City Council - Jan 09, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair, Liseth Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Cory Gibbons, Jr. and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon. Welcome to the January 9, 2025 City Council Meeting. Let's start with the roll call, please. Curtis. Here. Dabber. Here. Harding. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Gibbons. Here. Floyd. Here. Okay. We will have our invocation given today by Reverend J.C. Pritchett II, followed by a moment of silence to honor our fallen officers, as well as a moment of silence for former President Jimmy Carter, and then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me in standing. Let's pray. In this new year, we are grateful for the opportunity to see new things. Remove scales of tradition and complacency from our eyes that we may see new ways to work together to serve your people. Council, administration, staff, and first responders throughout the city, they represent the best gift, talent, and skills in public service. Let our diversity of backgrounds, views, and experiences be used to magnify what we can accomplish together. With present and unknown challenges before us, remind us of the accessibility of you, something bigger, our creator, to guide us and lead us. Thank you for using us for these tremendous, life-changing opportunities. It's our prayer. Amen. Please join me in a moment of silence. Sergeant Thomas Batinger, end of watch, January 24, 2011. K-9 TAC Team Officer Jeffrey A. Yazluitz, end of watch, January 24, 2011. President Jimmy Carter, December 29, 2024. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Rev, thank you for being here. Okay, council members, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you could please open the machine for voting. All council members, please enter your vote. Seeing all council members, present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. We also have a consent agenda today. Clerk, do we have any public comment for the consent agenda? I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Seeing as we have a properly motioned and seconded, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all council members have voted, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to pass the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay, next we'll move on to open forum. Clerk, could 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 individual wishing 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 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 nine 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 reach 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 the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by ultimate means, including by email only. And we do have two speakers, Mr. Chair. Okay, let's call them both up, please. Walt Driggers and Beatrice Farrell. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, council. My name is Walt Driggers. Address is 1 Beach Drive, southeast, 1811, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701. And I'm here today to speak about Albert Whitted Airport and encourage you to vote for the cleanup and repairs of the hangers out there on item three on your agenda today. Art lovers that we are, we believe it's time to move this large metal sculpture art piece into the recycle bin. So, please, we encourage you to vote yes today. Thank you. Go ahead. Happy New Year. And fellow county commissioner, city council members, and neighbors. My name is Beatrice Farrell. I'm the director of digital inclusion. We're an initiative that's focused on increasing digital literacy, which is defined as internet access at home, the skills training, and devices. We are having a gadget for good drive this Saturday at the Foundation for Health. It is located at 233 34th Street South in St. Petersburg. From 10 to 1, what we're asking everyone to do is come by and drop off any devices that you have to recycle. What we do with those recycled devices is use them to give devices to people in our community that don't have them. I also want to mention that digital inclusion is an initiative of Community Foundation Tampa Bay, and we're funded by the city of St. Petersburg and the Foundation for Healthy St. Pete. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to thank Ms. Farrell for being here today and take her message to us as an opportunity to make sure that everyone is aware of the incredible grant that has been recommended for the city of St. Petersburg by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the amount of $6.9 million to advance our collective effort. efforts towards digital inclusion in our city. We are so lucky to have her here in our community doing this important work, and I am just grateful to her and to our city staff in the administration for going for and securing this important grant that will help us become an even more connected city. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you so much, Ms. Farrell, for being here, and thank you so much, Council Driscoll, for leaving the charge on this. As many of us are aware, the digital divide is something that we all should be looking to embrace. As this new age of AI begins to take over, I am so excited to see that South St. Pete is leading the way, so please, Ms. Farrell, share the flyer with us so that we can put it on all of our social media streams. This is awesome, and I invite the community to participate, and I'd love to know more information about how we can go about getting some of these recycled devices in the hands of some of the nonprofits that are trying to do the same work. So, thank you. Thank you. Clerk, any other speakers? Okay. We'll go ahead and close open forum. Thank you. All right. Moving right along. We'll move into our new ordinances. We'll start with E1. Clerk, could you please read the title? Opposed ordinance number 1170V, in ordinance approving the vacation of a 16.5- and 15-foot alley abutting lots 1, 2, 7, 24, and 25 in the Purvis and Harris 4th Street addition and lot 1 in the Mariner Subdivision, and a 20-foot alley and utility easement located on lot 1 in the Mariner Subdivision, generally located at 3338 4th Street North, 426 34th Avenue North, and 425 33rd Avenue North, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective in providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is on January 23rd, 2025. Council, we're joined by Cheryl Bergallo, and we have a presentation if you'd like to see it. Move approval. Second. Seeing as no further discussion, we have a motion for approval and a second. Clerk, if you could please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your vote. Seeing as all council members have voted, clerk, could you please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Chair, motion to have passed the agenda item E1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving along. We have E2. Clerk, could you please read the ordinance? Opposed ordinance number 1171-V, an ordinance approving a vacation of two public access easements, is generally located at 12000 Gandy Boulevard North, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective in providing for an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also on January 23rd, 2025, and we have no cards. Council members, oh, it looks like Cheryl's coming back. I thought we had Scott. There is a presentation if you'd like to see it. Move approval. Second. Seeing as I see no further discussion, there's a motion and a second. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your vote. Seeing as all council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to have passed the agenda item E2 passes unanimously. I appreciate you all making this easy on me. Moving on to E3. Clerk, could you please read the ordinance? Opposed ordinance number 136-HL, an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, designating the Coquina Rock entrance to the Bear Creek Golf and Country Club section of Pasadena Estates located at 535 64th Street South and 6354 Emerson Avenue South as a local historic landmark and adding the property to the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places pursuant to section 16.30.070 city code and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also on January 23rd, 2025, and we have no cards. Council members, remember this is quasi-judicial, so there is no discussion, so I'll entertain a motion for approval. Moved approval. Second. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your vote. Mike, sorry, Council Member Harding. It's going to take me a bit. Seeing as all present council members have voted, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to press agenda E3 passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, E4. Clerk, please read the title. Opposed ordinance number 796Z, an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, by changing the zoning of a 0.3 acre parcel located at 1847 First Avenue North from Corridor Residential Traditional-1, CRT-1, to Corridor Residential Traditional-2, CRT-2, providing for appeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective date. The public hearing for this item is also on January 23rd, 2025, and we do not have any cards. Move approval. Second. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your vote. Seeing as all present council members have voted, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to press agenda item E4 passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, let's get into the meat and potatoes. We'll join now. We're joined by John Moore, president of Orlando Bayfront Hospital, and for the Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital annual update. John, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time today to present to you all. We do this once a year, and this is the time that we generally use the first part of January to present. So, I will keep us moving here. There's power on the side, John. Got it. We always start with our mission, which is to improve the health and quality of life of the individuals and communities we serve. We work through everything that we do around these imperatives that you see that we embrace here. This gives you a snapshot of Orlando Health, quite a bit of growth over the past year, but certainly over the past four or five years. I'm now entering my 28th year with Orlando Health and certainly have seen a lot of this growth, mainly along the I-4 corridor and I-75 corridor, but then most recently an acquisition in Alabama, five hospitals around Birmingham, and also three hospitals on the Space Coast in Melbourne. Closer to St. Petersburg, you can see that we show a hospital in Lakeland. That's under construction currently in South Lakeland. And then in Wesley Chapel, we have a hospital under construction there, both of which will open in 2026. We'll talk more about our footprint here in Pinellas County in St. Petersburg in a moment. I would say that you'll see us continue to grow that footprint with additional physicians, which I'll share later. Also, you'll see that we will add to the Crossroads facility. We will start adding services there, physician services, et cetera, on that upper floor that's currently empty. Another way to look at Orlando Health, I would call your attention to the fact that we are the only adult trauma center in Pinellas County. Various awards, et cetera, that have been won by Orlando Health facilities. And now let's talk about Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, our continued commitment to St. Petersburg. So this is our west entrance, albeit a fairly boring photograph of it, but I show it to say we're committed to investment in the facility to add new facilities to the campus, and we have a lot going on. Internally, we're finishing up reducing our number of semi-private rooms and creating private rooms throughout the facility, which was much needed. And externally, you'll see under construction now, if you've driven by the campus, you'll see three structures here. The one on the left is a women's health center, and that is in partnership with Women's Care, which is the largest provider of OB-GYN services in the