City Council - Feb 08, 2024

Brandi Gabbard: present · Lisset Hanewicz: present · Gina Driscoll: present · Richie Floyd: present · Copley Gerdes: present

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Hopley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Ritchie Floyd.

Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you to our February 8th City Council Meeting. Can we begin with the roll call?

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg.

Baby, so nice.

Can we begin with the roll call, please?

Gabbard? Here. Montenari? Here. Hanowitz? Here. Rick Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Muhammad?

Here.

Floyd? Here. Gerdes?

Here.

Thank you. This afternoon, we will have our invocation given today by the Reverend Don Warden, the Senior Pastor from Christ United Methodist Church. Following that, we will have our Pledge of Allegiance. Will you please join me in standing?

Thank you. Brothers and sisters, shall we pray together? Gracious God, allow us to put our own needs and desires aside, to hear each other in love as brothers and sisters of our city, and to respond to the needs of many with a heart full of love for all. We thank you for your presence, and we ask for many holy moments to bless this space and in this meeting, for all to be as one. In your name we pray. Amen.

And to the Republic, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Thank you, Reverend Warden, for that beautiful invocation. Councilmembers, we have an agenda before us. Now to entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Now that we've been properly motioned and seconded, clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, would you please cast your vote? Seeing that all present councilmembers have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote?

Madam Chair, motion to approve. The agenda passes unanimously.

Thank you. So next we'll have open forum. Clerk, can you please read the rules?

If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individuals wishing to speak by signing 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. Peter's work government. If you are 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. 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 raise hand 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 comments is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by email only. And, Madam Chair, we do have a few speakers.

Thank you. Can you read two and would you please go to either mic?

Ron Diner and Ben Winder. Please step up to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council.

Good afternoon. I'm Ron Diner. I'm sorry. Normally, I'd be a little better dressed and I was even going to get a haircut, but my daughter got a dog and she decided I was going to be the babysitter.

What did you address? Oh, I'm sorry.

I live on Snell Isle in St. Petersburg. Anyway, I was babysitting for the dog and training it, so that's why I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do. I've been here, I think this is the third time, and I've met with many of you about the Hot Rays-Hines deal. And the reason I've done that is, I think, twofold. One is, I've got a lot of experience analyzing deals, thousands of them running Raymond James Affordable Housing. And as a resident, I want to do what's best for all of us and for future generations. I have no axe to grind. I have no other interest but that. Obviously, me, along with others, don't think the current deal is fair to St. Petersburg. While we like baseball, the city is our priority, and there's no question this property will be successful with or without baseball. Our analysis has been in the Tampa Bay Times and is available at nohomerun.com, and I've sent it to you. I've also sent you what I believe is a fairer deal and how we think a fairer deal would provide $1.6 billion in resources to meet the city's needs that would be lost in the current deal. Just like I had to evaluate every deal that we did at Raymond James to make sure that I was satisfied it was in the best interest of my investors and then present my conclusions to them, you have the same fiduciary obligations to your investors, the citizens and the taxpayers. Every deal I did required me and my investment committee to be presented with all the facts and that we evaluated them with the help of often with third parties. We did not do deals based only on the data presented to us by people who wanted us to invest. I know you will be having some committees of the whole, but that can't be enough. Collectively, you need your own independent due diligence. You cannot rely on what, in this case, Hines or the Rays say, nor even what the city says. You are there as a check and balance. What kind of due diligence do you need to do? I will not have time to discuss them, and so I will send them to you. There is no way for you to do this in the next few weeks. You need to table approval until you have all the information that presented it and discuss it with your investors, in your case, the city and the citizens and the taxpayers of St. Pete, so you can be sure you're doing what they want, just like I had to do many times with my investors. I also have sent some additional thoughts on your rights to hire third-party people to help you do your evaluation. You need to do your thorough due diligence and discuss the results with the citizens.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, I'm Ben Winder, 765 85th Avenue North, and I'm also the pastor of First Baptist Church of St. Petersburg at 1900 Gandy Boulevard. I'm here today because I have the privilege to serve as the pastor of First Baptist, and we are part of Faith and Action for Strength Together, which many of you are familiar with, an organization here in Pinellas County working on matters of justice. And in our recent conversations with our members and folks across the community, we have heard, as you have heard, over and again, a concern about affordable housing in our community. And in our research, we've learned that the biggest need is among those earning the least, which is why we've called on Mayor Welch to work to create 5,000 units of affordable housing, particularly for households making 80% of the area median income or less by the end of his first term. And we hope that that will be able to happen. But today, in particular, I'm here because our largest fast gathering of the year is Nehemiah Action. And that will be taking place at First Baptist Church of St. Petersburg on Tuesday, April 30th, 7 p.m. in the evening. And I'm here to request that you, along with Mayor Welch, attend that gathering. Especially since we're able to hold this gathering in St. Petersburg this year, I'm hopeful you'll each be able to attend, as I know that members of my congregation and others in our city are eager to hear your response to our request of setting a goal for 5,000 new affordable housing units for households making 80% of the area median income or less by the end of Mayor Welch's first term. So again, Nehemiah Action is Tuesday, April 30th, 7 p.m. at First Baptist Church of St. Petersburg, 1900 Gandy Boulevard North here in St. Pete. And I hope you'll make plans to attend. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next person is Jessica Iserman. Please state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address counsel.

Good afternoon. Jessica Iserman, 9471 Treasure Lane Northeast, St. Petersburg. I am a board member with the St. Pete Chamber. I'm also chair of the Housing, Land Use, and Development Subcommittee for the St. Pete Chamber. And I'm also a land use attorney. I am here to speak in support of the Raise Hines proposal. Unfortunately, although I'm an attorney, I am not their attorney, so I just want to make that clear. I would love to be their attorney, but I am not. But I am a resident of St. Pete. I was born in St. Pete. I'm raising my children in St. Pete. And I wanted to express my support as both a board member of the St. Pete Chamber and as a resident of St. Pete of this proposal. I recently published through the St. Pete Chamber blog, I published a post as to why mixed-use development was so important for this proposal and for our community. I'm not in favor of, and planning principles do not provide support for having a lot of housing in one area without mixed uses, especially housing that's only targeted towards a specific segment of the population. It is better to have mixed-income housing and mixed uses that provides an enormous amount of benefits from societal, economic, health benefits, et cetera, across the board. So I just wanted to express my support today for the Raise Hines proposal. Thank you. Thank you.

Madam Chair, no more speakers.

Anyone on Zoom? No, Madam Chair. No on Zoom. So we'll now close open forum, and we'll move into our awards and presentations, and we'll begin with the one therapeutic recreation month proclamation brought by our own Mayor Welch.

The way everyone is looking at me, I'm assuming you're calling me. You know there is a slight delay on the video, so I apologize, Madam Chair. Yes, I call you. To Chair Fick Sanders, to City Council, all the members of the public are here, and our great St. Pete City team. It's great to be back with you. I spent the first part of the week in Chile, Tallahassee, speaking with our legislators and state departments. Council Member Hanowitz was nice enough to also be part of that effort, and thank you for your hard work, and it's good to be back in sunny St. Petersburg. This morning we have a few proclamations, and on the first one I'm grateful to present our recognition of Therapeutic Recreation Month, which is fitting, as we all know, and they put this in here, Mike, that it starts in parks. As I read the proclamation, I invite our team members from Parks and Rec to join me at the podium, Lucinda Grant, Rick Craft, Elizabeth Covey, and Alicia Elsner. I hope I didn't butcher your names too bad. Come on up and join us, please. And the proclamation reads, Whereas therapeutic recreation is observed nationally in the month of February and serves as an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the City of St. Petersburg, and whereas individuals with disabilities practice the right to live independently, enjoy activities, contribute to their communities, and experience full social, cultural, and educational lives, and whereas the City of St. Petersburg Parks and Recreation Department's Therapeutic Recreation Division has proven vital to the well-being of individuals with disabilities in St. Petersburg and beyond by providing information and access to more than 70 inclusive community resources that provide recreational therapy-based programming to enhance social skills, physical activity, leisure, and recreation opportunities, community integration, life skills, and emotional intelligence, and whereas through the intergenerational and inclusive services, programs, and activities, participants are empowered to contribute to their own health and well-being, and whereas the Parks and Recreation Department's Therapeutic Recreation Division affirms the dignity, self-worth, and independence of individuals with disabilities by facilitating their decisions and actions, tapping their experiences, skills, and knowledge, and enabling their continued personal growth and success. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim the month of February 2024 as Therapeutic Recreation Month and call upon all citizens to recognize the contributions of the Parks and Recreation Department, Azalea Recreation Center Therapeutic Recreation Division, and the continued efforts of staff, participants, and volunteers who daily enhance the well-being of individuals with disabilities. Thank you for your great work.

