uh, thank you, Jerry. Yeah. I, I, uh, informational, um, I, I didn't understand that the, um, in the city allocating funding, whether the, whether this is recouped or how this works are. And so I appreciate your time today. Um, and, and interested in the, uh, and what you have to present, what you have to present. Thank you very much. Sure. Okay. So the city has been deploying this event management strategy for over two decades. Uh, there are many reasons why we feel this is a good investment, including enhancing the event experience. The shuttle designated stops at the, uh, the city parking facilities where essentially it increases parking utilization and revenue. And not only are the shuttle stops, uh, near the city facilities, it also posts message, variable message boards and advertise to the public on where to park. In turn, this, what that does that increases, uh, excuse me, that reduces traffic congestion, reduces vehicle, vehicle emission and time motorists spend on searching for a parking space. Uh, additionally, it also reduces overflow into the neighborhoods such as, uh, old Northeast, and it frees up, uh, street parking for other visitors, uh, or businesses looking for parking or, uh, searching for a parking space. So as a result, these parking impacts associated with these major events are significantly reduced in downtown. Now for the solicitation process for, uh, these shuttles have gone through a, uh, the procurement process to ensure a fair and competitive, uh, bid process. So we've, uh, been in, that we've been in agreement with these vendors for the last three years, and they, they've agreed to hold their pricing firm for the next two years. Uh, and so in less, less than two years, we'll, uh, go back out for a competitive bid if the renewal is approved by council today. So we typically hire multiple vendors to ensure we always have ADA compliant vehicles on the routes and that there's sufficient vehicles, um, at any given time. Now here's a breakdown of the, uh, the vendors, the cost, and how many passengers, uh, each, uh, vehicle carries. Now, initially we started off, uh, with the selection of four, um, four companies. One of the companies have gone out of business, well, at least the existing owner, the new owner decided not to continue to service the city. So going back to my previous slide, that's, this is why it's also helpful to have that redundancy because I mean, sometimes you have unforeseen circumstances where, you know, a company may go out of business. So now during the nearly first three years of the agreement, uh, the city incurred approximately $373,000, um, dollars in expenses, uh, in part because there was no baseball in 2025. So for the next two years, we're requesting an additional, uh, spending cap of $360,000. Now that amount accounts for recurring special events, baseball operations in the remaining years, uh, including potential playoff games, as well as the possibility of additional special events, uh, requiring shuttle services. Now here's how the cost of the services is covered. Now the city shares the cost of the shuttle service with the event promoter as part of the co-sponsorship initiative. Now this co-spon, excuse me, this cost sharing approach incentivizes promoters to provide shuttle services, which again, benefits the public by improving, uh, access, reducing traffic congestion and, uh, minimizing parking impacts. Now, uh, you know, the advantage of having the shuttle hub adjacent to our parking assets, uh, primarily South core and the, uh, outlaying, uh, parking, parking lot, you know, and along with promoting these locations through effective signage and public messaging, you know, we're able to increase our utilization of these parking assets. And as a result, the additional parking revenue generated through special event parking rates more than offsets, uh, the city's contribution towards the shuttle service. And we met, we've been able to cut back, um, a little bit on the charter since the launch, launch of the sun runner, particularly for raised games and grand P grand prix due to specific sun runner stops and routes. Uh, in closing, you know, uh, on our end, we're requesting approval of the resolution and are ready to answer any questions. Move approval. Second. Go ahead, council member Harding. Thank you. And thank you very much. Um, and, and I'm in, in full support as well. My, my questions were, um, in this from a funding standpoint, the city administers this and puts this together for folks putting on events, um, that the, the, the, the purpose is part of it is these are for-profit events and you can't park enough around that event to people are going to have to park a mile away to get to these bigger events or, or whatnot. Um, and so that was really my concern is how much in the end of this, how much does the city actually fund? Um, and, and is that funding that we put into it limited to, um, to charity events or not for profit events or, um, or, or are we funding, um, or are we helping fund for profit events? And I understand. And I was, I was struggling with forget the money. I was struggling with the greater good of the citizens versus the profit of, of these companies putting on events. But is that, did, how did we get to the 50, 50 and, and does that change at all? Or is that our, is that, that where we sit? Uh, it's always been the, the 50, 50. And I think with the events that we've helped, um, provide 50%, there's, there's been, we typically do about 10, 10 to 11 events a year. I think two of them are nonprofit being the Florida orchestra. And I believe main sale is also, uh, uh, nonprofit. Uh, but yeah, it's just traditionally, it's always been the 50, 50, 50. It's, it's, you know, it's our way of, you know, as part of the co-sponsor say, Hey, we'll know, we'll meet you halfway, but this is a good, a service that you can provide to the public. And it's a good service. Okay. Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you, chair. Thank you for pulling this council member Harding. And that last question specifically, um, I agree with your framing if, uh, you know, how much benefit are these, you know, for-profit companies getting from, uh, our services. And, um, I'd love to see in the future, maybe, you know, different rates for a nonprofit organization and a for-profit organization. Um, okay. And then, uh, but I just appreciate that, uh, framing of the conversation. Do have one quick question, um, about the looper and the central Avenue trolley in general, uh, to both together. Cause this is sort of tied up with the looper, I guess. Um, one of the contracts up for those two right now, do you happen to know, or I don't think it's the looper, uh, cause the, the loopers part of the three, three vendors and, uh, uh, we're looking to renew. And so I think that agreement for the three vendors, uh, expires in October of this year. Okay. Okay. And so, um, I guess kind of what I'm thinking is, is like, uh, just how does this impact like long-term, I guess, hold on, let me ask it this way to make sure I'm showing my ignorance right now. Uh, this contract with the looper, is it running? Does it impact, um, struggling to think of how to frame this? Is this the only contract we have with them? This, this is, well, this, what I'm presenting is just for special events. Yes, yes, yes. So there's another contract outside of that. I would presume so. Cause anything outside of it, the agreements specify special event. I just wondered if it impacted anything outside of that. I'm not entirely sure. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Um, yeah, I was just trying to get clarity on that because I've got ideas beyond that, but, um, uh, don't believe that it would, but I just wanted to understand. Um, okay. All right. Well then I'll leave it there and, uh, I'll get that information offline and, uh, we can have a bigger conversation another day. Uh, okay. Uh, we have a motion in a second. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, the clerk, please open the machine for voting. So members please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted with a clerk, please style and announce a vote. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve agenda item F4 passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. All right. We will move on to item F5. Good morning, Mr. Vice chair, council. Good morning. I'm green assistant city administrator. Um, this morning F5 is a revisit of an issue that we brought to council on July 23rd. Um, it's a contract for paper products, uh, including envelopes and, uh, paper for utility billing and for general office use. Um, the contract that we had brought was recommending, uh, PRI enterprises. Uh, the council had specific questions that we were not able to answer at that time. And we've asked, um, uh, Mr. Blake Brown, president of PRI and, uh, Mr. Randy Fisher, the executive vice president of, um, PRI are here this morning. Um, so, uh, with that, if there are council questions, we can certainly have Mr. Brown and Mr. Fisher address those. Thank you. We'll go to public comment first. Mr. Chair. We have a card and then we have somebody through zoom. The speaker is Alec Wilkoski. Please go to either podium state your name, address or cross street for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Thank you. My name is Alec Wilkoski. I live at 50, 20 Burlington Avenue North. Um, I'm a field representative for the West central Florida labor council, uh, AFL CIO. We represent over 10,000 active and retired union members and their families in the city of St. Petersburg. Uh, we're asking, we're asking you to vote no on item F5 today. Um, you'll be hearing later from a partner organization of ours, uh, beyond the bars, which works with, um, folks who have a record, uh, all across the state of Florida. Um, and one thing I just want to highlight here is, uh, under the 1935 national labor relations act, the vast majority of private sector workers have the right to organize and the right to collectively bargain. Um, and in fact, Florida is one of only a handful of States that have, uh, uh, the right to organize and collective bargaining rights enshrined in our state constitution. Now, um, the workers in, uh, in, in prisons, prison labor in our state, those workers are excluded from such protections. Now, I'm sure you're going to hear, uh, from the representatives from pride that they'll say they are the only, um, organization in the state that pays their workers. Um, but then when you find out, I think it was brought up at last week's meet or a couple of weeks ago meeting, um, that's 25 cents and 95 cents an hour. And in our state, the voters decided that this year we're going to have a $15 minimum wage. And so this represents a second class of workers in our state. And I think agreeing to this contract would be, you know, uh, being a part of, um, a status quo where we have a second class of citizens. Um, so I please urge that you vote no on this contract. Thank you. Um, we have one speaker in zoom, Alfredo Patino. I'm going to enter you into the meeting space. Uh, please unmute yourself, state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Alfredo. Can you hear us? Yes. Can you hear me? Uh, yes. Uh, go ahead, please. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. My name is Alfredo Patino. I'm a legislative lead with beyond the bars. It's a nonprofit organization that represents incarcerated and formerly incarcerated workers throughout Florida, including here in St. Pete. I'm asking you to vote no on item F5 to reject pride's bid to offer paper products to St. Pete. Pride is a state creative corporation. It's not a regular business operating in the free market. Its bid is artificially low because it isn't subject to state or federal labor or employment law. Incarcerated workers who manufacture the paper products in question make between 20 to 95 cents per hour. They cannot freely leave their jobs. Some are compelled to work under the threat of solitary confinement. This is not a legitimate competitive advantage. Businesses operating in a free labor market can't compete fairly against a business like this. Calling pride the lowest responsive and responsible bidder ignores the question at heart of this decision. Can a bidder really be considered responsible when its business model depends on workers who have virtually no rights? St. Petersburg has a choice. In 2019, both Gainesville and Alachua County voted to end their prison labor contract, recognizing that doing so was a moral obligation. St. Pete can take the same stance today. Thank you, Vice Chair Floyd for pulling this item from the consent agenda and giving it the public scrutiny it deserves. Please vote no on item F5 and put this contract back out to bid. Thank you very much. We have no more speakers. Go to Council Member Gabbert. Thank you, Chair. And I echo the last speaker. Thank you for pulling this item for us to discuss. The reason I really wanted to see it come back today and we have PRI here is to hear from them. You know, Tom, I appreciate, you know, you've kind of the setup there, but the whole point was to hear the organization themselves explain their program, how they believe that it works, how they believe that benefits individuals, and then give us that opportunity to ask questions. So, Chair, that's at your discretion, but my preference would be to hear from the organization. Yeah, I'm ready for you all to ask whatever questions you like, and if the question you'd like to hear is an overview, then there we go. That's what I would like. Yeah. Well, thank you all for having us here. We really appreciate the opportunity to present to you. You all received material. My name is Blake Brown. I'm the Blake Brown on the list that Tom mentioned. This is Randy Fisher. You have a pre-read. You see quite a bit of detail. I don't know if you had a chance to read all that or not, but clearly there's been some statements of fact here today that we've heard, but some not so factual. For one, our pay rates for traditional pay, they're actually 30 cents to $1.05. That's not a big difference, but we also have what's called PI, Prison Incentive Enhancement Program. That's a federal program because we're not limited to just selling to state and local agencies. We can sell to anyone. So if we sell a commercial product out of state, we have to pay prevailing wages for the production of that. So those inmates that do that work actually get paid prevailing wage. So if they're a welder, they're going to be making $30 an hour while they're making that product. So it's a significant amount more pay. And we have 13 certifications in the state of Florida. We have 22 operations. 13 of those have those certifications and we're working on the 14th right now down in Palm Beach County. We're getting ready to do a lot of data center work down there. We're producing products for data centers all over the country. And so those would actually, those products would be, the inmates would be paid in the higher rates for those, for that production work. It's welding. It's creation of products for that industry. Just a couple of things here. Just another point too. Yes, we, inmates are, I heard that inmates are forced to work or they're going to be put in solitary confinement. That is not true. Inmates volunteer to work for us. We only accept volunteer inmates. And when they volunteer for us, they have to pass our profile. Our profile is, they have to be at least a level six TABE, which is the testing of adult basic education. That's the minimum. We have some that are much higher. Now that TABE score, a six means they read, they write, you know, they can do math, they can do basic stuff. And we have to teach them. Almost all the inmates that come to us have no prior work experience at all. So the gentleman you saw, I don't know how many of you saw the video of the gentleman, Alan Hepfer. He was 16 years old when he went to prison. Okay. And we got him when he was 18, when he came to the state system, he had no work experience. Now he's a, what's it called, Randy? Uh, he's a software developer, a Microsoft software developer. He learned those skills working for us. And he was able to transfer those skills into a fantastic career for himself. So our role is to bring these people in voluntarily. If they don't want to work for us, they don't work for us. We don't want anyone that doesn't want to work for us. Uh, it's kind of rare to find the inmate that doesn't want to work and make some money and learn a skill. We spend 50%, 50, 60% of the time doing work, producing product. And then we have another large percentage of time where inmates are actually getting training. If you notice in your package, we issued over 6,000 nationally recognized certifications last year. These are national. They're not just certificates. We put pride gives you this certificate because you showed up. Uh, we're talking about Microsoft. We're talking about OSHA, uh, and many others. Uh, we also support the GED program for the state of Florida. Uh, we, uh, have goals for every location to get, uh, X percent of the inmates through the program as we can. You may or may not know, but 60%, I think it's 60, maybe higher of, of inmates in the state of Florida are, are actually illiterate. So to, to get an inmate and then move them through the GED is a very extraordinary thing. And we moved several through last year and we support the FTC as they do the same program. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of lay of the land. Inmates work for us because they want to work for us. Uh, I would invite you, anyone who wants to see it just down the road, Sumter County is where we actually make the envelopes. We have two large envelope machines there. We've had many legislative tours there. Uh, a lot of people come through. I'd welcome you to go there and you can talk to any inmate you want to talk to. We, we won't stand there and listen to the conversation. We'd welcome you to do that. And you can get the true perspective on how inmates see our program. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. I didn't know if, um, if council member Gabbert had questions to follow up on that. Yeah. I mean, I'll sure. Why not? Um, so I've got, I think two questions based on, you know, kind of what you just shared. So I heard you say, and please correct me if I'm incorrect, if I misunderstood that if the product or whatever it is that they are producing is going out of state, you're required to pay a prevailing wage in that instance. If it's going out of the state commercially, if we're selling to another institution, let's say we're selling to a state hospital in Georgia, that would not require, it's not a, that's not a commercial sale, but for selling something that's going to Home Depot, for example, we, we work with another company here in Florida in, um, in this area called venue. They sell their products all over the country. So everything we make for them, we pay the prevailing wage for that kind of work. It's furniture assembly. So those folks are making well above minimum wage every time they produce product for that company, because they're selling that to, um, bowling alleys and other, uh, customers outside the state. So that's how that works. It's a federal program. How do you determine, I mean, to me, that sounds a bit like an inequitable pay scale based upon where the product is ending up? How do you determine that within your facilities or within, you know, the working environment? What is, you know, you're making a widget and this one goes commercially and this one goes institutionally and we pay substantially different based upon where it's in product is. We've created, how do you determine that? Yes. Thank you for the question. We've created systems to do that. Um, for example, I'll in Homestead, it's a female prison. Uh, we have optical lab there. We're making glasses, we're grinding lenses and we're putting together glasses and we're selling those. Some of those go to state agencies in and out of the state, which is traditional ways, but some of those are going to private optometrists outside the state. So those, we have a little system. If you go to that, you're welcome to go visit that facility. Uh, they run all of the, uh, traditional stuff in the morning and they run all of the non-traditional stuff in the afternoon and they're coded so that we can code and we use work orders. So you want to speak to that? Yeah. I just want to just chime in for one second. I think the question you're asking is not, so we don't regulate that. That's federal. That's the state law, FECR law. Uh, we just, we, we, uh, manage it and operate it and determine if there's, if this widget's being sold in, I don't know, California and it's being sold to a non-profit, then we don't have to pay. We, we can't pay PI. We pay prevailing wage or the traditional wage, which is the inmate labor. If it's being sold to a non, I mean, a commercial company, then we have to pay PI. It's mandatory. So just to clarify, you said you can't pay or you don't pay for the PI or yes, for PI. We have to, we cannot pay the, but what about for the traditional way? No, the traditional wage. We, we set our standards based on other States and other, whatever. So that is a business decision that you have made. There's no regulation around that, right? That is a business decision. Right. And it's based as Randy said, um, it's the, basically the averages of all the States. Um, all 50 States have correctional industries, just like we do. And we're members of two large, uh, national organizations where we meet with those people once or twice a year. So we compare notes. We're on, in fact, I'm on two or three committees on one of those organizations now. So we see everything that's going on around the country. Um, so on a contract like this 130, let's just say 135,000, would you be able to give me an idea like after wages are paid after materials, all of that is taken care of about what profit yield you make at the end of the day on a contract that size. Actually, let me just paint a fair picture because what we're, we can't, I'm sorry, sir. Could you step a little closer to the microphone? It's not that it's we're comparing apples with oranges really. Uh, so the, one of those companies that are running those free world enterprises, they have a standard business that you would run. And let's say they do metal fabrication. If the, if the welder that you have, you have 50 weld welders in there and one of them retires today, what do you do? You go out and you look at resumes and you interview people and you hire a qualified welder. We don't do that. We take somebody off the compound that has drug charges, has no, I mean, has never showed up for a day of work in his life. And we train them up to teach them how to be a welder. So there's a, there's a lot of, uh, negative that's associated with our, our model as opposed to the traditional model is outside. In addition to that, if there's a COVID on the compound, our entire compound shuts down. So we no longer can work that day. So that's lost revenue. So there's a lot of, you know, detractions from running it inside a prison industry that painting the picture that we paid, you know, 30 cents to a dollar five an hour is not really the same as painting the picture of what they're doing out on the outside. And I completely understand that. I get that. You know, when you bid for these, you are kind of being compared against very different business models. I understand that, but there is still a profit margin that you make on a contract based upon the work that is delivered. Can you give me an idea on $135,000 paper goods contract approximately what your profit yield might be? It, it really depends on a lot of variables as any other company does, what our raw material costs are, but let's just take a figure. Yeah, just a rough estimate. 