City Council - Jul 17, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr. And District 8, Ritchie Floyd. July 17, 2025 City Council Meeting. If we could do a roll call, please. Here. Here. Here. Here. Harding. Here. Kanowitz. Here. Rick Sanders. Here. And Driscoll. Okay. This afternoon, we will have our invocation given by Reverend Leontay Tewks from New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church. And then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Reverend. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to each of you, City Council and the residents of St. Petersburg, will you bow with me? Our Father, our God, our Creator, our Ruler, and our Helper, we gather here today yet for another opportunity to celebrate organizations for their civil work, but also to discuss matters of importance as we improve, maintain, sustain, and curate this place we call home and the land in which you've given us dominion over. Help those who speak and those who decide to be open-minded, to be true, to be honest and clairvoyant, but above all considerate over more than just budget, but in building a community that is safe to live, to love, to work, and to play. And may the true sun continue to shine on our city, the great city of St. Petersburg. In your great name, we seal this prayer. 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. Please be seated. Reverend, thank you for that beautiful invocation, and thank you for joining us here this afternoon. Okay, council members, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the agenda, seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve. The agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Okay, thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda in front of us. Do we have any cards on the consent agenda, Mr. Clerk? No cards, Mr. Chair. Okay, we have a consent agenda in front of us. Council members, I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda, seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve. The consent agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Okay, thank you. We're going to move into open forum. Mr. Clerk, could you please read the rules? If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphones will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and ask to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reach your 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 in the presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have speakers, Mr. Chair. We'll call them two at a time. Stephen Barfield and Marley Price, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. My name is Stephen Barfield. I'm at 5036 Casillaway South in the Lakewood Estates neighborhood in St. Petersburg. I'm here as the president of SPFs, the St. Petersburg International Folk Fair Society. There have been some recent changes to the cultural arts application process that excludes SPFs from being able to apply through the standard procedure for a cultural arts grant this year. That amount has been increased to $20,000 and had been part of our planning. We have traditionally received the grant requests that we have filed with the city of St. Petersburg. In about three months, we will be celebrating 50 years of existence as the International Folk Fair Society, and next March, we will be holding our 50th annual international fair. We are thrilled to be the longest-running, continually-present event in the city of St. Petersburg, and we are appealing to city council as well as to the mayor's office for special consideration funding for the coming year. You have received an email in the last 24 hours. You may not have caught up with it yet, and I won't bore you with reading that email to you, but the details of what we're asking for and what we would like to do with that money and how we think it will benefit the city are all there. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention, and we look forward to interchange and exchange and figuring out how we can best move forward. Thanks very much for your time. Thank you. Hello. Marley Price by 5034 32nd Ave North, and usually I like to be pretty short and to the point, but I am going to read from my phone because I want to get this right. So I was happy to be able to attend the HRS committee meeting this morning, and while most of it was pretty high level, I was kind of surprised with the lack of hard numbers in the presentation, and I'm sure you're all aware that a few months ago the county voted to withdraw from Duke's Clean Energy Connection program as they weren't seeing the appropriate return on investments, and I was surprised this wasn't even actually mentioned outside of Councilmember Floyd's comments near the end. And it sounds like it's kind of another way for the city to hand over a giant bag of cash to Duke with no substantial check-ins or real accountability. And the Republicans on the Clearwater City Council and the county commission have kind of been running laps around our city council because right now people in your districts can't afford their electric bills, and if they do fall short, they're hit with massive reconnection fees afterwards. And as residents, you know we don't have a choice in our electric provider, but you're aware that the one moment in time when we have any leverage with Duke is coming up next summer and when our current agreement is finally up. And our last agreement was signed in 1996 with Florida Power Corporation, which was later acquired by Progress Energy and eventually merged with what is now Duke Energy. And that elaborate history underscores the importance of accountability in an industry that has seen rapid corporate consolidation, especially with companies that benefit from a state-sanctioned monopoly. And so this crossroads offers a perfect option for you all, and I'm asking that you end the Clean Energy Connection Program and allocate those funds to a feasibility study for public power. So we go into negotiations next year, prepared for negotiations, and with your constituents in mind first. Thank you. Next two speakers. Resume, Mr. Chair. Okay. Max McCann, once you enter to the meeting's place, please state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Hi, thank you. Max McCann, 2648 3rd Avenue South. I was hoping to comment on the proposed budget. Is this the appropriate time for it? If you can't, Max, you can. You can use this time or you can do it at the item. Okay, I'll go ahead and do it now. Thank you very much. I'm here to ask Council to increase funding for complete streets that make it safe to walk and bike and take transit in our beautiful city. I wanted to point out the – I was looking at the high-injury crash network the other day because that's the kind of thing I do. And I noticed that the only section of MLK that's not on that high-injury network is the section that has bike lanes on MLK North. That tells me complete, safe streets work. Now, our budget reflects our priorities as a community. And if I'm reading the budget, the proposed budget right, we have more money for downtown parking than we have for complete streets. That tells me that we're prioritizing driver convenience over reducing crashes and saving lives. I think that's a mistake. I'd like to make it safe, for example, for kids to bike to school. I think that's a better use of funding here. And remember, we can't count on state and federal funding for these kind of projects, so please increase that budget item. Thank you very much, everybody, for all you do. Thank you. Justin C., once you enter to the meeting's place, please state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you so much. My name is Justin Cornway. I reside at 1026 9th Avenue South in Campbell Park neighborhood. We're excited. We just learned that we're getting a crosswalk funded at 7th Avenue South in MLK. Which is a part of the Complete Streets Network. It'll be the first Complete Streets project funded in the South CRA when I was doing my research in the past 10 years of the program. I'm here today to ask for the South CRA TIF dollars to fund capital improvements, to fund Complete Streets implementation, including neighborhood greenways. We know that Complete Streets and things like neighborhood greenways improve the quality of life and safety for everyone, especially in the South Side, where a quarter of residents don't own a car. Thank you so much for your time, and have a good day. Thank you. Next speaker on Zoom, please. Last Zoom speaker, Garrett Marple. Once you enter to the meeting's place, please unmute yourself. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Hello, everybody. Garrett Marple, 4021 38th Avenue North. And I just wanted to call in today to advocate for the Complete Streets funding by the city to be, you know, potentially increased to maybe double what it is now. I think $600,000 is nowhere near what we need right now. What we need is a safe city for everyone to get around with, you know, biking or walking. It can't just be about cars, and we're never going to get there. We're all going to be dead if we continue to fund it at this rating. And I mean that in terms of old age. We're all, like, by the time this all gets implemented, we'll all be old or by the time, you know. So I just really wanted to advocate for an increase. We have an opportunity here with the budget coming up for, you know, to get some more money pushed towards making streets safer for everybody. And that helps the economy. That helps people's health. That, you know, it helps a million different things to have that. And St. Pete's already got a good start with some of the bike lanes we have and some of the crosswalks. But we have so much more to go, and we desperately, desperately need more funding. And as someone said earlier, we don't – we can't count on it from the state. We can't count on it from the feds. So we have to count on it from you guys. So please, please fund Complete Streets. I'd like to see a million towards Complete Streets. But, you know, 1.2 would be great, doubling what we have now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Elizabeth Winter and Alec Schechter, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. My name is Elizabeth Winter. You can lower it if you want. There's a little button on the side, down kind of near your hip. There you go. My name is Elizabeth Winter. My address is 8260 28th Avenue North. And I'm here to ask you to support the feasibility study for public energy. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Alec Schechter. I live at 5034 32nd Ave North. And I'm also here to advocate for support of a feasibility study, especially with tomorrow, July 18th, being the first anniversary of the mayor's coveted Duke Energy Day. I think it is a great opportunity for the city to take a step in the right direction to look at our other options with a feasibility study. I work in IT consulting, and generally at the end of contracts, you look at your options. You look and see if you should stay with your partner, if you should continue outsourcing, if you should insource. I think that would be a great thing for the city to look into, especially with the anniversary tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Speaker, Mr. Chair, William Ballard. Please go to the podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address to the council. Chairman Garty, members of council. My name is William Ballard. Mr. Ballard, would you mind now raising that back up a little bit? Sure. Thank you. I reside at 5560 Bahama Shores Drive here in St. Petersburg. I commend the city for having included in the 26 budget the accelerated upgrade of the sewer and stormwater systems. But I regret that the fiscal year 26 fund summaries for the South St. Pete and downtown St. Pete districts show that there is a lack of understanding about who pays for tax income and finance projects. These summaries for the two districts contain a sentence that says essentially that property taxes generated by any value over the base year go into these funds. That's false. This statement first appeared in the summer of 2013 when the city was working on its FY14 budget. In that same summer, a certain group here in St. Petersburg had organized a referendum to cause the termination of a peer project. The proponents of the peer project, which of course included the city, was stating that only the property owners in the district to which the improvement will go will pay for a project. The truth is that tax-synchronic money for these districts presently and for the last years, as far back as you want to go, has come from annual contributions from the general fund. And if they come from the general fund, everybody pays pro rata for the services and the taxes. And the difference is when you have a campaign and council members and citizens don't understand who's paying, you can get some awful bad results. I expect to deliver to each of you this coming week, a very short memo, and it just takes four or five public record documents to prove that what I have just told you here today. I appreciate your attention and hope that ultimately you will have on the agenda the removal of this misleading sentence from those summaries. Thank you. Okay. We will close open forum and go into awards and presentations. And we're going to start with D1, our Get Ready for Back to School Month proclamation given by our own Dr. Sharon Brown. How are you? Good afternoon, council chair and members of city council. It is another great day in the city of St. Petersburg. My name is Dr. Sharon Brown. I am your director of education and youth opportunities. On behalf of Mayor Welch, I'm pleased to celebrate and recognize a small sample of community organizations and nonprofits who work all year long, including fundraising to prepare our students to return to school prepared with school supplies and critical services. As I call your organization's name, please feel free to stand where you are or join me at the podium. Represented today are Jennifer Jacobs with Clothes to Kids. There we are. Okay. Emily Strider of Junior League St. Pete. There we go. Donnie Williams of Knight Riders Van Club. Okay. Renee Edwards of Saturday Shops. Alexa Ramirez of Euclid St. Paul Neighborhood Association. Debbie Sloan of Our Savior Lutheran Church. There we go. And city employees, Chris Lampley and Nicole Holcomb. And the proclamation reads, whereas physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development of children are crucial for school success. And whereas literacy, health, and nutrition are all critical components of school success, ensuring children are prepared for achievements in school and in life. And whereas various local nonprofits and community organizations host annual free community events to provide K-12 students with a plethora of resources, including free school physicals, medical screenings, dental and vision and exams, backpacks, backpacks, and school age specific supplies, age appropriate books, school uniforms, and healthy snacks, all in support of school success. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg appreciates the collective support of area volunteer groups and not-for-profit organizations who work to support thousands of students and their families who have, for tens of years, help local children receive a plethora of resources and services so they can be successful in the classroom. Now, therefore, I, Dr. Sharon Brown, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welsh, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim July 2025 as, Yes, get ready for a back-to-school month in the city of St. Petersburg, and encourage all residents to join us in this observance by spreading awareness to local families of the support available to them. And now, if any of our representatives would like to say a few words, you know you have 60 seconds to do so. Thank you guys for the proclamation. I'm Renee with Saturday Shops. All of my partners are sitting in the front row. St. Pete Rotary donates 1,000 backpacks. Live Love St. Pete donates 1,000 backpacks and 1,000 uniforms. And Mr. Segui of Derby Lane was a huge financial contribution. So I want to say thank you to you guys. And we are August 2nd, Tropicana, Lot 1, from 4 to 8. No registration is required. Just show up and just come get the items. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Donnie Williams. I'm president of Knight Riders Van Club. Our organization has been together for 41 years, and we have been giving backpacks to kids for at least 35 of those years. And it's an opportunity for us to give back to the community, as well as understanding the importance of education. And with this backpack giveaway, we include the parents, and we have a fun-filled day with food and backpacks, and we want to continue to do it. But we truly thank the city for all that they do in terms of recognizing this. Hello. I'm Nicole Holcomb. I'm the supervisor at Bay Vista Recreation Center, and we are having a backpack giveaway on August 2nd, as well. But we're doing ours from 10 to 2 p.m., and our donations and stuff have come from the community at Bay Vista Recreation Center. So join us. Registration is required, but we're asking all that can and will to join us on August 2nd at Bay Vista Recreation Center for our backpack giveaway. I'm Britt Johnson from the Junior League of St. Petersburg. Thank you for including us in the proclamation. We are honored to be recognized for our back-to-school efforts, alongside so many other great organizations here in St. Pete. We're hosting our 29th annual back-to-school care fair next Saturday, July 26th, from 8 a.m. to noon, at the Johnny Ruth Clark Center, in partnership and co-hosted with our friends at Ebra Health, who are here in the back as well. Since 1997, when we first started, we've given out over 33,000 backpacks filled with essential school supplies, 8,000 medical and dental exams, thousands of age-appropriate books for school-age children, and snack packs, healthy, nutritious snacks. We offer a community resource center for parents who are attending with their families, and then we also have a really fun street fair that the kids can see fire trucks, see the little Ray's mascot, all the really fun things. So we're so excited. Again, we are hosting this next Saturday, July 26th, from 8 a.m. to noon, at the Johnny Ruth Clark Center. Thank you. Chris Lampley, supervisor to Enaut Davis Center. I'll take a little different twist. I'm not really doing backpacking ways. I'm actually working with the teachers. The teachers within our community need those different classroom supplies because those teachers have to pay for those classroom supplies. So I took the opportunity, once I got employed at Enaut Davis Center in my 25th year with the city. So when I went to Enaut Davis Center, my idea was to get away from the backpack drive, which is good, but actually focus more on the teachers because the teachers have to spend their own money to actually get those different items they need for school. So we get different items that I think that all teachers would need, and then to get the chance to actually put in their request. And we approach those requests, and we get the help of Dr. Brown as far as filling those requests, and also other different community groups within the city, different D&I organizations and everything else that helps out as well with that. So that is our contribution to the city, and that is on July 31st this year. Hi, everyone. I'm Alexa Ramirez, the secretary for the Euclid St. Paul Neighborhood Association, and I'm very impressed to be standing up here with these guys. We host, we're on our fourth year of our annual back-to-school bash neighborhood block party, which is partially funded this year by the city of St. Pete through the mini-grants and the youth engagement grants. And we, as a neighborhood, because of the lottery system in St. Pete, the kids don't necessarily all go to the same schools, so this is an effort for kids to get to know their neighbors and also give back to our neighborhood school, which is Woodlawn right across the street from us. So we do collect school supplies and children's clothing and stuff like that to donate to the school at the event and then take it over to Woodlawn the following week. So also trying to support the teachers with those school supplies. Thanks, everyone. Jennifer Jacobs, executive director of Clothes to Kids. We also don't do backpacks, but we do a complete week's worth of school clothes to children in our community, all free of charge. So they get to shop for a pair of shoes, five new pairs of socks, five new pairs of underwear, four bottoms, five tops, a dress, a jacket. And the fun word that everybody doesn't expect for me to say at this meeting, five pairs of underwear, all new, and five pairs of socks and fun accessories as we have those available. So this year we are anticipating serving more than 7,800 children for back to school. So thank you for this proclamation. We appreciate it because it is definitely back to school at Clothes to Kids. I am joined today by one of our board members and Debbie Vervos, as well as my development manager, Sarah Schein. And we are just thrilled to pieces that you have highlighted the great work and what a privilege to stand along with these other nonprofits, also helping the children in our community because they are our future. Thank you. Are we complete? Okay, it's time to get ready to go back to school. Thank you. Council member Hanowitz, vice chair Hanowitz. Thank you, chair. Well, thank you, mayor, for the proclamation, Dr. Sherrod Brown, for everything you do for our community in terms of education and for all the organizations that are here present. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You know, in our community, sometimes there are doers and talkers. Y'all are the doers, you know, and that's important, you know, because a lot of people talk, but it takes work to do. And by the way, we all have busy lives. We all have something that, you know, we have to do every day and work and all this. And what you're doing, you're doing because of the love for your community. And your community so appreciates that. So I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you all for actually doing that. Because believe it or not, you are a small part of the community that does that, right? Because the doers are not the 50%. They're not the 60%. They're a much smaller part of the community, but their impact is just huge. So I want to start out by thanking y'all collectively. I want to give a shout out to a couple of groups. I know in my community, you could St. Paul's, because I've watched you grow. I've watched all the initiatives that you all do to engage your community. I love the back to school bash that you all do to find a way to give back to the neighborhood school, which is Woodlawn Elementary, which needs to support just like all our neighborhood schools. And that just shows, that's an example of how neighborhoods can go out and engage. Our schools right now are under attack in many ways, and they have less and less funding. And it takes a village, it truly does, to support the schools. And the best village is the village that's around those schools. And those are the best voices that can actually amplify what our children need. So thank you all for amplifying that and making sure that you're giving back to your neighborhood school. I also want to give a shout out, Melody Proud. I know Renee Edwards, you mentioned Live, Love, St. Pete. But I remember, Melody, when you started your organization with the same goal, and you reached out to me about forming a nonprofit. And she's another example of somebody who sees a need. She wanted to serve underserved children that needed supplies for school. And she made that her goal. And she reached out and figured it out and figured out a way to kind of brand merchandise so she can sell it so 100% of the proceeds help the community that is most needed. So thank you, Melody, for having that vision and actually following through. You've been doing this for a few years, and it's grown. And it's good to see you in festivals and different organizations trying to do that. And 100% of the proceeds go to our schools. So just to shout out, everyone, thank you. Get engaged. And these are good organizations. For those of you that are not engaged with these organizations, here they are and reach out to them. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you so much, Chair. And thank you to our community partners for all the work that you do. Council Member Hanowitz, you said it best. It takes a village. It really does take a village to raise a child. And I thank you all for being a part of my village. I'm looking at the Williams Brothers with the Knight Riders Van Club. And I can remember my mom bringing me to your back-to-school giveaways. In many years, you all supplied us with the necessities and the tools that we needed to be successful, my siblings and I. And I say thank you for that. I'm looking at the Junior League. It's an honor to serve on your Citizens Advisory Committee, to be a part of the planning of CareFair. And here we are now. This is my fifth year that I've been on the board. And I'm so happy to see the physicals that you guys are providing for these students. The backpacks, all the school supplies. School supplies are essential. Council Member Floyd and I, we both have been educators. And we both know that students need these supplies to succeed. And Brother Lampley, we know that as classroom teachers, a lot of times we go into our own pockets to supply these resources that our students are needing. So thank you so much for thinking about our classroom teachers. I think that's important as well. And, again, I just want to make sure that we notify our residents, that we put our residents on notice of these back-to-school giveaways. One of the things that frustrates me so much is you all host these events. You're giving out free resources, free school supplies, free haircuts, and people don't take advantage of it. And so I just want to make sure that we do all we can to do our due diligence to make sure that we push this out there so that our residents are taking advantage of this so there's no supplies left over. So thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you. It's been said that school supplies are essential. I know back in 2010 when I started my first back-to-school event, and I am here just to say thank you because I know what it takes to host these things and put them together. It is not an easy initiative to do so. And I really want to thank Chris. When we, in 2013, we were calling teachers saying, you know, asking for donations for supplies, and one teacher laughed, and, you know, it hurt my feelings. She laughed right at my face and said, donations? We need donations. And I was like, you know what? Well, we never thought about that. We give school supplies in August, and we think those school supplies are supposed to last all year long. And we missed that mark. So to hear that our teachers are a focus now, and we actually started hosting a back-to-school event in January. So we would do August, and we would do January because we really did, and those of us that have small children know that school supplies don't last all year round. So that each of you that have your niche, you know, you give uniforms, that's a cost. You give, Van Club, y'all go to Van Club's back-to-school giveaway. They feed you well. They feed you very, very well. And it's all such a very welcoming experience. So as a parent, sometimes it can be humbling to go and say you need help to provide school supplies for your children. But I'm familiar with the majority of the back-to-school events that are represented here today. I would go and not feel any other way than grateful and privileged to be able to receive those services. So thank you for your donations. Thank you for being gracious in your delivery, not making parents feel any kind of way about having to come and get free supplies, free uniforms, free underwear and socks, whatever that looks like. Thank you. And continue to do that, again, and for our teachers. That was an eye-opening moment for me when we realized the teachers spend so much of their own money for school supplies for these children. And so whatever we can continue to do to do that, I applaud you all. I thank you all on behalf of a parent and behalf of someone that hosted a back-to-school event for seven, eight years, twice a year. It's a lot of work. And so thank you for all that you put into this. Greatly appreciate it. And thank you for the acknowledgement of the back-to-school events. Thank you. Well, I think when talking about coming back to school, my brain jumps in two different ways. One, I can't believe we're talking about already going back to school. And then my parent brain goes, yes, please get them back to school. So I'm just so – I know I said it earlier when we were downstairs. I'm just so thankful for the work that – I mean, Vice Chair Hanowitz touched on it. It's just amazing to see multiple organizations come together and row in the right and the same direction. It's just amazing to see that. And, again, I'll just – I think I'm going to be using this phrase a lot, but it just – it makes my heart happy. It makes my heart full to see that. And so please know that all of those organizations, our door is open. We want to continue to support you in whatever way we can. And please don't hesitate to come knock on our door so we can do that. So thank you and keep doing it. And I can't believe we're already going back to school, but here we go. Thank you so much, everybody. Okay, we're going to move into D2 where we have our Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity International Conclave Week Proclamation given to us by Councilmember Givens. Thank you so much, Chair. And if I can have my brothers join me, please, at the dais. Thank you so much. Appreciate you so much, Chair. Give them just a moment. 111 years ago, our fraternity was founded on the campus of Howard University by three black collegiate-aged men born just one generation removed from slavery. They had a vision. 111 years later, the cause endures, and the dream lives on as we march on, exemplifying the high ideals of brotherhood, scholarship, and service. Today, over 200,000 members strong in 15 countries on four continents, we celebrate the enduring legacy of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated. Our work has a ripple effect that spans throughout the community and across the globe, impacting lives wherever we go while promoting the high ideals of leadership and academic excellence as we strive to make the world a better place. The proclamation, whereas Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated, founded in 1914 at Howard University, has, for more than 111 years, uplifted communities worldwide through its steadfast commitment to the principles of brotherhood, scholarship, and service. Whereas, inspired by the motto, Culture for Service and Service for Humanity, the fraternity has made significant contributions in the areas of education, business, social action, and civic engagement. Positively impacting countless individuals and families. And, whereas, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated will convene its international conclave from Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th, 2025 in the city of Tampa, bringing together visionary leaders and dedicated members from diverse backgrounds and professions to advance the fraternity's mission of lasting civic impact. And, whereas, the theme of the 2025 conclave, dream big, act bold, and believe, is a powerful call to action that honors the fraternity's rich legacy while inspiring bold and innovative solutions to today's most pressing social challenges. And, whereas, the members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity have dedicated leadership in addressing social injustices, promoting educational equity, supporting economic advancement, and building strong community partnerships across the globe. And, whereas, the city of St. Petersburg is proud to welcome distinguished organizations to our region and to celebrate more than a century of meaningful and transformative change. Now, therefore, I, Corey Givens, on behalf of Mayor Kenneth T. Welch of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th, 2025, as Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity International Conclave Week. In St. Petersburg, we encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the contributions of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated to our city, state, nation, and the world. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the official seal of the city of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, and the state of Florida to be affixed the 17th day of July, 2025, Mayor Kenneth T. Welch. Thank you. Councilmember Givens, did any of your fraternity brothers like to make any comments? Okay. Distinguished councilmembers, my name is Patrick Arthur Jackson. I am the vice president of the Delta Omicron Sigma Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated. I bring you greetings on behalf of our president, Joel Cedric, who is across the way at Sessions, as well as our honorable international president, Christopher Wray, at least for the next few days. Thank you so much. It is a wonderful thing to be acknowledged for the work that we do amongst our other Divine Nine peers in this great city of St. Petersburg. We will continue to uphold our values, and thank you so much. Okay. Just making sure, I don't want to take anybody's opportunity away now, all right? All right, Councilmember Figg Sanders. Thank you, thank you, and congratulations on your conclave. Thank you for being a distinguished member of the Divine Nine, and you look so nice in that blue and white. I did not realize some of you were a Sigma's. I didn't know Chris was a Sigma's, so I am just so honored to know that you've taken your service to a completely different level, past your educational realm of doing for the community, and that you are present. So, again, Councilmember Gibbons, thank you for the acknowledgement, but more importantly, gentlemen, thank you for all that you do. Greeddom is a completely different world for those that are not a part of it, but the number one driver is service. And so, for that, I thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I would be remiss to say that our clerk is also a member of the fraternity, so we want to congratulate Mr. Clerk as well. And so, but listen, Councilmember Gibbons, having met some of your brothers and shared some shoe dialogue and hearing some of their stories, you picked well. And so, I'm not sure about them picking you, but just what a wonderful organization and what a wonderful thing to be a part of. I know I made a joke earlier downstairs, but, you know, my dad was in a fraternity, and to this day, he spends a weekend a year with his brothers. And it's something that has made a fundamental image in my head when it comes to friends and brethren and the time spent together. And to do that then with a service component just brings it into a different universe. And so, I'm just very thankful for not only your brotherhood, because I think that's just as important as anything else, but the service that you bring with it. Our community feels it. We see it. And thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Gibbons. Okay, now we're going to go on to D3, 727 Day, and this is brought to us by Celeste Davis. Hi, Celeste. Good afternoon, Chair Gerdes and members of City Council. Celeste Davis, Director of Arts, Culture, and Tourism. As a native of St. Petersburg and an enthusiast of our city as a top-tier tourist destination, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to welcome residents and visitors to the month-long fifth anniversary celebration of the St. Pete Pier. We've had special events at the pier that will continue all month long. During this month of July, we have the unique opportunity to recognize 727 as a shout-out to our distinctive area code. The celebrations begin at, guess what, 727 AM on July 27th with free events and giveaways all day. And not to be missed is the epic drone show where residents and visitors can experience over 1,000 drones, including pyro drones, which I heard are super special. Visit St. Pete Clearwater has been a valuable partner in supporting the pier celebration. And I ask Kylie Diaz, Vice President of Community Engagement for Visit St. Pete Clearwater, to join me at the podium for the reading of the proclamation. And the proclamation reads, Whereas, residents are the heart of the city of St. Petersburg, making significant contributions and creating a unique and welcoming destination for visitors from around the world. And whereas, this special collaboration between Visit St. Pete Clearwater and the local hospitality and tourism industry serves to thank residents for the warm hospitality they share with visitors year-round. And whereas, Visit St. Pete Clearwater generates opportunities to educate residents about the value of tourism and the integral role that tourism plays in fueling our economy while highlighting the incredible impact that comes from the visitors with love. And whereas, July 27th shall serve as 7 to 7 day and an opportunity to celebrate our incredible destination, home of the best area code of them all, 7 to 7, showing appreciation to residents for their positive impact on local tourism through locals-only specials and celebrations in the city of St. Petersburg, and around Pinellas County. And now, therefore, I, Celeste Davis, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare Sunday, July 27th, 2025, as 7 to 7 day in St. Petersburg, and encourage all residents to recognize the invaluable contributions of our residents and encourage everyone to take this day to acknowledge and appreciate the essential role they play in making the city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County a premier tourism destination. Would you like to share? Thank you. Thank you so much, Celeste, and thank you to Mayor Ken Welch and the St. Petersburg City Council for recognizing this proclamation in 7 to 7 day. We are incredibly grateful to the entire community of St. Petersburg for welcoming our visitors and playing hosts to our over 15 million visitors per year. Through the bed tax dollars generated by our visitors, $95.5 million last year, we are able to reinvest a portion of those dollars back into our communities. In St. Petersburg alone, we have been able to fund capital projects like the Dali Museum, the Palladium, and the Marine Arts Center. We are also able to support world-class events like the St. P Grand Prix. 7 to 7 day is our way of saying thank you to the community with hundreds of deals for residents. In addition, as Celeste mentioned, please join us on 7 to 7 day, July 27th, as we begin our celebrations in Clearwater. And I wanted to mention that we actually have a St. Petersburg native, Chad Mize, whose name is synonymous with our destination and artwork. He has designed these 7 to 7 day t-shirts. And so we have brought those 7 to 7 day t-shirts for the entire council. And you can see Rita to get your own shirt. You need different sizes, just let me know. But we're super excited. Thank you again. And we will, as Celeste mentioned, we will finish off the day here at the St. Pete Pier. That show, that drone show happens at 9 o'clock, but we will be on the pier from 4 to 10 o'clock. So please join us. Thank you so much. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for the mayor for the proclamation, Celeste for delivering it. And to everyone who's been involved in putting 7 to 7 day together. Tony, thank you. You are just a tireless, tireless enthusiast for all things event related. And it's, you know, if you're associated with something like this that's going on, I know it's going to be good. So thanks for all that you do. Celeste, thank you for helping to elevate this as a point, an opportunity for us to really share something that every single one of us has in common, and that's pride for where we live. It's also a great celebration this month of the 50th anniversary of the pier. And although 727 is our favorite number right now, I've got the number five that I want to share with you, and that is recognition of five people who served our city through the construction, the design and the construction of the pier and made it happen. And there were many people involved. But any time you look back at who was really taking the lead in creating this pier, this pier that has won awards, that locals enjoy as much as the tourists, I mean, it's just incredible. And the five people that I want to recognize and thank for making it happen are former Mayor Rick Kreisman, former Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomlin, Roa Quintana, Prajesh Preyman, and Chris Balestra. It doesn't get any better than that, really. This Fab Five that made it happen. And Council Member Gabbard and I served on City Council at the time when we had to take a lot of votes and had to have a lot of discussion and a little bit of frustration, but we got through it, and we ended up with something that we could all be proud of. And so on this fifth anniversary month of the pier, I just wanted to recognize the folks who played such key roles in making it happen and just invite everyone to take a look at all of the different events because it's not just one party. It is a month-long calendar of celebrations for our pier and for our city. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And Council Member Driscoll said it all. I mean, this is a fantastic celebration. And when I saw the list of everything that's happening, I know the work that goes behind it. So thank you all for putting such effort to celebrate our city in such a fabulous way. I'm sure that a lot of animals who do not like fireworks will like drones, even though they may not know it's happening. So I'll give you a shout-out from them. But besides that, I also wanted, everything else was said, but I just also wanted to acknowledge our own Chair, who serves on the Tourist Development Council for his work on the Tourist Development Council. So thank you all. Thank you, Vice Chair, very much. Certainly, like I mentioned earlier, in committee, very humbled to serve on the TDC. And speaking of the TDC, I just want to talk about them and, Kylie, all the work that you do. And if you think about the scope of work that Visit St. Pete Clearwater does, and I'll name you a few, you know, bring movie production here, meeting production, sports teams and tournaments. Oh, and then, by the way, Market the Destination, which has, I don't know, thousands of opportunities to celebrate, eat, tour, art, the whole nine yards. And this team, and a relatively small team does that, and I think they do it spectacularly. And Kylie, thank you for being here and representing that team. But to watch not only that team, but then the stakeholders come across on the TDC and invest that time and their knowledge and their expertise and their understanding of the communities that they come from, because it's not just municipalities as a part of it, it's stakeholders. It's really incredible work, and I'm very humbled to be a part of it. And the work that Visit St. Pete Clearwater does is absolutely awesome, and it's really cool to be a part of. Quickly to the city, Tony. Dude, you knock it out of the park every time, dude. Come on. So thank you to the whole team, Sean, and then Celeste, as you continue, you know, to help grow this culture here in St. Petersburg, I think you know that we all want to see St. Pete shine as bright as it can, and so you have our support, and thanks for all the work that you're doing on a daily basis to support teams like Tony's. And that certainly goes for administration, too. So this is one of those times where I'm very happy we are no longer 813. We are our own 727. So very happy to celebrate that. So for those of you who remember those days on the rotary phone of 813. So, but thank you so much, and congratulations. Can't wait to celebrate. Thank you, everybody. Okay, next item on the agenda, we have D4, presented by our chair, Gerdes, Americans with Disabilities Act Day Proclamation. Thank you, vice chair, colleagues. I'd like to invite up a, well, if they'd like to stand, sit, whatever they'd like to do, it's up to them. I won't, I won't force it on them, but we've got our, a lot of our CAPI committee here, led by our very own Lendell Bright, who I'll talk about in a minute. And then we've got members from Azalea Recreation. We've got some West Side help this afternoon, and are representing our TR program over at Azalea. And then we have members from, not only here at the city, but members of our community who are a part of our disabled community throughout the city. And so, you have heard this from me before, it's no surprise, but the work that the CAPI committee does on behalf of our disabled community here in St. Petersburg is nothing short of miraculous. And, you know, trying not to go too far down the rabbit hole because it's already been an emotional month. Every time I sit around that table and hear the stories and the history and the knowledge and their willingness to share that knowledge, history and expertise to make our city just a little bit better, because that's what I think they try to do on a monthly basis is all they try to do is just move the needle 1%, maybe 0.1%, but they're moving the needle. I get to watch miracles happen in front of me. And it's really incredible, the dedication, everybody standing behind me. Frankly, I'm not worthy enough for their work to be standing in front of them. I should be the other way around. And so, it's an absolute pleasure and I don't have words for it, to be honest with you. It's amazing to watch what they do on behalf of our community. So, that brings me to Mr. Bright. Later today, Mr. Bright, and I'm sure I'll talk about it later too, Mr. Bright will give his final annual update for ADA for the city of St. Petersburg, because he is retiring after 10 years of ADA coordinator and 17 years of service to this city, and that deserves a round of applause. Lendell and his team have given selflessly to this community. And if you ask, I hope Mr. Humberg comes up and talks about it because we would not be leading the country and I don't say that as a piece of, you know, just let's throw it out there. I mean it because leaders from across the country call Lendell's office and ask him what we're doing in St. Petersburg when it comes to ADA and compliance. I hear about it every month. Trust me. Okay? And so what he has done for our city is nothing short of transformative. And so Lendell, I don't get to say it from up here, but I get to say it from down here. Thank you. Thank you. So council members, I will be quiet and I will read this proclamation for Americans with Disabilities Act Day. Whereas July 26th, 2025, marks the 35th 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 community to advocate for persons with impairments in CAPI in 1972. And if you've done some quick math, we did it before American Disabilities Act was signed. 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 meetings, handicap accessible aluminum docks for the St. Petersburg Sailing Center, closed captioning related to disasters and emergency, beach wheelchairs, and ADA training for city staff. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg has a longstanding commitment to the Americans with Disabilities Act and continues to strive to provide programs and services to all segments of the community. Now, there I, for Chair Copley Gerdes of the City Council, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, the mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare Saturday, July 26, 2025, as 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. First of all, I want to thank Councilman Gerdes. I know he doesn't like this, too, but having him on the CAPI for the last couple of years has been a blessing. We want you to know that. But I just want to, you'll hear it later from me from when I do the ADA compliance report. But I want to thank, you know, Anita Dryer. She's been with me for 10 years, and we have worked with CAPI. All right? And the point that we made is that we're just the liaisons for CAPI, but the real work goes with the CAPI members, and I'm going to invite Ross Silvers, who our vice chair, to talk. Thank you very much. Your phone. Hi. Thank you so much, Lundell and city council members, and Chair Gerdes, I mean, has just been so committed to the group and to citizens with disabilities. I think just, you know, it's a tremendous time to celebrate the accomplishments that we have, thanks to hardworking folks like Lundell and Anita, who've worked so hard and are getting ready to move on to other fun adventures in their life, but also to remember that in our community and in our neighborhoods, we have folks who get out every day to live, work, and play, and sometimes do it in different ways, due with their disability. We also have folks who really are struggling to make that journey, so reach out to someone and let them know that resources like CAPI are out there to help them, and that's the best way for you to help us celebrate the ADA. Thank you all. Okay. Well, thank you all for everything you do. First, we'll go to Council Member Givens. Thank you so much, Vice Chair, and I want to thank you for all the work that you've done, Chair Gerdes, on CAPI. Thank you for your representation and for representing the city so well. And to each of you in your rightful places, I appreciate all the work that you have done to advocate for people with disabilities. This work is not in vain. The work that you have done does not go unnoticed. I can think about one of my first meetings when I got elected to city council. It was with you, Mr. Bright. And, you know, we've got a long history, and we've always talked about how we can work together to make St. Petersburg a better place. And I remember throwing out ideas, and you told me, we're already doing that, already doing this, already doing that, and so that shows me that St. Petersburg is leading the way. So 35 years after the ADA Disabilities Act was passed, we know that human rights are under attack, and that includes those with disabilities. So I thank you so much for always advocating for those who are disabled. So many people in my family have complimented the city for their works in leading the way, so I thank you so much for always leading the charge. And as you prepare to enjoy this next chapter in your life, Mr. Bright, I just want to thank you so much for dedicated service to this city, unwavering service. And your leadership, it just means so much to me. You have always been an inspiration, you've always made an impact on my life. So I certainly hope you and Ms. Jeanette will enjoy this next chapter, and y'all will have a lot of nice cruises and trips. And thank you again so much. Anita, all the work that you do for Cappy, grateful to each of you. So thank you so much, Vice Chair. Council Member Fig Sanders. Thank you, thank you. First of all, Linda Elbright. Every time you come before us, you know I'm going to have to compliment you on what you do so selfishly. And the one thing I like about it is that you don't bite your tongue. And when we are representing a community that need that strong advocacy, they found that in you. You know, I can call and I can ask a question or I can make a statement and I can see you at a presentation and you say what you're going to say. And I appreciate that because, you know, when we look at, you know, our persons with disabilities because, you know, I still sit on Pinellas County Persons with Disabilities Council. I'm still there. They need so much of our voices until it is insane how silent our community would make this community if there were not people like you. If there were not people like Chair Gerdes. If there are not people, great people that you have standing behind you that you've built a very strong foundation in order to advocate for those and they make their lives look easy. Some of the things that we take for granted, we couldn't live an hour in their life doing the things that they need to do just to make it happen. And so I don't take that for granted. I don't take the use of my arms and my legs and my mental capacity. I don't take those things for granted and that's why it is so important and very imperative that we continue to have that strong advocacy. And I know you're retiring. I know y'all doing the cruises and the whole nine yards. But do not forget that those voices that have always rang so loudly will never be silenced. You know we're not going to let you go anywhere. We're going to support you, Ms. Dreyer, as much as we can because we need that for that community. So those type of things, I'm really passionate about those voices that I think don't get heard as loudly as they should be. And you made sure when you came to visit with us with the county, you made sure that we had the information that we needed and you had an answer to every question that we asked. And so for that, I thank you. Thank you, Ross. Thank you so much. Everybody. Thank you so much for being here and we're not going to let it go. The importance of where we are and where we stand as a city for our ADA compliance in regards to our very, very, very loved residents. Thank you so much. And happy retirement, Lindell. One of the things that I suppose is that keeping in mind that, you know, without this, the grace of God, watching God and directing us, we direct my path on making sure that I do the right thing and the commitment that I do on that. And sometimes it's troubling. As you know, I don't hesitate my words at all. But I said in a way that it's there to help everybody. And then you'll hear more when I do my ADA compliance report because there's some interesting things that I'm going to discuss and bring up that's going to be happening soon. And I'm not, by the way, I'm not going nowhere. But I will still be actively involved in the ADA community on that. So one other thing that I want, Shelly, she hit me. Let's talk. You going to wait? I'm just going to, I just want to say first, was someone else going to speak? Okay. Okay. I wanted to say that Lindell and I are both going out with retirement with the best HR team. We have Chris, Kristen, Charles. We are very blessed to go out with a team that's supportive. I started with the city 25 years ago, but I've worked with Lindell 10 years and I will tell you that the ADA program was just something we had to do until Lindell took it over and then he became powerful. It meant something to him. The committee means something to him. The committee is everything to us. Councilmember Gerdes is so respected within the committee and really listens to everybody and always has something positive to give back. So we are very blessed to have our ADA coordinator, our CAPI committee. I think we're like the number fifth accessible city in the United States. Yay, St. Pete. So we just are just very, very fortunate. So I want to thank you all for every opportunity you've ever given to listen to us as we present all this information, get it all together for you every year. Thank you. Councilmember Fick Sanders. Thank you. I am so sorry. I didn't know that she was retiring with you. So happy retirement. I am so sorry. I'm going to wear that one, Councilmember, because we celebrated that a couple of months ago at CAPI and it was my understanding Ms. Stryer had already retired. So if I bang that up, that's on me. But we love Anita just as much, all right? And so I don't want her to think that she's been forgotten. So I will wear that one. But I'm glad you're celebrating her. Yes, we are. Thank you so much. Well, I want to just thank you all for such amazing work. Congratulations on retirement and changing the landscape of our city. And I will tell you that a lot of people don't understand the impacts of having a disability until sometimes they face one. And so my husband just broke his foot and I will tell you I was very thankful for those that fought for all the accommodations that are available because you don't realize it until you have to deal with it. And we had to deal with it in a national park. Wait, there's not. It's very hard to find the things that you need. And we were doing it traveling and we had to go through airport without having any experience of how to navigate that. And we had people like you all that are part of the system, the ADA world that kind of guided us through it. And no words can say how much I'm thankful for that. And look, none of us know where we are going to be in the future in our old age. So this work affects everyone. So thank you all. Okay. Well, the next item, the next item we have is F1 and we have our mayor in the house. He's going to do the presentation for the FY26 recommended budget. We'll give them a minute, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, City Council, members of our city team and the St. Pete community. It is a wonderful day of celebrating the great things in our community and our proposed budget is a celebration as well. If you think about our opportunity and ability to allocate more than a billion dollars of resources to impactful projects and programs in our community to move our city forward, that's the opportunity that we have today. So along with our budget team, I'm honored to join you to present this recommended budget for fiscal year 2026. And as in previous years, I'd like to highlight some of the collective priorities funded in this recommended budget and take the opportunity to thank our administrators, our budget team, our city departments, city council, and the public for your collaboration and the development of this recommended budget. The annual budget process is an opportunity for our city to fund our priorities to innovate and respond to new challenges while meeting the critical service delivery responsibilities of city government. As city council knows, our budget process begins early in the year with an important conversation about council and community priorities. We hold budget workshops with city council and a budget open house with the community. Now those meetings are opportunities