I'm not sure I can follow that. The mayor was real good. Thank you, mayor.

I can read pretty well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that, Lucinda.

Good afternoon, honorable mayor.

Bless you. Bless you. Madam Chair and City Council and all that are within my voice, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the support of Parks and Recreation and those that participate in our programs. Our Therapeutic Recreation Division started in 1970 as Special Populations Division. We are one of the few municipalities offering programs and activities focused on individuals with intellectual, physical, and or developmental disabilities. This proclamation comes to recognize therapists and raise awareness of the importance of therapeutic recreation programs for individuals with disabilities. And today, I'm pleased to have two of our own therapists here with me. Elizabeth Cavey, who is our Recreation Supervisor 2, and Alyssa Elzener, who is our Recreation Supervisor 1 at Azalea. We are so grateful that you all give us the opportunity and the children and the parents that are involved in our programs an opportunity to be seen and also heard. We are located, as the mayor has said, at the Azalea Recreation Center, and our TR division hosts over 100 participants a month and even more during Camp Redbird during our summer. In honor of Therapeutic Recreation Month, the team hosted over 25 individuals at a gathering just to celebrate Therapeutic Month. Our participants range in age from 5 to 72 years of age, and via our various programs and activities, they can be enhanced through their social skills, physical fitness, creative abilities, their leisure education, community integration, and cognitive functions. These skills and abilities speaks to Mel Welch, again, principles of exclusivity and community impact. We welcome this opportunity and are grateful to be here with you all today. The level of recognition validates and gives value to the work that we do here with the city of St. Petersburg, and we thank you.

Council Member Gurdist.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor, thank you for bringing this forward. I'm sorry we had to start the day with a proclamation from the west side, but it was a good one. That's right. And so I firmly believe, and it's not just because it's on the west side, you guys are doing some of the best work in the city. It is amazing. To be out there during car washes, karaoke, 5Ks, tours at City Hall, it is absolutely breathtaking to see what is happening in that rec center. To be there opening day of summer camp, to see a portable, to see that rec center packed, and still have a waiting list, both makes me incredibly happy and sad at the same time because we've got to figure out a way to not have a waiting list. And so just I am hugging all of you right now. I am just incredibly proud of the work that you all are doing. Alyssa, Elizabeth, I know I have seen the lift you guys are doing on a daily basis over there, and I'm just so proud of the work. And I know all eight of us have it in our hearts and support, but you need something you call because it's amazing, amazing work, what you're doing, not only at Azalea, but across the city. And kudos to all of our TR campers and participants. And I know when I see them, they know that they're part of this city, they're part of this community, and that's the biggest part of it. So thank you so much for everything you're doing all across. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Our next proclamation will be the Locotopia Day proclamation, also presented by Mayor Welch.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We're excited to have an opportunity to celebrate a day that gives our local, small, women, and minority-owned businesses an opportunity to expand their market reach, network with other vendors, and whoops, I missed something here, and share their goods and services with our community, tourists, and visitors alike. As I read the proclamation, I want to introduce a superstar, Olga Boff, to join me at the podium. Come to the side. Okay. There you go. And the proclamation reads, Whereas our city's locally-owned, independent businesses are integral to the unique flavor of St. Petersburg and make it a place we want to live, work, and play, and whereas the health of St. Petersburg's economy depends on our support of businesses owned by our families, friends, and neighbors, and whereas the individual decisions every community member makes today affects the future of St. Petersburg, and whereas our St. Pete-grown businesses need our support right now more than ever to grow, and whereas the independent business alliance, Keep St. Petersburg Local, is working to build a thriving local economy and a unique community, and whereas Keep St. Petersburg Local will commemorate its 12-year anniversary by presenting the 11th annual Localtopia at Williams Park. Does it feel like that long?

Sometimes, yes.

Our city's first park, purposely selected by the alliance as the venue for the festival, and whereas Localtopia is to be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, February 24th, in Williams Park, and is our city's favorite community celebration of all things local. And whereas Localtopia has helped change our community's mindset about Williams Park, has become the biggest event to be held in the park in recent times, has been an agent for changes to the park, and has inspired others to hold events in the park. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim Saturday, February 24th, 2024, as Localtopia Day in St. Petersburg, and encourage all of our residents to attend the celebration, savor our local flavor, support the participants, and continue to support all of our locally owned, independent businesses year-round. Congratulations.

Thank you, everyone. I didn't prepare any words, but I simply have thanks to say. Thank you to the city, to all of you, for the support of the festival all these years. As Parks and Rec was here, are they still here? Oh. Well, this is here as a representative. We engage with so many departments at the city for Localtopia, and we have done now for nearly 12 years in celebrating our 11th annual. But I really, really want to shout out, especially the Parks and Rec department, because they are true superstars. They're unsung heroes of our city, and they actually have helped make Localtopia what it is today. So I want to thank the city, and I want to actually, like, especially thank Parks and Rec department. Thank you so much. I really hope that you all will come on 224-24. If you're into numerology, that's the choice state, and we put it on a T-shirt. So please, in the Sunshine City, pray for sun on 224-24. Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you, Mayor, for the proclamation. Localtopia is something that so many in our city and beyond look forward to every single year. This year is no different, but it's more important than ever for us to look at events like this as an example of why we need to support our local business owners. If you look around this room here, there are people who have their own business right here in St. Petersburg who count on your patronage to pay the bills. If you look around this room, you have fellow parents whose children go to school with the children of local business owners who want the best for them just like you do. Localtopia is one of those things where everybody's got to get a game plan together before that on how they're going to get there, where they're going to park it, they're going to take the sunrunner, and what they're going to hit while they're there because it's grown so big. You know, it's like Disney World, you know, like you just, you know, it's like crazy to figure out how to do it all in one day, and I'm so proud to know you, Olga, and I am so grateful for everything that you do to keep our local business owners front and center in people's minds because when we know that when we have people who are moving here, people who are visiting here, businesses that are moving here, one of the biggest factors that they will tell you in their decision is that we are full of not chains, and I know we have those two and we need those two for some things, but that we have so many really cool locally owned shops, restaurants, services, bars, you name it, and your advocacy and your support of those businesses is just immeasurable, so thank you. Now, one more thing, Logaltopia is not, it's free for everyone to attend, but it's not free for Olga to put this on. The Logaltopia organization works very hard to keep the cost low for the vendors so that their their money is spent growing their business and not paying for vendor space at this event, and you know, the cost of everything just keeps going up, and that includes putting on events like this, and so I'm just going to do a shameless plug on Olga's behalf because I know she's too humble to do it herself, and ask everyone to consider supporting this event through a sponsorship or a donation. Buy one of the t-shirts she was talking about. I can't wait to see them. You know, do, everyone can do a little something to help all of these businesses, and going and spending your money with them is excellent, but also supporting this event will ensure that it will keep coming back for years and years to come. So I'm sure that if you go to the local Keep St. Petersburg local website, you'll find sponsorship information. Maybe Olga can tell everyone what that site is, but I just invite everyone to look for ways that you can support the businesses and support people like Olga who are trying to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much. I actually have really good

news that I just got whilst I was walking in for the earlier one. Sunrunner, which you mentioned, is actually going to be fare free that day. So yes, we just got that news, so we'll be putting that out there. So we want everyone to come as car free as possible. Any old day in downtown St. Pete is now challenging on the parking front, so as car free as possible on

Localtopia Day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, we will have the St. Petersburg Science Festival Proclamation by Mayor Welch. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just on