20%? Right. Okay. Um, okay. I'll leave it there for now. Thank you. Um, so you talked a bit about different, um, how you arrive at different types of wages, but, um, for, for the contract that we have in front of us, can you tell me what the, um, what the wages, what the wage is that will be paid for this particular type of work? Well, it's going to be traditional because you are within the state of Florida and you're a government entity. Um, but it's going to range the inmate that just showed up a month ago with no skills. We're training them. They're going to be making 30 cents a month. The inmate that's been there five years and they're the master, they've learned all the skills they can run. There's two very complex machines that make envelopes, particularly these. Yeah. You can imagine these machines are, are not simple machines, but, uh, so they learn how to run these machines. They learn how to maintain them and so forth. They're going to make the buck five. They're going to make the higher wage. So there'll be a range. Sorry. What was that amount? Dollar five for the highest range. Okay. So quick Google search. And I know that's not definitive, but it's what I have in front of me right now, um, for specialized in skilled roles. So this is someone who is, it sounds like someone who has the experience skilled, um, machine operators average about $25 and 12 cents per hour. Um, I just figure that there's a little range there. And if we were selling that commercially, that's what we'd be, we'd be paying wage for that county in this case, Sumter County. So we go by county. Yeah. And I'm sure that kind of evens out because you don't have to pay everyone the lower wage. Um, and so the ones that are higher kind of are made up for by the ones that are paid less. I'm having a hard time. I have a, my comfort level is not there with this because gosh, it, it just, it reminds me of, um, our, um, tomato workers in the state of Florida. And, and many of you might be familiar with, um, the conditions and the pay, I mean, and, and there's a big fight for that. And a lot of people agree, um, that those folks should be paid more and be treated, um, with more dignity. And this isn't about treatment is strictly about pay. And I feel like you're willing, you're, you're willing to pay more outside where you have to. Um, and here you pay less because you can just because you can pay less doesn't mean that you should, if this is a little bit closer to what was normal, um, I could find a way, but one of the things that, and I do admire the job training and the opportunity for people to be productive while they are serving, but there is a loss of dignity that comes with 30 cents. And if you're really good and do this for a while, because you're in for a while, you might get to a dollar five, um, what that does to a person's morale, what that does to a person's, um, self-image, self-confidence is something that they will carry with them when they leave and go back into society. And then it's somebody else's problem to help them with that from there. I'd like to address that. If I can say, our recidivism rate is 13%, the state is 21. The national average is about 40 plus. So roughly for every hundred inmates that leave our programs, roughly one comes back. Okay. That means that they sustained themselves in society. That means they took what we were able to give them starting from scratch, starting with someone has no skills, they're criminals. They've not done real work for the most part in their entire lives. They have to learn how to get up early in the morning. They have to learn how to clock in, clock out, take their breaks, come back up from breaks on time, and then learn how to operate machines and do other things. Right. And then we give them these other skill opportunities. We, in every one of our operations, we have what's called a career resource center. And over in the corner, there's going to be a bunch of kiosks and computers and everyone gets time on those every week. And we have a two, one or two people assigned to assist them in that. So they go over there and like, okay, I want to learn a new skill. I want to be that Microsoft guy. Okay. Well, if you have the aptitude, we have, we pay for all of that material. We pay for all of those certification classes for them, all the way up to things like diesel certification. Diesel certification is a 420 hour course that we pay for students to take in Palm Beach County. So that's kind of the high level stuff, but then there's all the other stuff, but we pay for that. And if they have the aptitude, then we will help them with our re-entry people gain that level of skill. So when they walk out that door, they're going to look just like the guy on the video. And we have many more of those folks that you could talk to, but about dignity. Again, I was just in last week in Marion for Marion County for a whole day. Randy and I've been going in there. They're working on a project. I talked to almost every inmate in that building. There's 106 inmates in that building. There's plenty of dignity. I assure you, they come in, they want to work. They're proud of their work. They're very proud of what they do. We involve them in our, our improvement teams. We teach them Kaizen. We teach them things that you don't normally get even in, in, in, in the free world, but we teach them those things and they understand it. They're, they're very bright usually, and they pick it up and they learn it. So when they do leave, like I say, one out of a hundred returns to be a burden on society. The other, you know, 99 are out there. I mean, they're, I mean, 10, I'm sorry, 10 out of a hundred come back. The other 90 are out there living beside of us. They're in our neighborhoods. You want those people to be well-versed. And so it's not just about what we pay them. It's also about what we invest in them. And we're investing in them, not like other companies. I worked in the free world for 35 years. We did not invest like this in all our employees. We expected them to come already ready to work. These guys aren't ready to work, but they're willing to learn and to find out. So I just want to be sure I made that point. Thank you. And it sounds like there are just many positive and beneficial. I'm glad you took the time to describe that. And I like everything about what you're saying. But that dollar or that, that sense amount is, is really sticking with me because at the end of the day, what you pay someone is what you think they're worth. And I wouldn't want those envelopes. I want envelopes that are, that are made by people who are being paid what they're worth. And I, and I think that we can insist on that. Now, if this, if it was the same contract, but then the stipulation was that there was a, um, a pay that was, um, at least close to, uh, you know, minimum wage, um, I would vote yes on that. If I may add one more thing. Um, so Randy mentioned it earlier. There's so many interruptions in the system. This is not like when I was in a free world, when seven o'clock, everyone starts to work. There's no interruptions. We control that inside the system. We don't control any of that. We're subject to whatever security issues and reasons are within the state system. So on average, our guys barely get six hours of work in a day because of call outs. They're getting called out to go for a drug system or a mental or dental. And then there's shutdowns, complete shutdowns where there's some contraband found in the far corner of the, uh, compound. 99% of the time has nothing to do with our inmate workers or the, or the, um, the, um, uh, dorms. They stay in doesn't matter. They all get pulled back. They all get sent back to the dorms. They don't make any pay. They just go sit. Right. So that happens constantly. And every time there's an execution and in this state, there's a lot of executions. It shuts down all our operations in Bradford and union County for the whole day. No one moves. No one gets out of the door. Everyone is locked down. It's a security thing. The security is the number one priority of federal. I mean, the, uh, department of corrections. So we have to live within that system. And again, just a reminder, we're bringing these guys from zero to capability before they go out the door. And we have a full-time missions team that does that re-entry for them. Thank you. I, I, I like so much about what you're doing. I'm going to, I'm going to wrap up now. I don't have any more questions. Um, if, if this, if, if this included, um, a reasonable wage, I would, I would say, yes, I think this is normally, this would be a wonderful chance to, for the city to be part of a second chance type program. And I understand that the operational challenges are very unique. Um, the, that is my sticking point is that, um, that, that wage. So, um, maybe this can be fixed, but today I'll be voting. No. Thank you, chair. Um, we're going to go on to council over Harding. Thank you, chair. Um, guys, that, that, uh, uh, unique thing, um, obviously in, in paying, um, inmates this wage, you're not violating any laws. So, so where do you derive the, the, there's a, there's a federal standard that I think is 725. And then there's, there, there's a federal law that, that sits at 725 and there's a state law that, that advances to 15. So where's the, where's the carve out that, that allows this to happen, that allows you to, to, to put this program in place or how does that exist? The carve out for the, for, for them or yeah, for the pay system. Pay system is based on averages. We look at our other correctional industries around the country because we're, I'm sorry. I I'm, I'm looking at, uh, from a legal standpoint, right? I, I own a business outside of this. I can't pay anybody less than that. How does the, how does the, the organization have the, the legal standing to do it? I think, and I could be wrong, Randy can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in the state, you, we don't have to pay anything. That's right. We don't have to pay anything. So we choose to pay and we choose to pay within the normal averages of the, uh, of the national averages across the country. And there are some states that don't pay, frankly. Are there any competing organizations in the state in the prison system? No, by statute, we are the only one by statute. We cannot have a competitor in the state. That's by, by the statute that created, uh, pride back in 1981. Is the, is the organization, um, set up as a, um, as a for-profit or not for-profit? 501c3 nonprofit. However, we're self-funded. So we have to be able to clear and make money to refund the program. And that's why we were created because previously there was corrections industries in the state of Florida, but they were not self-funded, even though they were making and selling services, they were not able to maintain themselves within whatever they were able to, to make and sell. And so the state was appropriating money every year to give them additional funding. That's when, uh, governor Graham and Jack Eckert got together, the founder of Eckert drugstores, CVS, and they came up with this, this, uh, public-private partnership. They created it because they wanted it to be self-funded and ran like a real manufacturing organization, you know, not like a part of the state. So that's how it came about. Uh, and that's, that's why it's ran like it is. Okay. And, and so as a 501c3, it has a board, um, it has appointed by the governor. It's incorporated in the state of Florida. Oh, appointed, all right. Appointed by the governor and the records are public. Um, the, the, the event or the, the organization generates, um, generates profit at the end of the day. Right. What's the, what is the use for that? And who does it go to? There are no investors who are, or, or, or, okay. So what money goes back into a reserve. We use that reserve to fund capital and improvements. Like for example, this year, uh, we're targeting $4.2 million in capital to build new buildings, to repair, build, we lease the property from the state, but we have to maintain or build new facilities when we need to build new facilities. We've built a couple of new fields facilities in the last couple of years and to replace and keep modern equipment. We just bought new plasma CNC machines to cut metal with, and we're always buying upgraded new equipment. Doesn't do a, uh, an inmate any good if they're out there using a manual saw to cut metal and then they go into the real world and they're using CNCs. You know, it's not really applicable. So, uh, we do do that. We keep, we keep, uh, that money goes back in reinvested into those things. And then what's not used to sits as a reserve. Uh, there's been issues. We were hacked in 2019 and then COVID in 2020. Uh, and then we had to dip into that reserve really hard because sales just went to nothing. And at that point, you're like, can you float in if for any reason, uh, we go under everything we have, any assets we have returned to the state by statute. Okay. The, the, thank you for that. The, um, the, the board is appointed by the state that does the board have jurisdiction over, um, sea level compensation. Uh, yes, the, the, the board approves all of our budgets every year. It's a, it's a, it's an oversight board, not a, not a, uh, advisory board. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Wonderful. Uh, council member. Thank you so much, chair. Um, I think my first question will probably be for administration. Um, and that is if we do not, uh, approve the renewal of this contract moving forward in the future, how will we procure those paper products that we use? And also how will we assume those tasks that have been taken on by pride? If this contract is not approved, we will have to resolicit the paper, um, and envelope, uh, product. And do we, and when we've done this in the past, and it's just based on past bids that we've done, did those bids come in more expensive? Were they under, uh, in comparison to pride? Uh, the, the volume that we, that we need and we store at the warehouse, it's relatively the same. I mean, it is a little inflated because of our current situation, but it's roughly the same of the quantities that we are, we need in the warehouse. Good information to have. Thank you so much. And I think my other questions will be for pride. Um, I think the first thing I want to start by saying is, you know, I've spoken to people who have been impacted by the justice system. Um, I've spoken to individuals who have worked in some of Florida's, um, prison programs. Um, I've had conversations with individuals who have said I had nobody. And for a lot of us, just about everybody has somebody we can depend on, but for those who had nobody and they still had to live and maintain, because even though you're in prison, prison is not free. Um, there are still costs that come associated with living in prison. If they had not had some sort of prison work opportunity, they would have nothing. And so whether it was 30 cents or a dollar 25 an hour, sometimes those 20, 30 and $50 that they were able to send back to their family, that was all they had. And they were still able to do something, or that was all they had to spend to buy their commissary. And so I think it's important to understand that as we're having this conversation, just right down the street at the Coliseum, there is a 28th annual showcase of services for individuals who are justice impacted, who are looking for second chances. And although I agree, yes, these inmates deserve better. Yes, these inmates deserve more. And yes, pry, I think you can do more. And quite frankly, if you don't do more, I think it's a failure on your part. Um, but I understand the business model. I understand public private partnerships. And I understand, as you stated, you don't have to do anything. Um, and so for me, I think about how programs like Fry have allowed criminals, drug addicts, convicted felons to become rehabbed and reintegrated back into our society. Folks who probably would never have guilt given any kind of thought to skilled labor because of whatever circumstances and decisions they made in their life, they have found themselves in this predicament. Many of them, some of my own family. And I can tell you personally that it was situations like this that gave them a second chance, not a situation they want to be in, but because of the situation that life placed them in programs like this gave them the opportunity just to be able to maintain a little dignity despite the circumstances. So yes, pry, I do believe you can do more, but you got to be willing to try. And so that's my question for you is again, based on the contract that we have, um, I, I, I want to know, is this the end all be all? Is there an opportunity for us to have more conversations? Because again, we can't change the model, but I do believe that we can work out this contract. Is that something that I hate to put you on the spot here? Uh, but is that something that you all are willing to do? What can you do? What are you willing to do now in order to better the circumstances, uh, in the wages specifically for, uh, those who are participants in your programs in this state? Well, what we're doing perpetually is looking for new opportunities and adding new opportunities. Like I said, we, we just added a tiny house factory. It's only one of two in the state of Florida that produces foundational houses. Our houses will withstand 180 mile an hour winds. Okay. They're not RV models. They're not the kind you see on wheels. You don't want to be in that in a hurricane. Our houses are designed to withstand cat five hurricane. And we just did that. So those inevitably, we hope that we'll be able to sell those out of state as well to other entities and then be able to pay, uh, the higher wages, the, the, the, uh, pie wages. Pie wages is the answer. And as I mentioned, Palm Beach County, we're getting certified right now. It's that facility is not pie certified, but because of the nature of the work we want to put in there. And it's a lot of work. Uh, the majority of that pay for that group of people doing TIG and MIG and full welding is going to be pie. They're going to be making. So the, the, um, the annual report we gave you, you saw it had an average in there, what they're making on the way out. Okay. Well, we, we want to have, see that come up inside our organization too. That is the goal of ours. And we review, by the way, we review our wages every year. The traditional wages are reviewed every year. And I think for the last, we've increased it every year for like the past four years or four years in a row. We've increased that. We were, we're taking the bottom up a little and the top up a little in the middle up a little. We keep doing that, but I don't want to just be stuck on traditional. I really want to offer these inmates more of the pie. We, I believe, and I don't want, I won't state this as a fact, but knowing all the other States, I think we have more certifications than most any state in the union. And we keep pushing for more and more. And that's, that's where the answer is. That gives them the higher pay. They retain more of that pay. Still, there's money goes back to the state for victim restitution and other things as it should, but they do retain a lot more of that money when we do the pie certifications. So that's, that's our, that's our first goal is to do that. I appreciate it. And just lastly, I think it's, you know, vital that we do our part to help rehabilitate these citizens in our society, both before and post-release. So again, I, I work with organizations, you know, that are doing that work and I hope we can work together and do more. So this isn't the last conversation I think we'll be having. Hopefully we can have more. So you'll be hearing from my staff. But, but again, I just think you're doing your part to help lower the re-offense rate. You're doing your part to help these individuals secure jobs, skilled labor, both inside the penitentiary and outside of the penitentiary. And when you have no support, you need the supports that are available. So I'm going to be voting in favor of this because again, I know individuals who have been justice impacted, who have benefited from these types of programs. So thank you, Chair. Council member Gerdes. Thank you, my chair. Just quickly, I appreciate everybody's comments and thoughts. I just figured I would give kind of where I see this, you know, I, I don't disagree with anything that's been set up here. I want to make that very clear. I think my experience as a, as a kid and growing up has kind of shaped what I, how I feel about this. I think a big thing for me is that it's voluntary. I think a big thing for me is I've had family members incarcerated and hearing those stories about opportunities, lack of opportunities, depending on where you were and frankly, how long you were going to be there has kind of shaped this. And, and I think about this when I went to high school, frankly, tuition was too expensive. So I did work study program and it's not the same. I'm not comparing, please make that very clear. But what I got off of tuition for my work study program was not equal to what the prevailing wage at the time was then fast forward in college, I became a graduate assistant and the pay for the graduate assistant, again, something I wanted to do. Tuition at the time was X amount. I was a graduate assistant. They gave me my tuition. They gave me no other pay. And let me tell you, those were a hundred hour weeks for three years in a row. And I gave that school way more time and effort than I got back in tuition. Now I'm very happy because I got the experience. I wouldn't be sitting here today had I not done those things and that it was an investment in me. Uh, I wasn't worried about the dollar amount. And so again, I don't disagree with any of the things any of you have said when it comes to a prevailing wage and, and people should be paid, paid more. I don't disagree with that, but I, my, my experience of, I get to make a choice to invest in myself, hoping that that investment pays off later on. That's, that's kind of how I view this is that they're making a choice to invest in them in themselves, understanding that investment is not frankly going to pay. Thank you. Yeah. I figured when I saw stormwater, uh, it isn't going to pay dividends in the hour that I'm doing it, but hopefully down the road it will. And so, um, you know, I, I can, I can see mixed feelings on all of this. And again, I appreciate all of the feedback that that's, this item has gotten just my experience of it, of it. Again, I think I'll just repeat myself one more time. It being voluntary and the ability to go and invest in yourself to hopefully make a better future. Um, and that has nothing to do with, I'm not sure what we do. Um, if we don't secure this contract. And the last thing I'll say is cause there was a comment about their procurement process. This wasn't the lowest bid. It was the only one, right? No, it was the lowest. Okay. Okay. All right. But then I apologize. I take that back. And so, um, uh, but again, I, I think my experience of this kind of has shaped how I think about it. So thanks for my share. I'm, I'm going to go before we do a second go through. So, um, I have a lot, none of it is questions. Um, I'll start by saying I'm not looking at this as, you know, whether or not what pride does is correct. I'm looking at it as to whether or not it's right for us as the city of St. Petersburg to enter into this sort of contract. And we, as a city have had recent, in the very recent past ordinances around workers' rights and responsible bidders and maintaining, doing everything we can to increase working standards for working people. And those were preempted. And this is like a turn in another direction completely. And so that's, that's the framework that I come from. So, um, I'm very grateful