to hear from council and the community on what the most important funding priorities are. The budget you have before you is a result of that process and seeks a balance of community impact, sustainability, equitable investments for our city. As we develop the budget, 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. and I know council is familiar with these, but I just want to go over them again for the public. The first is housing opportunities for all. Second is environment, infrastructure, and resilience. Third is equitable development, arts, and business opportunities. Fourth is education and youth opportunities. And the fifth is neighborhood, health, and safety. These pillars reflect what we do, the impact we have in the community. These pillars are guided by our 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. Now, before I hand this over to Budget Director Liz Mikofsky, I'd like to highlight a few items aligned with those pillars and principles from the recommended budget. Now, first, our tax base continued to grow in 2024 with property values increasing by 4.93%. However, that rate of growth was lower than the preceding three years. And that lower rate of growth combined with the cost of opening the doors, wages, operational costs, inflation, combined with our heightened focus on resiliency after a record storm season last year, means that I will not be recommending a millage reduction this year as I have for the previous three years. The FY26 mayor's recommended budget holds the millage rate flat at 6.4525 mils, which is the same as FY25. The first area I'd like to highlight is housing. It 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 Area Median Income and less. Since the 10-year Housing Opportunities for All Plan began in 2020, we have 2,617 multifamily rental units completed or in process against a goal of 3,200. Accessory dwelling units remain an important focus with 189 units completed and 69 in the pipeline. It's part of our goal to provide 150 single-family lots for construction of affordable for-sale homes. A total of 196 homes have been completed or are currently underway. These are a few components of the Housing Opportunities for All Plan, comprising the city's effort to help 33,800 residents secure affordable housing or remain in their homes by 2030. In FY25, the city celebrated some of those successes with the opening of the Bear Creek Commons and Bayou Court apartment communities along with the Habitat for Humanity, Tampa Bay Gulf Sides, Shell Dash townhomes that will provide affordable home ownership to 10 low-income households. And we have more projects on the way. Housing highlights from our recommended budget include a general fund commitment as well as state and federal grant resources to fund the city's various housing grant programs. The budget includes funding to continue the city employee housing assistance, citywide rebates for residential rehab, citywide tenant eviction, and codes compliance assistance programs. This budget also provides resources for homeless individuals, youth, and families. In FY26, there is funding for social action grants at $700,000, rapid rehousing at $400,000, the Childhood Homeless Project at $260,000, Pinellas Hope at $215,000, Pinellas Safe Harbor at $150,000, St. Vincent de Paul at $149,000. I'm rounding these off to thousands, Liz. I see you looking at me already. West Care at Turning Point at $125,000, Neighborly Care Network Meals on Wheels at $100,000, and Pinellas Homeless Leadership Alliance at $25,000. In the CIP program, there's a transfer to the Housing Capital Improvement Fund of $1,124,000, which is a $100,000 increase over FY25, and $6 million in penny for Pinellas funding over the five-year CIP plan for permanent affordable housing land acquisition. Next is the environment, infrastructure, and resiliency pillar, and as we all know, as a coastal city, we are acutely at risk from the effects of climate change and sea level rise. Our administration and city council is committed to using data-driven prioritization, innovation, and resource allocation to actuate our policies and ensure heightened impact and long-term sustainability. Now, as we all know, during the summer and fall of 2024, which was just nine months ago, if you can believe that, our city and region was severely impacted by three hurricanes, causing severe impacts to the city's infrastructure. In response, the city has modified our CIP and is advancing a comprehensive program called the St. Pete Agile Resilience, not resistance, or SPAR program that is focused on accelerating projects that strengthen the city's infrastructure and support our long-term resilience in the face of our climate challenges. At its core, the A in SPAR, which stands for Agile, reflects the city's commitment to effectively respond to change through analysis, adaptation, and impactful actions. Now, it is vitally important, as Council has discussed, that SPAR cannot be fully funded with our current resources. It will require some combination of bonding, grants, and other resources to fund the stormwater and water system upgrades that we need to accelerate in response to our changing environment and the unprecedented flooding impacts that we are experiencing across the city. This will be a point of focus for administration, for Council, and for the community over the coming months. The recommended FY26 CIP budget totals $202 million and contains funding for projects to protect our environment and improve our city's infrastructure. Projects in this year's budget are located throughout the city and cover a range of priorities from $2.3 million for municipal office building improvements to street and road improvements at $7.5 million to $42.9 million for water reclamation facilities improvement projects. On the operating side, the budget for the Public Works Administration is $353.6 million and encompasses five departments. The Public Works Administration Department's budgets reflect the city's commitment to improving our infrastructure, maintaining assets, and preparing for the future. Under the Equitable Economic Development, Arts, and Business Opportunities Pillar, the recommended FY26 budget provides funding for economic development initiatives including small business grants and programs at $250,000, the St. Petersburg Economic Development Corporation at $150,000, the Greenhouse at $150,000, and the Grow Smarter Economic and Workforce Development and Centers Program at $100,000. There's also $200,000 included for citywide workforce development programming, $220,000 for our four Main Street business organizations, and $100,000 for corporate relocation and expansion grants. Also in the recommended FY26 budget is new and increased funding for the arts. $557,000 is allocated for the city's arts program, arts grants program, a $7,000 increase over FY25 adopted budget. New funding program in FY26 includes $10,000 for the Poetry Festival, $40,000 for SPFs, and $60,000 for individual artist grants. Funding is continued for the Palladium at $250,000 for year two of a four-year commitment, $107,000 for the Woodson African American Museum of Florida, $100,000 for the Florida Orchestra, $75,000 for the Museum of History, $50,000 for the Arts Conservatory for Teens, $50,000 for Arts Microgrants, $50,000 for Localtopia, and $20,000 for SoulFest. Now we continue to develop and refine our programs in support of education and youth opportunities as well. The recommended budget contains funding for the Cohort of Champions and My Brother and Sister's Keeper Program at $234,000, evidence-based youth development grants to the Boys and Girls Club at $250,000, and Junior Achievement Class Sponsorship at $45,000, and the Mayor's Future Ready Academy at $500,000. And I'm really so proud of the work that our team, Rob, and his administrators, HR, working with P-TECH, have produced in trying to answer two issues. One, our workforce needs, but secondly, giving folks in our community opportunities to learn about working with the city and attain jobs. Since its inception, the Future Ready Academy has graduated 31 cadets, 18 of those cadets continuing to work for the city of St. Petersburg after the program, and that is transitioning folks into careers with the city, and I'm really proud of the work our team has done on that. The budget also includes funding for our year-round youth employment programs at $400,000, and literacy and STEAM programs such as the USF Marine Science Center at Clam Bayou at $100,000, Shirley Proctor Puller Foundation at $250,000, Education and Youth Opportunities Community Grants at $80,000, USF Camp's Bullseye that just completed this week at $69,000, I'm rounding that up, and the SPC Camp at $32,000. Now, safe and healthy neighborhoods are key to our quality of life, and we continue to make investments in this pillar, including the police department's community assistance and life liaison or call program, with an increase of $38,511 over FY25 to fund retention raises for navigator staff, as well as overtime funding to ensure staffing coverage. Additionally, there is funding for the continuation of the body-worn camera, fleet in-car video, taser, and drone programs at $3.3 million. Within the Fire Rescue Department, funding is included to continue the Fire Cadet Program. A full-time emergency and management specialist position was added, which will assist the Office of Emergency Management with city-wide emergency planning, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery for all types and scales of hazards. On the EMS side, there are eight additional full-time firefighter paramedic positions included as part of the final year of a three-year plan to bring the departmental position count up to the county staffing multiplier. An additional full-time fire rescue lieutenant position 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. During FY24, we started our safe summer program. That program, in partnership with the Office of Equity, Community Enrichment Administration, and the 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 and was created in response to the often-heard request to give kids something to do in the summer and a safe place to do that. Funding for that program will continue in FY26 and the recommended budget includes additional funding for community impact grants and programs at $325,000. The community impact grants and programs include grants for safer neighborhood programs, summer enhancement grants for youth programs and community enrichment grants. Now, we also recognize that a healthy city is vital to our progress. The recommended FY26 budget maintains the city's Healthy St. Pete initiative with an allocation of $1.1 million for the program, continuing the city's commitment to addressing food deserts and increasing access to healthy foods. We are continuing the Healthy Neighborhood Store Program at $245,000, the Healthy Food Action Plan at $122,000, and the Community Food Grant Program at $100,000. And all of those programs were previously funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, and we're continuing those programs. In the Neighborhood Relations Department, funding is included for neighborhood programs, including the Neighborhood Partnership Matching Grants at $35,000, Mayor's Mini Grant at $15,000, Storm Drain Mural and Drains to the Bay Program at $15,000, and Keep Pinellas Beautiful at $15,000. An additional $225,000 for the Neighborhood Enhancement Program is included in the CIP budget. In the Mayor's Office, there's funding for the MLK Parade at $230,000 and the MLK Community Day at $30,000. Other programs funded in the FY26 recommended budget include the Mayor's Tree Mini Grant at $100,000 in the Public Works Administration and Juneteenth at $10,000 in the Enterprise Facilities Department. Now, in conclusion, let me comment on our City team. City Council knows well that we have an outstanding team. I want to thank Tom, Liz, and the entire team who is here today for their work throughout the process from line item reviews through the final adopted budget. Their skill, commitment, and focus on our pillars and our governing principles consistently produces a budget that we all can be proud of, one that reflects our shared priorities and adheres to the highest professional standards. The budget supports the work of our City team in the field as they provide the essential services and infrastructure required by our City to thrive. The budget is now in your hands, City Council. I look forward to your review of the FY26 recommended budget and want to thank you for your collective partnership in empowering our St. Pete team to set the standard for public service in America. I would now like to turn it over to our Director of Budget and Management, Liz Makofsky, who will provide some details of the proposed budget. All right, Liz. All right. Good afternoon, Chair and members of City Council. You've just heard some comments from Mayor Welch on the FY26 recommended budget. And in the next few slides, I will 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 FY26 of 6.4525 mills. And this is the same millage rate as the prior year, FY25. This rate will bring in $228.9 million in ad valorem revenue, which is an increase of 4.8% or $10.452 million over the adopted FY25 budget. And the recommended general fund operating budget increased by $18.16 million or 4.62% over last year. As we discussed during the earlier budget committee of the whole and open house, the key areas investments plan for the FY26 budget are aligned along with the mayor's five pillars for progress. And there's some key investments are also on the capital improvement budget side, which includes the St. Pete Agile Resilience Program, water, stormwater infrastructure, affordable housing, land acquisition, bridges, seawalls, sidewalks, street and road improvements, and many more. The following are some of the major changes in the FY26 budget since the preliminary version of the budget was presented earlier this year. A recap of all the changes can be found in the executive summary section of the recommended budget book starting on page Roman numeral two. The first slide shows the global citywide changes made to the FY26 budget since the preliminary stage. And these are affected all departments and funds citywide. We made some reductions to the internal service fund charges for departments, including the charges for workers' compensation, vehicle replacement, PC tablet and PC and tablet replacement charges, and telephone and data processing charges. The police pension arc reduction, there was also reduction to the FY26 police pension annual required contribution due to the FY25 prepay that we did this year of just over $2 million. And there was also reduction to proposed management salary increases in FY26. Other changes, major changes to the FY26 budget since the preliminary budget include a reduction in engineering and capital improvement developments budget for right-of-way permitting. Originally, we had an increase of $500,000, and that's been reduced by $200,000 to $300,000. There was a vacant position eliminated in the mayor's office, which was a community impact director. We reduced the transfer to the general capital improvement fund by $325,000, which funded an assignment for fire, rescue, SCBA, and bunker gear. We moved $175,000 for the transportation disadvantage fare buy-down program from the general fund to the parking revenue fund. We reduced grants and aids in the economic and workforce development department by $100,000. We also repurposed a vacant position in fire rescue in order to add an additional emergency management specialist position. And we continued funding for both the healthy food action plan and the community food grant that were previously funded by ARPA funds. In this next section, we'll give a quick overview using tables, charts, and graphics to illustrate the city's FY26 recommended budget. The tables are also included in the recommended budget book in the executive summary, which is posted on the city's website. The total FY26 recommended budget revenue is $970.4 million. Charges for service make up the largest category at $417.4 million, or 43% of the total budget, followed by taxes at $302 million, or 31.1%. The FY26 recommended operating budget totals $967.3 million and is 7.25% higher than the FY25 adopted operating budget. The Public Works Administration, which includes the enterprise funds of water resources and stormwater, is 33.2% of the total operating budget, or $321 million. The Public Safety Administration, which includes police and fire, accounts for 25.3% of the total operating budget, or $244.4 million. And the difference in the operating expenditure amount on this slide and the operating revenue amount on the previous slide is that revenue received in funds that are not completely appropriated in the year that they're received. So an example is in your tax incrementing funds, you receive revenue that stays in the fund balance and we may go to council to appropriate them at a later date. The total general fund revenue budget is $411.763 million. General fund revenue comes from various sources as illustrated on this chart. The largest single source of revenue for the general fund are taxes, which includes our ad valorem at $302.048 million or 73.35% of the total revenue for the general fund. The intergovernmental revenues, including the half-cent sales tax, is the second largest source of revenue for the general fund at 10.45% or $43 million. Excuse me. The total general fund expenditure budget for FY26 is also $411.763 million and the city's general fund is categorized into the six city administrations. The single largest general fund investment made by the city is in public safety, which accounts for 53.14% of the budget. The general government administration makes up the next largest category at 19.71%. The third largest general fund investment is the community enrichment administration at just under 17% and includes our parks and recreation and libraries department. This chart shows the general fund budget broken out by expenditure type. The single largest expenditure category of the general fund is salaries at $189 million or 46% of the total. Benefits make up 21.7% or $89.5 million and these two categories combined make up to 67.7% of the total general fund budget. Next, we have our CIP capital improvement program budget, which totals $202.022 million in capital projects. The largest is in our water resources capital improvement fund at 62.4%. And the total for the five-year CIP plan is going to be $1.049 billion over the five years from FY26 to FY30. And in closing, the first public hearing on the budget will be held on September 11, 2025 and the second and final budget public hearing on September 25. Both will be at City Hall and Council Chambers at 6 p.m. And information on the mayor's recommended budget is available on the city's website. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Okay, I think we have a card. Yes, sir. Stephen Barfield, please approach either podium. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes. Thank you. Stephen Barfield, 5036 Casilla Way South with SPIFS. Just a point of clarity, I saw several faces turn towards me with a smile when we heard the mayor say that SPIFS is in the budget for $40,000, the budget proposed for $40,000. Just wanted to clarify that my understanding is that $40,000 is to operate Sister Cities programs. It is not the same cultural arts money we have received in the past and so we are still seeking that separate support. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, council members, do we want to go into tentative millage rate? All right, let's go right into it, Liz. Thank you. And council members, while Liz is bringing this up, at the end of this, we will need two separate motions on both resolutions. So we'll adopt the proposed millage rate and then to set the public hearings, we will need those separately. Thanks, Liz. All right, give me one moment for the presentation. All the math loading. Yeah, there's a second. Liz, if it's okay with you, Vice Chair Hanowitz has a question on the original presentation quickly. It was something we touched upon at the layer committee and since we're at city council and I just want to make sure that we kind of cover this for those that are watching. We have had conversations or we haven't had conversations, to be clear. There have been conversations coming from the state in terms of what they're going to do in terms of taxes and how taxes are going to be collected and so we had a discussion at Lair today as to where our general fund monies come from and what they actually fund and how important they are to function as a city. So I just want to kind of touch so we can have those percentages and Tom, I don't know if you want to do that or Liz, but can you just kind of give us an idea because I know I said the total amount of taxes that we collect in our general fund which is the numbers that Liz gave. If you want to give a more granular detail, I'm sorry, I did not prep you for this, a more granular detail in terms of ad valorem which is what we get from real estate taxes and where that money goes to or what are our buckets basically in terms of percentages so people can understand that. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair and very quickly, just referencing that conversation of this morning, I think Chair Gerdes hit it out of the park and I outlined it but I'll do that very quickly once again and Liz showed on a previous slide. In FY26, we're anticipating about $228.8 million of ad valorem revenue from property taxes and I should take a step back. In our fiscal policies, we state that ad valorem revenue will be used first and foremost for public safety so of that $228.8 million just the general fund side of police is $170.4 million. Fire department, just the general fund side taking EMS out is $48.3 million so a total of $218 million of general fund expense for police and fire leaves about $10 million to address other general fund needs but that's so that's kind of that's about 95.6% of the ad valorem revenue pays for our police and fire in the general fund. And that's the point I want to be out there. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I just want to make sure that the public understands that we're going through this and the reason you may be wondering why we're not having a robust discussion about this right now. We do have a committee of the whole meeting regarding this budget on July 31st at 9.30 a.m. downstairs in room 100 where we will roll up our sleeves and get more into the details of this. Our budget process actually starts in January. So this is merely the next step in a long almost year long process of creating the right budget for our city. So just because we're not having a lot of questions today doesn't mean that we are just passing this through. So I wanted to clarify that. Having said that because we are not having conversations outside of meetings and the next one isn't for a couple of weeks I want to make sure everybody is on the same page on a couple of things here. So I don't want to open up a can of worms but I do want to know some specifics about the reduction in management salary increases. Specifically what is is there a percentage can you tell us what that is and can you tell us how you're defining management. I'm not talking about us I'm talking about in the various departments. It's any employee that's in the management MGT category in human resources and in the current year there is a 3.5% increase on October 1 for cost of living and a 3.5% increase on the anniversary date and so FY26 we're proposing 2.5 and 2.5 instead of 3.5 and 3.5. That's the change in the FY26 budget. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Also this fifth thing we're going to need to clarify what's going on with that. It can wait until the 31st but I will especially during the times that we're living in right now something feels a little off about this and it could just be that we need some better explanation about any grant funding that was excluded or that this group was excluded from being eligible for or anything like that we all got an email with some concerns and I want the SPF's folks know that they absolutely are supported I'm very supportive of them and hopefully we can get something worked out one way or another but I'm looking forward to learning more about how we arrived at this point where we received that email. That's all I have for now. Looking forward to the 31st and thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanwins. Yeah and I just want to add to that I'm the council member that sits on the arts advisory council I had no aware of I wasn't aware of who was excluded or who did not qualify but I know that the committee which is members of the community came up with a lot of the ideas of how to do that and so however that worked out I wasn't aware of the SPF's issue but if there is something that we can do I would think that as a member of that committee I don't think it was the intent of that committee to do that so there could have been some criteria that for some reason made them not qualify but again the members of the committee when they come up with criteria sometimes you just don't know who kind of falls through the cracks so I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Yeah Mayor Mr. Mayor Council Member Driscoll Hannah we're going to look at that we've already sent word out to Celeste so we'll take a look at it and see what happens. Thank you so much. Thank you Mayor. Okay all right so let's go into tentative milledrate and thank you for the I think both of those were very helpful so thank you. All right so today we're going to take the first official step in the process to adopt the FY26 budget for the city of St. Petersburg after this brief presentation council will be asked to take action on two resolutions. The first resolution will set a proposed millage rate and the second will set the dates and times of the two public hearings first of which is September 11th and the second on September 25th per Florida Statutes 200.065 the city's hearing dates cannot conflict with the school board or the board of county commissioners hearing dates and the school board is scheduled for September 9th and Pinellas County on the 4th and September 18th by Tuesday July 29th the city is required to provide the trim or treat the millage information to the county property appraiser's office this provides them with the time needed to mail the trim notices on August 18th the proposed millage rate is the rate that will appear on the trim notices and if the millage rate increases between today and the first public hearing the city is required to notify each property owner of the change at the city's cost and we can reduce the millage rate but cannot increase it without occurring these additional costs so as the previous presentation the proposed millage rate for FY26 is 6.452 mills and is the same as last year's millage rate and this rate will bring in 228.876 million in ad valorem revenue which is a 10.452 million over the adopted FY25 budget and this is the fun slide this slide shows the proposed millage rate calculation property values received from the property appraiser's office as of July 1st 2025 are 36.949 billion and we use 96% of the total property values which equals 35.471 billion to account for uncollectibles and discounts and is also per our city fiscal policies we then look at the FY26 general fund operating budget requirements our total recommended general fund budget is 411.763 million and we subtract out our other city revenues which are 182.887 million to get our need of ad valorem revenues of 228.876 million the ad valorem need which is shown as slide B on the slide is then divided by the 96% of gross value which is shown as slide A on the slide to get the total levy of 6.4525 mils this slide contains a chart with the history of the operating millage rate for the city during the last 12 years the millage rate peaked at 6.77 in FY15 through 16 and the proposed rate for FY26 again is 6.4525 mils which is the same rate as FY25 the truth in millage legislation requires the calculation and announcement of a rollback rate at public hearings and in newspaper publications the rollback rate is the millage rate that would bring in the same tax dollars as the prior year with an allowance for new tax bill value added to the city's tax base the FY26 rollback rate is calculated at 6.2083 mils and would generate 220.2 million or 8.6 million below what is currently budgeted in the FY26 recommended budget the proposed millage rate of 6.4525 is an increase of 3.9% over the rollback rate property values overall increased by 4.93% in FY26 and included in this increase are the TIF calculations and the FY26 contribution to our three TIF districts is estimated to increase by just over 2 million over the FY25 adopted budget state statutes were amended in fiscal year 2008 to provide for a maximum millage rate that may be adopted by a simple majority the majority vote maximum rate for FY26 is 9.2326 mils and 10.1559 mils is the maximum millage rate and would need a two-thirds vote to pass and again information on the mayor's FY26 recommended budget can be found on the city's website thank you well thank you Liz council members you have any questions I don't see any questions Liz I just want to if you can just clarify on operating requirements for those that are watching just to make it clear we have the tentative general fund requirements and then less sources other than ad valorem taxes could you just like kind of give us what are those type of sources where we get revenue that are not ad valorem to cover that so they could be charges for services so fees for using city facilities is a big example where we get that intergovernmental revenue which could be grants other funding sources there's also pilot and gna transfers from other funds and the let's see licenses and permits miscellaneous revenue fines and debt proceeds those are all different other part of those revenue collected by the city we always are getting questions obviously from our constituents in terms how we are paying for things how we're funding things so it's important to kind of sometimes get a little granular on this stuff to make sure that they understand what the difference is what the ad valorem real estate taxes cover and then where we get the rest of the funding and how we kind of get to these numbers so I appreciate that thank you we have a whole in our different budget books so more if you look at last year's adopted we have that describes different revenue in more detail but in the recommended budget there's a nice pie chart that kind of shows the amount of revenue for each of those major categories I just described yes and for those who do want to get into the granular details they can look at our fabulous budget book which is very large and has lots of information in it so if you need reading material when you're going to bed at night that's a great place yes that would be fantastic or a long trip or something like that on an airplane or something but thank you so much Liz thank you councilmember gibbons thank you so much and thank you so much mayor thank you Liz for all your hard work that you put into this budget I know it wasn't an easy feat so thank you so much we have 300 pages of reading material that we've all had to process in the last 48 hours so thank you so much and I appreciate you so much mayor for doing all you can to hold the millage rate a lot of times we have to raise taxes right to be able to take care of our needs our necessities so thank you so much for being cognizant of the fact that you know we're doing all we can to recognize that our residents our constituents are already pinching pennies I want to talk for a moment Liz and mayor whoever can respond about reality the reality is the federal government has made a lot of cuts that has affected the operations of local government so how do we put this into perspective for our constituents who are asking why can't we get this done why aren't we funding these projects well the reality is there is money that we depended on 30 plus million dollars from the federal government to fix our infrastructure problems that we were planning on using to address things like resiliency and sustainability so again just in a nutshell specifically things like housing food insecurity employment programs for youth what can residents anticipate in this upcoming budget how is it going to impact their quality of life how are organizations that depend on grant funds going to be impacted what can they brace for I think in the citywide budget we tried to hold services and keep what's as is so there's not a lot of new things you'll see in the budget but we're trying to keep our service level the same as it was in the prior year with all those changes that you just discussed so hopefully they won't see a lot of impact on the city services side but you know different funding sources out the city that's a whole different ballgame thank you councilmember gibbons let me just you know add a little bit to that you know we're doing everything we can do locally we've got some great examples of how we've tried to fill the gap but we've got to be and y'all talked about it at Lair this morning engage with what's happening at the federal and state level as well for example I'm on a U.S. conference of mayor's task force this meeting tomorrow to try to preserve FEMA as an organization I know that the National League of Cities has similar efforts so we've got to be engaged both in informing our local representatives but also folks at the state and federal level about what those impacts mean I was disappointed I wasn't desperate when I read what our local school board is contemplating right now because of unanticipated cuts so these are hitting us whether it's veterans or homelessness or SNAP I mean it's widespread so doing everything we can within our 1.1 billion budget and some of those are restricted funds we're trying to be innovative there trying to partner but I think we have to be really active on the legislative front and talking with our partners on both sides of the aisle about what these impacts really mean at a local level so that's what we're doing in a nutshell thank you and I appreciate that explanation mayor because you said 1.1 billion dollars it would be great if we could just rub the eight ball and everything just appear right but the reality is that's not possible and we are seeing cuts every which direction and specifically I'm thinking about FEMA right and one of the things that I was pressing you for mayor in the budget and I'm happy that we do have more funds is for these community navigators that is a need and especially with FEMA being phased out we are going to need boots on the ground people out there helping people residents neighbors recover after a natural disaster there's going to be a lot of things that FEMA did in the past that ain't going to be happening next year and years to come and so I just want to make sure that we are working with state government officials to be as proactive as we possibly can be in that regard and then lastly you know like you said money isn't growing on trees so there are impacts to cut so specifically I'm thinking about the Department of Labor Councilmember Gabbard brought it up earlier Job Corps we may or may not lose that site and if that site shuts down that's almost 300 students that will be left possibly homeless that's 300 students that are going to be without job training and over 100 employees that are going to be without jobs so when we think about our budget and being realistic how can we keep this center in operation so that we can continue meeting needs whether it be employment or job training yeah and just so the public knows we've been engaged with that conversation since the rumors started several weeks ago Amy and her team have been talking along with other folks in Pinellas County about what we can do up to including perhaps purchasing the property but is a property even for sale but the immediate problem was when they first announced this you know there were several students who would be homeless period because they were homeless when they entered the program and so we're trying to deal with those immediate needs and then talk about what we can do long term with that project and that was Pinellas Job Corps was an effort that Bob Stewart former council member led that effort along with Bill Young it was something that we worked on for a long time in this county and city to make happen and to have it go away this abruptly without any reason is a real loss for our community so we're working on it thank you mayor and again I appreciate you and the administration always having a pulse on the issues in our community so thank you thank you chair thank you I just want to again I know I say it every year a big thank you but you know this year with a wider delta with less to work with in the past and to get it all together and bring us a balanced budget I think council member given said it very well I think to be able to hold the line on the millage and be able to get there and make some sacrifices I know that was hard work and so thankful to all the administration and the budget team for all the work and looking forward to working through this with you over the next couple of months and just very thankful for all the work that we've done and looking forward to the work to finish it out okay council members we've got F2A which would set our tentative millage rate approval second we've got a motion to second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk could you please tally and announce the vote motion to approve a gen item F2A passes unanimously okay council members we have F2B the resolution setting the public hearing dates for the FY26 budget move approval we've got a motion and a second on F2B seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote motion to approve a gen item F2B passes unanimously thank you mayor thank you Liz okay we're gonna move right into F3 our presentation from Pinellas Hope update and we've got Joe Pondolthino the director of Pinellas Hope joining us this was a report item I asked for I was able I know I shared with you last week or the week before I think it was last week all these jumble up together at this point for I was able to tour Pinellas Hope a couple weeks ago and just as I was the first time I don't know 15 years ago I was just amazed with all the work that's happening and the movement and I just thought it was time for us to hear it and for the public to hear it and if you haven't toured over there I would encourage you to do that I think you're gonna you'll find it very powerful and I'm sure this update will do the same so Joe I'm gonna turn it over to you and thanks for being here thank you my name is Joe Pondolthino I'm the director at Pinellas Hope