Localtopia, I had the first time experience in my life to play guitar with an all-girls band last year, didn't I? So looking forward to doing that again this year. As you said, our next proclamation is a recognition of St. Petersburg Science Festival Days held annually in conjunction with Marine Quest. As I read the proclamation, I'd like to invite Howard Rutherford and other representatives of the St. Petersburg Science Festival to join me at the podium. See you again. And the proclamation reads, whereas the St. Petersburg Science Festival is a leader in the nationwide movement to increase public engagement with science, technology, engineering, art, and math, or STEAM, and whereas the St. Petersburg Science Festival encourages one-on-one conversation with scientists, allowing young people to explore diverse STEAM careers at research organizations that contribute to our community and regional economies, and whereas our community recognizes that science and technology help power our world, protect us from natural disasters, builds safe highways and bridges, improves our health, and entertains us. In addition, science inspires the creative arts and humanities, and whereas our citizens will gain an understanding of science that will help us address our greatest challenges and contribute to our understanding of the natural landscape across our city, county, the Tampa Bay region, and the state of Florida, and whereas the annual St. Petersburg Science Festival will be held at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, and Pointer Park, along with Bayboro Waterfront on Friday, February 9th, and Saturday, February 10th, 2024, in conjunction with Marine Quest, the annual open house of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. And whereas our community will celebrate science, much like we celebrate sports, food, and the arts, integrated into our culture as a community tradition. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim February 9th and 10th, 2024, as St. Petersburg Science Festival Days in St. Petersburg, and I invite all citizens to join us in celebrating science and participating in this year's festival.

Thank you all for your great work. Thank you, Mary Walsh. Go science! So, I'd like to, again, thank the City of St. Petersburg for supporting us since 2011, especially Tony Lino, Mr. Tony Lino and his team, Mr. Dennis Burns and his team. We couldn't do this without your help, and we couldn't do this without volunteers. We have over 250 volunteers to support the Sneak Peek Day on Friday, where we have over 1,100 4th and 5th graders joining us, mostly from Title I schools, to get a snippet of what the festival will be on Saturday, and then 15,000 people come out on Saturday. for that festival. So, with me today are a couple volunteers. We have Natalia Lopez-Piguera, who is a PhD student in the College of Marine Science. We have Dr. Manhu Pandey. Oh, excuse me. And Natalia actually supervises our junior scientists, and we have grown that program for, in our 10th year now, 55 young middle school and high school students come and work alongside our science professionals. These are our future scientists and our future idea-makers of the next generation. So, Dr. Manhu Pandey also is one of our long-time exhibitors from USF St. Petersburg. One USF, one Jersey, one team. And James McKenna is our program chair, which is a huge task. We have over 70 organizations with multiple exhibits that are exhibiting both on Friday and Saturday. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Allison Barlow, my co-chair for this event. Unfortunately, she couldn't be here today, but she, again, thanks everyone here for your continued support. Councilmember Diskell, we are excited for you again to join us for our VIP event. We promise not to splash chemicals on you this year. We're going to do Funky49, which he is a science rapper, so you're going to have to step it up a little bit with your science rap theme. And our new events this year, so this year we had a wonderful donor step up, and this is along the lines of a sustainable city. CS Rise, it's a non-profit here in the city, is interested in other festivals, I'm sure, who are interested in sustainable t-shirts. So, all the t-shirts you see here today, 250 for our volunteers, 1,100 for our students who are joining us tomorrow, are all made out of recycled material. And they come with a tag that promotes sustainable t-shirts and clothes, so that's exciting. We'll have a mobile aquarium, we'll have a touch trunk, touch, touch trucks, including an airplane, a sail drone, have you all touched a sail drone over the hub? They're going to come out for this. And we're also going to have a seagrass maze, which people can go through and build their own food web, so that's going to be exciting this year. So, again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your continued support, and if I could admit into exhibit, oh wait, it's not Corka, it's fresh off the press, we have our programs here. So, if I can pass those out or provide them to you, so you can come prepared on Friday and Saturday. So, thank you again, Mayor Welch, thank you, Council, and thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. So, again, thank you, Mayor, for this proclamation to recognize the Science Festival. This is something I look forward to every year, and I'm grateful to USF and FWC for working together to do this, along with the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub and others who participate. It's great that you have 70 exhibitors. I think that's just for the Science Fest side of it, too. And it's all connected, so you can flow straight from the Science Fest to Marine Quest. It can really, it can easily be an all-day adventure for families. I wanted to thank Natalia for the junior scientist work that you do. That is an incredible way to help with preparing our workforce for tomorrow in science and helping them explore all of the different ways that they can create an incredible career. Through these things that fascinate them. So, thank you for that. I look forward to the program. I will tell you all that last year, my fellow guest scientists and I were offered ponchos prior to, and we were like, nah, we don't need them. Next thing you know, things are flying everywhere, things blew up, and we were all covered in this dyed foam that stuck with me, and yet I still went over to Marine Quest and still did everything, even though I had spots all over me. But it was a blast, no pun intended. I'm looking forward to this year, but I am on to your trickery. You said, you said that there would be like this science DJ, and you make it sound just so innocent. But I did talk with Allison Barlow last night, and she said that there is also slime involved. So, I'm ready.

We have lab coats this year.

And I will be saying yes, thank you very much. I will take one. But honestly, as long as it's the DJ doing the dancing and not me, I think we're all going to be just fine. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next proclamation will be in honor of Black History Month. Mayor Welch.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to state for the record, I thought I heard Rap 49 featuring Council Member Driscoll, so I'm looking forward to seeing you rap. All right, we're going to move on to my last proclamation, and then Council Member Hanowitz will handle the last one. Just last week in celebration of Black History Month, we had the honor of raising the flag of the Woodson Museum of Florida over City Hall. As you all know, there have been many conversations about whether that will be our last flag raising. I expect that we will continue to be intentional about celebrating our diversity in our community, including all of our citizens, history, and cultures in our city of St. Pete. As I read the proclamation, I invite the leadership team and volunteers from the Woodson Museum of Florida, led by Mrs. Terry Lipsy Scott, to join me, if y'all would, from everybody. And the proclamation reads, And whereas the city of St. Petersburg has made countless contributions to the city of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, the state of Florida, and the United States of America and the world. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg has a robust center of cultural organizations such as the Woodson Museum of Florida, ASALAH, African American Heritage Association, and community oral historians who continue to work to support the intellectual development of our community to collect and preserve black stories, sponsor black history, and literature events. And whereas the late John Lewis's words, quote, do not get lost in a sea of despair, be hopeful, be optimistic, our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise, to get in good trouble, necessary trouble, end quote. Those words continue to ring true even in 2024. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg takes pride in celebrating Black History Month and recognizing the contributions of notable African Americans. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim February 2024 as Black History Month in St. Petersburg, and I urge residents to join with me in celebrating African American history, legacy, and our profound contributions to society. Thank you, thank you for your great work.

Thank you, Mayor Welch, chair, vice chair, members of city council. I stand today with members of our board, Kimberly Brown-Williams, our chair, Frichette Bradley, Chiquita Clark, Yolanda Hudson, and Dr. Ray Arsenault, who, in fact, is the author of the recently released John Lewis's autobiography. Is it a biography? Biography. Biography. Biography. So, would we please give this fellow to you? We are consistently humbled and grateful for the opportunity to do the work that we do to preserve, present, interpret, celebrate, and educate others around African American history, the significance it represents then and now. We are grateful for the opportunity to have been in this space now since 2006. We're at a 20-year mark, and we're looking forward to what the future holds for the Woodson and for the city of St. Petersburg. The intentional equity that was built in your desire, Mr. Mayor, to ensure that we might stake a claim in a community where African American history originally existed and being a part of the proposal of the redevelopment of the Tropicana Field area is more than we could have ever hoped for or imagined. That this history is not lost, and it will be forever preserved, and we look forward to that opportunity becoming a reality here in our city. I have listened to those who've come before us, and I would be remiss if I did not announce the Collic Green Festival next week. Here in the city of St. Petersburg, the Collic Green Festival has grown in leaps and bounds, and we can't be prouder of the opportunity to be a co-sponsor of this extraordinary event. And we don't mind any shameless plugs any of you might decide to take advantage of today in order to further push this particular extraordinary event as well, to think that we've got something this weekend and next weekend and the weekend to follow here in our great city truly suggests how inclusive we really are as a city. So with that, we're humble, we're grateful, we're thankful for your support, and look forward to what the future holds. And in fact, I'm hitting my phone, and I know you're thinking I'm losing my mind, but folks are blowing up sending me this article that the governor has really sanctioned the not flying the flags over government entities, and it matters not because still we rise, and we're St. Pete. So thank you.

