Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopely Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Chair, Lissette Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Gibbons Jr., and District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Ritchie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the January 22, 2026 City Council Meeting. Clerk, can I please have a roll call? Curtis. Here. Gabbard. Harding. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Dick Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Gibbons. Here. Floyd. Here. Well, today we're going to have our invocation by the Reverend Kelvin Jackson, the St. Petersburg Fire Rescue Chaplain. If you could please stand and then please remain standing for our Pledge of Allegiance. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Don't get nervous. This is not a Bible. Let me pray. Pray now. Father, we thank you, God, right now for who you are. We thank you for your protection, and we thank you for your patience and your guide. We pray for the City Council and our Mayor. And first of all, Father, I'd like to thank you for the Mayor and this Council of Distinguished Men and Women who you personally selected through the will of your people to lead us into that safe place where a middle-class family man like me can look back and say, thank you, God, for my city. It was a council like this one, Father, that laid the foundation and the groundwork for somebody like me to have a family, three kids in the military, to look back and remember that they spent long nights and toiled and prayed for me and for my family and for my children. And that's what I pray for this council. I won't read the rest of what I have, but I just thank God for each one of you in your places here today. I pray for your families, your children. I pray for you and your safety, and I pray that God give you the vision that he gave the council that was here when I first started, that gave me my footing, that took care of my family, that fed my children, give you the vision that they had to continue to move us forward. That was good here, and you guys are leading us into that good and that safe place. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. 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. Y'all may be seated. Thank you, Reverend Jackson, for that beautiful invocation. Council members, we have an agenda before us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. Clerk, we have a motion and a second. If you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, Clerk, you please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us for approval. Before we entertain that, I just want to thank administration and Amy Foster and her team for getting the CBDGDR. I got all the acronym wrong. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for allowing us to put it on the agenda, late notice. It was late notice, and it's a HUD agreement that was received after the HLUT meeting, so we're very thankful that that was done. So I'll entertain a motion. Move approval. Second. A motion and a second. Clerk, you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, Clerk, you please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbert being absent. Thank you. Clerk, are there any speakers for open forum? Yes, Madam Chair. If so, can you please read the rules? If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. On the individual wishing to speak, may sign the open forum sheet. Only 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 wishing to speak 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 raised hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you 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 decorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. The first two speakers are Brad Falbo and Walt Driggers. Please go to an open podium, state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to address city council. Hello. Brad Falbo, 1856, Almeria, Way South. People across this country are fed up with government at every level because too often we see dishonesty, self-protection, and a lack of accountability. You have the authority to change that here. If you choose not to, then you are not separate from the problem. You are sustaining it. Right now, the public sees a breakdown in basic civic standards, weak checks and balances, limited accountability, reduced transparency, and an erosion of decency, decorum, and values in public service. We just observed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. His legacy is not ceremonial. It is a standard. The diversity represented on this council did not exist decades ago, and it did not happen by accident. People fought, suffered, and died so that leaders would represent the public faithfully. Yet too often the same patterns repeat. Elected officials act untouchable, dismiss constituents, and treat scrutiny as an inconvenience rather than a duty. Council members work for the public. Taxpayers fund this government and pay for your salaries. That comes with an obligation to demonstrate transparently how your time and authority are being used. So why am I receiving communications indicating that Deborah Fick Sanders worked roughly 40 hours over the course of October and November? In my professional role, when I bill clients, I account for my time in 15-minute increments and document what I did by project, by task, and with specificity. Why is it difficult for the public to obtain basic information about the calendars of elected officials? Why is it difficult to determine whether officials are working and what they are working on? This shouldn't come as a surprise. You will be receiving another lawsuit from me. The public records process is not improving. It is deteriorating. For two years, I have raised public records concerns directly with you. This council, the mayor, the city clerk, and certain members of this administration are wasting taxpayer money and public resources to shield public records from public viewing. More importantly, it signals that this body does not respond to constituents until forced. After my first lawsuit, the city changed its approach to fees. I am now being charged for virtually anything that requires more than $20 worth of effort, yet the city's current administrative policy indicates charges should be applied only after a defined time threshold. The public should not be subjected to shifting standards that appear designed to discourage lawful requests. I requested the last three Amazon purchases made by the mayor that were billed to the city. I was invoiced approximately $11. I pointed out that this was below the $20 threshold, yet the records are still being withheld because I refuse to pay. Records related to retention of records are being withheld on the theory that it is a security risk for the public to know how long records are kept. Even the names of files within a city department are being withheld, again, claimed as a security risk. Requests are met with inconsistent fee demands, broad exemption claims, delayed responses, and noncompliance with the law. And now I am being denied a listing of city email addresses on the grounds that it would require extensive resources to generate and then redact. There should be no legitimate basis to redact standard city employee email addresses that exist for the purpose of conducting public business. This is not what democratic governance looks like. Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not adversarial. Compliance with public records law is not a favor you grant. Afternoon. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On a lighter note, my name is Walt Driggers, and my address is 1 Beach Drive, Southeast, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701. And I'm here today on behalf of Friends of Albert Whitted Airport. As I'm sure you all have memorized, and since the beginning of our scholarship program in 2023, we've given away 78 flight scholarships for a total of $425,000. The city of St. Petersburg has been part of that, and we want to thank you so much for that. But I came here to give you an update of where we are, because we're, for our 2026 scholarship program, this year we're going to be awarding eight scholarship, starter scholarships at $1,000 apiece, 12 intermediate ones at $5,000 apiece, and 14 advanced ones at $10,000 apiece, a total of 34 scholarships, the most we've ever done. We were hoping to cut back to 30 to 25, but we went to 34 instead. We can't help ourselves, and it's totaling $208,000, of which the city of St. Petersburg is part of as well. We really seriously thank you for that. This year, the number of applicants increased about 50% because our new scholarship chairman, Scott Eshelman, personally contacted all the high schools in Pinellas County, and of that 34 we're giving away on January 31st, 10 of them are from Pinellas County schools, 4 of them are from students in USF, and 2 of them from St. Pete College. All of them attend, all of them live as residents in St. Petersburg. At this point, we have three certified flight instructors at St. Pete Air, where we're working with for the scholarships. Three of those three started with our first scholarship program working on their private pilot certificate. Now they are making their living as a flight instructor, building their time so they can move forward with their professional aviation career. It's working. You have all been invited to the award ceremony, January 31st, 10 o'clock to noon. We hope you can make it to help us present these awards, these scholarships, to these outstanding, deserving young adults. Thank you so much for everything you're doing for us. Thank you. Next two speakers. Next two speakers are Sean Wilson and Christy Bruner. Please go to an open podium. State your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon. Sean Wilson, president of Blue Sky Communities. We are your home... Can you provide your address, please? Excuse me? The address, the business address. Yep, I was going to stick one little phrase in before the address. Your hometown affordable housing developer with offices at 180 Fountain Parkway North. 