we have a temporary homeless shelter and some permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless homeless individuals I want to thank you for inviting me Chairman Gerdes and all the council members and thank you for the support the continued support that St. Pete has given us this is the clicker that makes the move maybe there we go let me just tell you a little bit about Pinellas Hope some of you might remember it was back in 2007 when there was a little bit of a crisis down here in St. Pete there was a lot of encampments tents underneath the overpass and it was a blight on the community and the order was given to slash the tents and it was a it was a little bit of an upheaval a bunch of homeless people were more homeless after they slashed the tents so there was a problem with that at the time Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church stepped in it was Bishop Lynch who said let's see what we can do we have some land up in up in Clearwater Pinellas Park area it's adjacent to the cemetery and we're not going to use that land it was about 10 acres of land and he said let's put some tents up there temporarily and see what we can do it was a six-month project that's 18 years ago this project this this temporary project is still going on and we have evolved so much over the years that it's become such a showcase program for our community for our county for our city and actually throughout the country I have visitors from other states that come to Pinellas Hope just to see what we're doing because we are part of the solution we're a piece of the puzzle and we've had some really good success so it started out with nothing but bare land and tents now we have a lot of infrastructure there we have buildings there we have a mobile we have a medical respite program we have a lot of collaboration with other partners throughout the community so what we do is we serve a capacity of 255 homeless individuals in our shelter at a time and that's a consists of 96 cottages and 159 tents the cottages are renovated shipping containers and they're small but they are a locked door with air conditioning and a place to store some stuff so we have a combination of tents and cottages are we target about 90 days we say let's see what we can do in three months if we can help solve your housing issues that's a big hill to climb in this community in this environment with the prices of housing and some of the situations that they are in we have a lot of people that come with many barriers they come with mental health issues they come with substance abuse issues they come with a history of criminal justice they come with evictions they come with broken families they come with other physical problems so in order for us to be successful we have to try to address all those things and each one of our clients each one of our residents is an individual so we have to address each one individually so within 90 days we target so we tell them right off the bat what can you look a start working right now we're here to help you get housing ready but you got to have a plan so we really encourage accountability on their end we ask them to follow the rules we ask them to talk with our case workers on a regular basis we get them document ready we get their ids we get their birth certificates we get their social security cards we get their insurance and then we have to work on getting their income we have such a wide range of clients it goes from age 18 to the oldest one I have there is 95 years old so it is a wide range of people and they all come with their own challenges but right now our length of stay is about 117 days and that's that's pretty good but I have people there over a year also because sometimes they're just so vulnerable I do not want to make them homeless again you know we really got to work with these people and last thing we want to do is have them back on the street so we have different outcome measures this is a little generous it says 50% of discharges are moved to permanent housing I think we're more in the 40 45 percent range right now but that fluctuates all the time but when you think about it nationally speaking shelters are about 25 percent of their people find housing so Pinellas hope is is better than that and we're exceeding that number and I think that's because of the staff we have the mission we live by and the focus we have to help these people you know Bishop Parks is the one that's ahead of our diocese right now and whenever he comes to speak I always borrow a saying of his whenever I speak I'll say we don't serve them because they're Catholic we serve them because we're Catholic and that's just a philosophy it doesn't have to be the Catholic religion it could be anything it's like I don't do this because of who you are I do this because that's who we are and that's my staff that's who we work with and it it takes that kind of person to really be successful and not everybody can do what we do not everybody can do what my staff does but they're called to it other people are called to contribute in different ways some people are called to provide meals some people are called to you know make donations some people are made called to write checks so that's that's an important part too and I really appreciate the support you guys have given us over the years our budget is 3.1 million dollars about a million of that is funded the rest of it is totally of in-kind donations 365 days a year every meal is donated I tell people we could have a really wonderful meal of you know pulled pork and vegetables and all this stuff or it could be peanut butter and jelly you know whatever it is we're going to feed them and we're going to take care of them so we have different funders Pinellas County is our biggest funder they fund about a little more than five hundred thousand and you guys come in second and I appreciate that I heard our name mentioned today so thank you very much for that and then the other municipalities contribute to hopefully we can increase some of that from the other folks but we provide great services it's really a wraparound program so that's just a couple pictures of what life is like at Pinellas Hope we are camping you can see our tents there those trees there Helene Debbie and Milton came and took those trees away last year we we went through a lot we were displaced for over three weeks and we it took us it took about a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars just to remove all the trees that were knocked down but within three weeks we're back up and running and we're full capacity again if you look at that blue building right there that's our medical respite building and we have a contract with Baycare hospitals st anthony's mostly st anthony's mostly if a person is in the hospital who's homeless and has a procedure being done and is ready to be discharged but they don't want to put them back on the street we'll take them into one of our shelters one of our cottages and we have a full-time nurse there that will help with their physical needs while we're trying to solve their housing issues so right now I have ten people in the medical respite building eight of them have stage four cancer and these guys don't have anywhere else to go so we're working really hard at getting to them all their appointments getting their medical needs meet met and trying to figure out their housing so that's just a great program we have and not only the medical respite program but we contract with the mobile medical unit the the county bus comes once a week and serves people with the county health insurance we also have the usf bus that comes once a week and they serve people regardless of what insurance they have if they have it or not and we just we just entered a new contract with bay care where we will have residents there on two days a week so we'll have doctors on on staff there Mondays and Fridays and every other day is covered by other medical agencies so when you think about it when I think about it I don't know if there's an another shelter in the country that will have so much medical attention for people right at its doorstep so I'm really really excited about that the the reason we're so successful is as we are as our partnerships we have a lot of different agencies we work with that's just a few of them on there you know of some other ones one I'll mention is volunteers of America if you know down here in navari it's a beautiful building it has 50 units 25 of them for affordable housing and the other 25 are formerly homeless individuals all 25 of them came from Pinellas Hope and after one full year all of them are still there except for one and that's it's just a fantastic partnership and I've talked with Janet Stringfield lately where she's planning on another one so hopefully we'll be able to do that we'll be able to repeat it again and it's just a great building and they have so much support and they have so much support built in there all their staff work there so it's a community that's really really healthy we also have we work closely with BOLI too BOLI is a St. Pete agency and DEMA is here we work very close with them BOLI works with people who are chronically homeless and with mental health problems and so a definition of a chronic homeless person is a person that's been out of on the street for a year or more whether it's a a year straight or over a period of time and so we will place people in BOLI that meet that criteria and it's a process there's always a greater need than there is services but we work really close with them and one of DEMA's staff comes out to us all the time and interviews people and we get them into housing there's also the Hope Cottages I spoke briefly about that these are renovated shipping containers and we have 96 of them and what it is it's a step up from the tents it's a room with a locked door with air conditioning and it's no other amenities but it's a safe place to be and those things are built to stand quite a bit of weather those things lasted during the hurricanes all the tents were gone the trees were gone the platforms were gone but these things stood so they're still there so just to think about the impact we have on our community when you think about it like about 45 percent of our people do find housing but what does it cost for a person to be at any of these locations in the jail in a U.S. penitentiary at any correction facility it costs quite a bit at Pinellas Hope it's about $33 a day for the cost to house these people and work with them and that's with wraparound services that's with the medical that's with the case management that's with all these other partnerships that we have a bang for you and that's with the bang for your buck bang for your buck bang for your buck the other week I was here and we were talking about this new building that we're building this is a it's really a simple building it's a shower and bathroom but what we needed this came from during the covid years where when people were sick it was hard to quarantine them because we have community bathrooms and it really will help with that issue and it really will help with that issue it also helps with people who are transgendered or transitioning that have that issue of where am I going to be so be comfortable at so these are a really nice building and then that's the last slide but then we also have the apartments I have 156 apartments for home you know formerly homeless and those are on our property the goal at the goal at the shelter is to find housing which is a challenge the goal in our apartments is to keep them housed which is a challenge because these people come with a lot of issues that you know just about paying rent keeping their apartments clean making their appointments going to the doctors you know learning to play well with others all those things need to be addressed to keep them housed and that we have 156 apartments right now and they're permanent they're there for as long as they need to be 48 have vouchers and a lot of them come from St. Pete housing authority 40 of them do and the great thing about that is that if a client is there for a year and is a good client with one of those vouchers they can take that voucher and go somewhere else and it gets replaced so I can continue to house more people for the ones that are doing well so the collaboration is the most important part of what we do why we're why we're successful there's so much to talk about there's so many success stories you know we're part we're right next to the cemetery we're actually part of the cemetery so I tell people one of the reasons why we are so productive is we're on holy ground and it's great to have the different denominations come and support us the parishes come and they they serve they they feed they provide spiritual guidance what we're going to call us the parishes and we're etc and it's great to have all of them we're going to have a different equation right now this is a great way that's the same as a Um, but we'll go to, we'll go to comments and thanks for the presentation, Joe. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you for sure for having this presentation and Joe for such an informative presentation at a time where it's very necessary and this conversation has been coming up a lot. Um, I want to just talk to you about in terms of where you are in recovery in the aftermath of the storms. I mean, you mentioned the trees and some of the damage, but can you touch a little bit more on that? Sure. Yeah, it was, um, I've been with this program, this agency for five years. This last year was a tough one. We, we, we have it down pat when storms come, we work really closely with the County. They provide buses, they get us to an alternative emergency shelter and it, you know, we take down the tents and we just clean house really quick and get out of there. And then once the storm is over, we come back. This last year was different though with Debbie, Helene, and then Milton, it really gave us a wallop. So it took us quite a while. We were displaced for over three weeks. Uh, uh, St. Catherine's up in Clearwater, let us stay there for a while. Um, and then we, we just had to rebuild. We had to rebuild some platforms. We had to get all the trees down. We still are just getting up and running our gate system that goes back to, um, the apartments that was shut down cause it was, everything was underwater. So it's been a long process, but we were back up and running within three weeks. We were bringing people back in there. So, um, this is what we do. Well, I'm sorry to hear that you obviously had all that damage, but it's good to know that you were able. I mean, there are people that still haven't been able to take care of their homes and are living, um, not with, you know, in, in, in temporary facilities because of it. So I'm glad that you all were able to recover cause it's a much needed F, um, service that we need. So in terms of a wait list, is there a wait list? Tell us a little bit about that or what, you know, what are the numbers typically? Okay. Well, we served a capacity of 255 people. I take people in every week. So we're a temporary shelter. So there is a route, uh, you know, an evolution of who's in and who's out. Um, just this week I took in a new, uh, 21 people. Um, every Tuesday I have intake. That's our main intake day. And I work with a different outreach, uh, municipalities, uh, officer. Pony here in, in St. Pete. I work with, uh, Kathy Hamm in Clearwater. I work with Todd up in Largo. I work with officer Copeland in Pinellas park and they refer people to us. And so they, they just, uh, give us the names, give us the date of birth. The only disqualifying, uh, um, criteria is if it's a sex offender, I can't take them, but it's just 18 and up. And so they give us their names and they show up. I might have 40 people show up. I might have 28 tents. I'll take all 28 and the next ones. I'll say, please come back next week. We'll get you in here. So it's usually one day a week, but I do make exceptions. If, if you called and it's because you knew somebody, you know, give me a call and I can take someone in on, on an off day too. That's good to hear. In terms of funding, you said Pinellas County obviously is your largest funder. Correct. That funding secure. I mean, there has been supportive and continuous. I just want to make sure, like, especially since that's your largest funder. Yeah. We have a great relationship with the County. Um, they appreciate what we do. We know that it's important to them. Uh, they're our partner during the hurricanes. Uh, we've already been preparing. We've been having lots of meetings on, okay, what are we going to do? And Dominique Randall is one of the ones in, uh, Pinellas County who I work close with. I've worked close with her about the job core folks too, that if they ever become homeless, you know, I got my shelter. We got the Tampa shelter, we got a Pasco shelter, if we need to take any of those folks in too. So we work closely with the County. It's a strong relationship. Uh, I don't see any reason why it won't continue. Good. Glad to hear that. And obviously we're supportive. Glad you mentioned Innover and how kind of the system works and that it's a good relationship and that your people actually got housing there, which is wonderful to hear that you prepared them well for that. So thank you for that. Um, and, um, I will be visiting you. Thank you. Thank you. Vice chair. Uh, and thank you for the question about emergency. And just quickly, if you, uh, I know he put it up on slide three, it probably is where the trees came down. In my opinion, that's one of the biggest differences. If you had gone last year compared to this year is all of that shade is gone in the grass. Yeah. Yeah. It's rock essentially. That, but, but from, from being a former camper, uh, the shade is a, is a massive deal. Oh yeah. It's a massive deal. And so, uh, thank you very much for that question by share. Uh, we'll go to council member fix Sanders. And thank you for the presentation. But more importantly, thank you for what you do. Um, it is not common that people have accepted that as a mission. And I guess I'm so passionate about it because I do know it takes a special person to one, provide those services to that community. So thank you so much for that. Your, your statement about being housing, preparing them, getting housing ready. Um, so in my dealings with some homeless residents, they don't want to be housing ready. So did you find that to be a hurdle with some of our residents? Because some of them just like their lives. They don't like the stresses of it. So how do we provide services to them that do not want to be housing ready? It's always a challenge, Congresswoman. Um, when I think about it sometimes, some of these people have, might have a criminal justice background. They might have an eviction. They, you know, don't have many family support. They've tried to climb out of the hole and they haven't been able to. And so finally they give up and then they find Pinellas hope and they say, oh, this is great. I'll just stay here, you know? And so getting them motivated to keep on going is, is something that our caseworkers have to do. And you're right. Like we have a pretty good success rate, about 45% find housing, but that also means 55% don't. And so I always tell everybody, let's move that needle. We can change that, but you gotta, you gotta be the one driving the bus. You gotta be motivated to do this. And the way you're