So, Ms. Lipsy Scott and all of the members of the Woodson Board, I just want to take the opportunity to say maybe the Deborah Figg Sanders and me should do a proclamation in March. Do a proclamation in April, do a proclamation in May, do one in June, because we truly know the richness of African American history is 365 days a year, 12 months long. And thank you for that information about the flag raising, because no matter what, we're going to still find a way to honor our African American history museum, in which I have been part of that celebration. So, again, I just want to thank you for continuing to remind us and educate others of the importance of black history, African American history, whatever the term is, we're still rich, we're still valued, we're still extremely relevant, and I do appreciate the fact you, Mayor, bringing this proclamation forward. So thank you, Terry and group. Thank you, and the team. Now, our last proclamation will be from Councilmember Hanowitz. It is our Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month proclamation.

Mayor, City Council, Chair, I'm here on a subject that we all wish did not exist, so it's not the same celebration that we've been hearing, but it's a subject of abuse. And abuse can happen to any person. I was a former prosecutor. I will tell you that you cannot imagine the people that come into the courtroom that have been abused that you would think would not be someone that can be abused, but they are, and you can't identify an abuser either because they're amongst us. And I think it's also very important. But what's also amongst us are people that stand up. There is that counselor that asks that one question that breaks open a case, and it happened in one of my cases. It was a counselor who asked a child the right question that led to a sex abuse case that put someone in prison for the rest of their life, okay? And so it takes that one person who may notice the signs of trafficking out there that could stop a predator from abusing victims, not just that victim but other victims of domestic violence or human trafficking or anything else. So I invite you to make sure you do get involved, increase awareness. We have Hope Villages of America here with us. I invite you to come here. John Long, he's the vice president of Abuse Hope Villages, and he, after I read the proclamation, can share with you how you can help. But one of the things you could do is invite Hope Villages abuse service experts out to train your employees on the signs of domestic violence and human trafficking, understanding what to look for and what to do to save someone's life. You can post a flyer in the bathroom of your business, place of business. 20 people are physically abused by their intimate partner every minute. That's 1,200 people every hour. And here we are for Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. It doesn't start as adults. Sometimes it starts when they're teenagers. So I read, Whereas teen dating violence includes physical, psychological, or sexual abuse, harassment, or stalking of any person ages 12 to 18 in the context of a past or present romantic consensual relationship, and whereas one in three adolescent girls is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner, and whereas high school students who experience physical violence in a dating relationship are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, are at a greater risk of suicide, and are much more likely to carry patterns of abuse into future relationships, and whereas only 33% of teens who are in an abusive relationship ever tell anyone about the abuse, and 81% of parents surveyed either believe teen dating violence is not an issue or admit they do not know if it is one, and whereas Hope Villages of America provides young people with education about healthy relationships and changes attitudes that support violence to prevent dating violence, and whereas the establishment of Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month will benefit young people, their families, schools, and communities, regardless of socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and whereas everyone has a right to a safe and healthy relationship and to be free from abuse. Now, therefore, I, Council Member Lissette Hanowitz, on behalf of Mayor Kenneth T. Welch, do hereby proclaim February 2024 as Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month in St. Petersburg, and urge residents to increase their awareness and participate in activities that work towards ending dating violence. And here is John Long, VP of Abuse.

Thank you. I appreciate the City of St. Pete recognizing this month as Teen Dating Violence Awareness. At Hope Villages, we operate a shelter that's dedicated to women who are victims of domestic violence. We take mom and her children, and for the majority of our operation, it's always full. There's never an empty bed. And when we look at our senses, half of our senses is under the age of 18. So we have kids that are witnessing domestic violence. So how do we stop that? We've got to start at a young age. We have a program that goes into kindergartners and VPK classes to teach these kids what a healthy relationship looks like. One time they were doing a presentation, and one of the little five-year-old boys said, wait, wait, wait, I can't do that. When my parents are fighting, I have to break it up. That's a five-year-old kid that thinks it's his job to be the mediator, to be the one who stops the violence. So we've got to start at a young age, and then we've got to keep going into the middle school and high school age to educate our kids on what a healthy relationship looks like. We can't allow TikTok and the Internet to teach our kids, but our parents and our businesses and our churches and our schools have to be the one that demonstrates what a healthy relationship looks like. Half of the kids that experience teen dating violence attempt to commit suicide. Forty-three percent of incidents of teen violence happen on school property. So we have to raise the awareness within our community. We have to make these conversations normal. We have to talk to our children, to our grandchildren, to our neighbors to make these conversations normal. I talk to my 16-year-old boy all the time, and I ask him difficult questions because I want him to know that if something ever happened to him, it's okay to come talk about it. And so we have to normalize that and raise awareness. So I appreciate the city of St. Pete in helping us raise awareness at Hope Villages and would challenge anyone to contact us. We have trainings in all areas where we can help businesses, churches, schools, raise awareness, and then what to do if you think somebody is a victim. So I appreciate it, and thank you.

