City Council - Jul 11, 2024

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad. And District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you to the July 11th City Council Meeting. Can we please begin with a roll call? Muhammad. Here. Floyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Gabbard. Here. Montenari. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Sanders. Here. Here. Thank you. Now we will have our Pastor Clark Haisley from Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church who will provide us with an invocation. Can we please stand? Followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Almighty God, we are humbled that you have allowed us to come together this day. We're humbled that you're continuing to lead us in the great work that we must do to serve this present age, our calling to fulfill. May we honor one another by keeping an open mind to the truths that we need to hear in the hearts of the people. May we discern your will so that we can lift up all that need lifting up. And Lord God, may the work that we do bring you glory, 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, Pastor Haisley, for coming and providing that invocation for us today. I do need to make an announcement. We are rescheduling the public hearings for the vesting development agreement and the CRA in-town plan amendment ordinances from today's meeting to the July 18th. And the rezoning application has been rescheduled to the August 1st council meeting. So now we have approval of the agenda. Council members, we have an agenda before us. I entertain a motion for approval if there are no changes. Move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and a second, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us. I entertain a motion for approval. Chair, we do have one card. Oh, you do have one card. Okay. Marcus Davis, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, council. My name is Marcus Davis. I work with Blue Sky Communities on the acquisitions team. And I'm a proud resident of the city of St. Pete. And we're just super excited for the opportunity to bring a new community here. I'm here on behalf of the St. Pete Housing Authority, as well as Blue Sky, to thank staff for their recommendation and be here for any questions that you may have. Thank you. Could you state your address, please? My address is 3951 34th Street South. Move approval. Second. So now that we have a motion, it's been properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Just one moment, please. Okay. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we will go into our awards and presentations. And our first award will be presented by our Vice Chair Gerdes. It is the ADA Day Proclamation. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I am joined by Lendell Bright, Anita Dreyer from our team here at the city, Matt Walker from Miracle by the Bay, and members of our CAPI citizens advocating for persons with impairments and other distinguished guests. Yes. And if they'd join me, I'm going to have you hold that window. This is one of the greatest honors I get during the year is to present this proclamation chair. And, Mayor, I want to thank you for the opportunity both to serve on CAPI and to be a part of this proclamation for American with Disabilities Act Day. This amazing group of people that we have, not only CAPI members, but our persons with impairment throughout our community, that community continues to amaze me on a daily basis. The work that they do throughout this city, throughout this county, throughout this state, throughout this country. I was told by Matt earlier, he was invited to Nashville to be on a podcast. He politely declined. But that's how popular he is these days. And if you were able to see the email that was sent out earlier this morning, Matt was on Good Morning America yesterday morning with Michael Strahan. And I'm going to brag on Matt for a little bit, not because he loves the same sport I do, but because of the work he does in our community and bringing our disabled community together with the game of baseball. And so over a five minute period, Good Morning America highlighted the work that Matt and Miracle by the Bay does here in St. Petersburg and was celebrated across the country yesterday morning. And I got to watch it last night at about 9 p.m. And my wife had to ask me what was wrong because I was sniveling like a little baby. I'm going to try not to do that today. Yeah. And so Matt's keeping me honest. And so that is just just a small portion. And Matt, thank you for the work that you do. That's just a small portion of the amazingness that happens in our city every day. And to be able to be a small part of that, to be able to be the conduit in which our CAPI and city council and administration communicates and to be able to see us move the needle on a monthly basis and to see our CAPI members and this community move the needle on a daily basis is absolutely amazing. It is humbling and it is something we should celebrate not during a day, not during a week, not during a month, but the whole damn year. And so I am very proud to present this proclamation both to Matt and to our CAPI and it goes. Whereas July 26, 2024 marks the 34th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. And whereas the ADA has improved access to government services, programs, transportation, public places, communication, and information technology. And whereas the city established the committee to advocate for persons with impairments, CAPI, in 1972, with the purpose to serve as an advisory group who would advocate, advise, and formulate positions on issues facing persons with impairments. And provide advice and guidance relative to affairs, concerns, rights, and special needs of persons with impairments to ensure their full participation in the city's facilities, programs, and services. And whereas CAPI has advocated and funded many services, including closed captioning of all city council meetings, handicapped, accessible aluminum docks for the St. Petersburg Sailing Center, closed captioning related to disasters and emergencies, beach wheelchairs, and ADA training for city staff. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg has a long-standing commitment to the Americans with Disabilities Act and continues to strive to provide programs and services to all segments of the community. Now, therefore, I, Copley Gerdes, vice chair of city council, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare July 26, 2024, Americans with Disabilities Act Day in St. Petersburg, and call upon all residents to recognize that understanding and compliance with the ADA is the surest means to guarantee equal opportunities for all. Thank you. And quickly, before I ask Lindell or Matt if they'd like to speak, council, in front of you, you have a flyer talking about the 34th ADA anniversary celebration on July 28th, 11 to 4, which, by the way, Matt has taken over and put on with over 18 vendors, money donated, silent auction, 50-50 raffle, and it's going to be an amazing time on July 24th, and I'm sure Lindell will talk about it, but you have that information in front of you, and I invite you all to attend with me, and chair and mayor, thank you so much. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank council, you know, and being the ADA diversity coordinator for this city, it is so much an honor to work with all our captain members and how much they give out, make my job a lot easier as far as making sure, but I want to give you the few minutes with Matt, because I've been working with Matt for the last seven years. This young man has more energy than an able-bodied person, okay, the amount of force he puts out for everything, so. I don't, I'll get it, I got it, I got it, I got it. He's going to break it down. He's got it, he's got it, he's got it. Well, good afternoon, well, good afternoon, council. My name is Matt Walker, I'm the president and CEO of Miracle-by-the-Bay. We are located at 1810 Maryland Avenue, northeast St. Petersburg, 33703, for the record. On behalf of myself and the entire communications team of Miracle-by-the-Bay, we encourage you to come on out July 28th, that's not the 24th, that's a correction on the record, please. That is the 28th, I'm sorry to, I'm sorry. I've got to have one mess up. Yeah, yeah. But on behalf of myself and Lyndale S. Bright and Anita J. Dreyer, we want you to notice we are working tirelessly with Sean M. Druin and the city of St. Petersburg, and with your support, we've been able to successfully obtain new vendors, new city services, and everything. I actually just got a voicemail from a consumer looking for services while I was sitting in here. So that is the power of the ADA. Thank you, guys. So before you leave, Lyndale, nobody pushed their button, but you know that I was not going to let you leave without thanking you and Matt and Vice Chair Gerdes for bringing this proclamation to us, and me sitting on the Pinellas County Persons with Disability Council, this means so much. First of all, let me say thank you. This was a great way to start this council meeting, because when I see and I hear and I look at the joy in Matt's eyes, after that, nothing else matters. After that, nothing else matters, because you look at his limitation that we call limitations, but he calls his uniqueness. And I want to thank him so much for being here. So with the invocation, having Matt here, and what you have consistently done, and Vice Chair Gerdes really takes all of this to heart, and that's what it takes. It's for us to make sure that those that need us are there, they're there for us, and I want to appreciate it, and thank you for bringing this proclamation. Great way to start. Thank you, Lyndale, for all that you do. Thank you. And our next proclamation will be presented by our Mayor, Kenneth T. Welch, and it's the Duke Energy Day, celebrating 125 years. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me thank Matt, Lyndale, and Kathy. Thank you all for your great work. Matt, I've been curious on how to correct the Vice Chair for a while, so thank you for showing me how to do that. And Vice Chair Gerdes, just thank you for your passion. You could hear it in your comments, and just thank you for your leadership on this issue. I appreciate it. It is a great way to start the meeting, Madam Chair. So to Chair, Council, members of the St. Pete team, our members of the public, it's great to be back with you again, and I'm excited today to recognize one of the oldest corporations in our city and a major employer and community partner. Duke Energy has been in service to St. Petersburg and Central and North Florida for 125 years. It is nearly as old as the city itself. But history is important, and before the company was Duke Energy, it was Florida Power. And Florida Power, along with the then St. Petersburg Times and a few other businesses, really were the core of St. Pete's business community for a long time, especially in the 80s when I was growing up. They led a number of efforts, including the pursuit of Major League Baseball. Now, some may remember that Florida Power Corporation and its affiliate Progress Energy companies really employed many staff and executives of color way before diversity and leadership in the corporate workplace was a mainstream discussion. In fact, my first full-time corporate job after college was with Florida Power, and ironically, they were recruiting at the highest of Seven Hills in Tallahassee now. A few people know what I'm talking about. But they were actually at FAMU recruiting the summer that I was graduating from graduate school. And so, ironically, I was hired 200 miles away to come back home to my hometown and work a mile from where I grew up. And I worked there for 14 years in accounting and IT and systems administration. Now, during that time, I got to know many of the employees of Florida Power, now Duke Energy, from CEOs like Andy Hines and Jack Critchfield to the linemen in the field. Is Tom here? Because I know Tom could relate to this if he's watching Assistant City Administrator Tom Green. My first job was as an auditor. So I got to call linemen in Perry and Longwood, guys and gals who've been working 12-, 13-hour days, and say, you know what, I see your receipt, but I don't have a receipt for that Wendy's chicken sandwich. I'm going to need to get that. And I need an authorizing signature as well. So needless to say, I got to hear some interesting dialect from all across North and Central Florida, but over time I got to actually meet a lot of these employees and really understand how hard they work every day in communities across the state of Florida to bring power to our homes and businesses and to help us recover from the inevitable storms. Those are the folks that make up Duke Energy. Fast forward to today, and Duke Energy's headquarter in downtown St. Pete employs more than 640 people, resulting in an economic impact of $80 million annual. Duke Energy and its foundation annually return more than $2 million to the community in the form of donations, grants, and volunteer hours. They also provide a $400,000 annual sponsorship of the Mahaffey Theater for the Arts and have a great lineman workforce program in partnership with the Urban League and St. Pete College that provides training and then jobs that I think are about $60,000 to start for linemen. It's a great example of how we can improve our workforce and many other community initiatives. This proclamation recognizes the milestone of 125 years of service and commitment to our city. So I want to invite Duke Energy President of Florida, Melissa Satius, and Government Community Liaison, Jeff Baker, and other members of the Duke team to join me at the podium as I read the proclamation. Can y'all come on up? You got the proclamation? And it reads, Whereas on July 18th, 1899, St. Petersburg Electric Light and Power Company, later to become Florida Power Corporation, Progress Energy, and now Duke Energy Florida, and I did read the note somewhere at one point, for a short time it was Pinellas County Power as well, received its state charter, signed by the Secretary of State and Governor to power the lives of customers. And whereas Duke Energy Florida, headquartered in the heart of historic downtown, and its legacy companies are nearly as old as the city of St. Petersburg, which demonstrates Duke Energy's longstanding history of service, dedication, and investment to and in this community. And whereas for 125 years, Duke Energy Florida and its legacy companies have remained a powerful economic engine, community champion, and provider of safe, reliable, and increasingly clean energy to approximately 2 million customers across 35 counties, including 160,000 customers in St. Petersburg. And whereas approximately 3,800 employees of Duke Energy Florida join our first responders and local emergency services personnel as they head into storms while others seek shelter, who in their spare time volunteer thousands of hours and make significant contributions to support the programs and organizations that strengthen and uplift the St. Pete community and environment. And whereas Duke Energy Florida, its foundation and employees continue to build and nurture the places we call home through millions of dollars of local grants, sponsorships, donations, and economic development efforts that are making a difference in the community and helping St. Petersburg thrive now and well into the future. Now, therefore, I, Kennedy Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare Thursday, July 18, 2024, as Duke Energy Day in St. Petersburg and call upon residents to recognize this incredible milestone of 125 years and celebrate Duke Energy's everlasting commitment to the St. Petersburg community. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council members. This is a great, great honor to be here today. I, for a kid who grew up in St. Petersburg, I went to Perkins, Meadowlawn, Northeast, St. Pete Junior College, Eckerd College, USF St. Pete, and started at then Florida Power Corporation when I was 19 years old. And to think that these almost 40 years later that I get to stand in front of all of you and represent an incredible workforce behind me is still kind of awe-inspiring to myself. We are privileged to be able to serve the people of the City of St. Petersburg. As the mayor said, we've really grown up together. I can tell you my years of working as a government community relations manager and other roles that I've had here, working with the City of St. Petersburg has made us a better company. And for that, I am extremely grateful. And while we are innovating and changing and moving to greener technology every single day, it's one of our number one priorities, along with reliability, resiliency. It is truly the people of our company that make the difference. And I am incredibly proud. They call St. Petersburg home in many, many ways. And they have grown up here, and they continue to work here. And so I've been with the company almost 40 years, and I'm kind of one of the younger ones. So with us today, we have a few people, just a sampling that represent those who are keeping the lights on for our customers in the City of St. Petersburg. Behind me, we have Tony Salvareza, who today is celebrating 47 years of service. Tony is responsible for the operation of our solar units and all our other generation sites. We have Shane Norman, who is here, from his alignment in St. Petersburg. William Long, who runs our St. Pete Operating Center, where I started. Melvin Philpott, 43 years, our Neighborhood Energy Saver Program. Debbie Crisp in the meter department, another 43 years. So it is that kind of talent. And people don't stay just for the paycheck. They stay because of the commitment they have in their hearts for our customers and our communities. And I think that does differentiate us, but also what differentiates us is the relationship that we have with leaders like all of you. So we are incredibly grateful for your time, your dedication that you give to the city, and to also helping to make us better. We look forward to continuing to serve the city. And as I said, get better. And who knows what the next 125 years will bring. But among these employees behind me, we represent about 320 years of service. So with that, I thank you. Stay safe. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to take an opportunity while all the Duke Energy people were here to say we've been going through in our Health, Energy, Resilience, and Sustainability Committee getting information about how our partnership has gone. And I just wanted to advocate for us while you are all here to be able to say I look forward to continuing to get that. I hope that you hear what we've been up to and help us along in that process. And then the only other thing I'll say is I'd also hope that you would continue to look at where your profits stand versus other communities, other corporations, public power, or power corporations, and maybe see if you can advocate for some relief for our consumers. But I'll leave it there today. I just wanted to advocate for the city a little bit while I had your audience. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I just wanted to give a special message specifically to the frontline workers, the linesmen who, you know, during it right here we are in the midst of our already active hurricane season. And whenever we have a storm approaching our city, our area, it always gives me some comfort and encouragement and hope when I drive by the Tropicana Field parking lot and see it full of Duke trucks ready to go. As others are taking shelter and keeping their families safe, you all are leaving your families behind, leaving your pets behind. And when we talk about our first responders and how important they are to us, that's you. That's you as well. And so I am just grateful for the work that you do when things go wrong to get us back up and running again. So I just really appreciate that. I know that our city appreciates that quick response at the times when we need it the most. So thank you. And a big shout out to Melvin who is amazing with our neighborhoods. The best dressed man in the company right there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to everyone for coming and letting us read these proclamations for you. And thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our open forum. Clerk, can you please read the rules? Ma'am. 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 city 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 ask 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. Madam Chair, I'm going to call the speakers two at a time. When you hear your name called, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Ray Tampa and Carrie Mueller and Mueller, please go to either podium. We have three minutes to address city council. Go ahead, Ray. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and fellow council members, city administrators. Certainly, I appreciate the opportunity. You have to say the name and your address first. Okay. Ray Tampa, 5501 80th Street, North St. Petersburg, lifetime resident. In an interview with the Catalyst magazine dated December 20th, 2021, outgoing city administrator, Alan DeLauw said, quote, the team Christman put together was the best team I've ever worked with in my career. I'm looking at a lot of projects right now. I'm in discussions with developers and different cities are calling me. I'm a deal junkie. I love good deals. Putting the puzzle together. I also love public-private partnerships. Dot, dot, dot. End of quote. I offered this clip because Mr. DeLauw lent his expertise to the current discussions by thoroughly examining the development agreement point by point and concluding, quote, no development agreement is perfect, but no city deserves an agreement this bad. End of quote. A council member made this statement, quote, we have a responsibility to get this right. End of quote. Certainly, the deal wasn't right at the time that statement was made. So the question is, what has changed about the deal that suggests you all have gotten this deal right by your own admissions? Council members, you all haven't gotten all the information needed to make informed decisions regarding this deal. There were questions about the sustainability of the stadium posed by two or three of you. As a matter of fact, one council member seemed tired of the drip, drip, drip of pertinent information. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Really appreciate it. Good afternoon, council. My name is Carrie Mueller and I live at 1147 James Avenue South in the Campbell Park neighborhood and I recently served on the Community Benefits Advisory Council and I stand by my no vote that the community benefits are grossly inadequate compared to the substantial public investment. This deal is not about who is for or against a new baseball stadium. It's about a corporate welfare scheme to transfer 65 acres of prime downtown real estate to Stu Sternberg. Ray's Heinz will only pay $4 million a year for the real estate for a maximum of $50 million in the first 12 years. In addition, taxpayers will be responsible for contributing $142 million of tax dollars from the in-town CRA to subsidize the infrastructure of a private real estate development. The developer can opt out of the affordable housing by paying liquidated damages equivalent to 10% of the cost of building an affordable housing unit. The developer won't have to pay for the land until it buys individual parcels and it won't have to pay property taxes until individual buildings are put into service. The estimated property tax revenues need to be adjusted significantly downward to account for that. In addition, the renderings of the development no longer apply. The minimum development and the development agreement are all that matters. The project has 30 years to be completed and only 333,000 square feet of various types of real estate has to be built in the first 10 years, half of which has to be Class A office. Just for reference, the orange station that will be located at the old police station will be 125,000 square feet of Class A office, so we can expect the equivalent of two of those types of building, which are two mid-rise office buildings to be built in the first 10 years along with 130-room hotel and 650 market-rate residential units. That's it. That's all the property taxes were going to be earned. The professional poll completed by Mason Dixon shows that the public thinks this deal is unfair, that it should be renegotiated, that there should be a vote, and that a new appraisal is needed. The Mason Dixon poll is posted online and available to the public at nohomerun.com. This is not a project for the community or to benefit the public. The community benefits are window dressing, and they're not a gift or contribution from the developer. They're a payment in lieu for the land. City Council, vote no on the Raise-Hinds deal. Don't approve the largest subsidy on MLB history and obligate taxpayers to $686 million in debt. Thank you. Next two cards, please. We have one speaker in Zoom. I'm going to call them in. It says, Allendale United Methodist Church, please state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address Council and unmute yourself. Allendale United Methodist Church. We only have 30 minutes, so can you call the next? Next two speakers, Tom Tito and Darla Ostinson. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you, Council Members, for the opportunity. My name is Tom Tito. I live at 622 12th Avenue South. I'd like to offer a few comments. Mainly, I'd like to ask you to please vote no on this deal. Needs improvement. I support a lot of what was said by Carrie Mueller, by nohomerun.com, by the Sierra Club. I don't need to repeat what they've said, but they've given you great information. The contract has been out about 10 weeks. It's been revised, but the main points have not been approved. Improved. I think a majority of Council Members want this to be LEED certified, but the new contract just kind of says we'd like that, but it's not a firm requirement. Council Members said he would love to see more affordable housing. I think most of you would love to see more affordable housing, but it's not required. I think Ms. Mueller just said you're getting about 10% of the housing you're talking about. The $1,250 might be $125. The museum is still a maybe, but the discount for the cost of the museum, I believe, is still on the land. So you're paying for a museum. It may not be a certainty. The open space and parkland section is a question. Is the city paying for 14 acres but requiring 10? Months ago, my Council Member supported changing the team's name to the St. Pete Rays, and I think that's a great idea. I just wonder what happened. Was there a dollar amount, a dollar of value given to that change? It's fantastic promotion. It reminds me of what happened in Miami. The Florida Marlins became the Miami Marlins. It's possible it could be done. The team in Miami had a need for a stadium. They were playing out in the sun and the rain. They got the same architect we have. The stadium didn't really help their attendance, but they did honor the city of Miami which supported them with the name change. I think some of the politicians who supported that are out of office now. So pretty much that's my point and please do this right. We've talked about it for 17 years. Now we've had about 10 weeks to look at this contract. Let's give it a few more months if you need. Maybe do it right. Thank you very much for your consideration. I appreciate it. Hi, my name is Darla Ostenson and I'm at 2920 15th Avenue South in Miltan Heights. I'm here today representing the Alliance for Sustainable Landscaping, a collection of experts in eco-friendly landscaping practices. We are asking that you add the letter before you to the agenda for the next HERS committee meeting. The letter details the reasons we are requesting that ordinance 16.40.060.3.1D be largely omitted from the code and to meet with the committee to discuss recommendations that might accomplish the purpose stated in 16.40.060.1.1 which is in part to encourage the design and use of plant material which reduces watering requirements for example, with less St. Augustine sod and with more planting of drought-tolerant plant materials. In other words, practice Florida-friendly landscaping which is also protected by state law under statute 373.185. As written, the code requires homeowners wishing to practice Florida-friendly landscaping or wildlife habitat management to employ a landscape architect to write a management plan, a service that landscape architects would not typically offer to homeowners, creating a $3,000 or more financial barrier to practice Florida-friendly landscaping or wildlife habitat management. This is the exact opposite of encouragement. Furthermore, the code currently requires the management plan to be approved by IFAS calling upon them to take a role in code enforcement which is inappropriate. The code is already being enforced. There is an outstanding case against at least one resident of St. Petersburg who is an underemployed single mother with a screech owl living on a property that she has managed as a wildlife habitat for decades without issue until this new code became active January 1st of 2024. She received her violation notice January 4th, 2024, the first workday after this code appeared. As written, the code is effectively a prohibition on Florida-friendly landscaping which is not allowable under statute 373.185. We can help you create a code that aligns with the city's eco-friendly goals and the state law, but first we need the harmful existing language removed. This letter was also emailed to all of you on June 26th. Is it possible to get a response on this of some kind within a week? Yes. Thank you. And thank you all for your time and consideration. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Madison Rice and Warren Willingham. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Aye, I'm Madison Rice, 3245 Jackson Street North. I'm going to make some comparisons between this current proposal and some previous proposals that we received for this site. Midtown included 28.5 acres of open space and included hidden parking garages with no on-street parking. The current proposal includes less than half the open space and allows for street-level parking. The Midtown proposal included 10,000 housing units total with some available for sale to promote generational wealth. This proposal only includes 6,400 units and all our rentals. Midtown was going to spend $93 million on infrastructure and we are now going to spend $142 million of our tax dollars not including debt service on infrastructure for a private developer. This proposal doesn't hold up when you compare it to the others that we've received. Why and how did we end up here? In the RFP, the mayor's top priorities for this development were things like affordable housing and honoring the history of the gas plant district but after picking Ray's Heinz, the top priority is now keep the Rays in St. Pete at all costs. Does this seem like a great place to be when you're negotiating the largest deal in the city's history? I went to all of the CBAC meetings and I can see how these people are really hard to negotiate with. You don't become one of the largest developers in the world without playing hardball but there is a city employee who I literally thought that he worked for the Rays based on the way that he was like effusively speaking about how great their proposal was and how great Ray's Heinz are but he literally worked for the city. He's one of the people who negotiated this deal for us. These are the people who advocate for how we spend our tax dollars on this deal and during those meetings Councilwoman Fig Sanders kept agreeing kept saying like words are words we need our promises in writing which I totally agree with but we have this agreement in writing now and the protections for the city are laughable. There's a lot that we can improve on. Like someone mentioned earlier all of the upfront financial risk falls on the city while Ray's Heinz makes how much return on their investment do we even know? Did we even ask them? Do we have that information? How much will they make by selling the team if this deal is approved? Can we get out of this deal? I don't think so. I haven't seen the new development agreement because it's hidden in next week's agenda. This deal is the best thing to ever happen to the Rays and I urge you to reject the development agreement. Thank you. Warren Willingham 3245 Jackson Street North 33704 lifelong St. Pete resident. God what an incredible deal exclusively for the Rays. People came out early in this process and demanded affordable housing at the core of this project. It was paid lip service and then we chose a proposal with the worst affordable housing numbers. The amount of affordable housing is abysmal especially compared to superior proposals like Midtown or Sugar Hill or probably most of them. Residents ask for mixed income affordable housing but all we get is a little pinky promise of a few affordable units on site and then a few more off site. Lovely. We already fell for this stadium grift once before. We now have decades of research showing that public investment in stadiums does not ever break even. Baseball is fine but subsidizing the Rays to this extent will be an economic burden for generations. Let's not fall for the sunk cost fallacy of oh no look at all the work we've done we can't deny the deal now. The stakes are too high please don't push this economic disaster through out of convenience. I urge you to vote no and go with literally any other developer from that RFP or make the Rays come back with a deal that is substantially different and actually benefits the city or hell just one big park it's at least not lighting our money on fire. Our city is successful on its own let's not fall for this please deny this your kids and grandchildren will thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers Madam Chair Abdul, Kareem, Ali and Loretta Raymond please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. What's your time remaining? 14 minutes and 28 seconds. Thank you. God peace be with you. Madam Chair Vice Chair members of council administration I don't really need a big introduction but for the record I will just say my name is Abdul Kareem Ali and I serve as president of Tampa Bay Area Muslim Association and also a member of Interfaith Tampa Bay. I'm here today to really talk to you a little bit about Interfaith Tampa Bay and later our vice president will come and give you our record is recorded I need you to give your address please. I need you to give your address please. My address I'm sorry my address is 405 sorry about that 405 Cortez Way South St. Petersburg are we straight down? Yes we are good. Very good. I'm here as a member of Interfaith Tampa Bay and some of you is familiar with Interfaith Tampa Bay and some of the work that we do here in the city I know our chair and Councilman John Muhammad have attended some of the events the Martin Luther King Interfaith service we have annually there but hopefully today the rest of you will be very familiar with what we are about. I'd like to just say we have members from Interfaith Tampa Bay here today and if you would just please stand thank you so much and I will just want to close by saying we are very happy to be here and hopefully our Vice President will speak later and he will tell you more about Interfaith Tampa Bay. Thank you so much God peace be with you. Good afternoon my name is Loretta Riemann and I live at 2336 12th Street North St. Petersburg. I have lived in St. Pete and been a member of St. Paul's Catholic Church for over 40 years. At St. Paul's I am a member of the Fast Justice Ministry and also a member of our St. Vincent de Paul conference which provides direct assistance to neighbors in need. Whenever possible Vincentians go and make house visits to meet with the callers in person respecting their dignity and assessing how we can work together to meet their needs. Most requests are because someone's budget is so tight that a single financial emergency puts them into delinquency for their rent or their utility bills. In one case we recently visited a woman who was working as a tax accountant and paying $1,700 a month for a one bedroom mobile home. The mobile home was old and was not insulated well and her electric bill had more than doubled. Another was a disabled woman whose son had just graduated from high school and was working at Michael's but his hours were cut recently. He's looking for another job but that small loss in income put them in a financial bind. Over the last two years this woman's rent had increased $500 a month. With the average rent of a one bedroom apartment in St. Pete at $1,800 a month families who make less than 80% of the AMI or $69,000 a year for a family of four would be paying over 30% of their monthly income on rent. When you add in all the other essentials food, utilities, transportation, health care and child care it's just not feasible to live within this city in that budget and that's just for a one bedroom apartment. A family a friend of mine was just at the hospital and she did an informal survey of all the nurses who were waiting on her and helping her and she learned that all of them lived outside of the city and traveled a significant distance because they couldn't afford to live here. We celebrate the council member Floyd and the House Land Use and Transportation Committee for taking the initiative to prioritize this income level and we are looking forward to a resolution being passed that reflects this. Our neighbors in need are struggling to make ends meet. They deserve better. City councilors we are looking to you and to your leadership to prioritize housing for families making 80% or less of the AMI. You have the power to make this happen. Thank you. Next two speakers Madam Chair are James Scott and Janine Lessman. Please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Go ahead Miss Scott. Go ahead you can start speaking. Go ahead. Hello my name is Janine Lessman I'm at 5100 38th Way South here in St. Petersburg and I'm following up on the comments made by Darla Austinson. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Alliance for Sustainable Landscaping and I'm beginning my 25th year at Eckerd College in the Departments of Marine Science and Biology. I'm commenting here regarding the landscape code change that has negatively affected the ability of a homeowner to practice Florida friendly landscaping by requiring the employment of a landscape architect to write a management plan and submit it for approval. It's already accurately asserted that it's a financial burden to homeowners and that there's a lack of proper expertise and procedure to prove such plan. As an educator I and other educators spend our careers not only educating our students but also our neighbors and communities on Florida friendly landscaping principles. We are passionate about sustainable and affordable living in St. Petersburg. In teaching we utilize our city parks where our taxes are usefully promoting these principles. where we highlight the park's educational interpretive material and rangers. Boyd Hill City Park sells Florida friendly native plants on site for residents to utilize in their landscaping. Our city landscaping code needs to support the educational message we the city already invest not counteract this investment now made by the city and our supporting community members. Looking to our future please let us continue educating on what are the aesthetics and principles of Florida friendly landscaping to promote sustainable efforts in our densely populated city including through our city code. Thank you very much. Hello council James Scott 5318 6th Street South good to see you again. I am going to say something that might be a little bit divisive today. I want to speak on item D2 the declaration proclamation of July 18th as Duke Energy Day to many of us that is a very tone deaf and out of touch proclamation and I'll explain why. For starters I've worked with Duke staff. Duke there's a lot of really good people who work for Duke. There's Duke Energy the people and there's the corporation. Some facts. Duke is the third largest utility in the U.S. We're a 77 billion dollar market cap. It's the fifth most expensive in the U.S. with one of the pursuing one of the highest profit margins of utilities. They're trying to add another 800 million plus to our rates this year in the next three years. I apologize. And they are 47 of 53 in offering energy efficiency to their customers. In short, they don't look out for rate payers. They don't look out for the vulnerable. And they make their money off of building power plants and infrastructure. They're a profit making entity. Duke Energy is not our friend. They use our money to lobby. They give money to campaign cash to elected officials and politicians. They give money to the Mahaffey, as Mayor Welch said, and $2 million of donations. That's our money that they're spending to lobby us and our elected officials. And every time I open my Tampa Bay Times app, I get a Duke Energy ad. That's our money that they're spending to lobby and propagandize us. So while people struggle with paying their bills, Duke Energy is slow walking the energy transition. And look at Shore Acres. That is a canary in the coal mine. We're ground zero. Big corporations that pollute like they do are a massive part of the problem. They are not taking this seriously. Our city's declared values and our declared goals around climate and energy. They are so far from that. Duke Energy is not our friend. The Hearst Committee is engaging with the questions of where we're at with our energy and where we're going. And that means a conversation around a franchise agreement. And also Duke is grappling with the bad press around rates and whatnot. And here we go as a city giving them their PR department on a platter exactly what they've asked for. So Duke's plan is not aligned with our plans. The mayor's plan on his policy on energy evidently is not a progressive one. So I would say that council please lead on energy policy in the city of St. Pete. Please get an energy analysis about a franchise agreement. What it would mean for our city to meet its goals and to make a more affordable energy system in the city of St. Pete. And we have two big decisions in 2026. The franchise agreement and the mayor's race. Thank you. I'm sure we have enough time for one more speaker of this portion of open forum. Susan McGrath please go to either podium state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon council. Susan McGrath 2732 Burlington Avenue North. One second. I'm looking for some of my notes. I didn't know if I was going to make it today. I'm here to speak to the Raines-Hines agreement and I know you hear about this all the time. I just wanted to highlight to begin with the broad swath of community partners that I know you have received input from who stand in solidarity and support with this plan. One that particularly spoke to me which I only have time to share one line from one partner is Feeding Tampa Bay and most everybody knows who Feeding Tampa Bay is because they serve some of our most marginalized residents and citizens of our city and we also saw how important they are during the pandemic and every day since that when struggling families need their resources and Feeding Tampa Bay said we believe the Rays and their partners are poised to actively create intentional equitable initiatives that will pave the path to housing small business development employment and educational opportunities and there's more of that of course. So there's two sides of this. There's two sides that have issues with the plan right? There's this side and I got a message from someone I very much respect who said we can do so much more we can add X Y Z all really great grand things but I'm like okay and then we have the side some folks today have spoken to both that are concerned about the cost. There's a major this is an expensive plan there's major cost with it and people are rightfully concerned about that but there comes a point where there has to be a happy middle there has to be things that we can deliver on this plan and a cost that we can manage for our residents and so one thing that particularly speaks to me while I have a few minutes is the Carter G Woodson Museum and I know I'm running out of time but in a time when black education is not being done the way it should in our state I'm going to celebrate that movement so it's not going to be the end all be all of everything but it's a good plan and I know you'll support it. Thank you. And by the way if I have time my union brothers or sisters are here and I stand with them in solidarity on apprenticeship programs things so thank you. Okay so now we're going to go ahead and close open form and we're going to remove we're going to move on to reports and we're going to go to item F1 which is the fiscal year 25 mayor's recommended budget presentation and joining us is Mayor Welch and budget director Liz McAfee. Thank you Madam Chair and Council we'll give a couple of seconds for the room to clear. Well you can't see me so that's a bonus for you to start with. I was just making a joke you can leave the lights down. Actually you probably need to take them down so we can see the PowerPoint. Good evening Madam Chair, Council Members along with our budget team I'm really honored to join you today to present my recommended budget for the fiscal year 2025. As in previous years I'd like to highlight some of our collective priorities funded in this recommended budget and take the opportunity to thank our team our administrators, our budget team, our city departments, council and the public for your collaboration in the development of this budget. The annual budget process is an opportunity for our city to fund its priorities to innovate and to respond to new challenges while meeting the critical service delivery responsibilities of city government. Make sure we close those doors. Now as city council knows our budget process begins early in the year with an important discussion about council and community priorities. We hold budget workshops with city council and a budget open house with the community. Those meetings are opportunities to hear from the council and our community on what most important funding priorities are. The budget you have before you hot off the presses is a result of that process and seeks a balance of community impact, sustainability and equitable investments