doing that is to, first of all, follow the rules, you know, stay active, participate in this. You know, we ask people to do chores while they're there. Not a lot, seven hours a week. I ask them to make a commitment not to drink or drug. You know, it's not a requirement to get in, but I make them, I haven't given me a commitment to do it while they're there. Because I tell them, if you do that, your chances of success go way up. If you have a problem with that, come talk to us. We'll be glad to discuss that. We work close with Turning Point. If somebody comes in and is showing real serious signs of addiction, we'll say, listen, why don't you go to Turning Point for a month? Come back. We'll have your stuff. When you complete it, we'll just pick up where we left off. So we give them a lot of opportunities to engage and try to get that motivation. But it is, it's a constant challenge. Okay, thank you. But I love the point that you made, but it starts with them. You can be there for them, but it really starts with them. I did not see Daystar as one of your partners. Is, do you work with, and the only reason why I ask that is because some of the services that Daystar offers, do you do that? For example, providing the mail slots, providing the products, you know, the shampoos and things that they actually provide. Do you do that? Well, I am well aware of Daystar, you know, I go to some of the meetings there, and I know the services they do. Those services, we already provide. We get so much donations of, like, hygiene and clothing and, you know. Very good. Mustard seed. There was once a time when wedding receptions and big events had food left over that they were able to donate. Is that something that you would entertain or do? Because, I mean, it's food that hasn't been used. Sure. We take donations of food all the time. All the time. All the time. What are the stipulations, though? Because some of it has to be wrapped. It has to be. Yeah. Sometimes it's a little bit dicey on how we do it. But we have a serving kitchen, and we're renovating it now to making it a cooking kitchen. Okay. So we will be able to provide our own meals there also. So the people that donate food, they can prepare it off-site, or they could cook right in our kitchen. But because it's becoming a cooking kitchen now, the Department of Health is going to be much more involved. If the food is not 41 degrees while it's in that refrigerator, they make me throw it out. So those are the challenges I have. If somebody comes and says, I have all this food, if it's cooked food, you know. It's cooked food. And I get that question. Where can we take this? And I was like, well, we used to be able to. I still take quite a bit. Okay. You still do? Yes, I do. That's good to know. Mm-hmm. One more question. And I know you say that you don't take people because they're Catholic, but because you are. Right. How do you actually engage other non-Catholic? I have a staff of about 30 people. I don't think any of them are Catholic, to tell you the truth. You know, it's not a requirement. You just got to believe in our mission. Our mission is to serve with charity and compassion to promote the sanctity and dignity of all people with God. So it doesn't matter if you're Catholic. It doesn't matter if you're Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim, you know. It's not about who they are. It's about who you are. If you're cut from that fabric, then that's, we want you. So the clients, some respond to it very well. Some look for that spiritual connection, and we offer that, and that's a service we provide. And thank you for that, because I ask, because a lot of times that is how they determine their journey, that's some of the things that they believe spiritually. So thank you for that. Love, Dominique Randall. Okay, I had to give her a shout-out. Absolutely love, Dominique. But the last point I want to make is that you said that your collaborations make you very successful. Thank you for saying that out loud. Because one of the things that I have found is that a lot of organizations don't want to collaborate. They want to be that head lead agency. And I say that to say, I'm also glad that you're a part of COC. Yes, we are. So I look forward to seeing you at our next board meeting. Thank you so much for that. So thank you so much for what you do. But again, it takes a special person, a special organization to really want to target our homeless population, and you are appreciated for that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Joe, so much for being here today. I highly anticipate my tour, so I'm excited to be coming over. You are addressing a real epidemic, the epidemic of our times, which is homelessness, right, and housing instability. So I thank you so much for doing the right thing and taking the right steps in the right direction to move the needle. First thing I wanted to bring up, this is, to Council Member Fick Sanders' point, your partners. There were a couple of partners that I didn't see, and I'm just going to mention these because you could already be working with them, and you can tell me if you are or are not. St. Vincent de Paul, BOLI, Celebrate Outreach, even our local St. Pete Police Department, their call program. Do you have any affiliations? Yeah, I'm very close with the St. Pete Police Department, the PATH program, and Officer Pony and April. They work with us weekly. BOLI, we're very close with them. We work with them. St. Vincent de Paul, it's one of our other shelters in the county. You know, Safe Harbor is a shelter. The way I look at it is we're all pieces of the same puzzle. You know, we all work together. Safe Harbor refers people to us that they say, this is not the place for you. Come to Pinellas Hope, where we are more compassionate. You know, we don't have that law enforcement edge to us. Some people need to be at Safe Harbor, you know. And so we work really hand-in-hand together with Lieutenant Heche and the other programs. There's not an agency out there that I wouldn't work with. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then my other question. This is something you mentioned earlier. You talked about chronic homelessness. So you may not have this data today, and that's okay. I'll get it when I come over for my visit. But I'd like to see how many returners do you have? So chronic, homeless, or unhoused versus first-time residents there. Have you seen any? Well, we take people more than once. You know, you can come back again. But to be honest with you, if I have 40 people out there and I have 20 openings, I'm going to take 20 people that haven't come here yet, you know. And then if I have more, I'll say, okay, you know, I'll let someone come in the second or third time. But I really look at the first-time people first to see what we can do. And then I'll just tell them to keep coming back. Thank you. And how do you track your engagement and outreach? So this is specifically for folks who have come and received services, have been housed there at Hope. How are you following up? So to make sure that the housing that they have obtained has also been sustained. Well, we do follow-up calls every 30 days when somebody leaves. So the case managers call their clients that have been successfully discharged and to see if they're still housed and see if they need any further services. We work closely with the other agencies like Volunteers of America and BOLI. And so there's people that have gone and got housed and then have to come back, too. So it's just an ongoing collaboration with the different municipalities. We know the police officers, like Officer Filippone and the other ones from the other municipalities. They get to know these people personally. And they'll say, hey, Joe, this guy's been here three times, you know, but I'm really talking with him. And he's, you know, there's definitely some change in him. Can we get him back in there? So I'll make, you know, room for that. Appreciate it. And my last comment, more comment than a question, is I'm so sorry to hear about those trees. I know we donate money, but perhaps, you know, Mr. Gertz, we can take this back to the mayor, see if we can donate some trees over there. So I certainly hope that we can help in that regard. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for being here, Joe. It's so great to see you. And I'm really glad that you've had an opportunity to show everyone the great work that you're doing along with your team. I have been there for a tour before. It's been a while. When were the apartments put in? They've come in different stages. We have Pinellas Hope 2, 3, 4, and 5. So the first one is Pinellas Hope 2. That's five buildings, and there are 16 apartments each, and then the other buildings came afterwards. The first ones were early on, like in 2008 or 2009, when they first built the first ones. And then the last one started, came in 2015. Okay. So they're all tax credits, and we have project-based vouchers as well. And we work with St. Pete Housing Authority, Clearwater Housing Authority. Whenever vouchers come up, we try to grab them real quick, too. And is that, Ron, in a similar way that, like Innovare is? This is permanent supportive housing, so you have to meet the criteria that, you know, with the VI SPDAT, the Vulnerability Index, you have to show a certain level of need that it's not just independent living. You need supportive services. So I have case managers that work there, too. Yeah. Got it. And I thought the Times did a wonderful job covering, with their series of articles covering Innovare. And I remember seeing you in at least one of the photos and interviewing you because you've just been such a big, I think you've been a big part of its success because you knew, you have, you know your clients well enough to know who's ready for that. Yeah. It's always, it's interesting because we knew it was coming, but we didn't know when. Yes. So we were working with them for over a year, two years, but we have a rotating client, so I don't know who's going to be there when that place opened. Right. And all of a sudden I got the call, and so we were like, okay, guys, let's, let's. So I looked at who was vulnerable but could really be successful and had some mental health background, too, you know, mental health needs. So it was a vulnerability but a real desire to be successful, you know, and that's what we did. And they did so good because they thought ahead. Their offices are right there. They have the built-in support, and it's a good community. That makes a big difference. Yeah, well, with only one out of 25 having left after a year, I think you did okay. It's a collaboration. I'm thrilled to hear that she's looking at doing more, and I was wondering, and this might be, this might be more of a question for Janet, actually. It's a model for others to follow. I really believe that. But are others, are other cities or counties, do you know if they are, are you getting word that someone else is looking at doing this? Like in Avari? Yeah, somewhere else in Florida or throughout, you know, somewhere in and out of state. I really haven't been part of that conversation. Yeah. I'm going to ask her because I really think this is. Yeah, please do. And she's always trying to look for more. And she keeps me in touch because we had such a great partnership with making this successful. So they're on the end of finding the place, getting the funding, and I was at the end of getting the clients there. And I think it's funny that you moved away from downtown, and now you're helping other people move downtown. I'm only like three miles away. I know. Me too. Yeah. Joe and I used to be neighbors, so this is extra special for me. I'm looking forward to going out and doing a day of serving a meal. That sounds great. The trees thing, of course, that, you know, that sounds like it jumped out at all of us. And, of course, I'd love to have us help replace the trees, so there's that. But they need time to grow. I'm wondering if you have looked at getting, using sales or something to create some shade, even if that's temporary? No, I think that's a great idea, and that has, you know, we had some discussions on it. We haven't moved forward with anything, but, you know, this time of year is tough. This time is very, very hot. And, you know, those sales, that shade might be something that we could do. Yeah. Okay. Let me give that some thought, because I might know somebody that could help with that. That would be great. Okay. We'll talk soon. Excellent. Thank you again. What else can we do to help you? Okay. I got my list here. I mean, it sounds like you've got the right relationships with PD, with the PATH unit, and they always speak very highly of you guys. You know, we're doing the funding as best we can, even in a tight budget year. We're here for you. I appreciate that. You know, our budget, we run on a deficit every year, and that's what we do. But this is so important to the diocese. You know, my job is to try not to lose as much money as I did last year. That's my job. And, you know, we're usually in the hole about $300,000 or $400,000, and then the diocese chips in. And we're in five counties, you know, and part of the strategic plan is to have a hope shelter in every county. Right now we're here, we're in Pasco, and we're in Hillsboro. Citrus County has come down with a busload of people three times, just, you know, their mayor, their council members, their school board. They've all come down three times to see what we're doing. So we're going to have a citrus hope coming up pretty soon, too. So what I need, I need just continued support and acknowledgement of the good work that we do. All right. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Joe, can't say it enough. Thanks for all the work. And just, it's just amazing and, you know, celebrate almost sounds like the wrong word, but I mean. I celebrate. Yeah, right. We celebrate the work, right? And we're celebrating you and all your team and just everything you guys are doing down there, up there from here, actually. And Council Member Driscoll, thank you for asking the question. I've made a promise to Joe to go and have a conversation with the diocese, too, about that, because they are picking up the deficit. But I think what, there's an opportunity inside of the diocese to have this type of presentation, but maybe a little smarter inside of the parishes in the diocese to try to create maybe a short capital campaign to whether it's, I know, like, their check-in facility needs an upgrade, whether it's putting shade over the tents. It's something to where, and I've already shared this with Joe, so it's no news, but sharing with you colleagues, like a one-time, one weekend, all parishioners have an extra gift, and that gift goes directly to Pinellas Hope. And so I've reached out to the diocese to try to negotiate that, and so I think that's one of those areas of opportunity, like a one-time big move. If they did that once a year and they were able to do one capital project per year with those dollars, I think it really moves the needle, and it really is not a big burden to the parish, in my opinion. So I think trying to work a little bit creatively in those areas is certainly something we can all do to try to help Pinellas Hope. And I'm looking forward to going and spending some time with the residents there and sharing a meal, and like I said, I hope you all get to tour as well. So, Joe, thank you so much, man. Thank you for your support, yeah. Okay, council members, we're going to move into F4, and we're going to welcome Lindell back for our 2024 ADA Annual Compliance Report. Lindell, hit us with it. I ain't going to keep you here that long, but I got a lot of information, but it'd be compassionate. Okay, first of all, I want to think, I mean, it's been 17 years, Debbie. When I came in 2008, I was hired to run the Civilian Police Review Committee, which I did that up until somebody in Dallas took it away from us. But anyway, we'll leave that one with that one. But then in 2014, I was approached, saying, we need an ADA coordinator. And the first question I had was, what the heck is that? Seriously, I did not know anything about, I heard about it, but I, you know. So, Gary Conwell sat me in the office and said, since you've run the Civilian Police Review, you work with volunteers, you work with the community, you'd be a perfect fit to be the city's ADA coordinator. So, I said, okay, well, I'll try, but let me look at it in the long picture. And Janine will tell you, Janine Williams, I went to Janine, and this is a story I tell all the time. Janine said, well, welcome to the world of integral politics, interaction, and constant change. What you're going to need is training. He said, I'm going to give you a scenario. I'm the city attorney. I'm being sued by the city of St. Peter, or whatever. First, I'm going to ask you, have you received any kind of training or certification? And if you tell me no, I'm going to eat you alive. All right? So, I went back to Mr. Conwell, and I said, Mr. Conwell, I'd be more than happy to take this, but I need the training. Okay? I need the training. I need the certification. He said, Linda, go with what you need to do. I'll be fully behind you. So, when we started the initial process, the reason why you guys got this report is that in 2014, we actually went to Mayor Christman and talked to him that we needed this to get done. And he said, well, whatever you need to get it done. So, we created our self-evaluation. 