We'll now go into our reports with item F1, tree inventory and tree planting programs. And joining us will be the Sustainability and Resilience Director, Allison Mihalic. And Councilmember Montaneri, this is your item, so would you like to introduce it?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And so we, as a city, have been talking about our tree canopy for quite a while, and I wanted just to get an update of where we are and what we're doing to plant more trees in our city. So I'd like to hand it over to Allison and let you give us our presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Montaneri, and thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council, for the opportunity to report to you today on our numerous tree efforts underway citywide. Before I begin, I want to extend my deep appreciation to Council, to administration, to Mayor for their continued support for increasing our tree canopy. It is not lost on our office how important your time is, and we've had numerous Councilmembers out to tree planting events. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your leadership. Much of this work wouldn't be possible without that leadership and without the hard work and dedication of our teams, the leadership of Susie Ahok, her community service representatives in neighborhood relations, their team, Dean Hay, my senior urban forester, and our student intern, Casey Evans, the urban forestry committee, which meets and is very much looking for every opportunity to advance our tree planting efforts. The many citizen foresters that do this because they care about trees. They are residents that decided to do training and learn how they can nerd out about trees in their free time, as well as our neighborhood association leadership that have brought voices together to submit applications for our tree mini-grant program. Do I have a clicker? I do. Perfect. Awesome. So I'm going to split this presentation up. It's going to be at a high level. First, I'll cover our funding overview, where our funding currently is, and then I'll give a high-level overview of our existing programs and progress update. I do want to first note, before I dive into this slide, the city has resources supporting tree canopy efforts and tree planting, as well as tree analysis across departments, across administrations. So I did my best here to try and roll it up, but I look forward to the opportunity to continue to provide report outs on a much more granular level here. So the first item that we have appropriated, we have two different rounds of tree mini-grant appropriations at $100,000 each. We also have a Florida Forest Service grant that we won for 350 native trees to be planted in Childs Park. That grant was $49,000 and had a $49,000 match. We have just started for the neighborhood tree mini-grants and the Florida Forest Service Childs Park grant. We have just started spending. So I'll provide an update more in just a moment in a few slides. But in addition to that, we were very graciously given the $300,000 in supplemental appropriations for urban tree plantings and programs. We anticipate $100,000 of that being awarded to parks for their needs and the remainder going to public works administration as well as neighborhood relations. We have not yet finalized what our plan is for that $300,000. We have evaluated a few options. One of the things we have learned, sustainability and resilience, has learned in our tree planting and planning efforts is that some of the needs of our colleagues across departments is with that establishment period. You can plant a million trees, but how do you make sure that a million trees thrive and provide and mature to the point where they're providing the shade and many ecological and health benefits that we know trees provide? And to answer that kind of pain point, we identified potentially a watering truck or trailer might help us with that establishment period to help accelerate the watering and just making the tree happy for that first year of the tree's life to get it nice and rooted and good to go. So we would be bringing back, I believe as an action, we would be bringing back what we intend to appropriate those funds for. Thank you, Claude. So I had mentioned the Child's Park Grant already. The remaining funding that we have that goes to support tree-related initiatives is our Beefy Settlement Fund. So my team had previously presented at the HERS committee, we have just a few dollars over a million dollars for us to consider. There's a variety of things that we're evaluating. We will be bringing a supplemental appropriation for $100,000 towards food forests. The lion's share of that dollar amount will be for fruiting trees, shade fruiting trees, I should say. And when we presented to HERS, we anticipate splitting that $100,000 up in two ways. So one is to pilot two new food forest concepts, working with local community organizations, churches, and higher ed institutions in the city. And then the remainder would be to model a mini-grant approach, similar to what the tree mini-grant has done in our neighborhoods or the Neighborhood Partnership Grant, but targeting community gardens that are already established, but don't have shade trees in the community garden. So it would be creating something new, but then also bolstering an existing community gardens that we have in the city. So that's a small portion of that BP settlement. We have almost $900,000 beyond that up for consideration. I'll move on now to some of our programs and progress update. And I have props, so please indulge me, because we're going to hopefully make it fun. So our tree inventory efforts support measuring our progress towards the tree canopy goal we have as a city, which is a 30% tree canopy goal. We have a variety of ways that we support that tree canopy goal, but it's important that we measure where our tree canopy is at so we know where we need to accelerate additional plantings. We have done some desk analysis, and I believe we are at that 30% goal, but this is preliminary analysis that is desk-based research using image interpretation. It is not out in the field. It's not validated. So I do look forward to the opportunity to join council again when we can wave the banner, when we know for certain that we have met that goal, but we believe we're right there. So in 2023, in calendar year 2023, Dean Hay, with the support of our neighborhood associations, have physically mapped more than 4,500 trees. This required the volunteer support from citizen foresters, foresters, as well as neighborhood associations, and I'm pleased to report that Crescent Heights was the, I think, the largest, they inventoried the largest amount of trees, representing about 38% of those 4,500 trees. And then we had over 175 St. Pete residents that came out and helped us conduct inventories, which is really phenomenal. And one of the things I'm really proud about, as someone who has a librarian in their family, getting the tree inventory kits at our local libraries for folks to check out is a really cool, easy exercise for elementary, middle school students to get out there and learn about why trees are important and also help their government inventory their tree canopy, which is pretty cool to be a part of the change. So I'm going to move on to tree plantings because I think that's where we want to spend the majority of our time here this afternoon. Our tree planting programs include partnering with community organizations like Take More Action for a Generation, Take Mar. It's supported by those citizen foresters, volunteers, and other community-based organizations. In 2023, we planted over 250 trails, mostly along the Pinellas Trail. Thank you to Councilmember Driscoll for coming out on your weekend to support those events. We also kicked off our community canopy tree planting project. So those 350 trees that are going to go in in Childs Park. Councilmember Mohamed, Mayor, thank you for joining us and Public Works Administrator Claude Tankersley. Thank you for coming out on your weekend and helping us get that tree in the ground. So we have 349 more to go in Childs Park, and we are ramping up this calendar year. We anticipate to get those trees in the ground. We are, it's interesting in our climate, now is the planting season. We have the rainy season in the summer, but to really get those trees to thrive in the establishment period, it's important that we start planting now. And so our weekends are booked. We have lots of tree plantings out in the community coming up. And the first round of the tree planting mini grant, the Neighborhood Tree Mini Grant, was awarded. So round one, that first $100,000, we had 23 applications come in from neighborhood associations, and eight neighborhood associations were awarded grants through the Neighborhood Tree Mini Grant Program. We have completed our first tree planting. We anticipate planting over 135 trees through that first round. And we're continuing to understand and evaluate the criteria we use and that neighborhood associations have to use to submit their application. So round two, the application period just completed end of January. So we are planting trees while we're evaluating applications to plant more trees. We got seven applications in that round two. And our community services, our CSRs that work for Susie Ahock and residents out in the community have just done an absolutely incredible job to help neighborhood associations walk through the criteria that we use for selecting award recipients. I will say also, for that first round, 23 applicants and only eight awards. I want to acknowledge many of those were asking for different things that weren't necessarily just trees or they weren't a neighborhood association. And Dean Hay on my team has met with every single one of those neighborhood associations to guide them so that they can go back and revise their application so that we can hopefully award them grants going forward. So I talked a little bit about the St. Pete Citizen Forester Program. They've contributed an awful lot of volunteer hours to get these trees in the ground. It can't just be Dean Hay and Casey Evans of my team getting trees planted with the help from our colleagues in SPTO, helping us water those trees. So the Citizen Foresters, the volunteers combined, gave over 650 hours to get those trees in the ground in 2023. We anticipate that being much, much higher this calendar year. And then I would be remiss if I didn't highlight the opportunity for expanding our tree seedling giveaways. At Trunk or Treat, we call it Trunk or Treat, but at Trunk or Treat, we gave out 306 bald cypresses. I thought about bringing those today, but because they are deciduous, they sometimes lose leaves in February because we have just a few of those left. I think we had ordered 350 and we gave out 306. So we have a couple dozen left over from Trunk or Treat that we're cultivating for spring planting. So now I'm going to transition to Tree City USA, which is a new program that, new to Office of Sustainability and Resilience. It's not new to the city. So Tree City USA, St. Pete, was originally awarded the Tree City USA certification back in 1986. I'm not going to date myself, but that was a while ago. And we have gotten that certification every year since then. So shortly after our report today, we're going to update the signage outside of City Hall. I was going to have Dean Hay bring our flag, but we also have a lovely flag. So maybe, I don't know, Earth Week or Arbor Day, we'll bring that back and fly that flag. So we were recently awarded our 38th annual certification. And we also received the Tree City Growth Award. And this designation is reserved for municipalities that improve their annual tree planting and maintenance programs. They do this, we get this award by hiring additional personnel or significantly increasing our annual tree budget. So many thanks to City Council, as well as the efforts of our team. We wouldn't have gotten that award without that support. We also recently applied for, right around the holidays, and were just awarded Tree Cities of the World. And so what that is, is an international program to effort the top-tier cities and towns that are committed to ensuring urban forests and trees are properly maintained, sustainably managed, and duly celebrated. And so we do have some new programs that we're taking on. This is, we're now leading the Tree City USA efforts. This previously was, I believe, under the Parks Department. And we're among one of 170 cities globally that got the Tree Cities of the World Award. Only eight of those 170 cities are in Florida. So I wanted to highlight that program because it does provide us additional resources and expertise to tap into as we accelerate the amount of trees we get in the ground. We've done a lot of planning work to get the program established. And now we're at the point that we're ready to get trees planted as fast as we can. And I believe that's all I have. I'll pause now for any Q&A. Thank you. Council Member Monterey.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Allison, for the update. I've got, and thank you for the information that you emailed me on the amount of funding that we have available. I've got a couple questions, and then let me just kind of start. So in your presentation, you talked about planting 135 trees for $100,000.

That is the, we hope that that's how many we're planting with the first one. And we do not believe it's going to cost $100,000 in total for those. So we would have funds left over that could roll into the second round of the grant. Hopefully that answers your question.

How much does it, how much does it cost it?

It depends on the tree that's selected by the neighborhood. I wish I had a concrete answer, but the shade trees are between $100 and $400 a pop. And that does not include things like mulch, soil, the delivery, the watering, and other tree care that's required for the establishment period. That we can calculate and bring back to you. We don't have an example of that yet.

Okay. I'd like to know that.

Absolutely. I'd be happy to provide that and follow up to all council with that estimate, because those are more indirect costs that depend on the tree, the site, a number of variables.

Okay. And can you talk about our urban forestry master plan? What's the status of that?

So I know that Dean Hay has been working on that. I am presenting at HERS next week, actually, because we do hope to integrate urban forestry into our ISAP document. Currently it's not reflected as a goal. But we can provide an update on that urban forestry master plan. I do believe that there are some brainstorming and strategic planning sessions currently scheduled with the urban forestry committee to get citizen stakeholder engagement input. So I don't have a date when it will be completed, but I know that there is work underway on those initiatives.

Okay. And then you mentioned the current status of our tree canopy being in 2022. I believe it was 27%.

That's correct.

And the goal is 30%. Can you give us an idea of what that means? Like, how many trees are we short? Oh, gosh.