in our city. Now I often mention the Stuart principle named after former city council member and county commissioner Bob Stewart which states that our needs are infinite while our resources are finite. It means that we can never fund every worthy program or service in any city budget so we work to balance our fiscal resources with our diverse community needs in a way that is equitable, sustainable and impactful. The budget process is centered on ensuring our resources are deployed within our five pillars for principal progress including housing opportunities for all, environment, infrastructure and resilience, equitable development, arts and business opportunities, education and youth opportunities and neighborhood health and safety. These pillars reflect what we do in the community. These pillars are guided by six principles for accountable and responsive government including in-touch leadership, inclusive governance, innovation, informed decision making, impactful investments in services and intentional equity. These principles guide how we govern. Before I hand this over to our ACE, our budget director Liz Makofsky, I'd like to highlight a few items aligned with those pillars and principles from the recommended budget. First, once again, we have seen strong growth in our citywide property values allowing us to include in our budget recommendations a reduction in the FY25 millage rate from 6.4675 to 6.4525 mills, a reduction of 0.015 mills. Additionally, we are maintaining our contribution to the Economic Stability Fund at $500,000 to better position ourselves to address potential future challenges. Finally, we will be recommending to a future BF&T committee meeting that we modify our fiscal policies to increase our target for the general fund balance from 12% of the annual appropriation to 14.67% on the way to a goal of 16.67% or two months of the current year appropriation. And that's in order to align with Government Finance Officers Association recommendations for best financial practices with respect to reserves. The second area I'd like to highlight is housing. This is one of our pillars and we continue to invest in the development and preservation of housing opportunities with an emphasis on housing for those making 80% AMI or less. As part of the 10-year housing opportunities for all plan that began in 2020, to date we have 2,148 multifamily rental units completed or in process towards a goal of 3,200 units with an overall goal of 7,800 units including accessory dwelling units, single-family lots for new home construction, and home ownership opportunities. City administration and city council recently celebrated some of these successes at a grand opening and ribbon cutting for the 16th square townhome project by Namaste Homes, the Innovare grand opening, and the groundbreaking for the gravel road development near Lakewood Elementary, which will prioritize affordable housing for teachers and city employees, and for the Skyway Lofts 2 development, among other affordable housing developments. Housing highlights from our recommended budget include $500,000 to continue funding both the city employee housing assistance and citywide rebates for residential rehab programs. The recommended budget will also fund a new program in the codes compliance department to assist citizens in addressing larger code violation repairs that are ineligible for current housing CRA or in-team programs and continue funding for a citywide tenant eviction assistance program. Under the environment, infrastructure, and resiliency pillar, the FY25 recommended budget includes funding to strengthen our mitigation efforts and response to wet weather events that have impacted the citywide stormwater utility system. This funding will provide additional personnel and support services and operations and maintenance, as well as increased funding in the 5-year stormwater CIP to address immediate localized flooding capital projects and additional stormwater projects within the CIP budget. A note of special thanks to Councilmember Gabbard and Montaneri and Administrator Claude Tankersley and his team. Thanks to their efforts, we added a storm drain maintenance team mid-year during this current fiscal year after receiving community feedback and recommendations after storm events and at the recent Resiliency Summit, which was held in February. Under the Equitable Economic Development Arts and Business Opportunities pillar, the recommended FY25 budget provides funding for economic development initiatives, including small business grants and programs at $300,000, the St. Petersburg Economic Development Corporation at $150,000, the Greenhouse at $150,000, Grow Smarter Economic and Workforce Development and Incentives Program at $100,000. And there's also a $200,000, also $200,000 included for a new citywide workforce development programming program and $220,000 for our four Main Street business organizations. Also included in the recommended FY25 budget is new and increased funding for the arts. $550,000 is allocated for the city's arts grants program, which is a $50,000 increase over the FY24 adopted budget. New funding program in FY25 includes $250,000 for the Palladium, which would be year one of a four year commitment, and there was strong council support and your priorities for that. $50,000 for arts micro grants, $50,000 to fund programming at the Warehouse Arts District Association, $20,000 for Soulfest and $10,000 for this fifth's 50th anniversary. We continue to develop and refine our programs in support of our education and youth opportunities pillar. The recommended budget continues funding for my Brother and Sister's Keeper program at $199,500. I was just wondering why not just $200,000. But youth development grants at $450,000. The Mayor's Future Ready Academy, which we're really excited about, and Vice-Chair Goethe, she joined me for the graduation. We're six of the nine graduates of the first cohort have now moved on to full-time jobs with the city of St. Petersburg, and that's making an impact. That's funded at $500,000. The budget continues funding for Hidden Voices, which includes job readiness and soft skills at $100,000, our year-round youth employment programs at $500,000, literacy and STEAM programs at $500,000, and the Reads to Me program at $50,000. You'll also find within the budget additional funding for our parks and recreation facilities, which, as you all know, are the best in Florida, according to the Trust for Public Land. So I got that in so we don't have to have Mike Jeffrey say it one more time. We continue to make investments in safe and healthy neighborhoods, including the call program, community assistance and life liaison, body-worn cameras, and fire cadet programs. Within the fire rescue department, there are eight additional full-time firefighter paramedic positions at $628,000. I'm rounding to thousands, Liz. Included as part of the three-year plan to bring the department position count up to the staffing multiplier within the county. An additional full-time fire lieutenant position at $121,655 is also included for headquarters to manage logistics and EMS-related training. These positions will be funded by the county if approved by the EMS authority. Now, in each of our pillars, we encourage innovation, and that applies to the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods pillar as well. We continue to seek new and impactful ways to increase neighborhood safety and to connect youth and families to positive opportunities and resources. As I reported to you earlier, we've created a new youth care program through the St. Pete Police Department. Our new community impact and safety liaison in the Office of Equity is a key partner in that program, which is focused on breaking the cycle of crime among our young residents through early intervention and comprehensive support, counseling, and family services. The program is aimed at applying resources to address the root causes of crime in partnership with our police department and our social service partners. During FY24, we started our Safe Summer program. The program, in partnership with the Office of Equity, Community Enrichment Administration, and St. Pete Police Department, engages children and youth in the community, encouraging them to make positive choices and to take advantage of the opportunities that the city and our partners provide for families and youth. The program kicked off with a block party and provides youth outreach events every Friday at Lake Vista Recreation Center. You know, one of the things we hear is there's nothing for the kids to do. They'll get in trouble. So this is available every Friday at Lake Vista. Funding for this program will continue in FY25, and the recommended budget includes additional funding for the Safer Neighborhoods for All programs at $231,000 and community impact grants and programs at that same amount, including the development of a faith community partnership, which will be coordinated by our faith and community justice liaison. We also recognize that a healthy city is vital to our success. The recommended FY25 budget maintains the city's Healthy St. Pete initiative with a $1 million allocation for the program. We've also included $245,000 to continue the Healthy Neighborhood Store program, which was previously funded through the American Rescue Plan Act. And there is one more thing. I'd like to speak about our innovative and in-touch budget initiative. Even under the Stewart principle of limited resources, I think we still should seek new ways to explore innovation and inclusive governance as it relates to our budget. So out of our budget discussions emerged an idea, which may have been fueled by chocolate and Mountain Dew, Liz and Rob. And the question was, well, why don't we ask the community to weigh in on a project that would address a key need in the community and would foster community empowerment and participation in our budget process? And so the Innovative Equity Project initiative was developed. And the response from the community was tremendous, with more than 1,200 residents voting on these projects. With a dedicated budget of up to $1 million, various departments spent time collaborating as teams and fine-tuning proposals for projects that prioritize innovation, inclusivity, and equity and align with our pillars for progress and our governing principles. The five projects were Cover St. Pete, a roof replacement program. Forward Together, a youth crime prevention program. Swim Smart and Library Lockers, a swimming and literacy program. The fourth was Dream Big Day, an MLK Day of Service. And the fifth was Wash, Water Assistance for St. Pete Homeowners, a program to assist homeowners with their utility bills. So St. Pete residents voted for their top choice, and the winner is... I should have a drum roll here, but we don't. Okay, there we go. The winner is Forward Together, a youth crime prevention program. Now, the goal of the Forward Together program is to ensure St. Pete's youth have achievable pathways to success and provide a supportive safety net to enable better choices and prevent future crimes. It is an important initiative designed to address, again, the root causes of youth involvement in crime and to steer those young folks to better paths. With a primary focus on youth age 12 to 17, this program will emphasize intervention and violence reduction utilizing outreach, mental health, and human services programs. I want to thank everyone who participated in this process, and I look forward to implementing and reporting on the impact of this program going forward. And as I conclude, I want to comment on our city team. City Council knows well that we have an outstanding team. Throughout the budget development process and line item reviews, their skill, commitment, and focus on our pillars and governing principles consistently produces a budget that we can be proud of and one that reflects our shared priorities and adheres to the highest professional standards. This budget supports the work of our city team as they provide essential services and the infrastructure required for our city to thrive. So, Council, the budget is now in your hands. I look forward to your review of the FY25 recommended budget, and thank you for your collective partnership in empowering our St. Pete team continues to set the standard for public service in the United States. After all, we are St. Pete. I would now like to turn it over to our ace, our Director of Budget and Management, Ms. Liz McCoskey. Liz? All right, now that we have all the exciting stuff out of the way, I'll go through the technical piece of this presentation. Good afternoon, Chair and members of City Council. You just heard some comments from Mayor Welch on the FY25 recommended budget. And on the next few slides, I'll go over some more details, including some of the major changes since the preliminary budget was presented this past spring. The Mayor's recommended budget contains a proposed millage rate for FY25 of 6.4525 mils, which is a reduction of 0.015 mils from last year's millage rate and equates to a saving of just over half a million dollars. This rate will bring in $218.4 million in ad valorem revenue, which is an increase of 10.4 percent or $20.6 million over the FY24 adopted budget. And the recommended general fund operating budget overall increased $28.8 million or 7.9 percent over last year. As we discussed earlier in the budget committee, the whole in our open house, the key areas of investment plan for FY25 budget are aligned with the Mayor's Five's Pillars for Progress. For the education and youth opportunities pillar, there's funding to continue programs such as the Mayor's Future Ready Academy, the year-round youth employment programs and literacy and STEAM programs. Under the Equitable Development Arts and Business Opportunities Pillars, we look to fund the continuation of many of our economic and workforce development and arts programs while adding funding for new programs, including a new citywide workforce development programming and arts micro-grants program. Under the Neighborhood Healthy and Safety Pillar, we're continuing to fund neighborhood and public safety programs like the CALL program and the Mayor's Tree Mini-Grants. For the Housing Opportunity for All pillar, there'll be funding to continue our progress on the 10-year Housing Opportunities for All agenda and provide resources for social service programs. And finally, in the Environment and Infrastructure and Resilience pillar, their preliminary budget will have funding for projects that protect our environment and improve our city infrastructure. Some key investments on the capital improvement side of the budget are water and stormwater infrastructure, affordable housing land acquisitions, assignments to public safety training facilities, including both K-9 and fire rescue, the Enoch Davis replacement, and fleet facility. There's also funding for bridges, seawalls, sidewalks, streets, and road improvements, multimodal transportation and pedestrian safety improvements, recreation centers, parks, and library improvements, and improvements at various city facilities and for neighborhood partnership grants and enhancements. Some of the major changes to the FY25 budget since the preliminary version that was presented earlier this year can be found in the executive summary section of the recommended budget book starting on page 3. And some of the recap is included on this slide. We've added funding for safe summer and community impact programming. In the CIP budget, we've included funding for the Coliseum Ballroom Floor and Substructure Upgrade Project. We've included funding to continue the Healthy Neighborhood Store Program, which is currently funded through the American Rescue Plan Act funding. There's funding for traffic cabinet signal replacement, funding for the SoulFest event. There was also a reorganization of the Veterans Social and Homeless Services Division from the Housing and Neighborhood Services Administration Department to the Housing and Community Development Department. There's also in the CIP budget included funding for the Business and District Placemaking and Streetscaping Project and funding for infrastructure to be determined. On the operating side, there was funding for nine new positions throughout the city. One full-time position was included in the Economic and Workforce Development Department, and that was an Economic and Development Analyst. A Housing and Development Coordinator full-time position was included in the Housing and Community Development Department. A Human Resources Specialist position was added under the Human Resources Department. There was two full-time Library One positions in the Library Department. A Forestry Four-Person position in the Parks and Recreation Department. A Victim Assistance Specialist in the Police Department that was previously funded by a grant is now funded through the General Fund. Our Public Works Administration added a Senior Operations Analyst. And in the Stormwater Pavement Traffic Operations, an Accountant One position was added. In this next section, we'll give a quick overview using tables and charts and graphs to illustrate the city's FY25 recommended budget. And these tables are also included in the FY25 recommended budget book in the Executive Summary, which has been posted on the city's website. The total FY25 recommended operating budget revenue for the city for FY25 is $901.5 million. The charges for services makes up the largest revenue category at about $384.1 million, or 42.6% of the revenue budget, followed next by taxes at $288.1 million, or 31%. The FY25 recommended operating budget totals $900.5 million and is 9.4% higher than the FY24 adopted budget. The Public Works Administration, which includes the Enterprise Funds of Water Resources and Stormwater, is 31.6% of the total budget, or $284.3 million. The Public Safety Administration comes next, which includes police and fire rescue departments at 25.7% of the total operating budget, or $231.7 million. And if you notice, there's a difference in the operating expenditures amount on this slide and the operating revenue budget on the previous slide, and that's due to revenue received in funds that is not completely appropriated in the plan in the year it's received. The Tax Increment Financing Funds and the Economic Stability Fund are some of these examples where there's revenue coming into the fund, but we don't have corresponding expenditures. For the General Fund Revenue Budget, the total is $393.338 million. The General Fund Revenue comes from various sources and are shown on this chart. The largest single source of revenue for the General Fund is the taxes category, which includes ad valorem property taxes, and there's $288.123 million, or 73% of the budget. The Intergovernmental Revenue Category comes in next and includes revenues like the half-cent sales tax, and that's the second largest source of revenue at 11.1%, or $43.8 million. On the expenditure side, the budget for FY25 is also $393.338 million. The City's General Fund is categorized into six administrations, and the single largest General Fund investment made by the City is in the Public Safety Administration, which is 52.7% of the budget. The General Government Administration makes up the next largest category at 19.8%, and some of the departments in this administration include the Budget, Finance, Legal, and Human Resources Department. And third in the General Fund investment is the Quality of Life type programming provided by the Community Enrichment Administration at 16.8%, which includes Parks and Recreation and the Libraries Department. Looking at the General Fund expenditure budget by expenditure type, the single largest expenditure category in the General Fund is salaries at $185 million, or 47% of the total budget. Benefits makes up the second largest category at 19.5%, or $76.8 million. Combined, these two categories make up 66.6% of the total General Fund budget. For our capital improvement budget, we have a total budget of $198.74 million in capital projects for FY25. And looking at the five-year plan from FY25 through FY29, we have a total of $994.128 million in capital projects throughout the five-year plan. And in closing, the first public hearing on the budget is planned to be held on September 12, 2024, and the second hearing on September 26, 2024. Both will be held at City Hall in council chambers at 6 p.m. And information on the mayor's recommended budget is available on the city's website. And before I conclude, I'd also like to thank my budget team that's here with me today. They do a great job. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Very informative. I appreciate hearing. Now we're going to move on to our next report, which is item F3. I'm sorry. Oh, we do have a card on that. Okay. William Kilgore, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address city council. Hi, everybody. William Kilgore. I am at 2550 28th Avenue North. And I'm an organizer with the St. Petersburg Tenants Union. I just wanted to speak on the budget. One thing, I'm just going to call it out right now. There is a zero dollar increase for the call program. One point six million dollars. Zero. I just checked. The budget just dropped online. I noticed it in the preliminary budget that was released back in May. That's crazy. When you consider the fact that call has been so successful, you've had probably the best thing I think this city has done in a long time, maybe ever. You know, that was, you know, I was part of those protests in 2020 and, you know, folks were out, you know, there's a lot going on in the country and that was something. St. Pete, I know that was Mayor Kreisman who, you know, implemented it, but, you know, Mayor Welch has been carrying it out and carrying it out, but, you know, in good faith and this has been a great program, but at this point, now, not funding that when the police are getting a $12 million increase and none of that's going to call? Are you kidding me? You know, and see, this is what happens is we get these reforms like this and then we kind of just cap it out. You know, we don't ever take the next step. We don't ever try and, you know, take it a step further. You know, I know there's a neighborhood health and safety liaison and some other, you know, things that have been added, but there's no reason not to, you know, boost Call's budget. We've been asking for that for a long time. We're talking about, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars here, a couple hundred thousand dollars there, increases over the past couple years, you know, but we're giving all these, this grant money and these corporate handouts, business handouts, you know, handouts for these workforce growth smarter, you know, just giving these tech firms free money just for, you know, hiring positions of people who don't even live in this city, people like me. I'm not, you know, it's not benefiting me. It's not creating jobs for most low-income people. You know, so that, I just have to call that out because it's egregious. I think, you know, a lot of people have been watching the drop right now and they haven't really been paying attention to the budget, but, you know, that is a huge shortcoming here and that needs to change. Something needs to change between now and September and there needs to be more money for Call. So, thank you all very much. I like, you know, ranting a little bit, but I appreciate you listening. Thank you. Thank you. Any more cars? I'm sorry I missed that. No, ma'am. That is it. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I started this a little bit during agenda review, but I figured I'd just get it out here. When you live in this city, you have to pay for services to the city to live here. There's two major ones. One is your ad valorem taxes and the other one is your utility services and you have to pay and you have to pay for both of them and it makes no difference that one is a direct fee for service because the other one is also a fee for service. They're the same thing. And every year we go through this process and we choose to cut the one that impacts property owners directly and raise the one that impacts residents directly. And so when I made this comment last year, if our goal is to use some of our budget resources to lower the cost of living in a blanket way, then it would make more sense to just keep the military the same and lower the impact on utility fees. Utility fees are paid for by people who live here. Renters pay the utility fees. Homeowners pay the utility fees. Business owners pay the utility fees. Property taxes are paid for by the property owners who don't necessarily live here. There's been an expose in the Times over the past few weeks about how much of our property is owned by Wall Street. They're the ones who are reaping the benefit there. If you're a large property owner, you might not even live in this city. Maybe you do live in this city. Doesn't matter. You're going to receive a disproportionate impact from the millage rate decrease when if our goal is to lower the cost of living in the city, I think we should look at keeping the millage the same and lowering the utility rates because they're going up a lot every year. And I'll give an example. If you're a senior on a fixed income in a senior facility, you don't pay the property taxes on that facility. Sure, maybe some people could make an argument that the owner of the facility pays property taxes and they might pass along the savings. Well, if you think they're passing along the savings, I have a bridge to sell you because no one is going to. We all know. We know what happens when you give a tax break to the people at the top. They don't pass it down to working people. And so I just want to continue to advocate and hammer home that point that I don't think that the way that we're trying to cut the cost of living in the city is equitable. And I would like for us to acknowledge that and change course. And it's the second year in a row that I've articulated this. And this year, I feel very strongly about it. So I just put it out there. I look forward to our budget discussions going forward. And with that, I will finish. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Monteneary. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mayor, for presenting your budget to us and Liz and the whole budget team. I took a quick glance at the executive summary after we received it late this morning. And I appreciate what you've done with adding a, I do disagree with Council Member Floyd on a millage rate reduction. To me, it's a very, very modest millage rate reduction. And I want to, I propose one myself. I believe that strongly that that's the path that we should be on. I also believe in making sure that we're adequately funding our reserves. So I proposed a higher contribution to our economic stability fund. And we'll have these discussions. We'll have one-on-one meetings with our budget people and go through this entire budget. And just for the public watching, this is our budget. It's a big, it's the biggest thing that City Council does. It's where the City Council gets, it's the power articulated in the Charter when it comes to the power of the purse falls on City Council. So the mayor proposes the budget. City Council approves the budget. And I look forward to working with our team to make sure that we continue to be good fiscal stewards for the residents of St. Petersburg. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Mayor, for the presentation at the beginning. And thank you, Liz, and your entire team for all the work to get us to this point. I wanted to address Mr. Kilgore, his comments and share and echo in that concern. One of the things that I had asked for in my budget memo was an increase in the call program. Very, very important service, I believe, to our residents, to our city, and really innovative work that we've been heralded for, for doing in the face of everything that happened in 2020. I'm looking at the budget now, which to Council Member Montaneri's point, we just got this morning. It's been a busy day. We've been in committees all day, but we have it here. And so I've pulled it up. And to Mr. Kilgore's point, it is flat. It is mirrored to the dollar of where we've been for the last couple of years, it looks like. And I see other places in the police budget, fiscal services, for instance, that's up 73%. So I just want administration to know when we have a one-on-one, this is something I want to dig into. I want to understand. I want to understand what goes in the line item of fiscal services at 73% of an increase when the call program is flat. And you have a lot of Council Members here that care deeply about this program, want to see this program succeed, want to see this program really quite honestly grow. And I don't know how we do that with a flat budget in that item. So there's probably lots of other things that we can have conversation about because budget requests from Council Members are long and we understand it's a balancing act. But Mr. Kilgore brought this up, so I went right to it. I saw it. I share in the concern and certainly want to have more conversation about that. Absolutely. And Council Member, if I could, and Madam Chair, if I could just address that very quickly. We did have an increase last year in the call program. And that, we entered into a three-year agreement with the provider at that level. So we're under the agreement at that level for the next two fiscal years, 25 and 26. So just because we're at an agreement at that amount, does that not mean that we cannot make a proactive decision to increase that budget item and give more money to that program? Well, it does not. But I just wanted to provide clarity that we increased it last year to include two new staff people to expand the program. And I see that now. Yeah. So I just wanted to point that out and clarify that. Okay. All right. Well, I hope we can continue discussion on this item. And so thank you, Madam Chair. I'll leave it there for now. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurness. Thank you, Madam Chair. Liz, this is probably a question for you or Tom. The mayor mentioned increasing the general fund target reserve from 12, I think, to 14 and some change and then trying to get to 16. Is that a new GASB requirement or recommendation, I guess, not requirement? It's one that we've been trying to work for over the last couple years. So if you remember, we started at 5%. Yep. We've been slowly trying to get to that 16.67. So they went from 5 to 10 to 12. And so in August, when we come to BF&T with our fiscal policies recommendation, we're going to recommend going up to 14.67. And so we can get closer to that target. So it depends on if it's approved by City Council. Okay. I guess in my head, I thought we went from 5 to 10 to 12 and that's where the recommendation was. I guess I didn't realize that 14. I'm not against it. It just caught me off guard a little bit. Yeah, it's two months, which is 16.67. And we knew it'd take a couple years to get there. Okay. This is like year three of a four or five year plan. All about it. I think part of the reason I wanted to bring it up, Council Member Montaneri, is in general, I agree with you about the Economic Stability Fund, but that makes me feel better about the Target Fund if we're not going to do it at a million for economic stability. And so to me, it's kind of one or the other. I totally understand your feeling on it and I'm sure we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks, but I'm glad to hear that. For some reason, that totally escaped me, but I'm happy to get to the two months. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Looking at the timeline, so clearly there are some of us who have changes that we want to have made, but we don't have another opportunity to talk about this. We have today and then we've got first reading. I've always been in favor of having a committee of the whole meeting in between this point and first reading so that we can hash this out because there are things that all of us want that are not in there and there are things that perhaps we individually want that we could come to an agreement on for this and then there are other things in here that have been put in like the major changes that are listed in the presentation that I've never heard anything about and yet there are so many of the things that I and we ask for that are not in there and so I just I don't know how anyone else feels about this but I don't like us having to be kept in silos because we cannot talk outside of a public meeting to have these one-on-ones and then come to first reading not know and have to take that scalpel to fix the budget to where we want it and need it for things like the call program. After this meeting, I'm not going to know how Council Member Gabbard's conversation went because I can't be there and I can't talk to her. I want that fixed. If I could. I want to follow up on my question from the Committee of the Whole from the operating budget portion on increasing the rents for our marina liveaboards or for the slip rentals at the municipal marina and I threw a fit about it. That's got to be fixed. I don't want us to have these conversations with walls in between us because of Sunshine Law. I want us to all talk about and if we're doing it now, then give me a recess and I will make some notes and we're going to go to town on this right now. Certainly appreciate your comments, Council Member. And I know that Council sets their own agenda and their schedule, but just from the administration's point of view, with the timing and everything we've been working through, we're very happy to have a Committee of the Whole meeting on the budget. We're very happy to do that if you would like. Thank you. I appreciate that. And while we're at it, I wanted to let everyone know I've been giving some thought and having some discussions with folks since the governor made the very unfortunate decision to cut all arts and culture funding in the state of Florida and the impact that it has on some of our local arts organizations. It is a really, really tough position. I have looked for a while at the concept that other cities have adopted as a policy to dedicate 1% of the budget every year to the arts. So this 1% for the arts concept is something that's happening in other cities. And I would like us to put together a plan, a roadmap to get to that. It would be very difficult at this point in the game to go to 1% of this year's budget and get right to it. But kind of like our clean energy goals, things like that, I would like to, and I think I'll just do a new business item. For this year, I want to see how we can increase that. But then I want us to put together a plan in subsequent meetings to get to 1% for the arts. So it would be incremental. But I just wanted to let y'all know, I'm sure that everyone is upset and has just a lot of consternation about what happened in Tallahassee for our arts organizations. I think that we can't fix it all, but I think it's a call for us to step up a little bit more. So I'll be bringing that forward soon. I'm very happy to hear that we have agreement that a committee of the whole meeting to discuss this and hash everything out is there. And I appreciate that from the administration. Thank you. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just quickly, just because you brought it up, Council Member Driscoll, I have a one-on-one with Brian Loak regarding TDC funding for Creative Pinellas. It's on my one-on-one agenda with my next one-on-one with the mayor to discuss how to get nimble there with the TDC. I really, I'm all for a path to try to do that. I mean, you know me, I'm a big arts supporter. I do think that a lot of this, we'll call it an undue burden, could land there rather than on us. So I'm happy to update the next time we're all together. I'll have an update not only from a one-on-one with Brian, but my next TDC meeting is next week and I'm sure we'll be talking about that. I had a one-on-one with Creative Pinellas. And so I think there's ability to hopefully bridge that gap with TDC. There's funding there. There's some ability to be flexible and nimble. In my opinion, significantly more nimble than we're able to be to bridge that gap. And so I just, having you brought it up, I just wanted to let you know there are some conversations going on to try to help bridge that gap for Pinellas County and St. Pete. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I want to thank Council Member Driscoll for bringing that up because I was sitting here when we were reading and it was like, wait a minute, how many, are we going to have a chance to talk? I mean, it really took me somewhere because there were some things that I did want to discuss in the budget as well. So thank you for making that offer to see if we can have additional conversation in the sunshine about some things that we would like to see in the budget that's not in the budget. And so I'll get with Janie so we can kind of work and schedule that. And that is a good point because the next time we will get together we'll be here on the dice again for the first reading. So, you know, thank you, Council Member Driscoll because, you know, as chair, you have to speak last so I'm glad you brought it up. So we will hash that time and those dates out so that it's feasible in order to meet that requirement. Seeing no other requests to speak, we're going to move on now to our next report item. Thank you so much for that report. F3, which is the resolution approving the purchase of an aerial truck. If you would like to. And joining us is our Acting Operations Chief, Richard Gomelak. Did I say that correctly? You did. All right. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Council, Administration, Mayor Welch. I appreciate the time speaking with you all this afternoon. For those I haven't met, my name is Rick Gomelak. I am the Acting Operations Chief. Again, appreciate your time today. Just a quick rundown of a very short presentation I have for you all today. I just want to discuss the grant that we received. I would like to go over some thank yous for the people that are involved in getting that for us. And then I'd like to show you how the money was spent on it. And then we'll take a quick look at the vehicle. So with that, I'll figure out how to move this along. So I'll just give a real quick synopsis. Excuse me. So the city submitted a request for $300,000 towards a new ladder truck ahead of the 2024 legislative session. On July 1st, 2024, the Division of State Fire Marshal within the Department of Financial Services notified the city of the successful grant award to provide financial assistance to purchase the 2024 Pierce tractor-drawn aerial truck. The city is eligible for the full funding amount of $300,000 with no matching requirements on the city's behalf. So some special thanks. We want to definitely thank, kind of go out of order, this bill was sponsored by Representative Lindsay Cross and Senator Darrell Roussan. I was also made aware that Mayor Welch and Council Member Hanowitz traveled to Tallahassee to advocate for us. So we appreciate that as well. The Southern Group is also a partner in securing the funding. And then a very special thank you to David Thompson who did the grant writing for us. So we appreciate it. I had not met David until this morning. So I met him at their previous meeting and I went up to thank him for getting us the money and he said, no, no, no, that's the easy part. And I'm like, no, us spending $300,000 is easy. You getting us $300,000 is a difficult part. So we appreciate that. So just a breakdown of the funding for this particular vehicle. $1.199666 came from the penalty for, sorry, penny for Pinellas. The grant money accounted for $300,000 and then we also spent $844,252 from the fleet replacement fund for the vehicle. So the grant total for this vehicle is $2,343,918. I know we've talked about communication before I heard Councilman Gerdes mention it and I just want to compliment everyone on how well that departments communicate. So one of the things besides the grant that we got was our ability to pay early for this vehicle. So just getting permission to pay early for this vehicle saves the taxpayers $355,408. So I know there's a lot of questions about money and how it's spent and bureaucracy but I just want to compliment our council administration mayor on how well they work and to let the people know that not only are we buying good equipment so we can provide the best service but we're doing it in a prudent manner so they should be very happy with that. So we'll move on quickly to the tiller truck itself. So this is a very different vehicle than we've ever bought before. This is kind of like the old hook and ladder truck from back in the day. A lot of metro cities have vehicles like this and with St. Pete being a progressive proactive city we try to mirror that as the fire department as well. So we know that we can't really grow out a whole lot so we're growing up. That's very evident from our downtown skyline and how things look. So what we try to do is come up with a vehicle that's going to be great for the downtown area which is where this vehicle is going to go at the master station downtown. There's a couple things that this vehicle has that our typical trucks don't. If you think about it it's like a fifth wheel RV so it's able to move a lot better in tight corners from the alleys we have from the construction that goes on this vehicle will be able to get around the city a lot better. So tractor drawn aerials are highly maneuverable because of the fifth wheel articulation and unique ability to steer the reel of the trailer independently. It's a 107 foot ladder which will be the highest ladder that we or the longest ladder that we have. This will have greatly improved visibility. The way a tiller truck is designed it allows a tiller operator to sit higher than the driver which provides a second set of eyes in several critical situations. So the person who steers at the back of the vehicle will sit higher than the front which is a great vantage point for us as we approach accident scenes they're able to communicate and you get a picture a better picture all the way around. So it assists with crossing through traffic intersections traffic and road blockages on route setting up at emergency scenes managing wires downs and other obstacles and then the most important thing would be the tighter turning radius that's a lot easier to move around. Another thing that's very important it's a lighter vehicle as well. So with this being a lighter vehicle we would hope there would be less wear and tear less fuel costs and less maintenance in the future. So that's just a real quick synopsis of the vehicle and if you have any easy questions I would love to answer them and any difficult ones Chief Bassett is right behind me so I'll read it up. Okay I see no request to speak so thank you for that wonderful presentation. Thank you very much. That was real easy wasn't it? First one done. Thank you. Move approval. Second. Yeah. Okay let me catch up. You gotta buy it right? Yeah okay. We were done and I was like let me catch up. Well thank you so much for that so now that we have a motion and a second for approval of this resolution can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that all present council members have voted can you please tell and announce the votes. Madam Chair the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Mohammed being absent. Thank you so much now we'll move on to F4 which is another resolution approving the first amendment to the contract with Ajax paving to expand the scape of work and presenting that is our engineering director Mr. Burjesh Prayman Hi Mr. Prayman Hey council How are you? I'm great pleasure as always great to be back and great to see you all I'm here to give just a quick update on a contract that we're requesting approval on and I don't know if I can do this but before I start I wanted to know if Council Member Montaneri wanted to add anything before I get started Madam Chair Yes Council Member Montaneri Thank you I pull this item and thank you Reg for putting this presentation together this is a good news item but there has been a lot of talk about 62nd Avenue and why this part of our city hasn't been repaved it's kind of a complicated issue and I go to a lot of neighborhood meetings when people ask and I talk to them about all the different factors that are going on with 62nd Avenue and if you've been down that part of St. Petersburg from 1st Street to Bayou Grande Boulevard the street's in very bad condition and there's complicating factors of why it got to that point part of it has to do with the and Brej is going to get into this but has to do with the 40th Avenue bridge construction the Shore Acres Rec Center other projects within Shore Acres and we had to keep 62nd Avenue open so just wanted to give it a little bit of context and Brej is going to give us more details thank you we have a little bit of technical difficulties I'm going to resend it again and thank you for pulling this councilmember Montaneri it's good news it doesn't indicate that you did that so thank you so much for that and hopefully I can buy Brej ish enough time are we ready with our presentation no are you coming to sing no but while we're waiting for Brej ish to get the presentation ready I do want to point out as he will show and as councilmember Montaneri alluded to under Brej ish's leadership as our engineering director we're more and more looking at how can we do our projects the right way and do it right way once rather than coming out and doing it over and over and over again and this is one of those situations where it's a complicated mishmash of utilities roadways there's other construction projects going on and they've come up with a program to make sure that we do this project right in a way that honors the community but also makes sure that we're not tearing up the road multiple times in a short period of time so that's a very important point as to why the program is set up the way it is and it looks like he has this presentation ready all right thank you so much for that Mr. Tinkersley so today we're presenting a millinery surfacing of 62nd avenue north and going back to some of the comments from earlier as far as budgeting and processes you'll see the sequence of how we laid out these projects to not only minimize impacts within the community but also maintaining services to the community but also being fiscally responsible as we are implementing these projects so we don't have to go back again so a little bit of memory flashback hopefully