for the questions that have been answered. That's why I don't have any. Um, I'm just going to go through this list of things that I have. Uh, actually the first thing I do have a question for administration and you know, this might come across as unfair, but I think it's appropriate. It's administration's position that this is the kind of contract that's all right for us to enter into as the city of St. Petersburg, given our history of advocating for higher working rights for people. So I appreciate that question, council member. And, you know, I think a lot of what we do together is balance competing goods and there are different competing goods related to this. We've heard today about some of the life skills training for incarcerated persons. We've been, um, very aggressive on trying to help returning citizens. And we do believe in second chances. We also understand the equitable pay issues and the right to organize issues that are involved in this. So there's goods on both sides. Um, we, we lean, uh, we brought it to you previously and we lean towards returning citizens and help people develop those life skills. But we understand if city council leans to the other side on the pay and equity issues. So either way it goes today, we're, we're prepared to adapt and move forward. So, okay. Thank you for that. Um, you know, my mind keeps coming back to something that was very controversial in the last few years that happened in the state and it was, and continues to happen. It is, um, in our education system and, uh, the revision of standards surrounding, uh, what happened in history. Um, and one of the things that jumped out at me when I was talking to advocates around this issue was it had a lot of overlap to, um, some of the things that were saying about things that happened in the past. I'll say it this way. Um, council member Harding asked a question about what gives them this exemption to pay less. Well, the answer is the 13th amendment's exemption around slavery and this is, and the ability to not pay prisoners is remnants and a huge mistake, in my opinion on, uh, on the 13th amendment around slavery. It's still slavery. I mean, they pay people, so I don't want to make that exact comparison and what, and then when I go back to the education system and the revisions and, uh, that we've made recently is that there was a very controversial item put into Florida history standards that said they wanted to ensure that it was taught that when people were slaves, they gained valuable skills, um, in, uh, while they were slaves and so that they could whitewash our history. And this is a very similar conversation. And again, I don't want to put this on pride. I think that what y'all are doing is probably the best that you can do given our current situation legally and politically. But I think that situation is garbage. Like our prison system is bad and has a lot of issues is not focused on rehabilitation is focused on punishment. You mentioned capital punishment and, uh, and, uh, the death penalty. I think that's abhorrent and I'm not here to have our government enter into contracts with a system that maybe is doing the best it can, but it's not good. And so, you know, it's beyond the, uh, deal with, um, just the 13th amendment. It's the national labor relations act not being as strong as it should have been in the first place and continued degradation degradation of people's working rights in this country. And so I can't be a part of this. Um, I understand where everyone else is coming from just making sure I got everything over here. Uh, you know, the conversation around everyone's voluntary. Look, when we're working as free people, labor is hardly voluntary. I have to go to work so that my family can eat so that I can have a roof over my head. I think that's wrong too. I think people should have basic dignity no matter what. And so the fact that we are, you know, compelled to labor, it's a whole different dynamic within a prison that probably has a lot more problems. And so, um, I just don't think this is right for the city of St. Petersburg. I don't think that this is something that we, uh, should be doing. I think if we want to continue to help returning citizens, people in prison, there are a lot of other ways to do it. I mean, I know the, uh, labor movement has, uh, apprenticeships just like you all described where they take people who have no work experience, uh, very oftentimes returning citizens, uh, and give them those skills and they immediately pay them a living wage. And so, you know, as somebody who strongly supports, um, honestly, a complete dissolution and rebuilding of our criminal justice system and, uh, workers' rights, um, I think that if we want to, you know, have the goals that we have, there's a lot better ways to do it than to participate in this. Um, I've got other things to say, but I think I've made my main point. So I'll leave it there. Council member Gabbard, go ahead. Thank you, chair. Um, I'm actually glad that you went before me because so much of what you said eloquently has been sitting with me on this item. Um, I, again, you know, I kind of started by asking the questions, but didn't really give my position. So I'll very briefly say that I just don't feel as though I can support, uh, the city entering into an agreement, um, that, you know, has a direct connection to your point with the exemptions that come or the exceptions from the 13th amendment. Um, that has great concern for me morally. Um, I mean, as recent as the nineties, uh, Florida Senate was talking about, you know, forced labor still. And here we are these years later, um, you know, kind of shrouding this, um, particular program in all of the benefit. But again, I just feel like if you are an incarcerated person, yes, it's quote voluntary, but if you don't do it, what else are you going to do? Right. And so I appreciate the fact that there is opportunity for skills training, but then whenever I look at the wages themselves and then understanding now that there is this whole inequity around the commercially you used products and the fact that that does have a prevailing wage, but because institutionally they don't have to, then they don't. And that is an issue for me as well. And then, um, to the point of the other, uh, bids that we had, I mean, the difference between this one and the next was 32,000 ish, $32,000. Um, my morals are worth $32,000 and then some, and I just, I don't feel as though this program is something that I can confidently commit, uh, resident and taxpayer dollars to, and therefore I'll be voting no. Thank you. So do we have a motion? I'll move approval. Okay. Okay. Seeing no request to speak. So open the machine. Um, no. Oh, okay. Nevermind. No, I'm not speaking. I just want to make sure that I know what we are voting on. Cause I'm not supporting it. Well, we're voting in the affirmative. Okay. I just want to make sure you have the motion is in the affirmative. Okay. I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure. Okay. I just want to make sure. All right. Uh, seeing no further requests to speak for the clerk, please open the machine for voting council members, please enter your votes thing that all present council members have voted with the clerk, please tally and announce the votes. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve region that an F five fails, um, five to two with council members Driscoll, Vic Sanders, Floyd, Gabbard, and Gerdes voting. No. And council member Gibbons and Harding voting. Yes. Thank you. And thank you really for being here. I do appreciate it. All right. We're going to move on to item F six. Rajesh is here. Yes. Take it away. Good day. Council. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, yes. And I see this now, uh, it was pulled by council member Gabbard. So I will let council member Gabbard start us off actually. Thank you. And I'll be brief. Um, Rajesh, I want to thank you. Uh, I know that you, uh, hastily, uh, made the offer for one-on-ones and we were able to chat yesterday. Um, I pulled this item because, uh, you know, and this would be, I think maybe a comment Rob for administration as consideration. Um, anytime that there is an allocation of such a high dollar amount and, um, specifically to our infrastructure, I believe that this should go on reports automatically. I don't even think city council should have to pull this because, um, you know, and, and I clearly understand why we're doing this. I'm excited for Rajesh to share while we're doing this, but again, a large part of our conversation yesterday was this narrative that I continue to try to share with administration of, we need to do a better job of telling our story, why we are spending the dollars we are spending specifically around resiliency and infrastructure improvements. So that was my premise for pulling it, um, to have a, in the sunshine conversation about a very large amount of money so that people can understand why we're spending the money we are. And after my conversation yesterday, I hope everyone will be as pleasant, uh, pleasantly surprised to hear, um, all of the good things these dollars are going to go into. So Rajesh, with that, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Councilman MacGabbard. And honestly, I, you've started me off well on that one. Um, so the city and, you know, I'll continue on that conversation is that the city's really been on the forefront of alternative project delivery. And this is truly in guide and based on the guidance that we received from council and the support from council or legal department, as well as administration. Um, I've shared a few things with a few accounts members in our discussion, but just to give perspective, the city administers CIP projects based on a variety of project delivery methods. Uh, this varies depends on the complexity and the risk. So we utilize everything from what we call blanket purchase agreements for simple projects, such as replacing doors, replacing light bulbs or street lights to hard bids, construction managers, construction managers as needed, and then all the way up to design bill contracts for really complex projects or high risk projects. The construction services agreement, um, that we are bringing today falls in the middle range of that where there's reasonable risk and it's still a reasonably high cost project. So this is generally what the intent of this is not a council action to authorize $60 million. No funds are being appropriated to any or incumbent as part of this process. This is a master agreement. So authorizations will still be consistent with existing practices and in compliance with Florida statutes, city policies and procedures, as well as council's purview. Um, projects less than a hundred thousand again, as normal practices are authorized by, um, will be authorized by a field order administratively and projects more than a hundred thousand will be presented to council for approval. Now, why is this being brought back? Um, really and truly the original intent was that $10 million annually. However, how we wrote the agreement and the council action previously resulted in $10 million over the period of the contract, which ended up at $3,333,000 and the repeating cycle, um, annually. So what we did is took that opportunity as we understood, okay, we, we entered in the contracts for $10 million over the three years. We took that opportunity to look at the projects that were about to be shipped already. And what is that magnitude of that cost? And that's how we ended up listing some example projects on the council action, uh, that put us in that range of the $60 million. Now, again, a reminder, this is not to commit any funds as part of a council action. This is just for a master agreement, no different than what we do for consulting services agreement or our construction manager as needed contracts. So what's the benefit of this? It's really the efficiency and time and expenses, um, saving 