I would love to bring maps. I wish I had maps with me today. So in 2022, we estimated our tree canopy was at around 27 and some change percent. In 2023, those preliminary analysis, we ran it a couple different ways. Dean Hay and our student intern used map imagery interpretation and believed we were just over 30%, like 30.2, 30.6, kind of like right at that goal. There's not a clear answer, unfortunately, because shade trees have different diameters from image interpretation, what an average tree's circumference would be. Is your question, Council Member Montanari, around, like, per tree what the percent would be?

Let me just kind of tell you, so just to set the record straight, I ask every year for funding to plant 1,000 trees in our city. And I keep asking for the funding. It never gets done. I'm running out of patience and waiting for this. And we've done a lot of tree analysis. We do a lot of studying. But I want to get trees in the ground. And that's why I ask questions of, like, how much it costs to plant a tree and what do we need to get to our goals. So in April of 2022, we did a tree canopy analysis. That's correct. That talked in detail. I mean, I've got it right here. It's like a 50-page report. And it talks about our tree canopy. It talks about the shortage of the goal within each. It breaks it down by city council districts. And I just want to be bold and get this job done. The money, the $300,000 that we provided, I kind of wanted to get an update of that. But I'm getting ready to put in a request to go to the BP funds for not just the BP funds, but also Wiki Wanchi funds to get to where we need to be. In this tree canopy analysis, it talks about how we have been averaging around 1,300, 1,400 tree removal permits a year in our city. So when I set the goal of 1,000 trees a year, that's not enough. We need to get beyond 1,000 trees a year. And I want to challenge both the city, the private sector, and community groups to put trees in the ground, and let's get up to that 30% goal and try to get beyond it. Thank you. So that's where I'm going with all this. And I like to think of myself as a patient person, but I've been asking a long time, and it just hasn't been getting there.

Understood.

So I'm ready for action now. Yes. And I'm kind of tired of doing a bunch of studies and things not getting done. It's time to get these trees in the ground. Thank you. I appreciate you coming and giving us an update, and I'm going to do the action on my part.

Thank you.

To make this happen.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Council Member Gabbert.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Allison, for the presentation. I also want to thank Larry, Dean Hay, for all of your work. I so enjoy working with you. You're such an asset to the city when it comes to not only our tree canopy work, but also our urban agriculture work, so thank you. You had also shared with my office the St. Pete Citizen Forester Annual Report and the Community Tree Inventory Report. Those reports are fascinating information. Thank you so much. I agree with Council Member Montaneri. I mean, it was in my budget request as well. I want us to plant more trees, but certainly understand the vulnerability of new trees and making sure that those trees are successful. And actually, you know, it's kind of shocking whenever you see trees that we have planted even five, six years ago and how vulnerable, really, they still are as juvenile trees. So, to that point, I wanted to ask a specific question for my district. So, along 83rd Avenue, and Claude, maybe you might know what I'm getting ready to get into a little bit. Along 83rd Avenue, back in 2018, 2019, I believe, we planted corridor plantings along that road. And we took care of them for, I think, the first three years, and then they became, you know, part of the properties that they were along. And now all of those trees have been damaged by the flooding that occurred in Riviera Bay over the last couple of storms. So, I was curious, in situations like that, what is the plan moving forward for reevaluating whenever those sort of things happen? Because that was one of my budget requests was that we would specifically allocate money for trees in damaged areas. So, can we talk a little bit about what that looks like when we've already made that investment?

We do have a tree replanting commitment. I forget what, I believe we consulted our legal team on this as well, but I forget if it was within a year or within six months that we were obligated to replant if a tree was damaged. I would need to go back and double-check what that is, but we do commit resources if a tree that we planted, we as the city planted, not necessarily neighborhood owner on their house, on their right-of-way, we have a commitment period. I can follow up with your office directly or with all council to take that as an action to find that out. But I would also like to address, if I may, a few of the difficulties that we have been really thinking and spending a lot of time to be more strategic as we evaluate where trees are getting planted. We have numerous criteria that we must follow in terms of visibility triangles, overhead utilities, underground utilities, telecom, offsets in the right-of-way. And one of the things that I was really inspired by that I saw the teams working on was preparing maps up front to do similar corridor plantings. Instead of getting 135 trees in one round of neighborhood tree planting, evaluating every possibility where a tree can go and then bringing that to like a neighborhood association. And I think that is something that we can replicate so that we're getting bigger swaths of trees planted at a time instead of four to six here, a dozen here. And so I would want to offer that up also because I think the 83rd Avenue is a good example. It's unfortunate that there was some damage to it. And I'm committed to, you know, getting you an answer on what we are bound by in terms of replanting, because I do know we have resources for that. I just don't know if there's a parameter that we're supposed to follow in terms of how long one of those juvenile trees, if they get damaged, that we have to.

Unfortunately, I mean, just kind of add insult to injury, we also have a water main issue that we're fixing on that particular corridor as well. So obviously it makes sense that we wouldn't replant those trees until that project is done. But the residents certainly are asking, you know, what is the plan for getting those replanted? Because they were so happy whenever we planted them the first time. And unfortunately, nature had a different idea. So, yeah, I would love to follow up on that. And it's incredible to me how complex it is to, you know, we think it's easy. We just pop a tree in the ground. But that really, you know, there's a lot more to it than just that. So I appreciate your expertise on that and look forward to working with you on getting that particular resident issue for my district solved. Now, I just also wanted to thank you for the $100,000 towards food forests. Once again, Dean, this is something that is in your wheelhouse completely. And that beautiful marriage between our tree canopy work and our urban agriculture initiatives. So I'm very excited to see that program come to fruition and look forward to continuing to work with you on that. And then the last thing, and the resident who actually headed this up was here, and she took off. So I can't, like, shout her out in front of her. But Barkley Estates, I was very excited. That neighborhood, I think, was one of the first this year to do their training for their inventory. And we're a neighbor, if you don't know Barkley Estates, we are a neighborhood of trees. And when I moved there 10 years ago, every single street had beautiful canopy, tree lined. Our logo is actually a tree. And now, 10 years later, so many people have moved in. And they've unfortunately cut down a lot of those trees. And so I'm really excited that the neighbors are coming together and going to be doing this awareness and really fighting to save our tree canopy in our neighborhood. So I just wanted to give a shout out to Pat Fling. She was here earlier, but she's already taken off because she really led that initiative for them. And I look forward to working with her on getting all that inventory done in our little neighborhoods. So thank you again, Allison. I appreciate you, and I love working with you. And I look forward to doing more good work. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council Member Montaneri, for bringing up this item. I know that everyone here on City Council, we beat the tree drum all the time. Mm-hmm. And we will continue to beat the tree drum. I will say that I really appreciate that, Dean, you have been meeting with the neighborhoods that could not get their grants done because there were issues, and making sure that you're evaluating the criteria because I did receive feedback after that, whether it's not enough time or notice to apply for the grant and other things that cause barriers. And we don't want any barriers for this. We want to put as many trees on the ground that was mentioned before. Um, but I wanted to ask, um, is there any data being collected on the trees that are being planted through the tree mini grant program or any other city program? How are we keeping that data to make sure that, as Council Member Gabbard mentioned, you know, what happened in the past tree field, we, you know, to know, to know, to learn from lessons?

Yes, we are. Um, we are collecting, you know, geo data. We're going to collect pinpoint locations. We'll have the property owner approve the location because it, at the end of the day, is in a, the right of way in front of residences. So that is also one of the criteria. You know, we can find hundreds of locations in the right of way to find trees, but the property owner has to also approve the tree being planted there. Um, but yes, we will be collecting, um, addresses. And that is also one of the, um, uphill challenges we have during the establishment period. Once the tree is planted, we then have to go daily to water, but also to make sure it's thriving, um, and also count on that property owner to let us know if they're seeing something wrong. If a, uh, storm event, you know, brings some larger branches down and they're worried about it to let us know as soon as possible so that we don't have to replant. We can just, you know, give it a little TLC intent to it so that it doesn't need replanting.

The other thing I would, um, I was thinking about, do we have any resources online for residents so they can find out on their own and learn a little about it? I remember when we had a tree program in our neighborhood, we had master gardeners and we prepared a list of trees, how much space they need, everything. And not, this can not be just helpful for right away in our programs, but even if they're planting them on their property to make sure that they're, you know, doing visibility, trying whatever it may be, right tree in the right place. Um, I think if we're going to be a city of trees and, and, and doing these types of programs, we want to make sure that our residents have the resources to be able, to be able to help out and maybe, you know, list master gardeners and others that could help you all, um, do your job, um, to spread the word.