it's not a scary one but going back to 62nd avenue why we didn't really start that project earlier and this dates back to the 2016-17 time frame 40th avenue bridge as it came up for replacement there's only those two main connecting corridors for that entire community essential services deliveries school buses even residents going and coming from work or school or anything of that nature 62nd avenue was the primary route 22nd avenue to the south was the other primary route now let's look at all the projects that also transitioned within that period and again looking at that 2016 period moving forward we had 40th avenue bridge immediately after that we had the shore acres rec center then the shore acres rec center water main replacement and you see that progression of projects so we're not only paying attention to the criticality but also trying to sequence those projects to mitigate impacts that is primarily why we did not elevate 62nd avenue to start resurfacing why? because of the amount of additional axle loading of traffic on that roadway plus we also knew that school was coming up for construction and that's where you transition all the way down and then we finally get to project number eight project number eight is what Claude alluded to a program a program of projects where we start focusing on the immediate and how we're also connecting all these additional utilities within one corridor so you see hatched in there is the gray black hatching which is the 62nd avenue paving that we are already planning to do in this month weather permitting we are getting some rain so resurfacing is dependent on weather so it's later on this month we will be paving that roadway section and phase 1b leads to what's the next sequence of projects now this RFQ is already in development looking to hit the street very shortly phase 1b will be the infrastructure improvements along 62nd so I'll just skip ahead to phase 1b so we'll conduct the roadway and utility upgrades of 62nd we'll also be doing what we call the a part of the wet weather force mean installation along 62nd we'll also be doing roadway improvements we'll be designing so while we're paving 62nd we'll be designing these improvements to construct on the rest of 62nd immediately once we start constructing 62nd the larger scale improvements we then move on into the designing of phase 2 which is 1st street so that's how you see all these projects starting to fall together in a larger sequence a bigger picture it's almost like that mosaic you see these individual pieces of glasses but as you step back that's where you see the picture and how it all fits together so that really giving you all that understanding of how the sequence of these projects evolve it's not that we're not paying attention to them but it's really we're trying to be cognizant of the services and how we also assign and prioritize the projects and with that I ask for approval I'll move approval second thank you I just wanted to see if anyone had comments councilmember want near thank you madam chair and thank you Brege for kind of explaining that like I said in the beginning complicated project you've got force mains from the north from the south you've got 40th avenue bridge you've got the shore acre center you had force mains going being put in throughout shore acres and all all the time all that was going on you had two routes in and out of shore acres 62nd avenue 22nd avenue that you had to keep keep open and the residents that use that roadway have been very patient and I'm glad that we were able to kind of explain why it took us a while to kind of get to this point and to you know supplement your point we were sequencing down to the shutdowns on the lift station for the replacement of that force main we had to sequence that when we can do shutdowns on the bridge when we can do shutdowns for water tie-ins to jet those lines across on the water main on shore acres boulevard so you're completely right we couldn't just shut down all these roads we had to continuously you know I hate to say it play traffic up as we maneuver vehicles and also it's along a school route so it's a tremendous amount of volume yeah well thank you well thank you for explaining it to us and kind of showing to the public all the different factors that were involved so thank you madam chair thank you councilmember floyd thank you I enjoyed the presentation it was really interesting I just had one quick question that I hate to do to you but is there any sort of time frame you're hoping for this the resurfacing is going to start at the end of this month okay cool all right and then you know any idea how long it's good straight road shot so we're looking at two and a half weeks approximately to finish bathing it oh it should be quick again it's weather dependent okay we are getting these afternoon showers if the base is too wet we really can't put the asphalt back down we're at the risk of unraveling okay all right that's a rapid timeline though so I appreciate it I've spent some time in that neighborhood in those neighborhoods over there and yeah it's I see what you're getting at so thank you okay seeing no further requests this week can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tell and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item F4 passes unanimously thank you so much so now we're going to recess the city council and convene as CRA and we're joined by our economic development manager George Smith how are you Mr. Smith good afternoon madam chair council members I'm George Smith economic development manager for the South St. Petersburg CRA we are presenting for your consideration amendments to the affordable single family home ownership program we are requesting that you recommend and that city council approves amendments to the affordable single family home ownership program and the addition of the rapid roof replacement sub program the affordable single family home ownership program was approved by city council in 2018 this program provides down payment closing cost assistance for first time home buyers rehab assistance for owner occupied homes funding for barrier free mitigation and funding for home buyer education credit counseling and foreclosure prevention the assistance offered is restricted to households whose income is less than 140% AMI all CRA residential programs are administered by the housing and community development program we're seeking to amend the program's rehab assistance component by increasing the maximum assistance from 45,000 to 60,000 for owner occupied households we're also seeking approval to add the rapid roof replacement sub program this program will offer funding for the replacement of roofs and to repair damage caused by the leaking roofs such as ceilings soffits fascias and walls the maximum award is $20,000 and is restricted to owner occupied residential units with the household income of 120% AMI or less this is a pilot program in partnership with the foundation for healthy St. Pete the foundation has committed $200,000 to this initiative and we are proposing to also commit a $200,000 match this pilot is only for properties with active roof code violations the funds offered are treated as a forgivable loan which means that if the recipient remains in the home for five years the funds will be forgiven this chart is the most recent income indicates the most recent income limits for Pinellas County and was published on April 1st 2024 there are 96 active roof code cases in the CRA as of May 1st 2024 37 of those cases are owner occupied residences so we are requesting that you recommend and that the city council approve the amendments to the affordable single family home ownership program in the addition of the rapid roof replacement sub program thank you and we're available for any questions that you may have thank you I see no request to speak oh there we go council member Montneering thank you madam chair thank you George for the presentation I do have a couple questions about this in the backup material you have exhibit three and I've got some questions on page two of the exhibit three and it kind of walks through some of the changes to this program and the different amounts of funding that people can receive can you remind me how much funding could a individual receive because if you add up all these different programs I mean it's quite a bit of funding so you've got the down payment and closing cost assistance the rehab assistance the barrier free mitigation can somebody like apply for all of that afternoon good afternoon assistant director housing community development and thank you so much for your question what happens is that they won't an individual can't receive all of those the purchase assistance program is different from the rehabilitation program so somebody who has applied for purchase assistance cannot then turn around and apply for rehabilitation assistance we have it written in the program guidelines that they have to have been in that home for a period of at least up to three to five years before they could possibly apply for the rehabilitation and then we would have to take a look at some things because when someone applies for the purchase assistance our rehabilitation officers are reviewing everything with that home that has to do with the surveys everything that has to do with it and if there's any repairs that need to be made those have to be made before we grant the purchase assistance so what we could possibly see is a situation as an individual who would receive the $20,000 for the roof repair but when we get into the home we're going to see what we see a lot right now which is it's much more than just the ceiling and the roof and the soffit and the facade that's damaged you've got wall damage you have flooring damage to the point where we would have to remove the floors remove the joices and put brand new down for safety reasons and so what we can do is we compare that $20,000 with the $60,000 rehabilitation dollars if needed we could also do an accessibility grant in that and that would be the additional $5,000 and that's all the further we could really go unless it is a very bad situation which we have had a few homes that are and what we would do is we staff those situations and say okay is there any way we could add state funding in addition to the CRA funding and that's something that we staff together jointly we include the director myself George the rehabilitation officers and the finance officers and we sit down we talk about the case and we say is this something that we can save we oftentimes have to pull codes into those discussions also sometimes there are homes that we can't and from there we have to go to the building inspector and say there's nothing we can do there's nothing codes can do but other times we are able to do an awful lot of good by saying yes we can take an extra 10,000 from ship put it on to that 60,000 and that 5,000 and we can make this a safe healthy home okay thank you for that so the other couple other questions that I have George mentioned in his presentation about if somebody gets the funding for this roof replacement program they've got to be in the house for five years yes and what happens if they sell the house before they would have to they'd have to pay that and that's what the majority of our loans now why this is different is that this is only a five-year period our loans do a 10-year period where they need to be living in the home for 10 years before they could sell the home if not those funds are back it's part of our mortgage they would need to pay back those funds okay so they would have to give out some of their equity that they have in their home okay and the only people that qualify for this roof replacement program are people that have had code violations that is correct that is correct this is the pilot program and we want to see how we do I want to help people in need but I also just question sometimes you know if you have like two homes that are side by side and one homeowner is being you know saving their money and keeping their home up and another homeowner is wasting their money on other things things you know it just you know it doesn't seem fair how do we deal with that because the majority of what we're finding I would say 90% of the individuals we are assisting are over the age of 65 they no longer have the means to repair their homes either they physically can't do it they financially cannot we've recently had a situation where the family was suddenly she would just meet them outside of the house for the past two three years she would never have them inside the home and then for a few days they didn't hear from her and they were quite concerned when they found her it was in a very serious situation because the home had deteriorated so much and they did not know she was ashamed this had been her home for 30 years and when they found her they got her the medical care that they needed they removed her from the home immediately they went in and took care of the inside of the home and contacted us and said we've done all we could could we please can you assist us through the outside and we did everything we could and she returned back to her home and is living a healthy stable life and it's wonderful that we're able to do this for our residents especially our senior residents thank you thank you for answering my questions thank you madam chair councilmember mohammed thank you madam chair george thank you for the presentation man always impressed with your responsiveness because these are you know conversations that we have and we've had multiple conversations you know even before I got on council and after and I just like to watch how you take those conversations and turn them into actions and of course working with the rest of the team and the staff but I really appreciate that and really just going back through a lot of what I say right now is probably just going to be comments and so not a lot of questions but the council member Floyd brought me a button this morning from the people's budget review and that was really my entry into this aspect of you know organizing and really policy work and to have that button today just kind of blew my mind got real sentimental about it and the CRA was a part of that you know we had some advocacy work that we were doing but we always found that there were programs and ideas that they didn't have the resources to be able to implement them and so the team and the group got together and said how can we develop something that will allow us to be able to fund these ideas and so to see the CRA the work that you're doing with it the things that are happening with it now is really just amazing because I remember that conversation about like well how do we pay for it there's not you know so being able to take the tax dollars and use the TIF in the way that it was designed being historic outside of downtown like all of those things and to be able to see these types of programs come forward is definitely appreciated we know that homes and home ownership you know and again looking at the approach like there's funding for acquisition but then we start seeing that there's issues with maintenance and so now we're dealing with acquisition funding and also dealing with maintenance funding and really being responsive to those needs you know seeing how insurance costs and what that's doing to people's disposable income so you might have saved money but when you get that notice that your insurance went up that money that you saved is now accounted for child care costs all of all of the things that we're dealing with as a community does not necessarily speak to somebody's irresponsibility it's just a reality that I don't have it and resulting in a code compliance violation is another thing that you have to deal with that piles on and so the partnership with the foundation for a healthy saint petersburg their responsiveness and being able to to help address that is just something that's commendable I applaud it I do like the five-year timeline because I'm aware of you know those ages and you know five years to you know 40 year old is different you know than five years to somebody who's 65 or older which is 90% of the people that are being served by the program and so I really appreciate your responsiveness I'm happy to support this effort and would like to move approval second thank you thank you madam chair I just want to tag on to that because you highlighted it you certainly have read it in the materials but for those who are watching and who are here in the room with us we're really thankful you really highlighted how community building works and how city doesn't do this alone this program really is happening because the foundation for healthy saint pete under the leadership of dr. kenika tomlin came to us and said what kind of programs do you have but aren't getting the uptake that you could and we talked about roofs being a problem here in our community particularly with hurricanes and resiliency issues and you highlighted this point right we talk a lot we think people need financial literacy well you can't make literacy happen when there just isn't enough and so a lot of our programs to be good stewards of our city dollars require reimbursement but when you don't have the money to outlay it in order to get the city dollars foundation for healthy saint pete said let us help solve that problem and so you already highlighted that but for those who aren't seeing the materials and reading them i just really wanted to thank dr tomlin and her staff for coming to us and saying how can we amplify the work the city is already doing where are there gaps what are you seeing in the cra where we can make a difference and that's what you have before you and so we're really thankful for her support of this thank you thank you thank you so much councilmember hanowitz thank you chair and thank you george for the presentation i'm going to mention something i mentioned before you may remember in exhibit three the consistency with south st petersburg redevelopment plan the data there is outdated it talks about when the st petersburg redevelopment plan south st petersburg redevelopment plan was developed right the data used was back in 2012 then we're looking at data from 2016 which shows that the percentage of households with housing costs exceeding 30 percent of income was 53 percent it should say south st petersburg and 38.6 percent in the city that should be higher today based on new data we've updated obviously the income limits in attachment one and obviously the awards are being increased but i think it's helpful to show that it's very needed in the area and i think once you get that data updated it's going to help cause so that that was just my two cents on that appreciate that we'll make that change thank you thank you councilmember driscoll thank you so i just want to make sure i understand with these two different things one of them for the home ownership program the limit is 140 percent ami that is correct for the overall program as the umbrella it may be other programs that within that that have a restriction that is less than 140 percent okay and this particular one is 120 percent that's what i yeah now i'm now i get it so something else might be 140 or yeah the facade grant program is 80 percent okay and then the the roof program the rapid roof replacement is a pilot program at what point will you take a measurement to see how it's going we'll see how fast we get through the first 400,000 which will be the 200,000 from the foundation and our 200,000 we'll do an assessment at that time in coordination with the codes department see where they stand talk it over the administration talk it over the foundation and see if they would like to make an additional investment and administration will make the recommendation to us and then we'll implement it great it's early july now do you think that maybe just after the first of the year in january you could just give us a five minute update on what you have found in the first six months glad to i love that thank you thank you thank you council member gabbert thank you chair and thank you so much george for the presentation sorry i had to step out for just a second i rushed right back because i said to loretta as i walked by i don't want to miss what george has because you always bring us something good and something good for the residents that you serve so thank you so much you know i certainly am supportive of the increase and the maximum for the rehab program but i really really am impressed with the replacement of the roof program i know you know pilot now looking forward to getting that update because amy you must have been reading my notes before i came up here because resiliency was the issue that i wrote down with insurance the way that it is in the state of florida we already know that many people especially those elderly that you speak of who have paid off their homes they aren't carrying insurance anymore because the cost is so great or when they get that notice that says your roof has reached a certain life now you have to replace it and they don't have the means to do so i've gotten one of those letters before and i know they give you a very short window of time to be able to replace or else they will drop you and that is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night because i worry about the residents that i know are not properly insured because when everything is gone they will not be able to replace it and so a program like this it might seem small to some but can make all the difference in the world to others so and dr steichler thank you for the story that you shared about the resident i've recently had a personal situation with someone i know who was in a very similar situation i only wish she lived in the city of st petersburg because these programs do not exist everywhere but they are needed everywhere so thank you for what you do for the residents and thank you for your advocacy thank you chair thank you so much i i also want to concur with what everyone is saying um mr smiel for the presentation but more importantly i am and i look at the dollars and and i look at how well they're being spent but i also remember when the south st pete CRA started and it was nowhere near the budget it has now and we have been so diligent with putting the money back into the community in which the CRA was established the partnership between the city and the county and it's programs like these and in council member gabbert shared what i was going to share in regards to insurance a lot of these seniors do not have the insurance because they won't insure their homes i we just went through that um with the property next door to ours and if the roofs are not up to par if the windows were not up to par and hearing what i heard coming from uh tallahassee with citizens who is our major carrier looking to drop policies now and needing any reason to drop homeowners i am so glad to hear that 90 percent of those that we are servicing are our seniors because seniors have a special place should be in all of our hearts and wanting to ensure that they remain in their homes so with that being said i know we have two different items there's one and two in their resolution but we do have a motion and a second so we can go ahead and take them both attorney williams we need to take them separately we need to take