state. They have many legacy practices here in the St. Petersburg area, and they will be co-locating those in this facility. In addition, we will have a fertility clinic on the first floor, and we will house our OB-GYN residency program will also be located in this facility. On the right-hand side, we'll be mainly focused around oncology. So it's in partnership with Florida Cancer Specialists. Again, legacy practices, long-time physicians in St. Petersburg, they will all co-locate here and provide medical oncology services. We will provide radiation oncology and surgical oncology, with many of those surgeons having their clinics in this building. In addition, we will have a space for our new Neurosciences Institute and Orthopedic Institute. In the rear, I should mention, while that is a parking structure, the first floor will house an outpatient radiology clinic, as well as an outpatient wound care center. This shows the footprint of the block that we call Institute Square, and again, the services that will be in the facilities. This shows some of the more recent achievements and milestones. You know, a lot of it's around improving the quality of care we provide and the safety of the care we provide. Those of you that have heard me speak previously know that we've been on a journey, and we continue that journey today. I would say the numbers on the right, I think, are as important, if not most important, about improving that quality and safety. In other words, when we came here in 2020, we had many, many registered nurse openings. We've been able to reduce those by 41%. We've hired over 600 nurses since October of 2020, and we've reduced overall open positions by almost 17%. Council Member Fig Sanders had asked, I think, two years ago now, that in last year's presentation, we put the demographics in to show the Bayfront Hospital demographics around our team members. So you can see we're almost at 2,100 team members at this point, and this gives you the breakdown in ethnicity and gender. We have been and continue to be, every year we present to you physicians we've recruited. We continue to do that. So to support our OBGYN residency program, we have employed two additional physicians who have their clinics, and will have their clinics in the new building. We also brought on Dr. Mushanga, who brings urogynecology services to our community, very important service. And then in the cardiology space, Dr. Koch with electrophysiology, an additional surgeon in Dr. Segura, adding to Dr. Espinola's ENT practice. We added an additional ENT physician there, and then supporting our family medicine residency program. Very recently, we acquired Central Neurology, which is one of the largest neurology programs in Tampa Bay. Long-standing physicians that have started this practice and decided to become part of Orlando Health. So we have acquired them, and as I said earlier, they'll be located in one of the new facilities. We also recruited six orthopedic surgeons that cover a broad range of areas. As you can see, we were having to have support from physicians from Tampa, and this makes it much more convenient to have physicians who are living here in St. Pete and supporting us here. It's a bit of an eye chart. We put it in your packet so that you could have that to read at your leisure, but I would just call out a couple of things on here. One is continued improvement in our patient satisfaction scores, not exactly where we want to be, but we're at the 79th percentile to date. And also, I would call out the LeapFrog safety score, which is something that we've been working on since we arrived. The hospital originally, when we arrived, had a D safety score. We've now moved up to B, and we're on our way to an A. So lots of good things happening. The team's doing a great job. In fact, I should take a moment to introduce our team that joined me today. Many of you may know Matt Lutler, who heads up government relations for us. We have Dr. Beth Gerges, who is our chief of the medical staff, also an ER physician. We have Sarah Gilbert, chief operating officer, and Lorraine Parker, who is our chief nursing officer. And then behind them, we have Dr. Curtis Bryan, who is our chief of surgery, but also a cardiothoracic surgeon. Again, some more of the accolades that we've had most recently this year. The team wanted me to make sure to put these in there, and they're proud of it, and they should be. The Tampa Bay Times just recently had their annual voting on various things, and we came out first in Tampa Bay. Best place to have a baby, best emergency room, and best cardiology program. The hurricane, hurricanes, I should say. First of all, I want to thank the city and particularly the mayor's office. This was a time when, you know, having been here through a few storms, this one was different for many, many reasons. But I will say from a communication standpoint, it was amazing. They gave us pre-communication about what was going to happen, what they predicted on water loss, what they predicted on different things. And that may not sound important, but it is in that it gave us time to then prepare. So I'll give the example of water loss. We learned a lot, as I know we all did during the storms, but we were not prepared for the fact that when the water shuts down, our cooling towers for air conditioning will go away in about six hours. So once we learned that the water would be shut off, we were able to get with the county, and we had a parade of fire trucks for almost two days that just brought water, brought water, brought water, and kept our AC going. Our hospital was completely full. The ER was over full, so critical need for us during that time. As I'm sure you all did as well, we had many team members who were impacted by the storms. Some hit twice. We deployed some volunteer teams to assist with cleaning out homes of both physicians and team members, and then with demolition. And, you know, we tried to provide what we could. We had resource rooms set up to provide items that they might need during the cleanup. Again, we learned a lot. We've always had an emergency response team, which is a volunteer team of team members who volunteer ahead of time to say, hey, I'll stay at the hospital and work. And so we had two full teams of people in the hospital, one, you know, resting, sleeping, one working, and then we switched every 12 hours. And so it was important, you know, as a trauma center and as a provider of health care, we wanted to make sure we were ready. We also had many of our physicians. Two of them are here today that stayed with us the whole time. We had a full complement of surgeons, so we were well prepared. I talked about the water. We really didn't have that much damage in the facility, which was great. The other thing we learned is that so many of our team members live outside of the area. And when the fuel shortage hit, I was able to get with Alicia Shuloff over at All Children's. She and I got with the state. We brought tanker trucks of fuel over by the hospital. And anyone in the community that had a medical-related, you know, badge, they could get 10 gallons of fuel. So we ran that for a couple of days, and that seemed to help us keep team members coming into work. So the rest of this is really, you know, talking about our commitment to St. Pete, and our team members love volunteering and being a part of the different programs that are out there. We also have a grant program that I'll show a few slides on. These were the most recent grants that we recently gave. We work with the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete, and we do a dollar-for-dollar match on those. One of the grants, and I'll just give a brief description of this, funded a health care navigator for the Homeless Empowerment Program. And in this case, it helped a young mother with two children who really had no access to health care immunizations, really primary care for herself, mental health care. The navigator was able to work and find a physician for her, for her children, and get all those things taken care of. So we like it when we can connect the dots with what we're giving and what it's actually providing in the community. This just gives you an example of what we look at when we want to give out grants, what's important to us as we do that. Also, community relations keeps us in touch with all of the chambers of commerce and the various entities that help make our city work. And you can see the number of organizations and activations that we've had this past year. Habitat for Humanity is a major focus of ours. We've built a home every year for the last three years. And you can see also our volunteer hours, which we're trying to continue to increase from our team members. These are other things that they volunteer to provide. So this is, in total, what we've been able to do with the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete since 2023, really helping with the three focus areas there, mental health and wellness for black, indigenous, and people of color, economic equity and justice, and capacity building. So we provide people to serve on the committee, and the Foundation provides folks to serve on that committee to give those grants out. And this last slide just shows you the programs funded, people impacted, and then each of the grants are given to an organization that has to provide us with goals that they're working to achieve. And thus far, we've seen that 57% of the goals achieved at this point. And that's what I had today. Questions? Council Member Fitzsanders. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you so much. And first, let me say, you are a true example of the more engaged you are, the better prepared you are to service the community. And you have done an excellent job, especially from the first presentation that you've presented to where we are now and the impact that you're making in the community. So thank you, and thank you for hearing me and some of the things that I've asked for. But you have had so much growth within the community. And then working with the foundation and all the organizations, I just have to say thank you for that and for wanting to make sure that you are in our community. And I also want the constituents to understand everything that you did during that storm, you don't know until you know. And so all the things that you had to go through in order to ensure that your patients, employees, everyone that was a part that was impacted, you learned from that. So from the storms, what are you putting in place now to better prepare you? Just in case, God forbid, we have another incidence where we may have to turn off water, where we may, you know, be threatened with a hurricane. What has Orlando Health now put into place? We are working now to, in fact, Sarah is in charge of this, installing two wells on our property so that we don't have to, you know, obviously depend on outside water. I was a bit jealous of my friends across the street at All Children's. They had a well. So we are taking care of that. We have some other issues. We have this, it's complicated, but an electrical switch gear that's located in too low of an area. So we're going to move that up. And then in Pinellas Park, we, the generator, we didn't build that facility, but the generator is not equipped to handle air conditioning. So we need to upgrade that so that it can provide AC so we can stay open. Those are a few examples. Just a few examples. But, again, it just goes to show that when you don't know what you don't know until you do, and that you're actually taking this opportunity to better prepare yourself, we thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. This is such welcome news throughout your presentation. And I got to tell you, I was here several years ago when we went through the process of contracting with Orlando Health to take over this hospital. I think about the condition that it was in at that time, and that was, what, five years now? I mean, I'm five years. Then versus now. It's like night and day. And thank you. You're welcome. Our partnership with you is even better than I thought it was going to be. And the way that you have been able to turn around this hospital, make it once again a place that we can be proud of, and the work that you're doing in the region here to branch out and be able to help more people and provide care for more people, it's notable and it's admirable. I couldn't be happier with the way that things have been going, and I can't wait to see what's next with the new projects that you have under construction right now. It's very exciting. I also wanted to thank you for partnering with Turner Construction for their construction management program. That has been really important. I always love to see the new class when they get started, and it is so you're not only doing what you all are experts at, but you're helping the community in ways that go beyond health care. So thank you for that as well. I'm glad to hear that the city was a good partner for you during the storms, and I hope that as we continue our process of looking at our lessons learned and how we can do better, that we'll be looking for ways that we can give you even stronger support. Even as you're looking at ways to be a little bit more self-sufficient, we're still here for you. Thank you. Thank you. Even if the lights aren't. That wasn't me telling you to finish. I was like dramatic effects. And scene. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Givens. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much, John. It's so good to see you again. The last time you and I were together, it was at the Foundation for Healthy St. Pete, and I want to thank you so much for the seed contribution that you all helped plant into the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation Association of St. Petersburg. What we are doing is we're trying to help address an issue that affects a lot of minorities, right? And one of the things that we found is a lot of our patients who are not drug-seeking find themselves in the hospitals quite a bit. One of the hopes is that with these new legislations that have come out from this past Congress, the 118th Congress, there are funds that are now available to help put more sickle cell treatment units within local hospitals. Is there any discussion about that coming up? That's my first question. Then my second question is I'd like to get a little update on how these satellite emergency rooms are working out, specifically the one in Crossroads. So to your first question, you know, that's interesting. No. Not that I'm aware of, and I'll look at my team and say no. So that's something I need to take back and we need to address. So I will stay in touch with you on that one. Please. The second question, the satellite ERs, their volumes are typically low. But I can tell you this, if you ask the county, when we have storms or we have, you know, emergency situations like that, they were dependent, not just on our freestanding emergency rooms, but, you know, our competitors as well. They helped offload because our main ERs were overwhelmed. So they're very important. When they're local, they really help the people closer to that lookout. Thank you very much. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. So when you came on board, you never expected all these things that have happened. I'm sure. Exciting. They've really tested you, and you've done such a great job. But I remember when we first met, and you have the expansion going on, you had to deal with the storms and everything that's happened, and you've done a wonderful job trying to manage everything, the good and the crisis combined. So you and your team, obviously. Great team. You and your team. And so thank you all, because you're an important part of our community and a critical service that you provide to our residents. So thank you for that. I don't want to repeat everything other council members have said. I agree with everything. You mentioned, it's funny because you mentioned that you're going to get wells. I had marked here wells on campus, whether that was something that was planned in the future because you had mentioned, obviously, the emergency portable water that you needed. And I know that some hospitals do have wells on site, and even though you heavily rely on the public infrastructure, there's no choice. You have to do something and mitigate what can happen in the future. So having said that and knowing that, obviously, you said the communications are good. Anything that you know that we could be doing here to help you, obviously, infrastructure is important, and that's something that city council is committed to improving, as we know. But anything else that you need that can help, please let us know. I appreciate that. I mean, very proactive. We had two people from Parks and Rec who were stationed right there. We housed them, but they were there to help get the roads cleaned up quickly around both hospitals. All Children's is a pediatric trauma center with the adult. They were there to help us get roads cleared and get things moving again as soon as possible. So that was another proactive move that I think was great. And then just personally, I live in downtown St. Pete, and my wife and I walk the streets a lot with our dogs, and we just watched in awe of how quickly the city was able to get itself back together where it could function. And very impressive, so great work. Well, we were lucky. We were not Asheville. Asheville had a harder time than we did, and people down south had a harder time. Right. We were actually lucky that we didn't get the full brunt of the storm and were able to recover. But, you know, thankfully we did, and it was good that our streets were open up pretty quickly. So, well, thank you for everything you do and for the update. I always look forward to the update every year from you all. You do such a great job. Thank you. Thank you. John, it's always good to see you. Thanks for everything you're doing. You know, one of the things, and I think it was mentioned before, you know, five years of these updates, I've been a part of four of them, pretty fun to be a part of an update that just keeps getting better. And so I wanted to point that out, you know, just everything continues to improve, and I know you give credit to the team, and while I'm on that point, you've got a great team, and I know a lot of them that I've been able to meet a lot of them, and I just haven't had a poor interaction with any of them. And I think that speaks both to the organization, to the leadership, but I think also to the care that those people have of what they're trying to accomplish, not only at the hospital, but I think within the city of St. Petersburg. So I'm very thankful for that. I only have one question, and then I'll do one more thank you. Just because, unfortunately, I've had a couple of them. I'm interested in the ortho team. Did you bring an entire team on? We did. Where were they from? Are they from here? They're from various areas. One, the spine surgeon's probably the closest. He's from Tampa proper, and the others are from a variety of. So you recruited in. Recruited in. Yes. I think that's awesome. I wanted to highlight that, you know, because at least, again, my experience, having unfortunately had to deal with a couple of orthopedic surgeons, you know, especially in the trauma area, you know, that happens often here, unfortunately. And having that type of expertise that we can recruit into town is invaluable. Not only are we bringing a well-paying job to St. Petersburg, but we're giving expert care in a situation that is very chaotic after something like that happens. So I was very happy to see that. And I'm very happy to see all of the recruitment and physicians, but that one's specifically, you know, selfishly to me. The last one is I've been very blessed to have good relationships across our hospital system here in St. Petersburg with Johns Hopkins All Children's and HCA and BayCare. And after the storm, having spoke to the leadership and all of those organizations, John, it was very apparent that you were a big stick of glue during these hurricanes and helping solve problems, helping keep people level-headed. And I could not go without mentioning that your name came up multiple times about EOC calls during the storms. And I'm just very thankful for you and for your leadership. I know, again, the support of the team, but, you know, in some of the toughest days in maybe St. Pete's history, you know, your name came up multiple times. And I think that speaks very highly of you. And I'm very appreciative of you and your friendship and your leadership in this organization. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Looking forward to it again next year and looking forward to seeing all the Bayfront team throughout the year. Thanks, everybody. Okay, we will move on to F1, and we are joined by Evan Morey. We also have some leadership from PSTA here, both in the audience and on the dais. So I'm sure we can answer any of the questions that might come up during this presentation. But, Evan, welcome. Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, Council. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to present this to you today. And I'm glad that I can follow a presentation about good partnerships because I think that's what this presentation and this relationship is like with PSTA. Thanks for mentioning we do have Darden Rice and Abhishek Dial here with PSTA for support and also potentially to help answer some questions. So a little history. Here's a route map of the service that began in the fall of 2023. The route includes 31 stops at enhanced stations, state-of-the-art hybrid buses, and public art at most of the St. Petersburg stations. Usually the service frequency is excellent at 15 minutes between each bus. However, similar to other routes, service frequency drops off in the evening due to lower demand after the late afternoon peak and to reduce operating expenses within a constrained budget, which is what PSTA has. Fortunately, Sunrunner was delivered below budget, and City Council approved a little bit over a year ago an amendment that allowed some of the savings to go towards adding a new stop at First Avenue North near First Street. This is closer to the waterfront and the St. Pete Pier. Also, the cost savings allowed the addition of public art. That, due to timing, couldn't be added at a couple of the downtown stations. And on this slide, you can see some of the art panels and how they individually and collectively come together to form a mural-like appearance. And then also the modified route is shown on the upper right-hand side. And on the lower right-hand side, you can see the groundbreaking that occurred over the summer when construction started for the new stop at First and First. And you can see two of our council members who are also board members in that picture, along with some other elected officials and downtown business manager. Here's a route map that will be effective tomorrow, servicing the new station. Also, there's pictures of the station when it was almost complete. And tomorrow morning, we will be able to celebrate the grant opening at the station at 10 a.m. I hope all of you can join us if your schedule allows. And if city council is inclined to pass this resolution today, the celebration can be even better because... No pressure. Well done. The STA is ready to start not only servicing the new stop tomorrow, but if council passes this, they will begin the enhanced frequency of service tomorrow night. So the proposed enhancement is affecting the two busiest nights of the week for leisure activities and visits to the downtown area. It would reduce parking demand and traffic while providing better service for everyone who uses a sunrunner on the entire route. The better service would come in the form of increased frequency from 30 minutes to 15 on Friday and Saturday night. And practically speaking, that means that each rider would wait only seven and a half minutes at the stop before their bus arrives, rather than the 15. And we believe that the enhanced route on top of the enhanced frequency will result in a noticeable increase in usage of the service. We also believe that this is a good investment that leverages previous work and funding that went into the initial sunrunner project. In the groundbreaking photo, we saw two of our existing council members and... Sorry, it got ahead of me. In the bottom photo, if you look close, you can see almost in disguise, since he's not in a suit, former council member. Point that out. So for the remainder of the fiscal year, the city costs for increasing the service would be $75,000. We are planning on dedicating that from the parking revenue fund. And if you compare that to some other parking expenses, that's less money than it costs to build three parking spaces in a parking garage. And those three spaces would certainly serve fewer people than this increased frequency would allow. The initial term would carry us through two more fiscal years, a 3% escalator on each of those two years. And then we also have worked into the agreement the option to renew for two additional years. And with that, I will conclude and request that city council approve the resolution for you today, and we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thanks, Evan. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And it's exciting to see this coming forward after it was brought up a while back. And I'm just very appreciative of PSTA's partnership in helping to make this happen. And it seems that we are always looking at ways that we can make mobility better for us here in St. Petersburg. And it seems every time we ask, PSTA finds a way to say yes, whether it's, you know, this or helping us to adjust to a different location for the Cross Bay Ferry. I mean, it goes, it goes on and on. I'm just thinking about in the last year, PSTA has really stepped up for us in some unusual times. And I wonder if you would kind of talk about that a little bit. Sure. Yes. Thanks for mentioning the help with the Cross Bay Ferry relocation. About a year ago is when we started the Transportation Disadvantaged City Council approved funding. We started that, which allows low-income residents, people who are dependent on transit, and instead of getting a discounted fare or bus pass, theirs is free. So that program has been going really well. PSTA stepped up during the hurricanes. We asked them to initiate a period of free rides for all St. Pete residents because of the effects that occurred. A lot of people lost their cars and just had other stresses going on. So they gave us a very good rate and coordinated with us very quickly to allow rides for free for a couple weeks. And then after the second hurricane hit, they did county-wide free. They helped out the beaches. And then shortly after that, we had our disaster recovery center at Aenec Davis Center. And it didn't have all the resources that the one did in Largo. So we called up PSTA and said, hey, can you provide us a link for people who need to go from Aenec Davis up to Largo? They didn't hesitate. They provided that very quickly. And then recently, the Lutheran Apartments had their fire, and the residents needed to relocate. And within hours, PSTA provided buses. They didn't ask for any compensation. And they helped us get those seniors from Lutheran Apartments to a safe place to sleep that night. So, yeah, those are just a few of the things in the last year. Yeah, it's pretty incredible just that PSTA isn't like a small agency. It's pretty big. And for them to be so nimble and so helpful when we need something or when we have a new idea, it's just amazing. So, thank you. And, Abhishek, I wanted to ask you a question, if you don't mind joining us at the podium, if you could introduce yourself. Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy New Year. I'm Abhishek Dayal. I'm the Director of Project Management for PSTA. Thank you. And you've been – the Sunrunner has been – has come to fruition under your guidance. And your partnership in particular with the city, with Evan, and with the administration has been just a huge part of the success of the Sunrunner. I wanted to let everyone know, I hope you don't mind, that Abhishek has given notice that he will be leaving for another opportunity in another area. It's a big opportunity. So, I'm very sad for us and for PSTA, but I'm very happy for you. I will let you decide if you want to share what you'll be doing. But I wanted to thank you in front of everyone and just wish you all the best. Thank you so much. And I – first of all, I wanted to thank the council, the mayor, and certainly Evan's group, and the city's departments who just were so collaborative during the whole process, not just for the Sunrunner project, but all the initiatives that PSTA and certainly that I was involved in. It was just a very collaborative process, and it just certainly made things very easy. Yes, I did accept an opportunity recently. This is in Broward County. They do have a pretty large program to advance, a capital program there that the voters approved back in 2018. So, I'm going to take on the challenge to implement their capital program, but St. Petersburg will certainly be, in my heart, very close to us. This is – my family is here, and they were very, very surprised when we all moved here from the Phoenix area on how welcoming, how vibrant this community is. And so, we will certainly miss it, but certainly keep it in mind. So, thank you for your support again. Yes, and thank you. And I know you'll be back to St. Pete at some point, and you'll be able to walk around any time you see the Sunrunner. It'll be a great reminder that you did something that really moved our city forward. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. And on that note, you will be at the ribbon-cutting for the new Sunrunner station tomorrow, right? Absolutely. Good, good. I do hope everyone will join us. It'll be at 10 o'clock tomorrow at First Avenue North and First Street. And on that note, I will move approval. Second. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll. Councilmember Fick Sanders. Thank you. You know, you would have the council representatives definitely speak when it comes to PSTA. And just think about it. You have the success of the Sunrunner that I'm sure was one of your successes during your interview that you helped steer here that, steer ahead that. And I wanted to, you know, say thank you so much. You've always been so cordial and so gracious. And PSTA as a whole, and Councilmember Driscoll summed it up when she said it is one of the most nimble organizations that I have ever had the experience of working with. In regards to the partnerships from the free transportation disadvantage to the free rise for all veterans, for free rise for Vanellas County students, it has been an organization that has been community driven from day one since I have been on that board. And so to see that, you know, we are continuing to grow, myself and CEO Brad Miller stood out in the cold on Tuesday waiting for the two millionth rider to get off the Sunrunner, and it was cold. But we did celebrate the two millionth rider, so the Sunrunner has been extremely successful. So let there be no doubt that I think it was a partnership and it was an investment well made on behalf of the city of St. Petersburg to increase our mobility, especially of those that are visiting this great city. So, again, you will be missed. Evan, thank you so much for working with PSTA and this awesome partnership that we have in getting our residents and our visitors around. And I don't know if I need to second it being a board member, but since our board chair motioned, I'll second. There's going to be one, but we can double down. Oh, there you have to go. Okay. Sorry. I missed it. I missed it. All right. Council Member Givens. Thank you so much, Chair. And thank you so much for being here, Evan. I appreciate you, and thank you for PSTA, PSTA for all you all do. I am a proud PSTA passenger, thanks to Brad Miller and past board member Vince Cox. They encouraged me to get on board, and so I'm so grateful for what you all do. I ran on the platform that I wanted to make St. Pete a multimodular city. So I think we are taking the right steps forward in the right direction, so thank you all for what you do. I did have a couple of questions, and I know we kind of spoke about it briefly, Evan. What are we doing to, I'm guessing it's going to take more money, to take this from five days to seven days a week? That's my first question, is what will that look like? Do we have a figure, hypothetically, what dollar amount we're looking for? And then my second question is, is have we looked at supplementing some other alternative routes? Good question. I think that so far we've just looked to tackle the weekends. Obviously, we could probably do the math and talk to PSTA about what it would take to add those days, so thank you for that suggestion. So far, we just wanted to look at the weekends with the peak ridership. You know, other partnerships with PSTA, we will continue to look for those. We spoke briefly about enhanced service in South St. Petersburg, and we will be able to tell you a little bit more about a new service soon, but I can tell you a little bit about it now. We're looking to launch a spark service, all electric buses on 34th Street South, that would connect Eckerd College and the Skyway Marina District up to the Sunrunner route. So our first, it would be like BRT light, but it's limited stop, enhanced bus shelters and stops, and that would connect South St. Petersburg to the Sunrunner, so then we'd have our first north-south to connect with the east-west. And we do plan on doing that with PSTA later this year, so we're not waiting a long time for that. And so we'll keep bringing you ideas and enhanced service in St. Pete. Great news. Route 34 and Route 4. Is that it, Council Member Gimmons? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Evan, thanks for bringing this forward. I'd be remiss. Former Council Member Darden Rice is here with PSDA. We were talking earlier, you know, Council Member Rice worked on transportation while she was a Council Member, continues to work with PSTA, and continues to pour into our community, and just very thankful. Thanks for being here, and thanks for PSTA's partnership. Evan, you continue to always bring us good ideas and ones that are, frankly, easy to vote on. So thanks for all the work that you and your team do, too, and excited to vote on this. And any time we can get drivers off the road on Friday and Saturday evening, I'm all for it. Okay, seeing as no other discussion, we have a motion and a second. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please cast your vote. Seeing as all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, could you please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Chair, motion to pass it to the item F1 passes unanimously. Thank you so much, Evan. Thank you, everybody. Okay, moving on to F2 and a presentation about Lake Vista Rec Center water intrusion. We've got Brejesh Preyman. Brej, welcome. Good day, Council Members. Congratulations to the new Council Chair, Vice Chair, and also to the new elected members. Thank you all. It's a big step and a big challenge for the service that you all do. I appreciate it. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And then also the sheet rock where there's no concrete walls throughout the facility was removed approximately two feet up. That will have to be replaced. The trimming around the walls and some painting, that's the bulk of the work, some faucet and some fixtures, and also the cabinets, obviously, that sustain the water damage. And with that, we do ask for approval. Move approval. Thank you. Council Member McSanders. Thank you. Do you know when it's going to be open to the community again? Yes. We are shooting for May 1st completion. Okay. All right. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Just a quick question. Are there going to be rugs? Pardon me? Any more rugs in there? Like, that, you know, with flooding, like, in terms of flooring, right, you figure it's much easier to maintain some flooring versus rugs. And so I'm just wondering. So there will be some rugs. Carpeting. Yeah. There's going to be some carpeting. Of course, you know, in some of the rooms, sound is very critical. So you do have to rely on carpets that absorb some of the sound itself. There's also some care rooms that have the carpeting in. And, of course, in the gymnasium, you have to have the wood floors, which is being done separately from this project. That's a good question. Raj, I only have one question, and so was this rain flooding or was this wind-driven? Rain. Rain. So, I mean. From the massive amount of rain of Milton. Right. That's where this occurred. Correct. The stormwater pond itself overfloored and flooded the site. Okay. And so, and we don't need to go down on the weeds in this, but so have we identified that area in the water master plan as potential for potential? Projects to make sure that doesn't happen again, or was this such a massive amount of rain that really would probably not going to do that? You know, that's an interesting question because from our observation, it's the actual stormwater pond itself that overflowed. But I would definitely go back and take a look at the, because the pond is. It was the pond. Yeah. So, the pond is designed for a specific storm event, but we'll definitely go back and take a look at the 100-year floodplain from the stormwater master plan. I could provide that information. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Just a quick follow-up to that. Just thinking, when you go through that process of kind of like, okay, well, looking at the future, how do we mitigate this? Because now that we know that's obviously vulnerable, is there an opportunity where we could maybe look at that as a pond that we might be able to drain somehow beforehand just to try to bring down the elevation to absorb the additional rainwater? That is a good point. So, definitely, I think that's something we can actually start looking into. That is a good, because I know we look at it on the public infrastructure side. Right. I mean, I'm just, I'm so familiar with draining ponds, right? I mean, it's obviously a very different infrastructure. There's somewhere else to drain it to, but I'm just trying to think, like, we do that in Riviera Bay, right? Like, there's a storm coming. You go and you drain the ponds. Now, that drains out to the bay. So, that's a very different problem. That is an engineer's problem, not mine. But I'm just saying, like, I feel like that might be, we might be getting to a place where we need to create a list of these sort of vulnerabilities so that you all kind of have that as our pre-planning scenario. And it's something that, given into context, that there are ponds that they're designed dry. Yeah. So, some of them don't even have water in them. Okay. So, we'll take a look. And also, you know, we do have to take in the context the design for the rate of flow going through it for water quality. So, we don't want to be pumping nutrients out in the stormwater system as well. Yeah. So, anything? I'll move aside. Okay. So, if I may also add a couple of contacts, Claude Tankersley, Public Works Administrator. So, I just spoke with Mr. Kraft and asked if they'd had this problem with that pond before. And he said no, not to his recollection at all. Usually, these stormwater ponds are designed for what we call a 25-year storm event. And what we received in Milton was a 1,000-year storm event. So, I'm not quite sure that there's really anything we could do to assist with this kind of event. And then the other thing is, you mentioned the ponds that we do have some pumps with. Those ponds were specifically designed to operate with pumps. Yeah. So, going back and retrofitting ponds might require a complete redesign of the pond. So, I seriously doubt, I'm just being honest, I seriously doubt we will be looking at this particular pond, given the fact it's never happened before and this was such a huge event, as being one that we would prioritize for any future work. So, understood, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I do just want us to all be, like, kind of flashback to presentations we have had from USF and Dr. Frazier about the fact that we are going to have more extreme rain events. We just are. That is going to be happening, and they're going to be more frequent. So, I still think there's some conversation to have. I mean, we talked about it earlier today, like, kind of, you know, how do we look into the future and look for, you know, our response leading up to a storm. I just think we kind of have to think a little bit bigger about the challenges that we are facing as climate change continues to put these incredible – I mean, today we say it was a thousand-year storm. Right. If it keeps happening, it may no longer be a thousand-year storm. That may be something we deal with constantly. And so, I just want us to kind of keep those ideas out there. There's no solution for it today, but I don't want to close the door on at least having the conversations. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. And I think my comments have mostly already been covered. I was just going to uplift two things. One was that this storm was a freak occurrence when you look back into the past. And so, it's a large task to try to design a system to withstand something that only happens one in 1,000 years. But then my other thing was going to be, if we were to go back and take a look, which I think we should, as to how we should move forward with our floodplain and our stormwater system in general, that there was a lot of places in the city that this exact same thing happened. And a lot of residential areas that were really ill-prepared for it, and I think we're seeing the effects of it at a city facility, and that's what we're discussing today. But I would hope that, yeah, as we had this conversation, we could talk about basically the entire city. I think there was probably a stormwater pond, and I would be surprised if there wasn't one in every district that exceeded its banks and surprised the people around it. So, I think we already covered that. I just wanted to uplift that, like, I hope, you know, the contours of the conversation are quite broad. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I was only asking – I realize what Claude was saying. It's a thousand-year storm, right? That's why I – frankly, it was for me. So, when we're talking to the community about the rec center and what are we going to do, I want to just be able to set the expectation. That's all. You know, hey, the expectation is right now we're considering this a thousand-year storm. We've identified it. In the future, if we get close to this again, we could identify a project to do X, Y, Z. Or, no, we need to do something now, right? And we're examining that. I just want to make sure that when we're talking, you know, to residents, we can set the expectation. Clearly, that's all. So, I appreciate it. Okay. Do we have a motion in a second? Seeing as no further discussion, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Seeing as all council members have voted, Clerk, could you please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Chair, motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving right along to F3, our presentation on Albert Whitted Airport Repairs and Funding. Second. Do we have one? This is for – we have A and B. Can it be together? No. A would need to be voted on first. So, I move approval on F3A. Second. And we have some public comment. We'll go to public comment. Liam Hawkins, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. My name is Liam Hawkins, and I'm a resident of 826 21st Avenue North. Good afternoon, St. Pete City Council. I live in Vice Chair Henowitz District, and I work, recreate, and create jobs in Councilmember Driscoll's district. Sorry, Lissette. And 91 days. That's when the storm was. 91 days ago. And since then – sorry, I'm getting my notes. We've had zero cleanup at Albert Whitted Airport. We have an amazing and resilient community down there, and we have nonprofit organizations, medical organizations that operate through there. It's almost too bad Bayfront's not here anymore. But actually some folks that are really pivotal in increasing access to aviation, education, scholarships, and transportation here in this room. And it's been painful seeing the airport get no attention. Among the volunteers and Good Samaritans of our airport, we've actually tried on our own a couple of times to move debris out of the way so even an aircraft can move or a car can move and been threatened with arrest. So no cleanup has happened. We have jagged metal debris from decades ago all over the airport, thousands of pounds of it, twisted I-beams, broken glass, aviation fuel spilling on documents, personal belongings, and areas we're not allowed to access. We have 32 hangars destroyed, 10 aircraft destroyed, 2 helicopters destroyed. Most of those remain on field. A couple have had their wings cut off and been driven out. We also have several aircraft that are in fine working condition or suspected to be that are entombed in hangars that may or may not be condemned. Some are condemned, some are not, but they're blocked by other debris that we're not allowed to relocate. And again, 91 days of this. We had an incident less than two weeks ago where we almost lost the human life due to this debris. There was a twisted I-beam that was on top of a hangar that's otherwise not condemned, and we had significant gusts about 13 days ago that knocked that I-beam off the building, nearly striking a human and their aircraft, standing next to the aircraft that they were pulling out. So we have an ongoing human safety crisis, in a very small scale, but it still exists, down at our airport. Maybe good for Bayfront's business, but not good for human health and safety. Also, the Grand Prix is in seven weeks. Setup is in about three weeks, I think. And much of the airport that would generally remain accessible to the airport using public during the Grand Prix is not available at this time. So in other words, if the Grand Prix were to set up there, the airport essentially will have to stop. That may be in violation of FAA regulations that may cause the FAA to get involved and prevent the Grand Prix from happening. And I don't imagine this looks like a great backdrop for... Is that my time? Yep. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Any other public comment? Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, sir, for your comments. We do appreciate hearing from you and from our aviation-related members of the community. In light of the concerns that have been voiced here, and I've heard them myself, I wonder if... And, Brish, this may not be for you. Rob, I'm thinking maybe the administration... Is Chris here by any chance? Rich is here. Oh, Rich. Thanks. Sorry. I'm way over here, so it's hard to see who is back over there. Could you kind of just give a quick explanation of why we couldn't just dive in and start fixing everything at the airport? Well, I mean, we obviously started with some of the minor stuff, again, because of the size and scope of this and the funding for the demolition and stuff. That's why this portion, we had already started repairs in some of the smaller buildings, for example, replaced a number of gate operators and stuff like that. But some of the bigger items, which requires heavier equipment or, you know, construction personnel, we kind of had to go through a more formal process for that. And my understanding was also that it took a little bit longer, the nature of the damage and the nature of the airport itself, that making sure that we documented this properly for FEMA was a little bit different than with other types of facilities. Sure. That was all part of it, too, because obviously we're doing Helene and Milton, so there was... Yeah, yeah, well, I'm glad we have this before us today, and I'm hoping that we can finally get going with the repairs and with getting people connected back to their property and their hangar spaces because this is something people are very passionate about. And, you know, in some cases, it's part of the transportation that they need for the work that they do, and the sooner we can get everyone back to semi-normal, the better, right? So I'm very supportive of this, and I just, I appreciate all that you're doing, Richard. I know it hasn't been an easy time for you. We are certainly in unusual times in many ways, so thanks for all that you're doing, and Brej, thank you for working on this and bringing it forward to us today. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Richard, if this moves through this body today, what does timing look like? What starts tomorrow or next week? It's a good question. I'll defer to Brej on that. We've, the contract's already with the legal department as soon as, and I know they've worked expeditiously on this contract, and following council approval today, we'll execute that contract. We already have the draft bond and the insurance internally already, so once the execute contract is completed, we'll be ready to issue the notice to proceed. A pre-construction meeting has already been conducted informally with the contractor, the construction manager, and the intention is that we will have this will completed before the Grand Prix, so that the rest of the users of the airport are not impacted by access or other uses. Thank you. So we're expecting to complete this very well ahead of the Grand Prix itself. Thank you. The Section 1 of the resolution stipulates that this finances a portion of the dot, dot, dot. Is there anything that's not included in this, or? Let me just look at the line you're looking at. Sorry. So you mentioned it finances. So it is, what you're looking at there, the amount that is included, it covers all of the work to clean up the airport, as well as any inspection time. We did put some allowances in the GMP, such as remediation, some permitting, or some electrical allowances. And again, those are allowances, so we may not use it. If something does come up, that allows us to authorize that funding by the user, by the owners, the city. So it's not free. The contractor can't just start using this money, all of the money. So they have a specific base that we'll authorize them on. The allowances, if anything comes up, we'll issue those as field orders. So we dedicate it for as much unknowns as we can. Understood. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Richard, I want to ask you, you mentioned something, there were some issues with funding. I didn't catch that completely. That there were some delays in funding issues. Just due to the scope and size of the funding, you know, having to come here and finding the funding sources. I was just wondering, obviously, I mean, it's an airport. There's FEMA money, FAA money. I mean, FAA would somehow help out at some point, maybe, possibly. So the issue with FAA money is, and this was a message we actually got from the airport's district office in Orlando. So the main funding that comes from FAA is something called the Airport Improvement Program. The only way, they've told us the only way they would give money for storm damage is if Congress passes regulation to amend or change the Airport Improvement Program rules to allow that. And I guess it's been done one time in the history, way back in, I don't remember the hurricane, from many years ago. But up to this point, the FAA said, as of right now, the rules are the same rules as before the storm. So the state, on the other hand, FDOT, there may be some options there. They do fund grants. So, you know, it is possible through there, but as you also alluded to, FEMA and insurance as well are the other two sources we're kind of also waiting on. Because, you know, besides cleanup, obviously, the next major phase would be reconstruction of the buildings that were destroyed. I guess that's good to know for future reference when it comes to storms and maybe getting with our federal delegation to make sure we can do something about it quicker rather than later. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Just a point of information, what's our current status right now with the FAA, also with the FDOT? Have we received any fines for any violations or anything like that? Will we, if the debris cleanup isn't done in a timely manner? No. Thank you. Is that it, Councilmember? Yes, sir. Okay, we have a motion and a second for F3A. Seeing no further discussion, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, please enter your vote. Seeing as all present councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to the passage of the item F3A passes unanimously. Move F3B. Second. Seeing as we have a motion and a second, no further discussion. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, please enter your vote. Seeing as all present councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to the passage of the item F3B passes unanimously. Okay, next we have combined presentation for F4 and F6, a resolution approving an allocation increase for coding of exposed potable reclaimed sewer pipe and tanks with Razorback LLC, and approving a deployable flood wall prevention barrier system for a lift station. Joining us is Claude Tankersley. Claude, take it away. Thank you, sir. I'll take you through the presentation, and then we can have some questions and answers. So the first one we're going to talk about is, here we go, the increase in the Razorback LLC allocation. So we have this existing contract with Razorback LLC for coatings that we use in our tanks and our pipes and so forth. And one of the things, as part of our SPAR program, we've heard of talk about SPAR. As part of that program, the A in SPAR stands for agile. So we're trying to figure out ways that we can do things quickly now to help us be more resilient, recognizing that we have larger projects in the pipeline for later on. So one of the things that occurred to our team was that we use coatings on the inside of some of our tanks to waterproof the tank. Can we use some of these coatings on the outside of some of our facilities to make them a little bit more resistance to water until such time we can elevate them? Because we can't elevate them very quickly. So that's what this is for. It's called dry floodproofing. And particularly since we know that with a storm surge type flood, it's a flood that kind of comes and goes quickly. It doesn't stay and linger day after day after day. It rises and then it goes back down. So that's what we're asking for, this allocation increase, to allow us to go ahead and dry floodproof some of our facilities that may be exposed to storm surge. Before such time, we're able to elevate those facilities in the future. So that's the first one here. What we're showing is at the three different plants with a red box around the facilities that we plan to use these coatings for. So at the northeast plant, the southwest plant, and then at the northwest plant, we actually are planning on using it for the inside of the chlorine contact chamber. However, this is mainly because of the northwest plant is highly elevated itself already. So that's for item F4. And then item F6, which is the aqua fence around lift station 85. So lift station 85 is located at the old Albert Whitted wastewater treatment plant. It collects sewage from the area that you see on this map, which is basically the downtown waterfront area, and then pumps that sewage over to the southwest plant. The lift station 85, the ground surface elevation there, is about 6 1⁄2 feet above sea level. Prior to Helene, we had not had a problem with flooding at that plant. But at Helene, we had about a half a foot of water there. And then during Milton, we were projected to get 15 feet. And so we decided that this would be a good place for us to implement using the aqua fence to protect that plant, that lift station, with the intent to try to make sure that we can keep it operating during a flooding event as long as it doesn't overtop the barrier. So we're looking at purchasing a 9-foot-tall aqua fence. And when you add that 9 feet to the 6 1⁄2 feet elevation of the ground surface, it brings us up to 15 1⁄2 feet. And so that would provide us with a good deal of protection. So that's what we are proposing to do. And let's see. What I wanted to show you here on this graphic here shows you what the limits of a 15-foot storm surge would be if we were to receive it. And you'll clearly see how lift station 85 is well within that flooding area. So this may not be the only aqua fence that we bring to council for approval, but it is the first that we were easily able to identify immediately. And we did want to do it quickly because it takes a long time for these to be manufactured. And so we want to be able to get them in before the storm season. So that's the conclusion of my presentation. I'd be happy to discuss this further with you. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Claude, for the presentation. And I love both of these. Very excited. We're all over here cheering as soon as you said the words, and Rob's laughing at us like we're such dorks. But, like, we've lived this, right? And so anything that we can do that's creative and an immediate pivot to making us more resilient on these infrastructure items, we're all for. So I'm very excited that you brought these today. My question kind of is on where you landed at the end of your presentation. Why Lyft Station 85? Just would like to understand that a little bit more. And then you mentioned we might be doing more of these. So what would be the next facilities that we could expect as City Council to be seeing this infrastructure being purchased for? So our top three critical facilities due to storm surge would be the Northeast Plant, the Southwest Plant, and Lyft Station 85. Those are our top three. The advantage of Lyft Station 85 is that it is a relatively small footprint. If you notice in our request, we're purchasing 518 linear feet. So it's not very long. And it already has a concrete pad, a level concrete pad around the Lyft Station, and that's required for the use of this particular product. And at our two wastewater treatment plants, we don't necessarily already have those concrete pads around the equipment there. So we are – actually just this morning we took a tour of the Northeast Plant to look at the work that's currently being done there and the work that we're proposing to do there just to try to see what would make sense. Luckily for us, there are a variety of different what we call deployables, deployable barriers that work in different ways. During the storms, we used a product called Tiger Dam. It's a tube that you can fill with water. So Tiger Dam is one type. The aquafence is another. We're looking at all the different types that are out there to make sure that if we're going to pursue using them, that we use the right product for the right application. Okay. That makes sense. I was just kind of curious because, you know, how do you pick and what makes sense? But the concrete pad definitely makes sense. And as you're talking about it, I'm kind of walking northeast by my – you know, through my head thinking, yeah, how would that work? So, okay, well, I'm very, very favorable of these items. And just thank you and your team, all of you, for all of your adaptability. So thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair Anowitz. Thank you, Chair. So, first of all, Claude, like everyone else, very excited. We all saw the videos of Tampa General Hospital, and we're like, and how can we get that? Yes. We put one around the city. I asked. Some people are thinking all around Shore Acres, like every rare page. But, you know, this is a practical, like, solution for Lyft Station 85, and I'm glad Council Member Gabbard asked why Lyft Station 85. I mean, when you look at the map, a lot of – first of all, besides it's easy, the footprint and everything you said, a lot of the critical facilities are served by that Lyft Station out of our hospitals and everything in downtown. So really important. I'm just curious, and just this is for people who are watching, when you look at this map, can you tell us a little bit, what are those green lines, what are we looking at? When it comes to Lyft Station 85, the red, I assume the red is the outer boundary of what it serves. Yes. The red dashed line is the outer boundaries of that basin that is served by Lyft Station 85. We call that the drainage basin. So everything within that basin drains to Lyft Station 85. The smaller diameter green lines indicate gravity sewer mains that are in the road. So that's – a house that is along one of those lines would hook into that sewer main. That's how their sewage would get to Lyft Station 85. The thick diameter green lines are larger diameter pipes, maybe like 42-inch, 72-inch, 5-feet, 6-foot diameter pipes, very large, what we call trunk mains. And then the orange line represents the force main, the pressurized pipe, that once all the sewage comes to Lyft Station 85, then the pumps there will push that sewage through the orange line down to the southwest plant. Great. That's very helpful. Well, thank you. I'm very excited about it. I move for approval. Second. Okay. Is that for both? Are we doing both at the same time? For both, yes. You can. If I can do both, I'll do both. Yes, you can. Absolutely. Ditto. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you for asking my questions, Councilmember Gabbard. I appreciate that. Just wanted to follow up on those. What is the timeline for identifying those other locations? I'm thinking about like Riviera Bay, Coquina Key, even Broadwater. I'd like to know what the timeline looks like. Will it be before the next hurricane season? These would be used specifically at city-owned facilities. The fences are very powerful, but they're not inexpensive. They're $1,150 per linear foot. It's a very expensive product. And so it would not be something that you would look to put around a neighborhood or around a large area unless you're looking to spend tens of millions of dollars to do so. So right now what we're looking at is how do we protect our wastewater facilities so that hopefully if we get another storm in the future, we won't have to shut them down like we did this past season. Thank you for letting me know what your mindset was there. And then the other question was you talked about like some of the other deployable barriers, including the Tiger Dam. I think it was Palms of Pasadena Hospital, but I think they were the one who used that, and there were some issues. So how do you go about picking and choosing what we're going to pick where, a place where, and which one's going to be chosen over the other? Because I know there were some issues there, and I don't want to see that happen here. Sure, absolutely. So what we do is we have a lot of our experts like Mr. Palms are here, and he's got a whole team of folks. What we do is we meet with the manufacturers. We have them come out to our sites. We talk about their product. We talk to other users of the product and try to figure out what works best where. One of the advantages of the Tiger Dam is that since it's a water-filled tube, it's very flexible. So, therefore, you can put it on ground that's not necessarily level because it will actually settle down into the lower areas, whereas the product that we're looking at here for the aquafence requires that flat concrete surface. It can't have the undulations. Now, the problem that we've heard for Tiger Dams is that if they are not installed correctly, they can roll. But if you install them correctly, you should not have that problem. Another advantage of the Tiger Dam is that when we use them this summer, we don't own them. What we did is we rented them. So the company that we rented them from actually came out to our site, installed them for us so that we could keep working on the things that we do. They installed them for us, and then when the storms were passed, they came out and took them down for us. The aquafence is going to be something that we will own, we will have to store, we will have to put up our cells and take down our cells. And so all of those things are things we take into consideration as to which product we use where. Lots of intricacies. Thank you so much, Claude. I appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you. Claude, I'm glad you touched on the expense of it, but I want to put it in perspective. How much to replace Lyft Station 85? Oh, wow. Tens of millions. Yeah. Yes. I mean, we talked about a Lyft Station for a pretty long period of time in 2024 in the $140 million range. Yes. Or no, excuse me, that was the infrastructure, but tens of millions. And so when you put it in perspective, $618,000 to protect tens of millions of dollars. Correct. You have a city asset. Absolutely. Yeah. I heard you over there. And so that's easier to deploy. And so I just wanted to, that was the only thing I wanted to touch on. I think we all share the excitement of getting this done. But when you look at the cost of protecting it versus the cost of, and it looks like, Brej, did you have something? So when we replaced, when we constructed the Lyft Station back then, taking current cost escalation forward, we're looking at the excess of $26 million. Yeah, I mean, 3% at the overall project. Yep. That's just incredible. So I appreciate you and your team and, you know, the creative thinking. Okay. We have a motion and a second for F4 and F6. Seeing as no further discussion, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your vote. I think I broke my button. You shouldn't be smashing hard. I don't know what happened. That's why he was laughing at me. I broke my button. This one, here. The voting button. The voting button works. Here, I got it. I got it. I broke this one. Council members, please re-enter your vote. Try not to vote. We just wanted everybody to vote twice for this one. I moved somewhere new. Okay. Seeing as all present council members have voted, please hurry up and tally the vote. Motion to approve of F4 and F6 passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Moving on to F6, approving a purchase. Or, no, we just did that. Jeez. See, now you got me all mixed up. Moving into new business, we've got G1, a referral to HLUT. Council member Gabbard, I'll hand it over to you. Switch the pitch. My apologies. All good. I'm actually requesting a referral to housing, land use, and transportation to discuss affordable housing and mixed-use development in the CRT 1 and 2 zoning categories and potential updates to the affordable housing site plan review regulations related to state updates to the Live Local Act. And I so move. Thank you. Council member Gabbard. Yes, sir. I know you talked a little bit about this in a previous meeting. Can you just give me – I'm in support of it, but can you give me a little bit of background just quickly? I can. This goes all the way back to how Live Local changed some of the availability for residential and how that relates to the commercial corridors and things like that. So we just want to have a comprehensive conversation about any potential pivot that maybe we can do for updates. Second portion of Live Local, like the newest update. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for the – I had just forgotten the conversation, so I appreciate that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. See no further discussion. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your vote. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Motion to approve. G1 passes unanimously. Okay. Next is G2, a referral from Council Member – or excuse me, Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. I respectfully request a referral to the Budget Finance and Taxation Committee for a comprehensive update on all hurricane-related expenses at the January 23rd, 2025 BFNT meeting. And I so move. And I put the information in the back. If you did not read, we had this discussion at the committee and there was consensus. But I was told we should probably do. Second. And we put it on the January 23rd. Yeah, right, right. So we're ready to go. Yeah. Seeing as we have a motion and a second, no further discussion. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your vote. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam, Mr. Chair, motion to approve. G2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to G3, a referral from Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. For this new business item, I'm respectfully requesting a referral to the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee to discuss reviewing regulations on development in the coastal high hazard area. And I move approval. Second. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll, I was just curious if you could maybe give us a high level, like, what is the goal of this conversation? Just so we, as council members, because, I mean, we were here when this was passed, coastal high hazard, in 2020, and it was a five-year process to get through that. So I just kind of want to understand what the expectation is of this discussion. Thank you. I'll start by saying what it's not. It's not an attempt to roll back anything. Okay. I think after four years, now that it's been a little over four years since we passed the original regulations, and now we've been through these storms, I figured this might be a good time for us to take a look at that and just make sure that the details within that are where we think that they should be knowing what we know now. Okay. Understood. And it could be that we end up saying everything is fine. We'll just keep it the way it is, and I also know that it's a busy year, and it might be a few months before we get to it, and we could be at that five-year mark of its passage before we even take this up. But I wanted to get it into the hopper for us. Understood. And I would just follow up my question, just kind of food for thought. So I have a new business item I plan on filing soon, not ready to file it quite yet, but some of you may have heard me talk about the shelter mitigation fee that the county needed to pass in order for us to be able to really utilize any of the work that we did on coastal high hazard. There's only really been one development that has even utilized any of the multifamily requirements that we set in place because that shelter mitigation fee does not exist, and that is one of the stipulations. So I am going to be filing a new business item for us to have a conversation about that shelter mitigation fee and a strategy around how we could partner with the county and potentially hopefully creating that eventually. So as the chair of H-O-U-T, I just kind of wanted to give you a heads up, Council Member Floyd. Maybe when I file that, if it's a while before Council Member Driscoll's item comes, maybe we could just have it as a cohesive conversation. So there's a lot to that piece of it that unfortunately we don't control because it is the county, but we need to put our heads around what it looks like to work with the county on getting that done. So I think they should be agended at the same time. Yeah. Sounds like that. Yeah. So that's coming. I'm not ready to file that yet, but that is coming. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. All good? Okay. We have a motion and a second for G3. Seeing as no further discussion, please enter your votes. Seeing as all Council Members are voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to pass the genitum G3 passes unanimously. Okay, and that's it before public hearings at 5-0-1, and so City Council will recess till 5-0-1. Thank you, everybody. Okay, we will call back to order the January 9, 2025 City Council meeting, and we will move on to our public hearings. In J-1, we have Dr. Schuyler here with us, and we'll turn it over to you, Doctor. Thank you so much, Chair, Council. Good evening. So this evening, what we have for you is a resolution to approve a substantial amendment to the City's Fiscal Year 23-24 Annual Action Plan for HUD-funded projects. This is to transfer Community Development Block Grant funding, which is CDBG, in the amount of $39,345.50 from our Fiscal Year 23-24 Undesignated Balance in CDBG to award 81994, which is Powell's Owl's Nest CDBG 23-24 Project. This would authorize the mayor or a designee to submit the amendment to the U.S. Department of Health and Housing and Urban Development and to execute all documents. The history behind this is that you all approved on August 3rd of 2023 a resolution number 23-376 to approve our annual action plan, and in the plan, the Pinellas Affordable Living, or PAL, was awarded $79,898 to replace the roof and handrails of its facility located at 1147-1205, 16th Street North. After replacing the roof, there was $38,535.35 remained. This was not sufficient to replace the handrails, and this is due to the increasing cost of construction materials and labor. Therefore, we need to make an amendment to our plan of Fiscal Year 23-24. It is required in order for us to transfer that funding from the undesignated CDBG funding into the Powell Owl's Nest Project. We are requesting approval for this amendment to transfer the dollars, and a notice was published on December 4th in Tampa Bay Times. Move approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Looks like we have some public comment. Let's go to that. Jack Humberg, please approach either podium. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address counsel. Thank you very much. I am Jack Humberg. I am the chief operating officer for Bowley Centers, which is the parent corporation for Pinellas Affordable Living that owns the Owl's Nest. I'm here to answer any questions you might have. We thank you very much for your support. This project provides permanent supportive housing for 20 individuals who are extremely low-income and mentally ill, and we thank you for your support. Thank you, Jack. Okay. Seeing no further discussion and a motion and a second, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your vote. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to pass the gen item J1. Passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We will move into open forum. Any speakers for open forum? Okay. We will close open forum. Any announcements, council members? Any announcements? Mr. Chair, if I may, on this day, one- Governor Givens, go ahead. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. On this day, 11 years ago, excuse me, the best fraternity in the world, Phi Beta Sigma, was founded on the campus of Howard University. We were founded by three honorable men, A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F. Morse, and Charles I. Brown. Those men were just one generation removed from slavery, and they had the foresight to start a collegiate fraternity that was not part of the exclusive we, but part of the inclusive we, a brotherhood that now spans over 250,000 men. Our city clerk, he's also a brother. Brother Thomas Jett Jackson, he's also a brother. And so many other great men here in Pinellas County who have blazed trails in so many paths. So just wanted to put a shout out there to my brothers. Today is our Founders Day. Thank you. Happy Founders Day. Thank you. Happy Founders Day. Happy Founders Day. Okay, if there's no other announcements, I did want to bring up just a couple of things real quickly, and I know we all want to get out of here, but I didn't want to do this last week, and so I just wanted to bring up a couple of things just for quick discussion. Really, one for discussion and then one I just wanted to share kind of my opinion. I wanted to talk about time limits just quickly. I know we've had this discussion before in years past. My sense of it and looking for feedback from any of my colleagues is that I think I would prefer to stick to a total of seven minutes. If you want to do it all at once, that's up to you. But then if there's somebody in the queue behind you and you've hit seven minutes, I'm going to ask you to pause and go to the person that's in the queue. If there's nobody, I'll probably have some leeway there, but just to be efficient and try to be as fair as possible. It's not always going to be equal, but I want to be as fair as possible. I really think that's how I'd like to proceed, and I'd love to hear any feedback from my colleagues. Everybody good there? Good. Yes. Councilmember Fix-Anders. Okay, so I give my two cents. Just being the most recent council chair, it is going to be dependent on what the topic of discussion is and the moods of the council members, which is the truth. Because when I try to implement limits, I got pushback. Everybody deserves to say or be able to say what it is they want to say, and I am a team player, and I acknowledge our colleagues wanting to take 20 minutes. And so you wanting to clarify that going into it is commendable, but again, today is a good day. But like I said, depending on the day and the mood, because that happened at least three times during my tenure where I wanted to implement time limits, and everyone felt as though. And the topics that we were discussing really were very valuable conversations, which is why I really did not mind having everyone allotted time to say what they needed to say. So, again, depending on the topic and depending on the moods that day. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And just to clarify, I'm not necessarily saying seven minutes will be the only time. I'm just saying if there's somebody behind you, I'm going to hold you to seven minutes and then let others speak. Just wanted to clarify, but I appreciate that, and I know we did that. And, again, I think there'll be leeway on certain items, but wanted to make sure I've clarified. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I agree we could try this. I appreciate that there would be some flexibility, and I think if we're taking up a big item or, you know, at times when we really do need to get it all out there, someone could ask for us to suspend the rule or suspend the guideline for that time, and it would be at the Chair's discretion. So I'm good with that. We absolutely should. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll, for the feedback. I mean, you're asking for feedback, so I would just say that I agree with both of them. You are Chair for a reason. And when the Chair decides that there might be an opportunity for a topic that we might want to, you know, give a little bit more leeway, give a little bit more time, I think it's at your discretion to bring that to us whenever you feel comfortable. Otherwise, I think seven minutes is perfectly reasonable. It is our policy and procedure, and I think for the most part, most of us abide by that. So I don't see any reason why we shouldn't just give you that discretion and respect your ability to be able to navigate us through that. So I'm good with it. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. Vice Chair Hanowitz. I agree with everyone. I mean, the reality is on the majority of things that come before us, that rule is going to play out fine. Like, it's not going to even be an issue. And the times that it came up last year, I mean, we were dealing with, like, a historic gas plant when we had Cal meetings, and obviously there was a lot of discussion and all that. And that's probably the biggest vote in, you know, in our history. So that made sense. But that's not going to happen all the time. Everybody. Knock. That's not going to happen, you know. So I think when, in most of the issues we have, I think that's not going to be a problem. I'm fine with that. Yeah. I appreciate all the feedback. I think my point of bringing it up now was just to get out in front of it, where I didn't want to surprise anybody if we got to that point. I wanted to go to the queue, and somebody got to seven minutes. So really, it's just me trying to be in front of it all. That being said, and I think all of you have seen this from me in the past, and being chair, I probably will push harder for us to come to consensus. You know, I have shared. I'm not a large fan of seven to one votes, six to two votes, and I think we are a lot closer than sometimes we feel, and I am going to try to get us there. I know I will not bat a thousand on that, but I do believe we're strongest together. And if we can come together, and, you know, it sometimes can be a dirty word, and compromise, I want us to do that. I want us to find a way together. That is why I wanted to be on city council and the time period that we are in, and I just wanted to get that out there. So I appreciate all this. Councilmember Hanowitz. I want to say one thing about that, though. I know there were some votes that we had where you were in the minority last year, and I joined you, by the way, and we were in the minority on votes, and those would have been very difficult to change based on if it's in your district or affects you or whatever. So there are times you're going to bat for that, but I've seen where you've been in the same position. Yeah, which is why I said it wouldn't be a thousand. I know. I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah, totally. I absolutely was on the wrong side of a few of those. No, you weren't on the wrong side. No, that's not. You were in the minority, and that's not. I didn't mean I was wrong or you were wrong. I just. Yeah, right, right, right. The scoreboard. The scoreboard wasn't. Right, right. No, you won't have. Councilmember Gabbard. So, Chair, one of the things I love most about you is the fact that you would love to see us gather together and kumbaya around everything that we do, but we are elected to represent eight different points of view, and so I just want to, I'm a realist, and I just want us to understand that there are going to be times that votes are going to fall the way that they fall, and I just, I don't want to set up this expectation that, you know, we're going to be able to do that throughout this year, because we don't know, we didn't know this time last year what was coming before us, right, and so I just want to be very realistic, and I appreciate you so much and your desire to bring us together like that, but I also don't want you to feel frustrated or let down if there are opportunities that that does not happen. My crying makes you guys think I'm more sensitive than I am. You are, you are trying. My expectation is not, I want to try. I know. I understand what you're trying to do. One of this is to try, is, again, being out in front of trying to pull us together. My expectation is for it not to always happen, and I, and I appreciate the feedback, and I will not be frustrated by it. I would be frustrated if I didn't try to do it. That's what I, that's what I would be frustrated. Understood, and I appreciate your efforts, so thank you. Councilmember Fix-Anders. And thank you for that, and again, Councilmember Gabbard hit the nail on the head when it comes to everyone being able to represent eight district, different districts, and I also would hope and pray that we would not extend the conversation on the issue trying to come to a consensus. I think, you know, the votes are going to fall the way that they're going to fall, and the only way my vote would change is if I got information that would cause me to do so. So, you know, I appreciate you, and I agree with the kumbaya moment, but, you know, as chair, you know, you can't have that much input, and you have to kind of sit back and let it fall. But I think we have a good group this year, and I pray this year was not like last year, because last year was a, it was a doozy. Last year was a doozy, but I think we'll be fine, so thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, thank you, and thanks for all the feedback, everybody. I appreciate you all. Okay, last but not least, I'm sorry, there are a bunch of birthdays in January. Yay! Marie Charles, Callie Dambach, David Thompson, and our own vice chair, Lissette Hanowitz. Is Brian, too? They didn't give me Brian. Thank you. And Brian, we got more. Okay, so Marie, Callie, David, Lissette, Brian. Can everybody remember that? No. You're not going to make us come around that, are you? I can't remember all that. See? There's a lack of consensus already. Oh, no. All right, we're going to sing happy birthday to everybody in City Hall. All right. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Marie, Callie, David, Lissette, Brian. And happy birthday to you. Thank you, everybody. Council Member Gabbard. I just wanted to mention, a little birdie put in my ear, that Administrator Gerdes is going to be with us 25 years tomorrow. Wow. So let's congratulate him. Absolutely. Thank you for your service to our city. Thank you. It's been a pleasure and an honor. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Okay. If there's nothing else for the good of the honor, City Council is adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.