I love that. That's great. A great advice. We do have that information. It can be navigated from stp.org slash sustainability. Um, we can point to our right tree, right place guide, which can be applied, um, in numerous instances. Duke energy also has a similar guide, um, that we point to. Um, I love that suggestion about, you know, maybe it's, um, university of Florida has a program. I've got, I've asked that has enlists a lot of master gardeners. I certainly think that that's something we can, we can partner, um, with or explore. Um, so that we can accelerate the amount of trees going in the ground, um, amount of healthy, the amount of healthy trees going in the ground, I should say.

Well, I appreciate all your efforts and we will continue. If you need anything from me, obviously I'm always available, but, um, please keep me posted. If there are any issues with neighborhoods, at least my district, I'm sure other city council members would be happy in their districts, uh, to help neighborhoods, make sure that they can apply for these programs. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Council member Driscoll.

Thank you. Thank you for this, uh, for this update. And I'm, I'm glad to see that the funding is, um, in a healthy place now. Um, so I mean, city council has really done a lot to make sure that that money is no object to meet our, our shared goal with the tree canopy. So now the things I'm looking at that are ready for improvement are the process and making it easier for residents to, um, be part of this and, and get more trees in. I know that there is, um, one neighborhood association in my district that has had some issues with the agreement. And, um, I believe that's being, it looks like there's some progress that's being made on that, but I want to make sure that we are reviewing all of the processes and requirements to make sure that this isn't overly burdensome, um, for our, for our residents and for our neighborhood associations. Is it at this point, I mean, you know, they do the work and then all the joy gets taken out because they're given a contract that they can't, or an agreement that they can't sign. Absolutely. So, um, I hope to see improvements with that. Um, I'm glad that, um, I was happy to hear the input from council member Hanowitz. And I just want to point out that not every neighborhood association has a master gardener and not every resident even has, is, is even in an area that has a neighborhood association. Has there been any consideration given to expanding this beyond making it available through a neighborhood association to include, uh, business district associations or because what if the Deuces Live wanted to participate, could they, or do we tell them no, even though they, you know, they could participate just as easily as the neighborhood association. And for those groups that are residents who don't have a neighborhood association or some neighborhood associations don't have a high level of engagement. So if you have a neighborhood association where only five people attend the meetings, they might be a little bit overwhelmed by this process and not even bother trying. One way that, um, that could be addressed is that we could have a, um, a couple of partner local nonprofits. I mean, take more is one that, that comes to mind, someone like that. Um, Sierra club, you know, others who could partner with some of these disadvantaged residents, or neighborhoods because the disadvantages, the numbers, the, you know, the amount that it takes to get this grant and, and actually do this work, um, to kind of be like a buddy to that neighborhood and help them be able to achieve this too. I just want to make sure we're, we're not creating any, um, processes that leave someone out.

Absolutely. Um, I'd like to acknowledge it. Is it possible to chair to acknowledge Susie Ahok to address council member Driscoll's comments? Thank you. Want to join me? Thank you.

Good afternoon. Council, Susie Ahok, neighborhood relations director. Thank you for the questions. It's, it's been a very, it's been a learning experience for us from round one to round two, and we have, uh, made some adjustments. So your questions, council member Driscoll, business associations are eligible. Um, and we have had organizations that are non neighborhood groups say, we'd like to help the neighborhoods. We want to see trees come in whether or not the connection happened or, or not. We're not sure, but there, there have been some discussions between non neighborhood groups or non neighborhood and business groups with other groups that are interested in, in making that happen. I think with each round, we're going to improve. Um, even with this one, with the number of trees, as, um, Ms. Mihalik mentioned that one of the things that we put together is identify the most probable locations to be able to plant based in terms of the utility information that we have. And so seeing, seeing the numbers that have come in, it was like, well, maybe we need to, what I refer to as a reverse letter for notification to the property owners. So you opt out rather than opt in. And, and that I think that's part of the other challenge that as property owners, as neighborhoods go to a property owner and say, Hey, do you want a tree? Oh, well, you're not home. Let me leave a letter. Let me send you a letter in our neighborhood plan process. And with some of our neighborhood grant processes, when the neighborhoods come back to say, I've sent a letter, nobody has said anything. I said, do a reverse letter, send the letter out. You give me a copy in your application, the copy of that letter, who you've copied. And the letter at the bottom of the letter, it should say, if you have any objections, please let us know. Because if, if someone doesn't want something, they'll let them, they'll let them know. So I, you know, Alison and I just talked about that within the last week that for the next round, and then we're checking with Dean to see, can we get another round in? And then the round after that would be a little longer so we could prepare for fall planting. Let's do it that way. And then also work with our planning department and also transportation department, because as you look at gateway streets and neighborhoods and you look at greenways within neighborhoods. Those are ways to kind of delineate those main streets within the communities, create that canopy look while we also look at some of the other locations. But it's, we're trying to simplify it as, as much as, as possible while we're also protecting the infrastructure that we have and why we're trying to, it's, it's a learning opportunity. It's been a learning opportunity for us, but also for our residents that as we look at what are the most appropriate places, here's why. And we even added a, um, pre-application meeting. So we actually walk them through, walk the app, the potential applicants through, and we had some business district representation at the, at the meetings. So I think part of it is we're trying to figure out growing season, planting season. So Dean is, is, is training us as far as cycle so that we can get as many trees. I don't want to be standing here because that money is in neighborhood relations to say, I'm sorry, I still have $90,000 left of the money because we could only get X amount of trees. I would prefer so that you would allocate some more money for our tree planting programs that to be able to get the trees out into the community as best we can. Your point is well taken in terms of those areas that are, we have enthusiasts, but we might not have an association. And so we're trying to figure out ways that we can, we can do that successfully and make sure that we're equitable in the approach that we take.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, I just want to mention, I hope that we are keeping an eye on the fact that we have some damaged trees from last year's storm that we don't know the fate of yet. There are, there are many that we think might have to be removed, but we have to, we're kind of in a holding pattern on some of them. And I just want to make sure that we are ready to replace, replace those trees as quickly as possible in the event that they do have to be removed. So as we continue to survey that damage and see what the longterm effects are on the trees that look like they may have been damaged or killed by the storm. I want us to have the right pot of money to correct that as quickly as possible.

That's very important and something we are monitoring. We just learned yesterday, we have our executed blanket purchase agreement with our tree wholesaler. So now we're able to order directly and get delivery. They're local. Um, that was one of the, um, one of the things that we were working towards. And so now we've got local, you know, places where we can buy the trees. And if I may also address, um, Susie Ahok, I think Susie was being quite humble. There were multiple pre-application meetings for the round two. And her team came with maps as well as at the neighborhood mayor's neighborhood summit and award ceremony to encourage residents to identify and undergo the process and understand from them and listen from those citizens, how we can improve on the process. I think we've seen some process improvements in round two. And so my hope is that our next report out, we can, um, give bigger numbers of trees planted. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you. I look forward to that. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Alison, Susie, and everyone involved in this dean. It's phenomenal. Uh, all of my questions have been answered and some that I didn't have. So I just have one about the schedule for the meetups and the locations. Like if people want to participate, but they don't know where to go or when you're meeting, is there a public place that, you know, we can direct people to who want to get involved in and participate in some tree plantings or like how do people sign up to be a part of this?

That is a great suggestion. That is a great suggestion. We do have an urban forestry newsletter separate from our sustainability newsletter that goes out and, um, we anticipate announcing them there. But I wonder if that's something that we could add to our website, um, and work with marketing on social media. I do not believe they're currently posted, um, on a public facing, um, social platform. Thank you. That was the question I had.

Thank you. Thank you.

Seeing no further requests to speak. Thank you so much for the presentation and we do appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Now we will take up our new business item, uh, G1 that was deferred from our February 1st, 2014, um, council meeting. And that is an item brought back by council member Montaneri.