them that's what i thought i thought we were always one resolution but it has it CRA and then separately will be the okay so i just want to make sure that it has two items in the resolution okay i just want to make sure because i know we have it out of CRA but i just want to make sure okay so thank you so we have a motion and a second i see no further requests to speak council members would you please cast your votes seeing that all council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes unanimously thank you so much for that still stay stay there stay there so now we're going to adjourn as the CRA and reconvene at city council with our continued reports of F2 move approval okay that was quick seeing no further request to speak it was council member driscoll and hanowitz seeing no request to speak can you please open the machine for voting for F2 council members cast your votes now that all present council members have voted can you please tell and announce the vote madam chair the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously thank you next we will move to legal repealing the preempted major construction project and contract requirements chief assistant city attorney Mr. Neen Williams thank you madam chair this is the first reading for three ordinances which repeal the disadvantaged worker apprenticeship and wage requirement ordinances uh for st petersburg as a result of the passage of house bill 705 um and that bill has an effective date of july 1st of this year house bill 705 amended section 255 0.0992 of florida statutes which already prohibited the state from requiring that contractors do a number of things including paying employees a predetermined wage providing employees a specified type amount or rate of benefits uh controlling limiting or expanding staffing or recruiting training or hiring employees from a designated restricted or single source house bill 705 amended that statute to add two words to the definition of public works projects local or which then made that statute applicable to local funds city county funds um spent with contractors so now cities and counties are prohibited from requiring contractors to do those things pay certain wages require contractors to control limit or expand staffing or requiring contractors to recruit train or employ uh employees from a designated restricted or single source um the legal department has met to discuss the effect on our ordinances of house bill 705 uh and we have determined that the apprenticeship requirements disadvantaged worker requirements and rage requirements are preempted by the statute uh in reviewing the statute uh in reviewing the statute and the legislative history which actually specifically references the city of saint petersburg's apprenticeship ordinance in relation to the passage of this bill additionally this week we received an order in the case of the florida chapter florida gulf coast chapter of associated builders of associated builders and contractors versus the city of saint petersburg where we had a circuit judge find that those ordinances relating to apprenticeships and disadvantaged workers were unconstitutional and preempted by the state um we do have the ability to appeal to appeal in those case in that case we have not discussed it we just received it this week so we don't have a determination by the city on whether or not we will appeal at this moment but regardless of that case uh we have determined that the state law the passage of house bill 705 with signature by the governor does preempt us with those requirements and therefore you have before you those repeal ordinances okay thank you i need to read the titles for each one yes sir maybe separate or together or the game you can you can read them all together and we can vote on them for first reading together if that is the pleasure of council propose ordinance number 587 h an ordinance repealing division 7 of article 5 sections 2-61 through 2-264 of the city code relating to major construction project requirements for employing apprentices and providing effective date the public hearing for this item is on august 1st 2024 and the public hearing for this item is also on august 1st post ordinance number 589 h an ordinance repealing sections 2-277 of article 5 division 9 of the city code relating to responsible wage for certain construction contracts amending section 2-275 of article 5 division 9 of the city code to remove provisions related relating to responsible wage for certain construction contracts and providing an effective date and the public hearing for this item is also on august 1st 2024 and we do have cards regarding this item i'll call them two at a time madam chair first two speakers brian nathan and jim junoco i believe that is juneco please go to either either podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council good afternoon brian nathan 1401 9th avenue north st petersburg i represent the international brotherhood of electrical workers for both tampa and st pete since i got word of this being on the agenda i've been reading the statutes the bill your ordinance backwards and forwards and pretty much until my eyes bleed um the statute council referenced doesn't mention apprentices anywhere in it it says recruit train and something else i'm forgetting your ordinance doesn't reference a single source it says you'll get apprentices from registered apprenticeships there are union apprenticeships for all the trades there are non-union apprenticeships for all the trades the ordinance also mentions a laundry list of other places to get trained people who are in training programs to satisfy the requirements of that apprenticeship ordinance that i i just failed to see how it obviously isn't a single source it obviously isn't restricted i don't know what they mean by designated but it isn't pointing to any particular organization or place of training in your ordinance so how does the apprenticeship ordinance get preempted when it doesn't satisfy those requirements is laid out in the statute i would love to have a further discussion with any of you if you want to talk about this i personally would urge you to vote no but if you can't do that delay ask for further information from your council how does how is this actually going to play out because i've talked to people in tampa people in miami who also have ordinances not all that dissimilar from yours they're not doing anything their city councils have not taken them up they're not on the agenda my best guess is they are looking exactly at this city council council to see what you do how is this going to play out again it took several members of this council several years to get this ordinance passed are we going to throw the baby out with the bathwater at the first sign of trouble and i'll yield back the rest of my time thank you good afternoon jim ginecco international union of operating engineers 1401 9th avenue north dues-paying member of the international union of operating engineers local 487 we're the union crane operators that you see every day reshaping the city's skyline and we have a robust uh training and apprenticeship program registered apprenticeship program as as do all of the unions that uh that have joined me today um and want to remind you all that we have been a good faith partner of the city with this ordinance since the inception since the conversations first came about and uh we didn't sue you i want to point out that we weren't the ones who sued you we don't just talk about being all about apprentices and then turn around and sue you for requiring apprentices to be on the projects if we would talk about apprenticeship but then sue you for requiring apprenticeships i would hope that you would realize that that math is not mathing something's not connecting there so but allow me to just emphasize the fact that the city's legal department just said that you do have the ability to appeal the recent circuit judges decision and i would say that you not only have the ability to do so but you have the duty to do so you have the obligation to fight like hell and not just roll over and repeal this ordinance you should appeal not repeal you have 30 days to appeal the recent decision instead of just rolling over and repealing repealing it is doing a disservice to the workers of this community and that's who you represent don't let this alphabet lobbyist construction group push you around anymore they have thrown up barriers to this ordinance all along lobbied in tallahassee to pass anti-worker legislation because they can claim to be all about apprentices but who they represent is right there in their name the unions represent workers we represent the working class as always so don't do a disservice to your residents don't repeal this thing you've got the ability and the obligation to appeal the decision and fight and stand up for what's right for this community thank you thank you next two speakers madam chair i believe it's mark um i think this is a v vigilano and randall king please go to either podium state your name and address for the record you have three minutes to address city council i'll go first i'm randall king i'm the business manager of the international brotherhood of electrical workers and also gulf coast building trades council president 1401 9th avenue north and st pete i want to just echo what my colleague jim juneco pointed out is that this is a rush to judgment here over a couple of things that have happened to gone into effect i want to read the staff analysis of the bill 705 that your attorney just referenced with certain exceptions these restrictions do not apply to public works projects that are locally funded so there is an exception to this to this uh recent bill it goes on in effect of the bill the bill allows a county or municipality to prevent a certified license or registered contractor subcontractor or material material supplier or carrier from participating in the bidding process based on the geographic location of the company headquarters or offices or residents of its employees if the county or municipality is the sole source of funding for the public works project and nowhere in it does it mention the apprenticeship ordinance at all i implore you to delay or to kill this right outright as my colleague brian stated earlier the rest of the state is looking because this is you're the first ones to try to make a move on this it's going to have an effect statewide hold up thank you good afternoon my name is uh mark vigiano i live at 4816 14th avenue north i'm the training coordinator for local 123 plumbers and pipe fitters in tampa the tampa bay area and uh i'm here to speak today against um moving forward with the scheduling of this of the repeal of this ordinance and also to speak in favor of appealing uh the decision of the circuit court judge uh the ordinances referred above um ensure that a certain percentage of jobs and people on those jobs receiving city funding will be manned with apprentices and an accredited apprenticeship program or in an accredited apprenticeship program i brought a study with me that's found the following productivity is 14 percent higher when you're using accredited apprenticeship program projects that use a mix of union and open shop labor have eight percent better productivity than popular shops that use open shop labor the use of union labor reduces the total cost of projects by an average of four percent union craft labor and foreman have demonstrated a significantly higher level of skills versus open shop labor projects are 40 percent less likely to experience a skilled labor shortage when labor union labor is sourced and projects use a mix using a mix of union and open shop labor saw benefits from the presence of union labor in each of the measures of performance versus projects that employ solely open shop labor none of these things should really come as any sort of surprise you know everyone that's here is uh devote has devoted their entire life towards apprenticeship and bringing up a next generation of workers in an industry where we have six people retiring for every one coming back in and um i believe the city of st pete has a duty to spend the taxpayer dollars in a responsible and economic way and uh the the hard-to-hire ordinance is what i've called it um is a step in that correct direction to repeal the ordinance is saying that we're willing to build city infrastructure with workers who are performing skilled labor while not ensuring that those skilled workers have received the education required to perform the work properly or efficiently exempting this ordinance is going even further than uh the preemption bills going on in tallahassee um hb 705 would only preempt local ordinances of the uh let's skip forward from that um i urge the city council instead of focusing on the short-term gains of a lower labor cost to focus on building with qualified educated and protected craft workers um like the other people mentioned you know miami is looking at us and we we have a choice here and i really hope that you uh represent your constituents well thank you thank you any more cards one more card madam chair teresa king please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to adjust city council thank you teresa king um excuse me teresa king address that was the necessary piece of information 1401 9th street i am a member of ibew international brotherhood of electrical workers local 915 i'm also the president of the florida state building and construction trade council i am in tallahassee every session and i have watched the associated builders and contractors do everything in their power that they can to stop a community from lifting its citizens out of poverty out of being able to be trained locally uh this staff analysis that um my colleague randall king mentioned was was created after session and it specifically addresses that the local restrictions do not apply when they are locally funded what we what we are looking at and i'm very disheartened to hear that the associated builders and contractors turned what they had originally lost in their case to sue this city for lifting up its citizens and turned around and took it to a higher court to a higher judge specifically to diminish your ability to lift your citizens out of poverty to give them an education to give them training when the staff analysis of tallahassee specifically does not address apprenticeship programs public works project does and preemptions of public works projects haven't changed the two words local and or are the only thing that change and it does not limit your ability to have this ordinance the only ability that you are restricted to do today is fight the government law that the abc has placed upon you it is disheartening that they do not want you to have the ability to make your citizens grow your infrastructure work needs right here in your own community it's heartbreaking so if we have to repeal i urge you i beg you to do that do not let them set a precedent across the whole state by the eyes that are being watched today you are the mouthpiece of whether they win or whether the citizens of florida and your growth wins thank you no more speakers thank you councilmember gabber thank you chair and uh first of all i want to start by thanking all of the members of our trades and our union uh representatives for being here today and also thank you to those who reached out to me yesterday great conversations as always and always love the collaboration of working with you because you are true advocates for the professionals who are the backbone of our city and so i just want to personally thank you all um not only for being here today but what you've done for years for the people of the city of st petersburg i also want to thank the legal team because um i know that you are being prudent you are bringing us something that you believe will protect our city and i appreciate that and i appreciate all of you um however today i am not ready to do what you're asking of us um we just came back from break we have had really no time other than these few phone calls i was able to have yesterday to consult with our stakeholder group who worked tirelessly with us with all of you to bring these ordinances forward and if there is anything that we can do within the letter of the law to continue to support our workers i want us to find ways to do that and i don't think we can do that by just knee-jerk sending this to public hearing at the beginning of august and repealing these ordinances and saying well we're done i just to me that just does not sit right in my soul and i cannot support us doing this today ultimately we may have to but i believe that we need to have a conversation in a committee that goes through some of these points that people brought up today things that i have read the bill summary that i read i want to truly understand what the wording of certain exceptions means i i don't understand what that means and i want us to have that conversation um the bill maintains other abilities when we are the sole source i want to understand what that means i want to understand the implications of the ruling that came to us on monday of this week and like what that could mean to um contracts that we have already executed if there is any sort of implication um the final statement of the bill analysis says that there does not appear to be any fiscal impact to governments well there's certainly a fiscal impact to the people who break their backs every single day to build our city and take care of our city and so for me i would love to hear from my colleagues about the temperature of taking this to a psni committee first before we have any vote here on this dais i am not prepared to vote on this today i also have great concern um we are often the leader in this state when it comes to progressive legislation and doing what's right for people i don't want us to be the leader in taking steps back and knowing that our other municipalities who have passed similar ordinances are not moving forward with anything right now it does also give me pause and i just want to have more time to do the exploration i think that this warrants so colleagues i will leave it there for now i would love to hear what you all think about potentially moving this to a committee and tabling it for today thank you council member floyd thank you i'll just start out with saying that uh the core question that council member gabbard just posed i'm right there as well um these ordinances were years in the making there are some of the political origins for myself getting involved um i know council member muhammad as well same thing um and so to come back from break and get into a meeting and be have a repeal of it put right in front of me is very discouraging and disheartening um and i have some things in here that i don't fully understand uh particularly like sole source supplier and how that relates to um apprentices or uh disadvantaged workers um and the appeal thing i just found out today as well um about us losing the case so i'd love to have more discussions about that but actually the biggest thing that gets to me is that i did see in um one of the bills that legal cited a sunset on responsible wages and it seems like uh that can continue until 2026 and so it doesn't even feel like our responsible wage might not be impacted immediately but we might be able to still at least get some more juice out of the orange for a little bit and so i would feel more comfortable just having another discussion on this um to just assuage those concerns at the very least um and so i see other people queued up to speak so i'll i'll i'll listen thank you thank you for um that for those who spoke on this item um these ordinances have been uh worked on for a long time improved over the years i mean it started before i was on city council and you stood with the people then um i think 2016 and when i started on city council we started talking about making them better and you stood with us then and i'm really grateful and proud that you're standing with us now as we try to figure out what to do next and we will do something next we've got to figure out what that is and what it can be the biggest question today is what can we do that's what i thought when i got when i was told about all of this but that question hasn't been answered yet and i would like to have that answer before we um take away all of this work because maybe there is something that's salvageable within it um a lot of questions came up today that i'd like to get the answers to and um i'd like to find out more about what miami and tampa are contemplating so um i want to look into that and talk to some counterparts there and jim maybe we can talk um about that but i'm wondering what are the risks what's what is the risk if we hold off on this while we get a better understanding of what we're what we're doing um is is it is there um great danger in having a committee meeting having a ps9 committee meeting soon to talk about what the options are great danger that's an interesting way to describe it um i'll just say typically as you all know that as soon as we as a legal department feel that ordinances are preempted we bring it to you the next council meeting after um that is figured out we did with tennis rights we've done that with a number of other ordinances so to answer the question why now that's the typical way we handle it because of the notice to the public of provisions which uh we have determined not to be valid um nothing you do with this is without risk i will say that um you know we can't determine whether or not someone will sue us for not moving on the repeal of ordinances we don't know what that looks like but if you're asking is there a very high risk of us being in violation of some law by not doing it today i can't say that it is and i can't say that it isn't um there's no uh law that specifically says if you don't repeal an invalid ordinance that you know there is some consequence legally to that uh the reason why we bring it to you right after we feel it is preempted is because of the notice issued to the public okay and if we um decided as a council that we want to appeal does that basically hold this in place until that's decided ken can comment on that we don't see how we can repeal and appeal the legal department did not bring this because of the court case i just want to make sure that's right two weeks ago this backup was prepared to bring this information to you because of our reading of the okay so all right put that to this side right putting that to the side ken can comment on the legal case that uh he was okay if i will i'll give you just a brief background of what i'm doing here today uh ken mccollum obviously city attorney's office i've been handling this case since 2019 when the lawsuit came in from uh florida gulf coast chapter of abc against the city suing on the uh three respective ordinances claiming that they're unconstitutional and preempted there's been a lot of litigation some litigation a little slow during the covid period when the court system was working at a snail's pace it picked up again in the middle hb 53 was passed which kind of altered some of the the items in here but ultimately what happened was the circuit court judge here in st petersburg uh ruled a year or so ago in a very brief order finding for the city but without any any factual basis and so abc