2014 to 2017, it took the time to get our first self-evaluation report. Almost 180 pages. And we did it all in-house. At the time, we had the office of the mayor, city council involved in that. But this report is so critical. It's one of the requirements at the time from DOJ. When did your city do a self-evaluation transition plan? All right? So, we did it. It worked out. And I couldn't do it by myself, I can tell you right now. And I went to Mayor Christman and said, well, you only deal with one person doing ADA stuff, but can I have each department have a suspect liaison within that department? And he said, yes, let's go for that. So, that's how the initial process started and stuff. But the key thing that I want to talk about today is that, number one, you guys got a copy of the compliance report. So, every year I have to do that and it was voted on that, you guys have to vote and approve it. It's important for you as city council members to read that, to understand integral workings of the ADA law, what are our legal, physical requirements, what are our barriers are, and what are we doing to assess them, and what do we need to get it done? All right? And we all know that it's all based on funding. Okay? Believe me, we all know that. All right? But this compliance report is your roadmap to what the city does every year. All right? You will see numbers in there that I have to compute, and I've been working with different city departments to get those numbers and stuff. And it's critical that when you review those, if you have questions, that's why I need your input to understand that what do the city need to do in order to comply with the ADA. All right? And the last 10 years since I've ever been ADA coordinator, it has worked out, you know. In the meantime, you know, it started out being actually dual certified as double ADA, then as for law enforcement and Title I. All right? And I'm going to hit Title I in a minute. But one of the things I want to tell you guys is that all the years I've been here is the fact that I've seen a lot of the city grow. I can tell you right now, when it came to ADA, I'm going to tell you, I grew, right, when it comes to an ADA issue. Anybody in the city know that can call me and work with me. I've been working with all the disability service organizations and stuff to get them interworking into how the city is involved in this process. And one of the things that ADA compliance requires us to do, all right, and this is where a lot of city governments fall short, right, is that you need to understand the different types of the ADA. Title I, which is employment. Title II is state and local government. Title III is public accommodation. And Title IV is communication. And then Title V is the one that, if we don't have it in one, two, three, or four, we'll throw it in five. That's how it works, seriously. That's how it works. But I can say that the city has been very vigilant in making sure that we firm up for the Title II for state and local government. But the one thing that state and local governments have to understand is that when you're working with the ADA, you have to look at the full picture. And one of the things I've noticed over the last couple of years on state and local governments, because eight years ago, I helped put together a state-by-ADA coordinator's network, which is made up of all the ADA coordinators. That we have 142 members around the state that are in our network that we meet every month to talk, is that there is an issue as for educating awareness, especially in people of color communities. This is what I want to bring, is that we definitely need to increase on people in color communities, Hispanics, black, whatever, is that we need to educate the community because they are afraid to come forth. All right? They are very afraid to come forth. And I talk to them on a regular basis. They'll call me and say, well, the city office services, you have other organizations that offer services, but their issue is that we do not want to be, the term idolized as seeking of being welfare type stuff. So this is not welfare type stuff. This is the fact that you have a disability. There are programs out there with me being on the board of directors for Lighthouse for the Blind. That's one of the things is that blindness and diabetes is a big picture in the African-American community. All right? And I'm helping them put together some of their programs. But under the ADA compliance, we're looking to make sure that this city stays in, even though I'm leaving the job, but I'm not leaving the ADA world. I can tell you that right now, as far as with my statewide ADA coordinator, I'm still going to be heavily involved with them as well on a local, county, state, and national level. One of my certifications that I hope that the city maintains once they hire a new ADA coordinator is that that person be allowed to participate in the training, to go to these different trainings, right? Not only on through the University of Missouri, which is certification, but also to the National Association of ADA Coordinators. That is the national organization, which is on the board. On the national board, you have, remember, like John Wodak, who actually wrote the ADA law, all right? Who actually wrote the ADA law is on our board and stuff, as well as Jim Berman, who actually started ADA.gov, all right? And then Iron Berman, she wrote, as for the Department of Justice, investigative part of the ADA law, all right? So that's where I got a lot of knowledge on getting involved, and I fell in love with it. I mean, to me, it's a passion, all right, is the fact that, because when me and my wife go shopping, Deb will tell you, I go into a store, I go, okay. I've asked to talk to managers and stuff. I said, your aisle is not wide enough. It's too high. You can't read it or what have you on that point. Same thing with, you know, working with city compliance, is that we got to be able to reach out to the total community, all right, and say, look, this city is committed. And thank you to city council, to the mayor, all the mayors I worked on, that commitment is so firm and steadfast, all right? No issue. There are some things that, you know, I bring up that they're not happy with it, but that's part of the ADA spectrum and stuff on that. So we're helping the public, like I said, CAPI, I cannot commend how CAPI helps me out a lot. They keep me on my toes, okay. Councilor, they will ask questions. They will ask me to research stuff, which I don't have no problem in doing it, but every meeting I bring up ADA compliance for the city and the issues that I see. And one of the big issues was the sidewalks. I get average of four or five complaints a week reference to our sidewalks, right? And thank God our master sidewalk plan is in the making and stuff, because we definitely need that part of, that's the other issue. But one of the things that, you know, you can read the report, but there's one area that I want to end by saying, title one. We talk about all the public, right? Public as far as ADA accommodations and stuff. But for title one, what about our own internal city employees, employment, they request accommodations, because I'm only one of the several ADA going around the state that even handle title one. Most of them handle title two, which is state and local government, title three, which is accommodation, public accommodations. And a lot of the state, they handle state and local, they say, well, we're not involved in title three. I said, well, we have a community, you guys have a community center, do the public rent from it. Guess what, you're in title three, because that is a public accommodation. Do we have meetings here in city hall, open to the public? That's title three. That's public accommodations. But on the title one side, is that me handling that for the last 10 years and developing that title one request for employees is that anytime a city employee has a disability and stuff, they can come to me. I do it for the public also. But I'm going to, you know, preach now about internal employees, is that I have to review those requests and approve them. And it's not an easy process, all right? It's the fact that I'm asking city council and mayor's office to please take a firm and better look at our title one obligations, be able to handle our own internal staff, all right? Because the amount of city employees that call me on a regular basis asking, they are afraid to admit that they have a disability for fear of being retaliated against, all right, on that. So that's my outlaw to keep that going and making sure that whatever I can do to help the city, even if I retire, I'm here, all right? And the other part of it is our youth programs. You know, I'm heavily involved with Men in the Making, which is our youth program, is that we've got several young men that have disabilities. I take those upon my own umbrella to work with them because a lot of folks don't understand working with a child with disability, how you have to deal with those things. Same thing with city employees. But lastly, the changes coming, and I tell our statewide AD coordinators, the last meeting last week, stop worrying about the chaos in Washington, D.C., okay? Let's go by what the law is right now, okay? Let's go with the current ADA law, okay, making sure that we are working with the residents in this city. And one of the things that I also bring up to them is that the change that may be coming about, we're guessing right now, okay? That's where we go with the firm commitment of the civil rights law, I mean, as well as ADA law. But at the same time, and I know I keep saying at the same time, there's so many factors. A lot of the folks that I work with in D.C., Department of Justice, they're no longer there, okay? But the fact is that they're here looking, and they look at St. Pete as a shining star. They see how we do different things, and they're like, how do you guys accomplish? The first thing I say is that city council, mayor's office, and a lot of times with our department, accessibility liaisons, all right? Because, folks, with 39-plus city department, there's no way as the ADA quarter can do this job by themselves. So it's key that we have our bi-monthly meetings that go over different things, and they report it to me. And the Title I stuff comes up all the time, comes up a lot of times on that issue. So I know we're doing a great job for the public and different things like that, but what are we doing for internal employees? So, but I want to close, and one of the ones, and I, Shelly, is she here? I want to, for a minute, she is one of our sister, sister liaisons, and one of the, well, I'll let Kelly. I wrote it down, so I wouldn't, sometimes it's talk too much, but I'll write it down. Oh, here, I guess I'll make this for a shorty. So, kind of piggybacking on what you said, good afternoon, members of City Council. As, I'm going to try, also try not to get emotional. As someone that became an amputee unexpectedly and a city employee, I live in the ADA world every day. I just want to express my true appreciation for the efforts that the Capri Committee and you all have done before. As stated before, you never know when it might happen to you. Sorry. You don't know that you need those accommodations until they come up, until you end up having to navigate what that life looks like and still work, live, and play, which I still do, as my new normal. And I just want to thank Liz, who was here before, who supports me every day, and the work that Lindell, who listens, actively supports the needs that I have as a city employee. Even down to, every day I come to City Hall, there's automatic doors. And every day I walk in those doors, I start my day with being thankful that there's an automatic door. Someday, I don't know if I'll, you know. Right now I walk really great on a prosthetic. That might change. I might be wheelchair-bound again. I work really hard to keep striving in my recovery. But if I didn't have that automatic door every day to say, you know what, I'm so grateful that there are automatic doors. And I know you worked really hard for those automatic doors, but as somebody that benefits from the work you do, it doesn't go unnoticed. And I wish you the best in retirement. I know I speak for a lot of people that do live disability day in and day out. The work that you've done and will continue to do is truly appreciated from the heart. Thank you. Aw. Let me close by saying it this way, is that the heart is the foundation of making sure you're doing stuff the right way. All right? And having the blessing of God to direct your path in everything you do. I'm not a perfect servant. I'll be the first one to say that. We're not all perfect. But we need that to place God in our path on how we do different things. But being in the world of ADA, being, you know, involved with all the folks from the national, local, and working out with folks in D.C., is that I've learned a lot that you have to be dedicated to what you do, right? And that day when Mr. Cornwell called me to office and I said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Excuse me. But then since the last 10 years, I've really educated and I live and breathe it now. And because, you know, if you guys remember, I was out for three months, too. I fell and had brain surgery. But look at me. I walk in the talking. I mean, I couldn't move or walk for almost a month and a half. All right? And only because of the training and stuff I had to go through working with, you know, with therapists and all these different folks. And a lot of the doctors would question me and say, what do you do for a living? ADA coordinator. First thing they said, I said, well, I noticed that your staff ain't doing this the right way, okay? Is that you don't have the proper medical equipment in here, okay? You don't have, your doctors are not educated on ADA and stuff like that. All right? So I've learned over the years that the fact is that for U.S. city officials and stuff, commit to doing the right thing. And I know money, Robin, I know money is, but let's put the people factor back into it. That's it. Thank you, Lendell. Council members, any questions or comments on the compliance report? Council member Fix Sanders. I have no comments or questions about the compliance report. Again, happy retirement. I'm so happy for you, happy retirement, because so many of us work every day and strive to get to this point. And it just took so many of life, life, and for me to want to just tell you thank you for everything that you continue to do, not only in your professional role, but in your personal role and in the community. And when you mentioned the men in the making, that was like my most all-time favorite program ever, a role in that program. But again, this is your last report. Thank you. Well, I just wanted to thank you so much, Lendell. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lendell. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with you over these last three years. It really has. And you talk about training and learning. I'm not sure I have learned more in a singular committee meeting than I have in CAPI. And I do a lot of numbers in BF&T. And so thank you. Congratulations. I'm going to steal just a little bit of thunder from Councilmember Fig Sanders. Shelly, thanks for being a shero. I think if any of us started talking to you, we all might cry. So just thank you. Thank you for being in the forefront and sharing the story. I think you've just imprinted on all of us. So thank you for that. Lendell, have a blast. I know I'm going to see you lots. I love you, buddy. Thanks for all the work. We're going to continue it. Deal? All right. It's commitment. All right. Thank you. Councilmembers, we have F4 in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. We have a motion and a second on F4. Seeing as no other Councilmembers wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your vote. Seeing as all present Councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. We have a motion to approve a unanimous vote. Lendell, I think you might be the only person in St. Petersburg city history to probably, if I had to guess, never have a non-unanimous vote. But just like ADA. I'm glad we didn't break the streak. That's right. Thank you, Lendell. Okay. Councilmembers, we're going to move into committee reports, H1. It's a nice break for me. I don't get to do this BFNT report. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. We're respectfully requesting City Council approval of a motion to refer the general obligation bond discussion to the PS&I committee. For those who are not there, we started the conversation in BFNT. Given our schedule, we couldn't finish the conversation. Given the schedule at BFNT and how busy it is, we also discussed, well, can we do it in Cal? It's also a busy calendar, so in committee, it was suggested that we put it in PS&I, so that's the reason why this came up. We have much more flexibility with the PS&I schedule. And I said that I could work with the administration whenever they need to bring it back. They can let me know so I can work on the schedule on that. So that was it. Thank you. Second. We have a motion and a second. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. And I just thought of this earlier when we were in Lair, and then I thought maybe I would save it until now. So I just wanted to ask administration, you know, there's all of this conversation around the potential for property taxes to be affected by legislative changes. And Blaise Angoglio was put as CFO yesterday. I was listening to an interview that was done with him on NPR this morning. He was not on NPR. The interview is on NPR. And they were talking specifically about how he was looking at his plan being specifically for homesteaded taxes. I know on the PowerPoint that we were given for general obligation bond, that's about 40% of our taxable value. So I'm having some concerns. And I think I just want to kind of make sure that as we're headed down this path with a general obligation bond, what would the implications be if, God forbid, I mean, we're trying to guess, right? We don't really know what they're going to do. But I just want to make sure that we are having that as a complete conversation because if property taxes or homesteaded property taxes go away, not only does that dramatically impact our budget, but it also could dramatically impact the ability to be able to even do a general obligation bond, what the impacts might be fiscally, like it's going to bring down the amount that we would be able to collect. I think there's a lot that I'm very concerned about with that conversation as it relates to this conversation. So I just wanted to bring that up and ask if maybe that could be part of, when it comes to PSNI, just a little bit more kind of trying to maybe predict what maybe the implications could be and how we may have to pivot around that. Absolutely. That's an excellent point. And we'll work with Ms. Kovalarich and her team on any legal issues there. And we can run some different scenarios based on the percentages. And that's an excellent point. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Yeah. And I agree. That's something we need to look at. So I would figure legal can give us all that information. We also have bond counsel that we can rely on and our outside experts to also provide that information. Just quickly, before we vote, I know we have a motion and a second. Just want to thank Vice Chair Hanowitz for taking over in BF&T and moving this along and getting it to a place where we can still talk about it and not have to worry about schedules. Very much appreciated from my end. So thank you very much. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve of genitum H1. Passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to move into open forum. Do we have any speakers? Okay. No speakers. We'll go ahead and close open forum. Council members, any announcements? Okay. I have one very quickly and I try not to talk about me a lot. So I'm going to talk about my team. But this weekend is the 11th annual Love McKinley fundraiser for pediatric cancer that a group of six of us will be hosting. My team is currently, I say my team, our team, except without me, is currently at St. Pete Catholic setting up for Friday night's event, where we'll raise hopefully somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 to $250,000 to help support families dealing with pediatric cancer and to find a cure for this atrocious disease, which is my big, hairy, audacious goal, that someday I get to shut this nonprofit down because we won't need it anymore. And so we've got about 300 people coming to St. Pete Catholic on Friday night, another 130 people golfing on Saturday afternoon. Looking forward to it. It's a labor of love. But I just wanted to publicly thank the board for all the work that they're doing because they are making a difference in a lot of families. In fact, just over the last three years, two of our police officers have had children diagnosed with pediatric cancer. We've supported them. And so it's hit close to home, too. So very thankful for them and the community for rallying around. And I'm just very proud of all the work we've been able to do. So thank you. All right, council members, we've had a great day. If there's nothing else, city council's adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.