180 Fountain Parkway North, tickled to be part of St. Petersburg, everything that you guys do. We work in so many different cities building affordable housing cities and counties, but the city of St. Petersburg is probably one of the best to work with, not only because you have a robust funding program, but because the administration and city council and the line staff all the way down is so in tune with the fact that it's a city priority. And that really comes through all the way down to the plan reviewers and the inspectors and the utility department. So we so much appreciate being a part of that, and we hope that we're making you proud also with the properties that we develop. Blue Sky has developed, I think, six properties in the city of St. Petersburg, and I want to thank those who were able to attend the recent ribbon cutting down in the Skyway Marina District. That's such an important kind of development because we're capturing a couple of acres for affordable housing in an area that's redeveloping that five years from now, you probably wouldn't get any affordable housing down there. And I hear that there's going to be a few more units delivered in that area, too, so that's wonderful. We are part of a team that is looking at the gas plant, and we've got some really great ideas about how to incorporate affordable housing in the whole redevelopment effort. And so we're really excited to be here with the rest of our team and to be bringing all the things that we do, but not only the things that we do in the city of St. Pete, but the best practices that we learn about around the state and around the country about incorporating affordable housing into one of these mega multi-use developments. It can be done. There are some great examples, and I commit to you that we'll make you proud whenever that process comes to fruition, and I thank you very much. And I invite you to take a tour of any one of our properties at any time. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker, Christy Bruner, is going to speak when the agenda item comes up. Okay. The final two speakers are Peter Van Warner and Donald Odom. Please go to an open podium, state your name and address to the record, and you'll have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, honorable city council members. My name is Peter Van Warner, 102nd Avenue North, St. Petersburg 33701. Standing before you today, this feels like a rare civic moment, our city's Hamilton moment, where history is about to be made. For 23 years, Blake Investment Partners has lived and breathed St. Pete, from Whitney Plaza in 2004 to Whitney Village in 2024. Additionally, our firm has completed over 200 projects in the southeast. We aren't just developers and engineers. We're residents, locals who truly love the city and have loved the city before it became cool. We are here today to level set with you. We've seen many ideas presented before that have not been truly planned or vetted in a public discussion. We are dedicated to a listing process, inclusive of both community advisors and outside experts, such as the Urban Land Institute. St. Petersburg is tired. The community is fatigued by decades of developers who have tried and failed on the historic gas plant. We must chart a successful path forward. We appreciate and share the mayor's sense of urgency. We share his dedication to ensure St. Petersburg's future. The unsolicited bid process has focused us to focus on what truly matters. We know that the Welch administration's focus is to respect the original historic gas plant residents, African-American heritage, addressing our affordability crisis, and create jobs and opportunities for all. And my dear friend and partner, Donald Odom, will tell you a bit more about this. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Donald Odom, Jr., 102nd Avenue South, Suite 205N. And following up on what Peter said, we are asking for City Council's help in communicating that the critical issues that Peter discussed, they need to be addressed. And also to ensure that any bidder should not be considered if that bidder does not have a track record of excellent performance and the capacity to perform for the next decade and possibly beyond. If they don't have a pragmatic and well-funded plan that can be executed, and if they don't know all of the different groups in the community intimately, including but not limited to the African-American community, the arts community, the business community, and the LGBTQ plus community. Finally, any bidder needs to pledge to listen and plan first with our community before they execute. We're stepping up with the funding and the heart of St. Pete in our hands, ready to make a real investment in dollars and in passion for the community. Will the Blake team please stand? These are the professionals giving in all they have for the city of St. Pete. They've been working 20-hour days because they believe that this isn't just a Blake offer. This is a St. Petersburg offer. On February 3rd, we will deliver a vision to Mayor Welch and a pledge to evolve a true plan first with the community. That plan then will be executed by people who love this city, backed by transparent financial information, and a track record of excellence. We're ready to stop the divisiveness and start the progress. In closing, history has its eyes on all of us. Let's finally move forward together. Thank you, and we hope to see you again soon. Thank you. Work. Any more speakers? No more speakers. Okay. We close open forum, and now we move to reports. F1. We have Freddie Williams here from the Boys and Girls Club of Tampa Bay to provide us a presentation. I'm not Freddie, but I know you're not. You said Freddie Williams here, though. Good afternoon, City Council Chair, Vice Chair, City Council members. I am so excited that next week on the 31st, I can say I have been here for two years with the city. And one of the first things, or not long after I started, my first meeting with each of you who were on council was to talk about my vision and to share with you that data for impact is very important to me, both qualitative and quantitative. They're both very important. And followed shortly after that, you all, I'm pleased to say, voted on my first presentation to you for an organization that just as recently as today in the Tampa Bay Times could proudly say that 100% of their high school students graduate, 82% of their club members read on grade level, 99% of their club members avoid negative interactions with law enforcement and have had 150 paid internships. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for trusting me. And now I will yield the mic to Freddie Williams for him to continue the story as you prepare to vote for Boys and Girls Today. And for the record, that was Dr. Sharon Brown. Thank you. Do you need my address, too? Not at all. Thank you, Dr. Brown, and good afternoon, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, and esteemed members of St. Petersburg Council. It is an absolute honor to have the opportunity to be able to give a one-year progress report on the investment that you made into the Boys and Girls Club. We've appreciated a long-standing partnership for decades between Boys and Girls Clubs locally and the city of St. Petersburg, and we're pleased to be able to help take this partnership to another level through a very, very near and dear to our hearts, but also to the entire community's heart around workforce readiness and life readiness for our teenagers here in St. Petersburg. Well, who Boys and Girls Clubs are? Oftentimes people know, they've heard the name of what Boys and Girls Clubs are, but they don't know what we do. And when you look at the programs that we do, I'd like to pause and take a moment to discuss a little bit about what we do. Locally, throughout the Tampa Bay region, we serve over 24,000 kids, of which roughly half of those are here in Pinellas County. Over 3,000 kids served every single day. Again, roughly half of those are here in Pinellas County. We're one of the largest youth development organizations, but one thing that we're proud of is that we pride ourselves in being able to work with kids that oftentimes may be a little more difficult to reach. It's something that we don't promote, but we treat kids with love and respect, and we welcome all kids inside of our Boys and Girls Clubs. Over 64 locations, of which three of those are before and after school programs in St. Petersburg. And we also have what are called community impact sites, which are reflected in that 64 location count at local middle schools here in St. Petersburg. And what we have, and we all understand the environment that we're in with the public school systems, but we're proud with the partnership that we have with the Pinellas County Schools, where we have state-approved curriculum, where we're actually providing Boys and Girls Club programs during the school day for every single 7th grader here in our public school system. We have four different primary areas. We have youth safety being the bedrock of everything that we do. You heard some statistics, academic success, we make sure that kids progress to the next grade level, they graduate from high school with a plan for the future. Health and wellness, making sure that they're staying out in trouble with law enforcement, but we're also providing hot meals. In fact, we provide over 600,000 hot meals and snacks to our Boys and Girls Club members here locally after school, and it's all catered meals to make sure that young people have dignity and that they go home with a healthy meal that they're able to perform in school the next day. Character and leadership development, well, we all know that you can have all the smarts in the world, but if you don't have a strong moral compass and understand not only the art and the science behind leadership, that we're serving young people not well by giving them that. We're also proud of a fourth priority outcome area that we were able to localize and really springboard here in St. Petersburg that is now spread nationally. That's what life and workforce readiness is a way for us to measure our mission and go beyond making sure like young kids are graduating from high school, but making sure that we can stay with them to help meet the unique needs of what our community needs, but also meet the unique needs of what the business community needs as well. And in fact, we've been able to help expand the young people that we serve up to 24 years old, because if you're anything like me, whenever you're a high schooler, sometimes you need just a little bit more love and support after you graduate from high school to make sure you're making the right decisions and that you're on track for a bright future. One thing specifically within the four different priority outcome areas of life and workforce readiness is a program that you were an early adopter with and investing with, our Prosperity Pathways program, that really finds a way that we can take the unique needs of what kids are telling us they want jobs and work skills. You hear from the business community that they could grow their business by X if only they had access to talent. Your investment inside Boys and Girls Clubs in this Prosperity Pathway program allows us to help get access to those kids who want and are eager to have jobs and job skills and meet them with the local employers. Thank you, Freddie. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Ryan Becker. I'm the vice president of Life and Workforce Readiness for Boys and Girls Club in our region. I'm proud and honored to be here today to discuss some of the successes and the framework of what our programming is and the impact we're making on the young adults here in our community. If you look at our Prosperity Pathways program and what is that, it's a continuum of learning from typically fourth grade all the way through 24 years old with a specific focus on the 13 and up range here in this area with tangible skills gained over time with certifications layered in there. It is not our job to be able to tell youth in our community what they need to specifically do. It is our job to empower them to make the accurate choice based on what they are interested in for a sustained career path and long-lasting success. Through our Prosperity Pathways program, 100% of the members completing this program requested additional workforce support, which has layered in several phases to the programming that we offer to them. Within phase one, it's Workforce Academy and the fundamentals of soft skills gained. I can go a little bit more in detail here in a second. Phase two is also within our financial literacy world of being able to gain early insights for healthy financial habits while we take on the burden of paying our students to be able to incentivize them, getting them into our programs. We also have a heavy focus within Workforce Academy in technology training and career exploration, which I can also touch on on the next slide, but layered into Microsoft Office certifications, AI fundamentals and coding fundamentals, AI prompting and some others, and then just additional wraparound support and some expanded enrichment workforce offerings. Within the program components, I did mention Workforce Academy. We host this on a platform, an e-learning platform called LevelAll, with tens of thousands of e-learning modules developed by college and institution leads across this country, so developed by educators themselves, implemented by facilitators in the youth development space like us to meet their exact and direct needs. We have structured our own learning journey, which we've called our Workforce Academy, which is 32 hours of soft skills programming being offered four days a week for 45 minutes a day and an eight-week program and rolling cohort-based model for opt-in and continued education as they go through. Some of these elements are resume building, mock interviews, job readiness skills, and financial literacy layered in. Some of our career exploration and additional wraparound support also include career showcases. We're bringing industry professionals into our clubs to talk to the kids directly. I am by no means an expert in any industry that these folks are speaking on, but I'm dangerous enough to put those experts in a room with interested and hungry-to-learn youth that want a career in that pathway and showing them. You cannot be what you do not see, so we are providing them that opportunity on a daily basis. We also provide culinary classes to be able to provide serve-safe certifications if wanted and desired by our youth, getting hands-on experience with entry-level skills in the culinary space. We have our finance program that's also hosted in collaboration with Bank of America, including paid summer internships with students earning $23 an hour to work inside Bank of America financial institutions over an eight-week program in the summer. Constructions and the skills trades with folks like Habitat for Humanity, West Pasco County, and Pinellas County for paid internships over the summer, gaining hands-on experience on the job with industry professionals to be able to see their future moving forward. I mentioned IT with folks like CompTIA designing Tech Plus certifications for entry-level into remote IT help desk work, where we're removing barriers of transportation and providing tangible work experience and certifications for their employment immediately upon certification gain. We also have paid internships with folks in the healthcare space, like BayCare Healthcare Systems, where our students are on-site at hospitals in our community with BayCare for 17-week cohorts, three days a week, four hours a day, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. We work in a supplemental fashion with the school district and college and career centers here in Pinellas County to facilitate programs that work best for the youth. Not telling them, you need to confine to this, but how can we deliver a model that is going to set up the best support and success for you long-term. We also have support within the sports and entertainment industry, including at our Royal Theater Club with iHeart Media and podcasting and media support, setting up programs where they can dive deep into the fundamentals of that industry as well. Again, I thank you for your time and I appreciate everything you do for us. So Dr. Brown also talked about being able to demonstrate impact and outcome. That's something that we take very proud, that we're very proud of, and we take very seriously. When you look at the young people that have gone through our program, we have a very high completion rate. In fact, we have an independent study as well that was able to quantify the type of investment that you're making into a Boys and Girls