took it up on appeal okay and under the new summary judgment standard in florida i'm going to get into the wheeze here on the legal stuff but under the new summary judgment standard there's a requirement that the trial court had details and findings as to why they got to the decision that they made so it went up to the second district court of appeal we had oral arguments full-blown appeal uh both sides agreed on the same set of facts that we were dealing with there's nothing in contention about what we're dealing with and the court was concerned about the order being so brief that they couldn't rule on it and we said well hey we're here it was a lengthy oral argument let's hash it out we're both in agreement that all the information is in front of you the court is very interested in the case but ultimately when they issued their opinion a number of months later their opinion was look we can't look past our summary judgment rules that's a sticky place for the court to be so it was sent back to the trial court judge here a few months back here in st petersburg as the process took its path the trial judge then looked at everything again and i should note that when the case came back from the second dca there was a separate order indicating that in their opinion it looked like attorney's fees were going to attach to this case what's the significance of that it's very rare for an appellate court to do that it's kind of a signal to the trial judge that if this comes back again in favor of the city the court's going to overturn it i mean i've been doing this a long time when you see an order like that from the appellate court that's the message i don't know how the judge got to where she got and if that was the reason or not but ultimately monday afternoon while i was eating my lunch and my emails came in i got the order from the court 14 pages overturning all the ordinances finding them null void and stricken based on unconstitutionality under the florida constitution and being preempted that is the order that came in from the judge here locally so these ordinances they're no they're gone the ones that were on the books previously um can we appeal we haven't talked to administration yet about this issue it just came in we're not barely 72 hours since this order came out there's obviously a lot going on administration is aware of this uh everybody's still contemplating their moves i really don't want to get into a discussion in open court about the merits of the case and where we think this is going to go because it's still active and open along with all these fee provisions but i can tell you that we're still considering it and usually in cases of this nature administration makes the makes the call with our advice as to what we should do going forward so that's kind of where i'm at today with all of this i'd janine's more handling the uh the actual writing of the ordinances and where we are with the repeal on it but that's the 10 000 foot view of where i am with all this so thank you i think that's the most i've ever heard you talk at one time like in a public meeting don't get me going i could talk all day um do we so it it's just everything is just so fresh and you know as mentioned we we've barely had time to really digest this let alone try to pick this apart and see if if if there's any meaning to the fact that apprentices is not specifically mentioned is there something that we can hang on to from this and um i do trust your work always both of you but i think something this important is something that so many of us have worked so hard on that did not go straight i mean it's not like it was a you know quick and easy decision that this all was wrong and we had to get rid of it there there was a a winding path right well maybe we should have a little bit more winding path of our own and take our time to figure this out because we've come too far with this to only come this far and i think one way or another there's got to be a way a a plan that we can put together or some action that we can take to at least honor the spirit of this and really find other ways to meet this goal legally but we don't know what legally is right now so i would like to take more time i don't i wouldn't mind that ps9 meeting i'll wait and hear from others or wait to hear from others and then um if you can help us with some options that would be great thank you thank you councilmember muhammad thank you madam chair just a couple questions um and i just want to be clear there are no legal deadlines that like mandate that we do this right there's no like they don't have a timeline that says legally by this date you have to repeal this ordinance or there is no timeline set the ordinances um are in our legal opinion that's why we've recommended the repeal preempted and so there's no timeline necessarily by the legislature within the bill okay all right and a lot of my questions have been answered so i'll just um weigh in on discussion to delay of course you know my engagement around this began in 2017 with the new deal for saint pete and um i remember i think councilmember driscoll was running at that time yes that's how we met we met at a candidate forum and these that was one of the questions that we put to candidates is would you support you know this ordinance and so going back to the yes and all of the other things that have happened there has been a lot of advocacy a lot of support a lot of work with the unions to to get to this point and what at this point i'm risking being redundant um but to have all of that work be done and then to come back in fresh from a break to have to decide to undo it i'm not comfortable doing that right now i would support referring this to a ps and i committee so that we could review which parts of the ordinance are not affected by the preemption i think that would be the the thing that i would like to really be clear on what we're doing when we have this meeting is look at you know what aspects of it and really do that full deep dive to say okay because we did that with some other ordinances where we look at the aspects of it that are preempted and then being able to salvage what we can from it um and then everything else that i wanted to say has been said and it's been a long day already so i want to thank you um and thank those who came out to to speak in this and and thank you for offering continuing to offer your subject matter expertise in this um to uh quote something i hear madam chair say off times we don't know what we don't know and so to have that support consistently over time um is definitely appreciated and so um i would be in support of not taking action and referring this to ps and i or any other committee if that's the will of the group thank you madam chair thank you so much councilmember hanowitz thank you i moved up for some reason all of a sudden everybody wanted me to talk it's amazing that doesn't happen all the time first of all i thank everyone for being here um you know this is this is not something that anyone likes to be clear we're being preempted by the state they're trying to preempt this by faith as simple as that they've been doing this for how long on every issue and it's very frustrating so we share everyone's frustration and i you know there's nothing better than local control in terms of what we do and every time we turn around they're taking away from us so when i look at this and and i just want to ask legal a few questions and i understand my my colleagues trying to understand where where they are at this legally because it can be complicated you have two issues you have the legislature preemption which you know obviously the house bill that passed and then you have the case and you had an order that just passed you know came down a couple of days ago which is a pretty lengthy order it's not a short order uh it's pretty lengthy so i can understand and appreciate my colleagues uh need for clarity on this what i want to ask legal is number one in terms of the um preemption is there anything i mean we can have we'll we can have a committee meeting i just is there anything based on the ordinance that you see can be saved based on the preemption that you have seen not the ordinance as written right because it preempts you from requiring contractors to control or limit or expand their staffing and recruitment or hiring of employees from specific sources and i think it will be helpful if we have this meeting for people to understand i guess in terms of the analysis of how you get there because i understand what people see well there's an exception right or when there's local dollars used and why doesn't that apply right and we've had questions that have been asked and that that i don't want to get into the weeds in terms of a legal analysis on all these issues right now because we can i i understand it but but i think that's going to be helpful if we're going to have that discussion the other issue i i want to talk about is in terms of the case um just to be clear on the appellate order for attorney's fees i want some clarification on that so that never happens i've never seen it i don't know any attorney who has so so i just when when you see something like that and i'll read it because i actually printed it out um once i got this order because i i was i was looking at all this um the appellate court granted appellants attorney's fees um conditionally and then basically told the trial court to determine reasonable amount of attorney's fees if if the appellant prevails which i i understand what attorney's view of that is they see that and they're like they know where the case is going at that point um but then the judge did not she ruled on this after the state had preempted right the bill so she she knew she knew that there is it there was the previous bill and now there's this current bill this year correct and i'm unsure if the court uh specifically was referencing the new bill or not i'm not 100 sure right because it wasn't it wasn't clear there but she did she based it obviously obviously on the previous bill and maybe on whether it was implicit in the in the stash statutory scheme okay um so i i don't like where it stands i'll be honest i don't like it i don't like the order and i don't like the bill it doesn't look good we are gonna have a discussion on it and i think we should so we're all clear on it um but the order in terms of even appealing the order at this point we have an order that tells us um that it is if we have this conversation and i'm fine having it at psi are we going to be doing anything in terms of the ordinances i would assume that everything's debated nothing's happening based on this order right now or what happens because this order right now is out there because it says our ordinances are no void and stricken sure no void and stricken i mean theoretically a motion to stay judgment of this pending the appeal would have to be a type of emergency motion for stay with the court something we could consider uh we certainly have the 30-day window on the appeal and all of this to do that and we can have that discussion uh offline i guess and uh obviously we need to get administration involved in this and their thoughts on all of it right and and that's the thing i i don't want to step on them this is administration's role in terms of determining the appellate issues but i'm just concerned about we're having these conversations we have an order pending right now that tells us these ordinances are stricken we're not doing anything we know by the way that there are florida statutes that hold us to a duty and not of the neglect of duty obviously the governor can remove any official that neglects a duty so if we have something that's pending that's legal if we're not doing something so i do have some concerns and i want to make sure if we have these conversations we're doing the right things that does that make sense in terms of the pending order itself yeah it makes sense to me i mean i i understand where you're going with this yes so i that that's what i want to make sure of if we're going to have these conversations are we covered because we have this order pending and they're all by the way they're all related to the same ordinance whether it's the house bill that legal is telling us that preempts us we still have an order that's separate a part that came out two days later that basically has stricken it so we have it on both ends we have it on the legal end and on the state level and and they're here and we're here the way i read this order the ordinances are done as we sit here today it's null void and stricken yeah and uh you know any any move we make going forward is going to be a battle it's going to be a real battle okay so we if we have if we have the conversation if we don't do anything today we have the conversation so we can have a full understanding of this at least for every council member here to be on the same page on the issues and allow everyone to understand where we're at and the stakeholders and all that what do we need to do to ensure we are within the bounds of law and we're not doing anything outside of the things that are required of us because that's the only concern i have obviously administration has the right to make their decision and um and and we have to allow them to do that and we haven't there's 30 days while we while we are waiting to figure out because we haven't had those meetings regarding the appeal we still have a court order saying that they're null void and stricken so while you're talking about whether or not you're going to take the active role of repealing it we are not doing anything with the ordinance and i i want to make sure that i want to put that on the record though i think that's important to put on the record that nothing's going to happen and we're all on the same page because if we're going to have those conversations and there are statutes that hold us to a duty not to neglect our duty as city council members and followable also on and so forth that we're all on the same page we're going to have these conversations and whatever actions we take after those conversations and that should be fine but i i would figure if nothing happens right now it is no void and stricken as it stands right now we can have those conversations based on the order um we can have those conversations and and then take it from there um if it helps if it helps for the record uh the administration is not going to be enforcing these ordinances right until there was something until there's something clear okay so so and but it's important i think to make the record clear on that so with that being said i mean my we have the next um psi meeting is august 8th is the one that we have scheduled that's the next psi so i can absolutely put it on that august 8th meeting we have a conversation of the city of st petersburg community survey i think we'd be able to tackle both issues easily and i think legal could then give us a much better legal analysis of the things that we've talked about and then some of the other issues that council members have brought up if that works that's within your purview yeah okay okay recommending first read but obviously it is within your purview to send it to ps and i at any time okay i just want to make sure everybody's on the same page so okay i'll be happy to hear from everyone else thank you vice chair girders thank you madam chair um i know we were laughing about having you talk but that's why um so that's that's how i understood it and again i'm gonna i'm gonna probably use simpler language but my understanding is that we're we we are taking a mitigated risk to have a conversation later on by not repealing it today but in essence this is done whether we repeal it or not because of the order we've we've received on monday yes unless we appeal it right unless unless there's a p an appeal within the next 30 days absolutely okay okay so because i i'll be very honest with you listen i don't like bringing it up but my dad was a significant part of this ordinance and then worked on it for three years in procurement after city council and so i saw the sweat blood and tears of this and you all lived it and so i i don't want to do this i i would use very strong language that i haven't used on this dais yet uh describing how i feel about this but i came in certainly ready to vote to repeal it because the way it seems to me is it's dead i'm happy to have the conversation because i try to be amenable and act like i would like my colleagues to act if i were on this same uh same road and so i'm happy to have the conversation because it's not a huge risk i think it's it's a mitigated risk it's short term i want to understand it i want to make sure some of the language in here from a simple mind i i get the argument of not having apprentice specifically done where it says recruit train and hire employees from a designated restricted or single source among other prohibitions i'm happy to have that conversation but then i'll just be honest my brain goes to we have an order for monday now we could appeal it and certainly that warrants maybe having the conversation to keep it open and that's why i'm open to it i i hope that made sense i we've been talking about this for a while and i feel like a lot of people are in the same place but it i don't i also don't want to get my hopes up because that order i read it is also i read it also i was never a lawyer but i worked in law office for a few years i'd and for an appellate attorney i've never seen that and so uh that that certainly scares me but but i'm open to having the conversation now that i've said that four times so um that's all i have madam chair thank you thank you councilmember montaneri thank you um so when our city attorney tells us that there's great danger in going down this path uh that should get all of our attention uh a lot of a lot of the points that other council members brought up uh i had on my list of questions but i i do want to ask a couple questions about our role our oath of office that we took and taking this step of moving this to a committee and not adopting these ordinances today could that be grounds for removal from office i don't believe so but i can't guarantee you that with what has happened lately with a number of removals of officers in different areas and how about the the oath of office that we take to uphold the constitution and the laws of the state of florida i think regardless of your active repeal of the ordinances they are null and void so that would be the argument but i just couldn't give you a hundred percent based on as i've said removals of officers in the state of florida in the past couple of years okay um do we do we have a motion on on these not yet i'll go ahead and move approval of uh 11 a b and c are you done council move on here council member gabbard thank you um so that motion died for a lack of a second all right so i'd like to make a motion that we take these uh the repeal of these ordinances to the next available ps and i committee august 8th did you say second yep thank you and i just want to be very clear on the record i understand we're not going to be enforcing these i understand they are null null void and stricken and i understand where we are very clearly i have no intention of violating the law as a sitting council member i do very clearly have intention on having a conversation around what it means to stand up for workers in this city and that is within our right that is what we are allowed to do that is what we are representative government to do so i just want to be very clear with whoever is listening we're not violating law we're exercising the rights that we were voted in to exercise so thank you council member driscoll thank you so i was there a motion in there yep yeah at the beginning i made a motion ps and i august 8th do we need to so so what happens to this in the meantime there was no second for the motion to approve it so depending on the results of the motion to refer to ps and i there would just be no action on it so on august 8th we'll have a ps and i committee meeting between now and then i'm sure we'll all be having more conversations with you and hopefully by august 8th we'll all come with some ideas a better a better understanding of all of this for one thing but also some ideas on how we can move forward to achieve the goals that are set forth through these ordinances that's what i want to look at so um it's you know we may not be officially repealing it today but we do understand what the consequences are of this particular order and and and what has happened but if you think about it as i've been thinking of it as a repeal and replace kind of thing where i i don't want to let go of this until i know another way that we can do it so um by the 8th though i i mean i just don't want any more time to go by so we need to have this as more than just a discussion we got to be ready to take some action that could possibly like go to council that day that's how fast i want something done done just to show that yes we understand that some changes have been made beyond our control but if we focus what is under our control i think we can still get something some good things done for this so i'm looking forward to the 8th and i appreciate everyone's contributions to this discussion thank you has everyone spoken all right yay my turn um where where i was in this and i've had this conversation after receiving the phone call about the repeal from attorney williams everywhere i went i i spoke of my dismay even with the 101 with administrator curtis um those that know know that i have been on this and thank you councilmember driscoll since 2016 and we were diligent and we were able to get the cba passed in 2021 that actually included some of the apprenticeship piece that was nowhere near what we wanted nowhere near what we thought was sufficient but we took it knowing that we were going to continue the fight administrator curtis will tell you how adamant i was about it being overall in the ordinance and we were because of the cva we were blessed to get it in the um term sheet for the gas plant project and then i get the call that it had been preempted imagine how i don't know if i was sad mad whatever it was because we worked so hard to recognize our apprenticeships our our laborers those that do some really work really hard because i have family members that are in unions um and i know that we could not exist without the contributions um of our laborers so my understanding and i i totally agree with councilmember gabbard i understand everything that's going on i don't it's not for a lack of understanding my questioning of not wanting to move forward with this today not to jeopardize anyone's position not to jeopardize the city of st petersburg and cause any great harm or danger but what we've been impacted with to have a conversation as to what can we do to just have something placed before us coming back from break and just saying we got to do this without having a conversation i just thought was rushed um and not knowing we know we can't do this but what can we do because you know we're we're here for a reason um and working on this for the past eight years meant a little bit more to me than just repealing it just the first time hearing it and coming back so i thank everybody for your phone calls i thank all of our colleagues for wanting to have a better conversation