Thank you, madam chair. Uh, respect, respectfully, uh, requesting a referral to the committee of the whole to discuss, uh, the race stadium and historic gas plant, uh, district redevelopment. Uh, there should be a minimum of two committee of the whole meetings to address the following topics and their relevant supporting documents. Uh, the rate, uh, race stadium committee, the whole meeting, uh, to discuss the stadium operating agreement, the stadium development and funding agreement and financing, uh, issues. And then a historic gas plant redevelopment, uh, committee, the whole meeting with historic, the historic gas plant development agreement and financing and such committee. The whole meeting should be scheduled to allow the council at least two weeks to review the final proposed draft agreements and or relative documents for each topic. And I'll move approval. Second.

Okay. Now that we have a motion in the second, Mr. Clerk, can you open the machine for voting?

Oh, I'm so sorry. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you. And, uh, I'm supportive. I just want to make sure this is very detailed and just in case it goes a little broader than this. Um, we don't have any agreements yet and there are a lot more agreements than what's covered here. So I just want to make sure that there is flexibility that if involves the race stadium and historic gas pack redevelopment that that if it comes up at the meeting, if that's our opportunity that we could cover those issues. So that's my only concern. Thank you.

Council member Floyd.

I would like to hear if council member Monnery has a response to that. Sure.

If, uh, yes, uh, I, I would like to have all the agreements and I want, uh, in the way that I envision this is when we get the final draft documents. I don't want to have some sort of interim type, uh, agreements. Oh, okay.

Seeing no further requests to speak.

Does that, does that clarify your question? Council member.

I mean, here, it wasn't clear to me. I mean, to review the final proposed draft agreements and a relevant doc documents. I thought there was going to be a meeting before the drafts, but I'm not sure if I may be confused about what administration was going to do, because is this going to be all the way in May? We're talking about, and there may be something we need to do beforehand. So that was my understanding. So yeah, I, I, I, I, I just want clarification. I don't know if we need it after the agreements. I thought that we were going to do something before, have an idea of what's happening as, as opposed to get everything there. Like it happened at the cow and it gets even more confusing to me, but that's just my two cents. So thank you.

Council member Floyd, you had the floor.

Yeah. I was just going to get some clarification from administration sort of similar. Um, we talked in the last cow about having one, um, another one, and I just didn't know what y'all's plans were right now. And so I was wondering if you could speak to that at all. Yeah, absolutely.

Um, and to, to the larger, maybe a step back to the bigger picture. There are a lot of documents that we are working on collectively with, um, our internal legal team or outside counsel with the raise Heinz team. So there are various documents and maybe miss Williams can correct me, but I think it's close to 13 total documents that, that are in some stage of, of preparation. Now, um, with respect to, um, the cow that were, you know, that council member Montaneri has requested, it was our, um, intention and hope that we would have those documents in, in nearly final form for consideration at that time. Um, and, and of course the business, um, and of course the business item requests that information be provided two weeks before. So that was kind of the, the thought from our perspective was to get those documents in the nearly final form for consideration, give council plenty of time to review that. Um, you know, the two week time period to review those, um, and, and potentially, you know, have one on one discussions with council members to the extent that time permits and that council members would like to have those discussions. So that's kind of, uh, you know, uh, uh, our thought as to how this would proceed, but certainly, um, you know, we're open to your, your input on, I mean, this is your new business item and, and your, uh, committee of the whole meetings, but that was kind of our hope and intention was to, uh, again, have those documents in near final form.

Okay. Thank you. Um, sounds like that works with this new business item. Um, I want to have the committee of the whole meeting, so I'm supportive. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't, it worked with what y'all were thinking. Thank you.

Thank you. And yes, what, what, uh, Mr. Green said is, is what I envisioned and I have been coordinating with, with administration on, on this. What I didn't want to happen is have one committee of the whole meeting and try to do this all at once. And it just seemed logical to me to do one meeting with, uh, on, on the stadium and one meeting on the redevelopment and, uh, review these documents at the same. And give us at least two weeks to, to review these documents before we have these, these discussions. So I just try to keep it simple, straightforward, but logical.

Thank you. Council member Driscoll.

Thank you. Um, I like this because it has things, um, organized. It, if we're all in agreement, then, um, this is just a great way to communicate with the administration, like how we can process this because 13 documents last I heard was nine. So now it's gone up. Uh, it's okay, but it's going to be a lot. It's going to be extremely complex, complicated. I appreciate, uh, that council member Montaneri put in that, um, uh, we would like to have at least two weeks to review. It's going to take at least that long. And I think things are kind of covered in the last line here because it's the final proposed draft agreements and or relevant documents. So near final, as Tom said, I think goes along with that. And I'm, um, I'm, I'm good with that. I mean, we have, there's a lot that we are reading right now already just in light of what has been emailed to us recently. And those are drafts and it's, it's, it's tough because we know things are going to change. And, um, I feel like we're all going to be feeling like we've studied for the bar by the time this is all done, but we're going to do the work and we're going to, we're going to reach, we're going to reach a conclusion to this at some point. But I feel that the, the way that this is laid out puts it in an organized way. I like also that we have financing discussed both times. So, um, I'm very much in favor of this and I'm actually glad it was deferred to this week so that I could, um, be present and voice my support for it. Thank you. Thank you.

Council member Hanowitz. Thank you, chair. So studying for the bar is much more than this to be clear. This is just one subject, one subject. And I have to say that the last committee of the whole, we only had term sheets and we didn't have enough time to cover everything. Um, there were so many issues that could have been covered that were not. And we only had a presentation and term sheets. That was it. So this is going to be voluminous and it's 13 documents. So it'll be interesting to see even if the two weeks is enough. Um, cause I can imagine how voluminous, how long it's been taking the attorneys, as a matter of fact, months to work on this, but I'm supportive. I just wanted clarification because I think it's important, first of all, uh, for the public to understand what's being covered. I've got an email. People thought that this was coming up right now and weren't clear what's happening. So I think this is top of mind for everyone. So I want to make sure people understand nothing is no decision is going to be made at the committee of the whole. This is for city council to review and ask questions. They're going to have the documents beforehand. Um, it's going to be an opportunity to kind of ask those questions of administration and others that are involved. And this time it's a minimum of two. I think last time we only had one that was going to be, um, um, scheduled. So I think having a minimum of two and that says a minimum, who knows if we get all this and we may need, uh, follow up. So I just wanted to clarify for everyone that I think we're all on board. We want to make sure there's transparency and questions are answered and that we're, um, complying with our fiduciary duty. So thank you chair.

Thank you. Yes. Administrator green.

And I just want to share. I picked that 13 number as a guest. I'm not certain.

Well, you said it now.

So it could be nine. It could be 10.

13 is unlucky.

There are a significant number of documents, but I, I didn't want everyone to say that, uh, I quoted 13 when there might be fewer or more.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if we have a motion and a second. We do. We do. If we do have a motion and a second, please open the machine for voting. Council members, will you please tally, cast your votes. Seeing all council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes?

Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you. So now we will go to open forum. Chair, we have no. We have no cars and no one on Zoom. No Zoom.

No Zoom.

Sounds great to me. So now we'll move on to announcements. Is there any announcements? Council member Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, city council and city staff and city hall are taking on the kids and cubs this weekend. Oh, I was going to say, I was looking forward to being on the top. All I'm going to say is we won. Uh, and so looking forward to spending some time with those that are going to join, um, uh, this weekend and, and looking forward to celebrating some of the organizations that are, uh, receiving some, some donation money. Uh, and then we have a birthday next week before our, our next week meeting, our chair, there were fig Sanders is her birthday next week. And so, uh, we'll sing happy birthday to chair. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am so excited. The last of my fifties. So also, I want to, um, also announce for those that are going to join us at the Albert Woodard airport for our second annual scholarship award ceremony this Saturday as well. So that'll be before the kids and cubs, um, game. And so I'm looking forward to that. And also just want to give a reminder to my colleagues who I love and respect so much. If you guys are going to miss a meeting or be late, please let us know. Cause last week was really crazy. Um, and I just want to make sure that we're prompt and get in contact with Cindy, um, ahead of time, because we want to make sure that we don't have, um, constituents waiting for us and we don't start on time. Cause I, for what I understand, that's the first time that has happened in 10 years. So let it be another 10 years. And with that, no other announcements. I call the meeting adjourned.

Thank you.