Club. So the $250,000 that was provided to Boys and Girls Club specifically for this program generated over $2.5 million to the St. Petersburg community in current and future savings, both in societal and economic impact here locally. Young people also are able, through this investment, are able to provide the technology, making sure that we can remove the technology barriers. What is kind of the carrot and the secret sauce behind this is we're able to provide stipends for young people as well. So that incentivizes them to continue in the program and incentivizes good behavior in making sure that they have the results that are needed. And also through our partnership, we have the state of Florida. We're also able to provide scholarships at a two-to-one match, both for college and universities, but also for trade schools as well, that we're able to leverage through this partnership. Through this partnership, what you're able to do is take the national scale and scope that we have through Boys and Girls Clubs of America and bring it down to the local community to make sure that we can leverage that so we can create the greatest opportunities for young people here in St. Pete. I'm reminded, I'll leave you with a quote or a story. I was talking to my wife a little bit this morning about this presentation. She knows how excited I am about this program. I'm a Boys and Girls Club alumni. The Boys and Girls Club saved my life as a young person, gave me the pathway of what I needed to be and be a contributing member of society. And we're talking about this linkage that she has. My wife is a St. Petersburg native and went through the public schools here in St. Pete. And we're talking about the exploration that she had through Enterprise Village as a young person growing up. Her job was to be the arts director going through. She's now a local attorney and has her business that's headquartered here in St. Pete. But while it was able to not, she's not an arts director, she developed an appreciation and exposure to the arts, is able to give her skills and abilities where she joined the board of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. So bringing it all full circle and you're able to provide impact and opportunities and exposure for hundreds of young people here in the community. So thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And Freddie, I think it was maybe a year ago or so that you took over after the merger. I wanted you to provide everyone some background or maybe a reminder of how the Boys and Girls Clubs has changed and grown just in recent times. Yeah. So thank you for that. So we went through a merger in 2024. Actually, the process started in 2023 where there's a separate chapter, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay, which provided services for Pasco and Hillsborough County. And we had the Boys and Girls Club of Suncoast that provided services for Pinellas County. I was the CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Pinellas County for nine years prior to bringing both organizations together. And we said, you know, there's been a lot of consternation around regionalization and finding ways that you can bring organizations together. We said, let's turn the merger backwards and do everything backwards. First, we'll date. We went through a managed service agreement where I served as a CEO of both organizations, seeing if whether or not this was right, and we were able to really look underneath the hood. And then we've slowly consolidated other back end functions, whether it be HR or finance and such and forth. And then after about a year into it, we said we should have done this a long time ago. And the reason why is because as we went into contemplating a merger, we said that this is going to be an impact-generating exercise rather than an expense-generating exercise. And, in fact, we redeployed every single savings of duplicated services by coming together right back to the Boys and Girls Club members, and every single penny went back to the members. In fact, it reflected in 118% year-over-year growth pre-merger. So we have a lot of other nonprofits that are interested in learning of what we're doing, but it allows us to have more of your resources that go directly to mission instead of overhead. Thank you, and that speaks not only to the strength of the organization, but the strength of your leadership. And I just have a great deal of admiration for you and all that you have done to lead through that time and on to where we're at now, which is a time of great success for the organization. So thank you and kudos to you for that. And this is one of the largest ones in the country now, isn't it? In fact, we are the third largest Boys and Girls Club chapter in the country. So we're behind Milwaukee and Phoenix, but it's not about size. It's not about growth. It's about impact. And we'll put our impact numbers against any youth-serving organization in America. And thank you for the acknowledgement. But it's really because of the team that we have and a very dedicated board of directors that makes me look a whole heck of a lot better than I really am. That's great. It is true. You can have great leadership, but the team that you put around you really makes a difference as well. So congratulations on that. You know, I recall that last time you guys were here with the merger and with the city funding, you know, now this means that it's not just St. Petersburg. It goes, you know, far beyond that. And I had not so much a concern, but just wanted to make sure that the dollars that are being provided by the city of St. Petersburg are going to be specifically allocated to help the children of St. Petersburg. In the presentation, you showed the outcomes, which is always so important. And it's very impressive. And that talked specifically about the St. Petersburg students. And we have in this agreement three locations in St. Petersburg that will be served by the funding if we were to approve that today. Um, have you, so a couple of things come to mind and those three locations, do you verify that the children who are there, um, are St. Petersburg residents? Because you can assume that, but you don't know it for sure. Is there a validation process or I'm sure you get the addresses when they sign up and you know that they're, they all live in St. Petersburg and you don't have someone who happens to be from Gulfport or Pinellas Park? So I see nods, but I just want to hear. Both of us will answer. So that was, yes, they are Tampa Bay. So that was definitely a concern before entering the agreement and wanting to ensure that every dollar went to St. Petersburg. Right. And so I don't know if I gave you all more work to do, but one of the things that has to happen when they turn in their quarterly reports is they have to show that they're identifying that the money is going toward youth. That's on our end because I needed to have that accountability piece. But on their end, I'll let them answer your question. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, uh, one of the beauties of working with a federal organization that has local autonomy here is some of the systems that we have. So we have one of the largest youth serving data systems nationally that's benchmarked against the CDC, which is one data point nationally that rolls up to our national organization. We also have data sharing agreements with the state of Florida, the Department of Juvenile Justice, so it validates kids and their behavior and connection to law enforcement. They're able to cross-reference addresses in what schools they attend. And we also, because of the partnership with the Juvenile Welfare Board and the school system, we have additional data sharing agreements, it allows us to have multiple, uh, checks and balances to ensure that the intended resources are getting directly to the intended young people that they're supposed to receive. Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Thank you. It's good to know that it's because it wasn't specifically spelled out in the agreement. I wanted to have some, uh, confidence that there's somewhere in there that you are actually verifying that. And it sounds like you are in more ways than one. So, um, it allows me to sleep a little better at night. Oh, yeah. So, I'm, I'm good with that. I did want to mention, when you talked about the, um, the career exploration, um, this morning we had a fantastic discussion in our Economic and Workforce Development Committee meeting about our, um, Maritime and Defense Technology Hub, which is located out on the Port of St. Petersburg, and they bring, they have youth groups that come and visit and do career exploration days there all the time. And then also throughout the Innovation District. Um, I wanted to make sure that that was on your radar, um, because we, uh, just learned a whole lot about how our, um, marine science and marine-related industries are really growing and thriving here. So, you mentioned what the, what industry needs are, are, are here today and will be here tomorrow. That is part of that. And so, as you're looking at, um, ideas for future collaborations or opportunities for exposure and exploration for the students, I would strongly encourage, um, that you chat with Allison Barlow, the head of the Innovation District, about the hub and, um, other areas. I was happy to see the hospitals included there, and, um, I see some, some really cool extra, um, extra opportunities that you might want to explore. Thank you. We will definitely explore that. Thank you. All right. That's all I have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gurdiv. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you for the presentation. Always good to hear from the Boys and Girls Club. Um, having visited, uh, a few sites, just the amazing work that's being done all the time, uh, and very happy to see a few in, in District 1. But quickly, I just, uh, I didn't have a whole lot of interaction with Boys and Girls Club growing up, but I had some friends go through Boys and Girls Club, and then I had a lot of interaction, because I, my first job after coaching college baseball was teaching at St. Peter Claver, and they have a location right across the street, and almost every kid from the school went to the after school. Like, it was crazy how many kids we had to walk across the school. And I remember, um, helping coach and just seeing the joy on their face at that location. It just, I, it just showed me, I was like, okay, that they're doing, they're doing some cool things over there, and now you get, get to see it as an adult with kids, and you're just, it's awesome. That's my long way of saying it's awesome, and thank you. And, and just, I'm so happy we get to participate that in, in that a little bit. And, uh, I love what you're doing from a, from a readiness standpoint, your partners, you just, you're, you're just hitting on all cylinders, and just wanted to say a big thank you, and, um, move approval. Second. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good to see you, Freddie. Thank you for being here, and thank you all for your very in-depth presentation. Uh, learned a lot, more than I knew. Uh, I was very similar to Council Member Gerdes. I never went through the Boys and Girls Club. Um, but I have always, in adulthood, some sort of a way or another, gravitated to the Royal Theater. So, I don't know what it is, um, about that place, but it's just something about it. Um, I, I love the cultural and performing arts aspect. You know, it was so many young people who I knew who got their start in musical and video productions right there. Um, I taught a couple of kids how to play instruments, the piano, I taught them piano lessons right there. Um, so, again, you are making an impact in a community that needs it the most. You know, I think about the three locations that you have within St. Pete, and then I think about the Burlington Avenue and over in Jamestown, and, and again, these are neighborhoods where you don't have to travel far to find pathways to opportunities. It's right in your backyard. And it made me think about something I didn't see in the presentation, but I wanted to know, and I'm sure you're already on it, Freddie, but St. Petersburg College being right across the street from the Royal Theater. What partnerships have we established there? Ron, do you want to speak to that? Um, I would love to have a Boys and Girls Club that's located on the college campus. So we've kind of pitched that idea, and we hope that we can continue to flesh that out, but especially now that we have the opportunity to serve young adults up to 24 years old, that we can now have our Boys and Girls Club Prosperity Pathways staff members that have great socialization already with the Boys and Girls Club members that can maybe provide that additional support as young people matriculate through St. Pete College, and we can just be the extra family that they need and can help them make sure they're choosing the right classes, and they're also consistent with the careers and experiences that we helped expose them to whenever they were young people. Great idea. I hope Dr. Williams is in support. If not, we need to put some pressure on her. Matt can help me with that. But I like that. Um, I'm thinking about, you talked about expanding these pathways. They have high-demand industry-leading certifications that they're offering right there on campus at the Midtown campus. So I'm trying to figure out how can we get your students that are there at the Royal Theater across the street, so that way they can tap into these soft-skilled training opportunities early on. And to Councilmember Driscoll's point, you know, again, exposing them also to the hub, so that way they can see that there are careers that are within reach, that are right here in St. Pete. So, again, I'm grateful for the work that you're doing, and I'm happy to make sure that we can continue this work. So thank you so much, Freddie. Thank you. We certainly appreciate that, and that's a great idea to be able to. It's interesting, you know, this whole concept and program has just absolutely exploded, and it just goes to show the need that was needed in the community. It's amazing to think in one year the progress that's been made, but what is extremely exciting is to see what opportunities lie ahead as we come together as a community on behalf of young people in the community. So thank you so much for those recommendations. Thank you. I share Floyd. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I just put myself on here to briefly say, unlike my colleagues, I did go to the Boys and Girls Club as a kid. But do you? Try to show us up. And it was a really pleasant experience, and I made a lot of friends. It was just for a summer when I, for some reason, I wasn't doing sports. But I really appreciate the work that y'all are doing in the community and just wanted to thank you for the presentation and say congratulations on the merger. I really look forward to the world of possibilities that it opens up for you. I already see a little bit of that going on now, so I'm really eager to see it to continue. And look forward to hearing more, getting report backs on how everything goes as time goes on. Absolutely. Thank you. Well, thank you for a great project proposal. You pretty much checked all the boxes. I know that you also get funded by JWB. Right? And I will tell you, I know there's other funding sources that you have throughout the community, but seeing that you also have other organizations of that size that also support you kind of says something about the work that you do. And so I do want to say it was mentioned about the merger, and when you were quoted or somebody was quoted when the merger happened, there were three core commitments that you all made. It was mission above ego, transparency over perfection, and culture before structure. And I think those are great commitments, and I'm glad that you're keeping to those commitments. So we have a motion and a second. Clerk, you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the votes. Madam Chair, motion to approve of Janine F1 passes unanimously with Council Member Guybert being absent. Thank you. Okay, we move on to council committee reports, and the first one is for the PSI committee, and that is mine. Respectfully requesting city council approval to remove the following items from PSI's referral list. A comprehensive report on the city's procedures for complying with public records requests, since we just covered that. An update on the city's wastewater collection facilities and the capital projects identified, funded and not funded, to address the natural hazards associated with the three facilities, and we covered that. That was also another item of mine. And then a discussion regarding construction crane safety, which was Council Member Driscoll's item, which resulted in some state action. Move approval. Second. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you, and it's unfortunate that I was unable to attend the meeting that day. I wanted to make a clarification on the item that was voted to be removed that I had brought forward that was on the referral list. That item actually had two parts. One has been resolved as much as we can because of the state legislation, but the other part of that was a discussion on the need for improvements to communication with residents regarding their proximity to dangerous cranes and how we go about that notification process. We had some really good discussion during that time. A couple of ideas came up. Staff seemed receptive, and they were supposed to come back to us with what that plan was for, you know, what their new procedure was going to be, what the improved procedure was going to be. I don't recall that that has happened, and that is why I had left it on there myself and never said, hey, we should go ahead and take this off because it's done now. But I would very much like to keep this on the referral list because we never got an answer to that, and I know I'm not the only city council member who has cranes in their district, but I got a bunch of them. And I would very much like to have that answer and be able to tell the residents of my district, at least, that there is more that we are going to do in the future. Okay. And I don't know, Rob, if you have an update or you have any information regarding what Councilmember Driscoll is. Thank you, Chair. I don't have a detailed update. We have made some progress, I believe, on mapping and notification. We'd be happy if you want to keep it on the referral list. We can come back and do an update. And I don't have a problem keeping it on the referral list either. You weren't there that meeting, and we remembered, like, it was dealt with at the state level. I think that's what the committee was thinking about. So with that being said, if there's an amendment to the motion, we can remove that item and keep it. If I may. Yes. Yes, I would be quite satisfied with that. It's just a simple discussion. I think it's important that we all know what those new procedures are going to be. But I also want to note, we've got another item I've got to talk about, too. I just want to ask everyone very respectfully that I think we should all be very careful about referral lists when there's a city council member whose item is on the list, removing it without having input from them. I was completely unable to be at the city council meetings last week. And it's understood, and that's why we're having this discussion here, and I appreciate it. Yes. But just for future and in general, I just wanted to say, hey, you know, I was very much unable to be here. And I watched the meetings later once they were posted, and I was quite surprised to see that with my absence, I had not one but two referral items that were removed without anyone waiting for my input. And so I would love for us to just be a little bit more mindful of that in the future when we're going through referral lists. Sure. Thank you. So who made a motion? Councilor McSanders. McSanders. Would you amend it to remove the first two parts and not the discussion on the green safety? Okay, so read it as worded that I'm approving. Were you? I mean, I'm willing to amend my motion, but I guess we need to clarify what the motion is. The motion is going to be to remove the first two items listed, but not the discussion on green safety. Gotcha. Okay. I move to approve that. Second. We have a motion and a second. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, and certainly, Councilmember Driscoll, I meant no disrespect. Both of them were mine. I think I brought up both, and solely because I thought the conversation was over with. And so there was no disrespect intent whatsoever. I want to make that very, very clear. It was efficiency only and thought the conversation was over, and only made the motion knowing we still had to discuss it here. So I just wanted to be very clear. Yeah. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, you'll please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally, announce the votes. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda of H-1 as amended, passes unanimously, with Councilmember Gabbert being absent. Okay. We move on to H-2. Respectfully requesting City Council approval to remove the following items from the BF&T referral list, a comprehensive update of all hurricane-related expenses, and a discussion regarding potential child care benefit for City of St. Petersburg employees. And I wouldn't make a motion, but I'll wait for Councilmember Driscoll. Councilmember Driscoll. Chair Hanna, do we have a card? Oh, yes. Christy Bruner, please go to an open podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon, Chair and Councilmembers. My name is Christy Bruner, 866 40th Avenue North. I'm here on my personal behalf today, and as well as the leader of a coalition of working moms across Tampa Bay. Several months ago, Councilmember Driscoll met with a group of our members to discuss her initial proposal for City of St. Petersburg Child Care Benefits for Employees. We deeply appreciated that conversation, and we were grateful for the presentation at the May BF&T Committee. I'm here to ask you to consider not removing the agenda item from the referral list and to please continue the discussion. While this proposal will directly affect City staff, we see it as a much more than internal HR benefit. This is an opportunity for St. Petersburg to set the standard for employers across our region to signal that child care is an economic and societal issue, not a personal problem for families to solve alone. The data shared with Council underscores that urgency. The City currently insures roughly 270 children under the age of 3 and 380 children under the age of 5. Even a modest subsidy covering just one-third of eligible children at $500 per month would exceed $500,000 annually. That speaks to the scale of the challenge families face every day. At the same time, we heard about this initiative, cost-effective approaches like Bright Horizons, backup care, which could serve nearly 4,000 families for about $62,000 annually, while reducing absenteeism and lost productivity. This is a smart business decision as much as it is a family-friendly policy. We also believe that the City has an opportunity to lead in how benefits are delivered. I've been in conversations with a company called MRSA, a unified platform that connects family with government benefits, from child care to housing to food assistance, with automation, security, and scale. MRSA could help streamline access for City employees, reduce administrative burden, and ensure equitable uptake of benefits. This is exactly the kind of public-private innovation St. Petersburg is known for. We strongly support the next steps discussed by Council. That was included in that meeting, surveying employees, engaging labor unions, assessing provider availability, and exploring local partnerships. And we appreciate the recognition that access varies by district, and expanding local providers should be part of the conversation. Child care is infrastructure. It is workforce development. It is gender equity. And it is economic development. By continuing this discussion, St. Petersburg can model what it means to be a family-friendly employer and a family-friendly city, setting a precedence for private sector and strengthening the entire regional workforce. Thank you for your leadership, and we appreciate you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. As I mentioned before, unfortunately, I was unable to be at the meeting. I, when we last discussed this in committee, it was decided that the administration would kind of take it from there, work on something, and they were supposed to bring back an update and, you know, maybe some potential ideas for us to consider in January. I have had January written next to child care on my whiteboard since that day, and so I know that we were supposed to bring this back. If we were going to just send it out into Never Never Land, I would have argued much harder that day to keep going and to keep it in our hands. In the meeting, it was brought up that it was under the threshold for city council approval, but that has not stopped us from having discussions on many other things, including the grocery co-op funding that was requested not too long ago. So that shouldn't stop us. That threshold doesn't mean that anything under $100,000 we can't ask for. However, I also was hoping that Chris and the administration and the rest of the team would be working on some multiple options because as we, because the general new business item was to talk about a child care benefit. What Chris and I brought forward for the committee meeting was, for the committee consideration was one idea. We could go bigger. Maybe Chris was working on something that would go bigger. I know that one of our local nonprofit child care champions in this city is interested in learning how they might be a partner with us. There's some place we can go with this, and so I respectfully request that we leave it on the referral list and that we have the update from staff sooner than later because I've still got January on my whiteboard. Thank you. Thank you. Well, this gives administration a good opportunity to kind of give an update in terms of what's happened with the item in HR. If you have any, Rob, I know I'm putting you on the spot. I'm going to have to check with Mr. Green and Mr. Gwella. I know we did do an employee survey. You know, again, we're happy to keep it on the referral list and come back and discuss it. Okay. So, Council Member Curtis, I think you were going to make a motion. You were going to wait until the discussion. I'll move our approval to move the comprehensive update on hurricane-related expenses. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, you please open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda of H2 passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbard being absent. We move to H3. Great, thank you, Chair. I have ended up with three items in a row here, so I'll start with this one. This is an action item from the January 15, 2026 Housing and Use and Transportation Committee. I'm going to be requesting approval of a resolution regarding housing for households with income at or below 80% of the area median income, establishing that the creation of such housing is a priority of City Council when subsidizing affordable housing that is not publicly owned. Requesting the City Administration to allocate City resources in accordance with that priority, stating that requests from City Administration for City funding that deviate from that priority should explain the city for doing so and providing an effective date. I'll move approval and just say that I'm grateful to everyone who was in HLUT the other day in administration. We had a couple of resolutions. We settled on one that we felt comfortable with, and so I'm grateful for everyone for a thoughtful dialogue and continuing. So I've already moved approval. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Second you by share. Motion to second. Council Member Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize I was not able to be at HLUT, but just wanted to bring this up because I think there's an important distinction. The majority of the conversation was around rentals, and there is a large home ownership project coming to District 1 that will have a blend. And the only way, and I'm supportive of this, but I just want to make it, because we don't get to talk very often, that the only way that project happens is if the blend, even though it will not have more, the 80s than 120s. But it's home ownership. So I'm willing to support this because the conversation was around rental, and I believe that. We've had this discussion. I've met with all of the groups I think most of us have. But just because it's on the horizon, it's coming soon, I don't want that to get lost because home ownership is different from a funding perspective to get those units done compared to rentals. And so I'm all in on this, but as we get to that, I don't want this to get lumped into that because this is different. And so I just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you, Madam Chair. Bye, Chair. Thank you. Just quickly, I'll say, yeah, that was contemplated when this was written. I saw the conversation, and thank you for all the conversation. I appreciate it. Different funding mechanism, yeah. And we did still leave language in there so that administration could bring us whatever they'd like in the future as well. Thank you. Thank you for that. No, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, Clerk, please tally and now also vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda H3 passes unanimously. H4, vice chair. All right. I will move on to H4 here. We have a few action items. They are appointments to the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. So, the first is a resolution concerning the mayor's appointment of Christina Luciana to the Office of Commissioner of the Housing Authority of the City of St. Petersburg to complete the unexpired term of Derek Keyes ending April 3rd, 2027. This is a new appointment. We heard from the member. It was a nice conversation, and I'll move approval. It's up to you, vice chair, but you can do them all together. I was going to suggest that. Oh, okay. All right. We did not do that in the committee, and so I was – I just assumed it was the same. So, yes, I will continue on then. The next two are reappointments. So, the first one is a resolution concerning the mayor's reappointment of James Dates to the Office of Commissioner of Housing Authority of the City of St. Petersburg for a new four-year term. And the final one is a resolution concerning the mayor's reappointment of Terry Lipsy Scott to the Office of Commissioner of the Housing Authority of the City of St. Petersburg for a third term. And I will move approval of all three. Second. Thank you, Janine. We have a motion and a second for H-4A, B, and C. Clerk, you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tell you and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve a genitems H-4A, B, and C. Passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbert being absent. Thank you. We move on to H-5. Vice Chair Floyd. Last but not least, this is another action item from the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee. I'm respectfully requesting City Council approval to remove the following item from the referral list, a discussion regarding the prohibition of street murals and potential alternatives for public art and placemaking opportunities. And if anyone in the public is interested, this was done because we did have this discussion already. So I'll leave it there and I'll hear from my colleagues before I move approval. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Just a quick question. And I did not go back and look to see how that other discussion ended. But weren't they supposed to come back and tell us what they were going to do? I don't recall. And this was an item referred by Council Member Gabbert. Right. And Council Member Gabbert, I believe, made the motion. So she was okay. As well. She was the one who initiated this. And actually, oh, excuse me. Now I do, I'm recalling in real time. It was moved, I believe, is the discussion that we had in HLUT about it being a discussion, not in HLUT anymore, but in a committee of the whole for the future. Okay, yeah. Okay. So it's moved. That's the reason we took it off from here because we felt that if there was any discussion in the future, it would be in a cow. Oh, okay. Okay. Great. And I do look forward to that because it's been a few months now since we've had that conversation. It's clear that some of us feel very passionately about this. And, you know, for all of the talk and all of the determination, so far we've got bike racks. I was looking for more. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation, and I hope it happens sooner than later. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Member. We'll continue to work on it, and we're having multiple discussions with the City Attorney's Office on what is possible, and we look forward to updating you. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Do we have a motion and a second? Second. Motion and a second. Clerk, you'll please open the machine for voting. Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve a J-9 H-5. Passes unanimously with Council Member Garrett being absent. Thank you. Well, it looks like we are done with our agenda, and the next item is public hearings, which would start at 5-0-1. So at this point, we are in recess. Thank you, everyone. Calling the meeting back to order. First up, we have public hearings, J-1 and J-2. We have Joe Waugh here, and we can take these items both together. Move approval, J-1 and J-2. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, you'll please open the machine. For voting, council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve a unanimous J-1 and J-2. Passed unanimously with Council Member Driscoll Gabbard being absent. Thank you, and thank you, Joe, for joining us. You're here. See you, Joe. Next up, we have J-3. Clerk, can you please read the ordinance? Proposed ordinance number 1177-V, an ordinance approving a vacation of a 10-foot-wide dead-end alley abutting lots 1, 3 and 4, Chadwick's re-subdivision, generally located within the 700 block of Burlington Avenue North, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date. And we have no speakers for this item. Move for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, you'll please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve a unanimous J-3. Passes unanimously with Council Member Fick Sanders and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up, we have J-4. Clerk, can you please read the ordinance? Opposed ordinance number 630-H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending City Code Chapter 16, Land Development Regulations, to create a new subsection 16.50.055, Certified Recovery Residents, creating a definition and providing new specific development standards for certified recovery residents, amending Section 16.10.020.1, Parking and Zoning Matrix, to add certified recovery residents and changing the permitting zoning categories for community residential homes, amending Section 16.70.040.1.8, related to reasonable accommodation requests, providing for severability and providing an effective date. And we have no speakers for this item. I have approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. Then we want to see the presentation. We got it last week. That's why I have. Yeah. Okay. Clerk, you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve a J-4. Passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbard being absent. Thank you, Derek. Okay. Now we move on to open forum. Clerk, do we have speakers? We have two speakers, Madam Chair. If you can please read the rules. Okay. You read them early. Oh, he read the rules already. He read the rules earlier, so he doesn't have to. Yep. That's fine. You don't have to read the rules if you read it. Okay. William Kilgore and Melissa Gilbert, please go to an open podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Hey, everybody. William Kilgore with the St. Pete Tenants Union. Reside 2550 28th Avenue North. So, hello. Here today to talk about the Morgan. We have some tenants. We're going to speak at open forum. It's always tricky with the ones at the end here because we don't know how long. Everything that's going to last may have some folks out front later on if you want to come stop by and talk to us out here. You know, so we're talking about we've been meeting with these tenants, you know, because of the issue with the water shutoffs at the building and this landlord Lurin real estate holdings. Terrible landlord. And right now it's getting the foreclosures going through. They've actually had a default judgment because that they didn't even respond to the court case. You know, so it's moving along quick. It's going to be probably going to auction. And the tenants, tenants have talked about wanting to see the city purchase that building, put it under city control, not allowing another corporate landlord to come along. You know, they're all the same. I mean, Lurin's an egregious example. But the corporate, you know, these corporate landlords, they're all the same. They just drive these properties into the ground. Think of it like infrastructure. Imagine if our seawalls, our roads, our sewer systems, all of that was all divided up between a handful of like rich companies. We would have inconsistent infrastructure throughout the city. It wouldn't make sense. We'd have some neighborhoods would have great infrastructure. We'd have probably working class neighborhoods would have really crappy, unusable infrastructure. It's the same thing with housing. Why don't we look at housing like that? You know, this is, these buildings like the Morgans, about half a century old, you know, and it's not the only one down there. The Osprey Point, 500 units, Lake Point, Vista, whatever. I can't remember the names off the top of my head. Lots of these older buildings. And they're getting driven into the ground by these corporate landlords. And this is going to be causing displacement, you know, over the next 10 years, next 20 years, you know, probably won't even take that long. You know, there's a large number of working people who live in these areas. And I think the city has a responsibility to step in. You know, that's what we have a public sector for when the failures of the private sector are rearing their ugly head. And that's exactly what we have. In general, this, you know, things, the political climate, things are, seem like they're going down the tube. I don't want to be like, you know, the sky is falling. But we need to see the writing on the wall. I mean, things are not going back. There's a sledgehammer being taken to federal funding. And I think the municipalities are really going to have a responsibility to step in and fill that void, you know, by taking this housing into public ownership. At the very least, we need to be doing more to assist these tenants. I want to thank the city staff has been doing a great job with the very limited resources they have and everything like that. But, yeah, thank you very much. Well, good evening. My name is Melissa Gilbert, not a public speaker, so I apologize. I've resided here for over 37 years, have always considered St. Pete sort of like Tampa's little secret, a little town that had a lot of character to it. And with a splash of metro when we first started to spread out and then thought we were going to be a green city, but apparently that's been sidelined, correct? Are we planning on being a green city in any manner? Ma'am, you're speaking to us. We can't respond. Okay. So, anyway, this wasn't on my schedule today. I had plenty of other things to do. A couple weeks back, heard about the Hollander, where they're taking down all those buildings and back, and apparently that was affordable housing. Right around the time of COVID, there were the apartments that were across from Mirror Lake. My understanding is those people had about a month to make arrangements to get out. It took over two years before they even bulldozed the place, and now it's sitting there empty with a little fence around it. And so nobody could think outside the box to maybe make some kind of compromise where you're moving your service industry people out, people that help this city function, and even build character, such as when a high school student graduates or a college student graduates, they can get an apartment with their buddies, they can put down roots, and they can grow here, and that's not happening. I see all these high-rises everywhere. And to me, you can go to Miami and see that. You know, St. Pete was like this quirky little nice town where people knew one another and got along, and then all of a sudden we had this influx of people, especially after COVID, and I kind of feel that we're running our character. So kind of keep that in mind when you're moving forward, because I used to really like St. Pete, and I think it's sad. Those are my thoughts, and have a good day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Of course, Shakers. The next one is in Zoom. Jason asks, once you enter to the meeting space, unmute yourself, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you. Jason Scott, 4636 Redfish Lane. This month, Duke Energy is charging customers the highest rates in Florida history. If you look at other investor-owned utilities like FPL and especially publicly-owned utilities, the rates are nowhere close. So I need all of you to reach out to our public utilities department or the administration and find out why the RFP, which was approved way back in August, why it's not released yet. There is no reason an RFP should take this long, and everyone knows it. Additionally, I want to speak in support of the tenants at the Morrigan. The city cannot allow the building to end up in the hands of another slumlord. Please listen to the tenants and do right by them. Thank you. Thank you. Our final speaker is Patrick Graney. Please go to an open podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you. My name is Patrick Graney. I live at 7901 36th Avenue North. I am also here in regards to the Morrigan. I know that the city doesn't have much to do with that, but out-of-state landlords are first the problem because they don't have to pay attention to the citizens of this city, which we do. So the city should take over the Morrigan. The city needs to take care of its residents. The out-of-state landlords do not care about us. They care about profits. You already know that the rents in this city are insane. Nobody can afford it. I have co-workers. I have kids. Nobody can afford to move out. Everyone has to double up. Everyone has to share. And then when we have people that actually have places to live, it's not great. They can't even get water sometimes. This is insane. The city council, I am requesting that you please take over the Morrigan and help out any of these other properties where there are slumlords just basically milking people for their hard-earned dollars, and then the city just looks at them and goes, Oh, sorry, I guess you've got to live outside now. That's nuts. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Any more speakers? No more speakers, Madam Chair. Okay. Open forum's closed. We move to announcements. Any announcements? Council Member Givens. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to invite my fellow council members out this weekend to Lincoln Cemetery. We'll be hosting a cleanup. We'll be having a couple of golf court elected officials out there, so I'd love to see some St. Pete folks out there if you'd like to join us. So that'll be this Saturday from 8 to 1130 at Lincoln Cemetery on 58th Street and 6th Ave. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gerdes. Happy birthday, Madam Chair. Thank you. It was Chair's birthday on Tuesday. Yeah. So let's sing birthday. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah. Did I? That's the only one I have. Brian's a Saturday. Well, I apologize in advance. Anybody else before I get married? I found out that Michael Flanagan's birthday was the day of my birthday. We share a birthday. Yeah. All right. So Michael, Chair, and Brian. All right. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you, buddy. Happy birthday to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for continuing the tradition. Okay. Well, we have no more announcements. January 22nd, 2026 meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.