and understanding about this i think everybody's already on the same page we were there um i don't think anybody does not understand i just think that we wanted to talk about it so and and again attorney williamson and you know our legal team we never once doubt what it is that you're bringing to us but we still have a job to do just like you did yours and i think having it scheduled for psni um is the right that would be my choice um and i'm definitely going to support the motion that's on the floor um as and that's going to give me um more time to have a better conversation with the experts um as to what something like this will do in regards to moving forward um not only on a specific project but for those impacted greatly on this because this has been yeah i was real disappointed very disappointed when i heard this last week so um the motion is on the floor it has been properly seconded it was seen no other further request to speak can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to move the ordinances to the august 8th 2024 public services and infrastructure committee meeting passes seven to one with council members driscoll vick sanders floyd gabbard curtis hanowitz and muhammad voting yes and council member montaneri voting no thank you thank you so we're going to move right along i know you all are tired but we're going to move right along our new business items g1 we have a referral to psni from vice chair girders respectfully requesting thank you madam chair respectfully requesting referral to psni committee or other relevant committee for an update on the city's sign code and i'll move approval second i have a motion and be seconded can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce your vote madam chair the motion to approve agenda item g1 passes unanimously thank you moving on to g2 vice chair girders skipped one excuse me madam chair okay thank you madam chair uh i am respectfully requesting a referral to the budget finance and taxation committee to review the bp settlement fund expenditure request as presented to the hers committee may 16th 2024 this is a city council resolution which is attached that requires any request of the expenditure of bp settlement funds to be to be referred to the bf and t committee before submitting to the city council for approval and i'll move approval second now that we have a motion and a second can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item g2 passes unanimously with councilmember hanowitz being absent thank you moving on now to g3 referral to bfnt vice chair girders three in a row madam chair respectfully requesting referral to the to a committee of the whole to discuss northwest park lighting project currently on the wiki wachi project uh list this is step number nine of twelve this should be a relatively short item for a committee of the whole it's pretty simple uh it was passed by bf and t to send to the cow and um so we we certainly get to add it to one we don't need to have a special cow whenever that comes over the next couple of months and i'll move approval second thank you now that we have a motion and a second for g3 can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item g3 passes unanimously with council member hannah what's being absent thank you moving on to g4 council member montenari thank you uh respectfully requesting a referral to the economic and workforce development committee or other relevant committee and update and presentation on the arc innovation center this is a staff request i'll move approval second thank you now we have a motion it's been second can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your vote now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the vote madam will all move here the motion to approve agenda item g4 passes unanimously with council member hannah what's being absent thank you i have two additions that i needed to run by council since we're together um today in agenda review there are six council members present and we had a conversation in regards to a resolution to change the starting time of the july 18th date from 1 30 to 11 a.m and i have a resolution and i entertain a conversation if not i entertain a motion and approval for a time change for july 8th from 1 30 to 11 a.m move approval what did i say oh i'm sorry july 18 and y'all my brain is move approval of a time change to july on the july 18th meeting to 11 a.m thank you council member floyd thank you i just wanted to since we're up here put it on the record that i uh would prefer if we keep our meeting at the same time uh it's already been uh put out there people are looking forward to it it's important meeting i know it's difficult for people to get time off work and whatnot and so i just uh wanted it set upstairs since i said it downstairs thank you and and let me just just respond to that really quickly we're going to start off with the budget presentation at 11 and by the time we finish with that it's going to be 12 12 30 for a break we're going to take an hour for a break and we're coming back at 1 30 which is the same start time the only thing we're missing is the budget so that that they're coming so we move move that so that we're not impacting council member muhammad thank you madam chair and actually going back to what i said earlier um i got involved with advocacy around the budget and so i think there may be people who would come out to have a discussion on the budget and um this the me and me would would love to move it up so we can start earlier probably end sooner but the organizer and me knowing that people have to move their lives around in order to make these meetings and participate in these um sessions um i wouldn't want to want to move it and keep it as what was set before because i do think that somebody might want to come and actually participate in the budget who's scheduled to come at that time and when we move the change they show up to the meeting and that conversation has already happened i think we do our constituents a disservice in that so i wouldn't support it right now understood we've had a motion as mayor property second can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item f5 passes five to three with council members driscoll fix sanders gabbard girders and montaneri voting yes and council members floyd and i went to muhammad voting no thank you now i also we talked about having another review in account for the budget we have a proposed date of august 1st at 2 30 pm prior to that we do have a council meeting that morning at 9 with public hearing at 9 30 which shouldn't take that long but august 1st is the available first date for the cow are you all amenable to august 1st august 1st do you need a motion madam chair we're going to need a motion and a second make a motion that we have a budget cow on august 1st at 2 30. thank you do i have a second okay we've probably been second vice chair girdus thank you madam chair um i just i'm i'm happy to support this because i want the cow to happen uh i had booked travel that afternoon i'm going to try to change it but i just wanted to let my colleagues know um i just wasn't anticipating it that's all and so that's that's my fault um it being a thursday but i should have known better um but i i'm i'm going to try to be there but i i'm certainly in favor of it and i would not vote against it just because i'm not going to be there or could not be there thank you council member floyd thank you i just wanted to say one thing we have done this like maybe every year i've been here we want to miss one we should talk about systematizing it yeah yeah yeah go ahead council member driscoll i'm done that's all i had yeah i'd end on that too at the engineer council member driscoll thank you actually i actually made a note i was actually going to bring it up when we talked calendar in december for during that committee the whole meeting so um i'm glad to hear that uh someone else would like to have that as a tradition thanks we'll systematize it oh it's time to go he is an engineer by the way he needs to be on his spreadsheet seeing no further requests to speak can you please open the machine for voting council members can you please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to have a budget committee of the whole on august 1st 2024 passes unanimously thank you now we're going to move on to open forum do we have any cards for open forum we do have some speakers madam chair the list is still um i'm going to call them two at a time i believe this is mary can't read the writing to talk they talk and dr durell polly please go to i have the podium state your name and address for the record you have three minutes to address city council i don't see dr polly john stewart cindy roberts douglas jackson sanya kocconin william kilgore ernisa barnwell please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council good evening council members um my name is mary katok 5910 biogram boulevard northeast in saint pete uh i'm coming to you today as a ordained and licensed minister with the church of the creator since 1996. my god that seems like centuries ago um thank you heavenly father for being here today hear this prayer and bless all with your wisdom your strength and your grace in psalms 15 you had a conversation with king david who asked the following questions who can dwell in your tent lord who can dwell on your holy land you answered king david that the one who lives honestly practices righteousness and acknowledges truth and speaks and holds that truth sacred in their hearts they will reside with me you said that the one who abides with you and does no evil to their neighbor the one who doesn't use money to a disadvantage and protects the innocent they will live with you and you said that the one who keeps an oath even though it hurts very painfully and they don't get what they want will live with you lord you ask us to walk the high road especially when governing others using right speech and maintaining integrity in all matters legal and financial you further remind us in romans chapter 8 not to walk according to the flesh but rather according to spirit god help us embrace paul's epistle in 1 timothy chapter 6 where he reminds us that the love of money and what it can bring us is the root of all evil guide these council members when dealing with those who wish to do business with our city your lord be with each and every one of these council members guide them touch their hearts with your precepts of the higher road as they move towards their decisions so that your will will be done for they cannot possibly know the hour and the day of what is to come to this city during this time of economic unrest amen thank you all thank you go ahead go ahead ernisa barnwell i am the ceo of barter hair braiding college and museum 76 4th street north st petersburg florida 33731 i would like to speak to you about the tampa bay raids deal i am here representing the black community and the basically the historic gas plant community to be exact the historic gas plant community had been uprooted by legal instruments that were utilized based on a misuse of a slum law that was created um in legislation and uh used um on a state level from the state level to exact eminent domain on the historic gas plant district which was a thriving district it had schools it had homes also housing schemes this district also had churches it had markets it had nightclubs so this is literally a thriving um community um and basically the same way that the illegal instrument was used to dismantle this community and mow it down for um to be used as a pawn and black community has been displaced in our taxpayers actuaries and descendants uh throughout this community as well not being heard not at the table but definitely citizens so it is obvious that legal instruments are going to have to be also used to get the property thank you brad mccoy brad once you enter into the meeting space please unmute yourself state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council hi my name is brad mccoy 1856 almeria way south 33712 uh hi council members everyone sitting here on council took an oath to serve the citizens of saint petersburg and none of you serving today will face a starker more obvious choice than the one before you now and and on january or july 18th on one side there's a very wealthy very powerful group promising that giving into their terms will result nothing but great things for everyone who will actually be paying for it and we've seen this group's influence and money corrupt and compromise the ethics of a shameful amount of organizations and public officials on the other side is every single person who's fortunate enough to call saint petersburg home for the next 30 years those people aren't throwing exclusive parties in luxury boxes shoveling donations into campaign accounts they're struggling with rising prices and flooding streets that can wreck their lives in the blink of an eye and all the marketing false promises and rigged surveys in the world won't change the very simple facts surrounding this proposal the current stadium paid for in good faith by the people of this city will be perfectly functional for years to come decades decades of studies show that new stadiums provide little to no positive benefits for a city i urge you all to do the research on this it doesn't feel like this research has been done these these stadiums rob cities repeatedly the proposal as it currently stands provides no binding guarantees from the team no shared profits and no financial returns for the public only risks this city is facing very real very perilous threats in in the near future either from storms floods failing infrastructure or other economic emergencies i'm certain you love this city and want this to be the best decision for for its future but that future depends on council members with the vision and courage to lead in lead the city into that future we need to have absolute certainty that every public dollar spent will benefit the safety and security of everyone lucky enough to call this city home unfortunately none of that certainty leadership or vision exists in this disastrous proposal agreeing to it will serve only a very powerful few over the needs of so many and jeopardize the health of this area for decades to come so i strongly urge you to join with the multitudes and i i again say multitudes of your constituents the residents of saint pete who are well aware of how agreeing to this this horrible deal will sacrifice our future and reject this deal until a better solution can be found thank you anyone speak to madam chair dylan dames dylan once you enter into the meeting space please state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council hey folks my name is dylan dames i'm at uh one two zero zero one dr martin lucid king jr street north um i'll be honest it's a little tough for me to bring a reprimand a council after such um a good display of solidarity with workers and like a bright imagination to resist state repression and like in all the ways that it comes you know so i commend you for that however on behalf of faith in florida you know we represent red birded residents and progressive people of faith i just want to urge the council today to reflect on your public celebrations of corporate partners like duke energy the tampa bay rays and the heinz development group too often this sends a message that these corporate partners take priority over the concerns of residents whom you claim that the partnerships are in the service of providing jobs and stimulating the economy and you know grants and scholarships and all these things you know these are these are often touted but you council you're so often told that these partnerships don't serve us they hold up the municipal status quo but they don't protect everybody black folks low-income folks disabled people environmentally exposed people like the list goes on these are people largely unprotected by the private groups you celebrate there's a couple concerns with like a duke energy day of course like rate hikes on residents and you know a strong preference for gas over solar all these things like a lack of sustainability steps even though like even in the context of the city's 2016 commitment to emissions free electricity but what's more important is what it does to the public's confidence in you as you erect this day of commemoration and you call on residents to join us join you in celebrating duke so many residents will not celebrate duke and you still will i hope you all see the problem with this this takes us away from unity and toward tension i'll be honest so many folks within faith in florida myself included did not we didn't even hold negative feelings for duke until the research required to write this comment so i hope this makes it clear that your celebrations of walking in the opposite direction of what people want is as potentially as harmful as the collaborations themselves you know on september 19th while i sat in the bleachers last year and listened to the city and members of the mayor's cabinet and stuff celebrate the the the tropicana field deal i just remember feeling like there's two completely different stories happening here and the marketing and the celebration is just as bad as the robbery itself so i want to echo council members floyd and driscoll and urge us toward relief for residents you know while still recognizing the working class effort and servitude that goes into providing energy services for the city and i just want council to be conscious of the kind of partnerships that you celebrate thank you thank you any more cards one more speakers sierra clark please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council joyful day beautiful beams my name is sierra m clark my my previous address was 4544 22nd avenue south um so i'm a live story of saint petersburg right 14 um been working since i've been 14 worked 18 years at our local children's hospital and um dad got sick in the local nursing home this is also about the gas plant district but i know we like a story and i just want to give my real story the one that i'm currently living um and the one that i was living that i didn't even know that i was living due my grandparents being displaced from the gas plant so i felt a level of oppression and it was so deep inside my household that my learning disability went unnoticed because parents had to be out my mom well not my aunt who raised me because my mom was on drugs and so um so i want the president to learn from the past i had the privilege of writing the second book and it was about the history of saint pete but it was also about the history of my family my grandfather was an immigrant who came here who saw fit that saint pete was going to be where he called home where now as his granddaughter's voice i don't even know if i can call the only place that i've known home is even home and so the 18 years at the children's hospital i no longer am employed there because it got really tough because once i moved out of my apartment to move in with my parents because what do you do as a child you want to take care of your parents and then the housing christ happened the part that i was a part of where we lobbied on on the city lawns and and some people went to jail for speaking up i realized that you're considered a troublemaker when when you speak up and so i but what else do i got they say that my voice counts and my voice matter but i speak to people who are older than me who say what's the point because they have spent centuries and times where i feel like they voice don't matter and so um i just would ask us to think about and not do this deal right not even reconsider but not do this deal we need a deal that is more robust that is targeted around community inclusion and sustainability for households it's unfair that our community grow which is a beautiful thing but our households don't and so i don't want this art of our history painted on buildings i want us to be able to live our stories so out loud that we add flavor to what martin luther king dream was not what just we are our valleys are exalted but our communities are exalted and households are able to thrive right and so um and so um what is it so yeah so can if this is a thing that y'all are still feeling like y'all have to do can we put something in order to where that what's built here or if it needs to be built here is about um about the diver about the disparities that our communities are already facing is that what's being built flows back into the households of the people and the citizens and the working class people of this community thank you so much do we have any other speakers no more speakers we will now move to announcements and adjournments do we have any announcements before we adjourn oh councilmember driscoll thank you i just want to make sure everyone has heard the fantastic news of the 27.8 million dollars that psta is has received from um the from the federal um the bipartisan infrastructure law uh funding it is the largest competitive grant award that psta has ever received in its 40-year history it's the largest amount that was given to any place in florida and we're going to use it for 16 buses 12 will be electric four will be hybrid it includes the charging infrastructure and then just as important it includes funding for hiring and training workers because driving and maintaining an electric bus or a hybrid bus is different from a diesel bus and so it include includes that workforce development too um i can't stop smiling like ever since i found out so um i know y'all heard it yesterday at ford pinellas and um uh councilman or council chair fig sanders was at the psa committee meeting yesterday when we talked about it but it's just worth saying over and over again because we worked really hard um you know talking with everyone in dc but congresswoman castor really really led this and she has become such an incredible advocate for st petersburg and for um for transportation this is a woman who really knows how to bring him the bacon i am very grateful to her and so i wanted to mention that as well thank you thank you so much councilmember muhammad turkey bacon i hope thank you thank you madam chair um i just want to acknowledge for those who may be listening and say thank you um to my colleagues for the uh vote in my absence to approve the alternative number one in the housing land use and transportation uh committee meeting yesterday was the one year anniversary of our first fusion 49th street interest meeting where we assembled you brought it back to you now where we brought stakeholders together to talk about the creation of a business district so yesterday was that anniversary of just the idea and then fast forwarding into where we are now to see the momentum that they have the traction that the group has and the work that they're doing getting things you know done in the community in the district with the support of council has definitely appreciated the goal of every organizer is to organize yourself out of a job and so as i sat and watched the vote and the discussion happen i was very happy and pleased that you all unite with us and those in the district who want to see the transportation changes and the things that were brought forward so thank you thank you thank you thank you madam chair and seeing no further requests to speak we are adjourned