16, 90 days on project schedules as not having to bid the project because the process already complies with the Florida statutes, as well as saving cost and time on staff, across multiple departments, such as preparing bid packages, preparing contracts, um, executing those contracts, because again, these master agreements already executed, um, administering bid phases, pre-bid meetings, responsive, um, responses to RFIs or during the bidding process. So those cost savings come across multiple departments, not just on the paperwork and documentation, but also staff time as well. So what that leads towards us is being more physically responsible and also being more responsive. So when I say responsive, by example, if council approves this action today, we can have a project to council ready for construction by the next month. So that's how we're saving that time and being responsive in our contracts. So again, it's another tool in our belt and, um, it's with the support of, you know, all of us in that administration council, legal purchasing and coming up with these alternative project delivery methods that, um, you know, keep us agile and make us maneuverable during these project implementations. So with that, I open for any questions and ask for approval. So we'll go to council member Gerdes. Thank you, Vice Chair. Uh, Brej, thanks for the one-on-one and, um, really appreciate the explanation. Also, uh, love the expediency of it and, uh, can't wait to see these projects come before us, uh, sooner rather than later based on this. Thank you so much. Move approval. Second. Okay, great. Yes. Uh, we talked on the phone yesterday. Thank you for it. Uh, it was clarifying. Um, I think the easiest thing for me to say is we're not actually spending $50 million right now. We're just giving you approval to do those that up to that amount with these contractors and we'll have a vote on it later on. Um, and it really streamlines the government, which I think everybody up here would agree is a good idea. So, uh, all right, that's all I've got, uh, seeing no requests to speak, please open the machine for voting council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted. Will the clerk please tie in and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously with council member Hannah Wood Spain absent. Thank you. And thank you council member Gabbard for getting us clarity on what did seem like a big number. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Uh, okay. That was F6. We are going to move on to our new ordinances, uh, starting with D1. We're going to read it. Oh, yes. Please read the title. Opposed ordinance number 1179-V in ordinance amending ordinance 1172-V which approved the vacation of the western 120 feet of the 20-foot alley abutting lots five through eight and block 16 of fuller subdivision located at 1833 first avenue south and 1850 central avenue replacing condition number five in section three and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is august the 27th and we do not have any cards. Move approval. All right. Seeing no requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously with council members Gabbard and Hannah Wood's being absent. Thank you. Thank you. And, uh, we may want the presentation next time. First, uh, first reading. All right. Uh, next is item G2. Um, do you have to read? Yes, we do. Read both of them. Yes, sir. Opposed ordinance number 765-L and ordinance amending the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the city of St. Petersburg, Florida by changing the future land use map designation for a for a 3.89 acre parcel located at 3010 58th avenue south from resident residential urban r u to residential medium r m providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is on august the 27th and we do not have any cards. Move approval. We need the second ordinance. There's a second ordinance. Oh, maybe the second one as well. Yes. Proposed ordinance number 800-z and orange amending the future. Excuse me. The ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida by changing the zoning of a 3.89 acre parcel located at 3010 58th avenue south from neighborhood suburban dash one n s dash one to neighborhood suburban multi-family dash one n s m dash one providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date. The public uh hearing for this item is august the 27th and we do not have any cards. Move approval g2a and b. Okay. Okay. Well, I wanted to do that, but go ahead. I have a question. That's okay. I just have a question. I'll just caution this. There really can't be any discussion. Well, I just need a clarification. It's not a discussion. Okay. I just wanted to... Okay, so the clarification is I'm looking at 3.86 acre parcel located at 3010 58th avenue south. But it reads that the actual acreage is 3.89 acreage parcel located at 3010 58th avenue south. Is there a difference? See what you're saying. On the actual notes listed on... Yes, that was my only question. Both ordinance titles in the land use was 3.89 acres and on the ordinance title for the second one's 3.89 acres. So it might have been a typo on the agenda itself, but not in the ordinances. The titles were read correctly. That was my only correction, but I did motion, but I'll go ahead and vote. I just wanted to make sure what the difference was. That's okay. That's okay. Let's vote. Let's vote. All right. Seeing no further requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members voted, will the clerk please highly announce the votes? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda items G2A and G2B passes unanimously with council members Gabbard and Hanowitz being absent. Okay. On to item G3. Proposed ordinance number 643-H and ordinance amending the St. Petersburg City Code section 16.20.120.6.2, 16.20.130.5.2, and 16.20.150.5.2, regulating FAR bonuses by replacing the FAR bonus table, thereby adding an arts funding development bonus bonus bonus, adding a subheading bonus bonus, adding a subheading for each existing bonus, and reorganizing the table in alphabetical order, amending section 16.30.060.3.1, .d.1, and 16.30.050.5.1, regulating FAR bonuses by adding an arts funding development bonus, providing for severability and providing for an effective date, and the public hearing for this item is August the 27th. We do not have any cards. Move approval. Second. All right. Will the clerk please open the motion to your votes? That's my bad. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G3 passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. All right. Item J1 legal. Thank you, Vice Chair. So I hope this conversation would be unnecessary, and I apologize that the materials were passed out only after the meeting began. When I last appeared before you on July 23rd, I inform you that the City Attorney's Office and the Supervisor of Elections had different interpretations of the Florida Election Code, with respect to the ordering of municipal ballot questions. Our office concludes that City Council is authorized to set its own order of the municipal questions with respect to one another. The supervisor concludes that the Charter Amendment referendum questions must be placed first, and then in one group, and then after that, a group of any other type of referendum question. On July 23rd, you adopted a resolution ordering the five questions in the manner that you thought was most appropriate for the residents of the city, and the following day our office submitted a request to the Division of Elections to seek an opinion clarifying which interpretation was correct. We have yet to receive that opinion. As a result, the current order for ballot questions does not satisfy the supervisor's ordering rules. The question of law remains unresolved without an opinion and the deadline for submitting questions in the ballot order to the supervisor is tomorrow. To resolve that situation, we suggest that you adopt one of the three resolutions that are attached to the memo that was handed out, each of which would establish an alternative order that would satisfy the supervisor's rules. Briefly, and in order of most assertive of the city's authority to least, option A reaffirms the original ballot order. It provides an alternative ballot order that would be used only if the division's opinion invalidates the city's original order, and it would state council's intent to consider any options available to it if the supervisor used the alternative order in the absence of an opinion from the division stating that the original order could not be used. So option B adopts an alternative order consistent with the supervisor's interpretation, and it is followed by statements asserting that the city does not agree with the supervisor's interpretation that the city is adopting this rule only for the purpose of ensuring that the questions are placed on the ballot and the point the purpose of this is to show that the request for an opinion before the division is not moot the city desires to do this in the in the future. And option C adopts an alternative order without making any further statement is the least confrontational of the options one might say. Once you have determined which form of resolution to use I suggest the council also consider the order of the questions to be placed on it. To recap, the supervisor believes that charter amendments need to be placed first, followed by other types of amendments. So the order in which they are currently on each of these drafts is derived from the the original order. And so the first group would need to have Jamestown court referendum and election cleanup referendum together, and you could reorder within those three. And then the second group would be the geobond and the harborage and you could reorder within that group. So I know that was a lot of information to be given to you on short notice. I would understand if a recess is is desired to digest that before discussion and I'm here to support whatever discussion and decision you have. Thank you. Thank you. Council members. Do we feel like we need 10 or 15 minutes? I see. Yeah, neither do I. Okay. All right. It was offered. So I figured I'd mention it. We'll go to Councilmember Gertus. Thank you by share. Well, I was kind of the lead on the order. So I figured I would jump out in front and just kind of give my two cents real quickly. I got to cheat a little bit because I had to recuse myself on a vote. So I got a couple of minutes with Brett. So I knew this was coming. And to be honest with you, at the beginning during my conversation, I had was shying away from a but now that I've read all three, I'm in favor of a. And so I could be talked in to be, uh, I'm not totally capitulating to option C. Um, but I just feel like we give them a backup. If they decide to use it, then we can discuss how we want it without an opinion. We can discuss how we want to go about that. But I think, um, in this situation, I feel like we all thought it was very important for the go bond to go first. Uh, there is a lot on the ballot this year. And so, um, I feel like we should restate our opinion. And if we get overturned, that's, that is what it is. And I'm okay with the second backup order. Um, but I, but I, having read them, uh, I feel like we should try to stand our ground best possible. That's all I have. Thanks by share. Great. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. I just, I'm, you know, I like option A. I like that we have that option, but I'm really, I'm really worried about the time, um, the deadline that we have in front of us. And it just seems really late in the game to still be playing a game. Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm more in favor of option B if, you know, I hear from others and, um, I, I, I could go along with it, but Brett, like what kind of timeframe? I mean, we have hours really. So with respect to the time, I don't know. Uh, I've reached out to the division to get a sense of where things stand. I've not received a response, um, with respect to how much time the supervisor, I mean, at this point, every general election ballot in the state is in flux because of the decision earlier this week to invalidate the constitutional amendments, uh, ballot language, uh, and the, the 10 days given to the attorney general to, to revise. Uh, and then I don't know if there's time for potential legal challenges after that. So there are a number of, there are a number of things going on and, and the way option A is worded, it, it attempts to utilize that space as much as possible to say, this is the option. If the division, uh, and to provide the backup so that the supervisor has the backup option in hand, um, and still provide more, more time for the division to issue an opinion. Uh, but that's, uh, I can't give you a, I wish I could, I can't give you a firm answer on how much time there really is other than that the supervisor expects the forms to be submitted by close of business tomorrow. I see the clerk nodding. And do you say you wait until like five minutes before close of business and then send them the order? Well, the, the way resolution you have to ready to shoot out there. Well, the, the way option A is worded, both would be provided. The original order would be provided along with an alternative order that you picked today. And then you're putting it in someone else's hands to execute properly. I mean, I'm, I, this makes me nervous. I'm very worried that we're going to end up in some situation where we end up with none of this on the ballot and we have to get this stuff on the ballot. So, and, and, and I, that is why we've provided three, three options today because these are all, uh, considerations. Yeah. I think that priority needs to be getting these things on the ballot, knowing that there, there could be a scenario where it's not. Um, if we, if we keep, if we keep going down this road, I feel like option A gives some safeguards, but in this day and age, I, I worry. So I prefer option B I'm open to hearing what people think about other options. Thank you, chair. Council member Vic Sanders. Thank you. I'm going to be quick. And that was going to be my question, um, about, um, is there an opportunity for none to be put on the ballot, but, um, real quick, my order is a C and B, um, my preference. And of course I'm, I'm willing to hear what others state, but, um, that's where I am. Thank you. Council member Gabbard. Thank you, chair. So Brett on A, if we do a, we are putting forward that our original order, but we are giving that alternative in the event that we don't get that opinion, but is giving them that, does that give the, the supervisor of elections permission to go ahead and just go with the alternative order? The way a is structured, the supervisor is authorized to use the alternative order upon receipt of an opinion from the division that states that the original order is inconsistent with the election code. And then states, if the supervisor you chooses to use the alternative order in the absence of such an opinion, the city council would then reconsider, would consider its options to, um, extra, like additional options to ensure that the original order is placed on the ballot. The questions are placed on the ballot in the original order. And you say would reconsider its options that would then have to come back to us again. At that point, it would be, we have said, we have said, this is what we want. We have said, if the division says we're wrong, the city is wrong, use this alternative. And if you choose to use the alternative without waiting for the division, uh, the city would consider its options, which realistically would be going to court. Okay. So here's a, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna kindergarten it for us. Council member Gerdes. So option A is the stubborn option. Option B is the, we don't like it, but okay, fine. And option C is the, we're just going to let you have it, supervisor. Sure. You think you're right. Okay. Fine. Yes. Is that, that's kind of in as layman's terms, as I can put it. That's the way to characterize it. Yes. So with that being said, my preference at this point, so late in the hour is option B. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Uh, council member Harding. Uh, thank you, chair. I, I, I will, uh, I, uh, appreciate the work that you've done, Brett. Um, and, uh, and I, I appreciate what council member Gerdes said. I'll, uh, I, I would defer to A. So. Okay. Thank you, council member Harding. Um, all right. Council member Gerdes. Thank you. And I'll be very brief. I'll just say my ABCs in that order. ABC. Thank you. Uh, okay. I appreciate it. Um, uh, I'll go before we go back again. Um, I would prefer option B, uh, let's be like, yeah, I would prefer option B because when Brett, when you explained it, I had to sit and think really hard and, uh, I would prefer to communicate very clearly, very simply about these things that I think are very important, uh, not just to the supervisor, but to the community as well. And if I have to go explain a, to a constituency, I'm not going to enjoy doing that. Um, so having said that, I'm just, I think B is okay. I mean, I would prefer a different order, but at the end of the day, I'm not, I just have a preference for a different order. That's all that it is. Yeah. Uh, but also I understand where everybody else is coming from. So it's not, uh, I get it. Uh, all right. That's all. Thank you. Council member Gerdes. Thank you by share. Yeah. I think the, the one thing I've heard is that we all believe that having these on the ballot is the most important thing to set the order is the second. I, I don't disagree with that one bit. My preference to a was frankly. Yeah. It's okay. It's, there seems to be a lot coming downhill and I'm at my tipping point. I'll say, I'll say, yeah. Yeah. And so it's okay. Um, and so, but listen, I, but I do agree with the sentiment that the most important thing is to have them on the ballot. The second most important thing is the order. And so I'll move approval option B. Thank you. Uh, yeah, I'll say it. I mean, it's frustrating because I do feel like a couple of times we we've, you know, felt bullied by the supervisor's office. I wanted to use it. Yeah. Well, I just make it G rated. It's well, I felt bullied a couple of times. And so I understand people's frustration. Um, all right, I'll leave it there. Sure. I'll just chime in. One thing too, is there's this kind of short term issue and then longer term. So regardless of, you know, for example, if council were to approve B, uh, and, and go with kind of that middle ground, it doesn't mean that we still won't pursue an opinion from the division of elections report back, et cetera. So it's, it's kind of short term, long term, or both considerations, regardless of what you decide today, we don't have any intention of dropping the issue. Big picture. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Uh, Jackie, thank you for that. And I think the big, I think the big takeaway there is that no matter what we're putting ourselves in a position to where these are on the ballot, I think that's what I've heard resoundingly from this, from this body. And so, okay. Okay. Thank you, chair. So for, for clarity, uh, to, to be, and, and to that end, the final operative provision in option B is, uh, be it further resolved that city council believes that it is authorized to determine the order of municipal ballot questions with respect to one another under the election code and reserves the right to exercise that authority in future elections. So this is making clear that this is not a concession. Uh, this is, this is for the purpose of ensuring these questions get on the ballot. And the clarification I would ask is, is this a motion to approve option B, including the order of the individual questions on that as they are now? Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. With that clarity given, will the clerk please open the machine for voting council members into your votes. The clerk please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve agenda item J one option B passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you all so much for another productive conversation. We're going to move into new business. Uh, we'll start with item H one, which is mine. Um, uh, I am requesting city council approve, uh, resolution supporting the federal yes and God's backyard or gig be act. Um, or if it is the will of city council, we can have this discussion sent a layer as well. Move approval of the resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Um, uh, one thing I'll say about it is, uh, at the, I've been a advocate for the Yigby act at the state level, um, specifically because, you know, it's, it's a good thing to do. And, um, uh, you know, my aspirations of what I hope the state can accomplish are much more limited than the federal government is what I'll say. And I'm very grateful that the state's done, uh, gigby things, uh, when it comes to this federal level, this is something that worked on with administration. Um, I'm supportive of it, but I have a lot bigger aspirations for the federal governments as well. And I just wanted that to be said, um, that this, uh, bill is just one little stepping stone and I expect a lot more, um, in the future. Um, council member Harding, go ahead. Thank you, vice chair. The, the, my only question in, um, possibly sending it to layer that consideration is that this is, uh, this, this is a federal preemption of, of the, the legal have to help me out here. These are, we're going to change zoning, right? So the building, building these structures on, on church property, um, means not zoning. It means that it means that we change the way that we do business, which means if it passes at the federal level, isn't that a, isn't that a, a, isn't that a, uh, it's not a preemption of what we're allowed to do. That's not how I understand that. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. I, that's not how I would view it either. Okay. What am, what am I, what am I missing in there? Why did I, it, we could have, uh, David Thompson, uh, give us an overview of the bill. Thank you. Thank you, council member Harding, David Thompson, government affairs director. So the main difference between the state bill and the federal, um, version, the state one is essentially a preemption or it gives an opposite. It deals directly with the zoning specifically. The federal version provides funding and it's an incentive to change zoning. So for us who have already adopted this YIGB ordinance, we would essentially be just built into what they're asking other cities to do. Um, and that would make us eligible for the additional funding and technical assistance that go with it. But the federal government and Jane, if I'm incorrect here, does not have the ability to overturn our zoning. Um, and this bill would not do so. Thank you very much, David. Thank you. Good question. Uh, okay. We have a motion in a second. Will the clerk please open machine voting council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted. Will the clerk please tell me to announce the vote. Mr. Vice chair, the motion to approve agenda item H1A passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. Uh, item H2, uh, council member Harding. Thank you, chair. And, uh, and for clarity, clarity, before I read it, I, I know that, uh, that council member Gabbard has, um, a new business item in that specifically, um, talks about AI in relation to, um, in relation to permitting. And, um, and I, I am looking for a more holistic discussion about how AI becomes part of the, the, the, the culture and the infrastructure of the city. Um, with that, I respectfully, uh, request a referral to the public service and information, uh, committee for, uh, discussion regarding a citywide strategy for artificial intelligence adoption, including use cases, data, data governance, risk management, and budgetary implications. And with that, I so move council member Gabbard. Thank you, chair. And, uh, thank you for putting this on for new business. Um, just give a quick update. Um, chair Hanowitz is not here and she's the chair of PSNI, but, um, I have been working, uh, with staff with, um, an outside, uh, vendor for a potential presentation. Um, so, you know, I've been doing kind of a deep dive on what to bring forward to PSNI. Probably we'll be ready. I would say this fall at some point, um, certainly not ready anytime soon, but, um, I welcome further discussion because you're right. Uh, my idea is very limited to how it could really improve our, improve our permitting process, um, and make our staff more nimble and augment staff. Um, but, you know, I think that, you know, that just kind of opens that door to needing to have different conversations around data integrity, around things like that protections. And I have, you know, through all of this work, it has become kind of apparent to me that I think one of the places that it could be very helpful is with public records. Um, you know, we continue to have kind of this, you know, challenge in our community about talking around about the, um, I guess, swiftness of which sometimes people get public record. And I think there are some applicability with AI technology that could help with that. So if that conversation comes to PSNI at the same time or at a different time, I very much welcome that, but I just kind of wanted to give city council an update as to where I am on my specific topic, but I agree with you. It has far reaching implications. So thank you. Thank you, chair. All right. Um, I've got a couple of comments first. Um, the council member Harding, uh, I think we'll probably have disagreements on this as it goes forward, but I'm wholly with you that we need to have this conversation. So I really appreciate the new business item, um, to administration. Uh, got a question. Uh, are we spending money on like enterprise licenses for, uh, artificial intelligence right now? Um, I would have to get back to you on that and to all city council chair Floyd. Okay. I know that's part of this conversation as well. So I don't expect you to be are, we are using some AI tools. I'm leaning towards the answer is probably yes, but I don't want to go on the record until I have. Yeah, no, I understand. And that's part of the conversation. I figured I'd ask cause it was a more simple question. Um, I say that just because, you know, I've seen, uh, where these licenses change quickly and the cost, uh, balloons significantly. Um, and then, uh, two other things. One, I saw that there was an AI policy rolled out by administration, I believe this week. Um, so another reason why I think we need to have this conversation because I can say right now that I read the policy and I did not agree with it, but it was far too permissive. And it had a comment in there about not violating intellectual property rights. And I think AI violates intellectual property rights left and right. Unless you, we can tell people that the data trained used to train the models is all open source, which is just not the case. And so, um, I, I just wanted to put that out there. Like, I think we need to temper it back already. And then last thing I'll say is, is I suspect that there was generative AI used in a presentation that we got today. And it had a lot of images that were very distracting and a chart that changed halfway through the presentation and was inaccurate. And, uh, I don't fault. I mean, if we're going to do this, like we're going to experience bumps and I don't fault any staff member who like, you know, puts in something and it might have, uh, being correct because if you create technical data using generative AI, it is very difficult to inspect all of the technical data. If it's not technical data you created. And so again, this is why the policy, and this goes back to the policy, the policy says everyone must review it, but I don't think those words, everyone must review it are strong enough to explain that like technical data through generative AI will have hallucinations and whatnot that will be difficult to catch. And oftentimes it takes more time to catch those mistakes than it does to just create a correct representation of data in the first place. And so I think having said all of this, um, I have hesitations, but I am very grateful for the new business items so that we can have this discussion, uh, publicly. Um, so I'll leave it there. Seeing no further requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the votes? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H2 passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. All right. Uh, H3, I will present this item on behalf of chair Hanowitz. Uh, just a second. Uh, it is respectfully requesting a referral to the public services and infrastructure committee for an update on the draft of the trails crossing master plan. Move approval. Second. All right. Seeing no requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the votes? Mr. Vice Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H3 passes unanimously with council member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. All right. Uh, we're on the open forum. Is there any speakers for open forum? Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you. All right. Well, then we'll close open forum and we'll go to announcements. Council members. All right. We'll start with council member Dristel. Thank you. And, um, first, um, it, thank you for chairing the meeting today. Did a fantastic job. Um, and as, um, we're getting towards the end of, um, the, the year, I'm happy to have been in at least one council meeting where you were the chair. So that's a great preview for next year. I hope so. Um, just a couple of things, you know, during open forum at the beginning of the meeting, this is really for administration. Um, we had, um, Jason Jensen speak, um, on behalf of the Berg bid. And, um, that was very nice of him to come and speak. And, you know, there's been a lot of mention about, um, you know, community involvement and people having a seat at the table. And I, you know, I, I do understand, um, uh, the healthy boundaries that are created between the, uh, the office of the mayor and the office of city council when negotiations are happening, but I can't help but wonder if, um, city council could at least be asked for some feedback. Um, I think that probably the development group would like to hear what city council thinks. Ultimately, um, it will be city council that votes on this. And, um, I, I, if any of my, I, this is where I can ask my colleagues if they're thinking about this too. Um, I, I think it could be beneficial to have a committee of the whole meeting where city council has an opportunity to give initial feedback on the proposal that has been submitted by, um, this particular group, um, because then we can talk with each other and see sort of where we're aligned and it will give the developers an idea of what city council is looking for and would vote yes on. Um, so if we were going to move forward with this thing, I really think that city council should be tapped for some input, um, early on. Uh, I, I think it would create a smooth path in the long run. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Um, see if anyone agreed, I would be happy to, um, submit a new business item requesting a cow on the subject. If, um, if there's an interest in that. The second thing I wanted to ask, um, was, um, I had spoken, um, or emailed with, with Rob earlier in a week about the, uh, clean and safe program for the downtown improvement district. And, um, it's been, you know, a few months since the bidding closed and, um, I kept thinking, I keep thinking with every agenda that comes out, we're going to have that contract. And so I had asked Rob about it. And in case there are other council members who are interested in this particular topic, I wonder if you'll just let everybody know where you're at with that. Sure. Thank you, council member. So Marshall Hampton, uh, director of stormwater transportation and parking is the lead, uh, staff member on that. He is currently negotiating the final details of the contract. We hope to have it to city council at the end of August, but if not, it'll be early September. I expect. So. Okay. Excellent. That's all I had. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Gabbard. Thank you, chair. Um, so I pushed my button in response to, um, what was mentioned about bird bid and, um, what was mentioned by, uh, Mr. Jensen regarding ULI Tampa Bay. And so I just wanted to give everyone just a quick update on that. Um, and it is my hopes that at some point chair, you do ask for us to do a bit of an update to HLUT. I would love to bring ULI Tampa Bay and the downtown partnership who is being kind of the, the stewards of the project or of the, uh, study, um, have them come and do an update for us all because it is still my commitment to city council that this is a city council, um, initiative that is very much led by the community. Um, and that the, uh, developer group is not the one, uh, guiding the ULI Tampa Bay study, but that it does come from, um, the community members themselves to be that voice of what the community wants to see at the historic gas plant. Um, I have another call later on today about this. I have attended one meeting since we had, uh, ULI and the partnership come, uh, to H-O-U-T. And so, um, I'll be happy, you know, at any point in time to have them return up on your request for that to come back. But I can tell you that, um, during break, uh, there was a mention of, uh, phase one, that that part of the study was done. Um, that was quoted in the media that supposedly administration and the mayor had seen that. Um, I did get a copy of that. That was not, um, a completion of phase one per se. What that was is that was, uh, all of the different plans that have been provided to ULI Tampa Bay so far, essentially speaking of AI, they kind of put them into AI to see what AI would kind of summarize out of all of that. And that is what was presented to the administration. Um, I did get a copy of that. And so I'm not sure if all of city council was sent that, but if not, I will make sure that that happens. Um, but there has not been any true deliverables that have been paid for up until this point. So I just wanted to make sure that we level set with that and, um, give you all full disclosure as to where this is and that I do continue to work on this, um, with ULI and with the downtown partnership and all of the stakeholders who have come to the table. So thank you. Okay. Uh, thank you. Uh, just to follow up on that, I'll just forgive my ignorance. No, no, it's okay. ULI it's still on the agenda or still on the referral list. It's still on the referral list to return. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well then, yes, as we're going through, uh, I think you're right. Every day that passes, it becomes more and more, uh, pressing of a conversation for us to bring back up, which I think goes to what council member Driscoll saying, of course, being able to provide input. There is that mechanism, but if you want to have a broader conversation, I would entertain that as well. Yeah. Um, okay. Council member Curtis. Thank you by share. Uh, just quickly, um, next week, I will not be in attendance for our city council meeting. I am the representative for legal cities, board of directors and it's the annual or yeah, the annual conference, which also has a board of directors meeting. And so, uh, I'll be representing us there. And so, um, sorry to miss next week, but just wanted to let everybody know. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you all for a lovely council meeting. Um, seeing no other requests to speak, uh, we'll call today's meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.