City Council - Jul 24, 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 Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr. and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the July 24, 2025 City Council Meeting. Could we please do a roll call? Gibbons. Here. Lloyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Gabbard. Here. I will say Gerdes. Harding. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Nick Sanders. Here. And Driscoll. Here. Thank you. Okay, this afternoon, we're off to a real good start. This afternoon, we'll have our invocation given today by Reverend Ethan Cole from St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. And then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me in standing. Heavenly Father, in your word, you have given us a vision of that holy city to which the nations of the world bring their glory. Behold and visit, we pray, the cities of the earth, especially this city of St. Petersburg. Renew the ties of mutual regard which form our civic life. Send us honest and able leaders. Enable us to eliminate poverty, prejudice, and oppression. That peace may prevail with righteousness and justice with order. And that men and women from different cultures and with different talents may find with one another the fulfillment of their humanity. In your holy name we pray. 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 invocation in joining us this afternoon. Thank you so much. 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. Seeing as no 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, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Okay. Council members, we have a consent agenda. Is there any public comment for the consent agenda? Okay. We'll go to Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to alert council. And I don't have a problem with the items, but in reviewing consent agenda B, there are items C, B, 4, and 6 that have to do with our consulting services for both Southern Group and Capital Council. And the way it's described is we're accepting a proposal from them for governmental relations consulting services that's for the mayor's office. So it's not for the mayor's office. It's for the city of St. Petersburg. And then when you read the memorandum, it also says the mayor's office, and there was not a contract to catch. So I wanted to make sure that we can clear this up in front of council so they understand the extent of the services that were being provided. Yes. Thank you, Council Member Hanowitz. David Thompson, Director of Government Affairs. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. You're correct. It's a discrepancy in the agenda item versus what's in the actual contract, which will reflect that the services are provided to the city of St. Petersburg. The expense lies within the mayor's office. Okay. And so that's why I wanted to make sure that everybody understood. The contract is with the city of St. Petersburg, not with the mayor's office. The mayor's office is not a legal entity. And then I had asked for copies of the contract, and I guess you can forward that to council afterwards and whatever the terms are so they can also see it. So that was all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was something separate than what we had done before, but it sounds like it's what we have done before. Yes, that's good. These things went out to bid, and these were responsive. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because you know what I'm thinking. Yes, yeah, happy to. So the process for the consulting services aligned with what we typically do, put out the RFP, you'll see in the agenda backup myself, Chief of Staff Dwell Walls, City Administrator Rob Gerdes, and Aubrey Phillips, our Director of Strategic Grants, all served on that RFP committee. There were two responses for the state consulting services and four responses for the federal consulting services. It was the committee's recommendation that both of our existing contracts with the Southern Group at the state level and Capital Council at the federal level continue to provide those services for the city. I know that there was a lot of conversation around, you know, change in administrations at the federal level, and how did that play into this decision making? So really from the committee's thought on this is that we'd found a good partner who understood the work that we were doing here in the city of St. Petersburg. But the scope and the nature of the services that they provide were holistic, so for us it's not just about going and having, you know, somebody who's closest to the president. There's also a lot of work that we do throughout all of the federal agencies and the individual staff members, professional staff who make those decisions and are reviewing those contracts. As we're talking about FEMA, CDBGR, HUD, we felt confident that Capital Council was able to meet that specific need for the city. Okay. All right. And then I see the evaluation criteria in here, and I brought up to you the last two times, the first time we did this contract and the time we renewed it, that I would have liked to have seen some alternative evaluation criteria. I don't see anything like that listed here. I mean, I'll be explicit. You know, the people that we're hiring to be lobbyists do a lot. The firms do a lot of unsightly lobbying, defense contractors, big tobacco, things like that, private prisons. I didn't see any criteria like that. That was my feedback last time. If you could speak to that for a second. Yeah, happy to. So it's not in the evaluative criteria, but we did ask as part of the evaluation, maybe it's not broken out properly, about who the clients and references were. Not all of them provide the entire list. Some of the firms that we, that solicited have hundreds and hundreds of clients, but you can kind of see the nature of some of the firms. I think of the responses that we got, Capital Council had, was reflective the most of the general feel of counsel on what other clients we may want. Okay, I think the first time I brought this up, it was very obvious the second tier person that you had had in the list was like lobbied for transit authorities, nonprofits. I'm not seeing a clear delineation in this one the way that I did before, so I'm not going to like try to stop this or vote against it like I have in the past. But I'd encourage us to continue to look out and make sure we're not doing business with people who are doing business with unsightly actors in the future. So I think you know where I'm coming from. We've had this conversation many times. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Since we have this up for discussion regarding the federal lobbyists, the firm that was selected is the one that we're currently using, but they actually came in the highest with their bid. Meanwhile, the one with the lowest bid, Van Skoyek, not only had the lowest bid, but they're very well known in this area for representing some, you know, other entities in this particular area, and they're highly respected. So I just wonder, with the discrepancy in the amount and, you know, given that this was open, I mean, I was thrilled to see all four of these firms bid. And I have, there's a lot to like about each and every one of them. But that one in particular, since they were the low bidder and held in such high regard by many in our greater community, tell us about that decision. Yeah, ultimately, and I have to admit I'm not as familiar with the way that all the weights go within procurement. And Rob, if you want to add anything on that piece, I'll let you do. But it really was about the quality of the services. And that's not to say that any one was, you know, significantly better or, you know, any of these were very poor. But just when, you know, we went in and directly put in the scoring for each of the items, Capital Council ultimately came as number one for us. Okay, thank you. I've been happy with the work that Capital Council has done for us. And I'm satisfied with this. I had no intentions of opposing it, but I did want to ask that. Absolutely. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay, Councilmembers, we have a consent agenda in front of us. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other Councilmembers wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present Councilmembers have voted, Clerk, could you please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Chair, a motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Okay, thank you. All right, we will move into open forum. Clerk, could you please read the rules? If you wish to address City Council on subjects, excuse me, 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 residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once. During the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app, or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address for the record. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you reach the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting, and the rules of decorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum, the Chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and we do have several speakers, Mr. Chair. I'll call them two at a time. Okay, thank you. Kathy Harrelson and Cliff Stevenson, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon, everybody. Not specifically here to talk about trees today, although I do want to point out that a mature tree does cast a lot of shade and saves on that Duke Energy bill. If you could please have your name and address. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I said it. Kathy Harrelson. Not the whole street address, though, right? 32nd Avenue North, St. Petersburg. I'm here to talk about Duke, and this idea of the franchise agreement coming up has been out there for a while, and I'm here to say that that is something that this city, I think, needs to seriously address and even recommend. I just want to tell a personal story. Mine is that, I mean, I built an ADU in my son's backyard. It's not big. It's 650 square feet. Pete, I designed and built it so I could lay solar panels right on the roof, which we did do. We were paying for those panels. Turns out, the credit that Duke gives for my energy that I provide to them only gets paid during the months of the year when, you know, we don't have air conditioning. We don't need it. I am getting huge bills. My bills are not in any way predictable or the way I expected them to be as a person on a fixed income. That was the reason I did it. They are using essentially the power that I'm providing and all the other folks doing the same thing. They're using that energy, and I don't know if you know about fuel arbitrage, but let's just say it's a thing, and they're making money on it for their investors. Not for us, and the thing is, I shouldn't need to take money out of my investment account, my paltry little IRA, to pay these huge power bills when I am providing power to the grid every month, every week, every day. Something needs to give. Duke won't talk to me about it. They won't talk to anybody about it. I think it's time to dump Duke and give the power and the money back to the people. Thank you. Hi. You can raise the... Yeah, can I? ...by your right hip. Oh, my. Oh, that's even better. Sorry for everyone else that's 161. Hi, Cliff Stevenson. I'm in Euclid, St. Paul, 27th Avenue North. I'm also going to be mentioning my desire to get a feasibility study on the upcoming contract renewal with Duke. I'll mention also this is my first time speaking to city council, so if you can get my lazy butt up here, then you know that it's something worth considering. All right? I also have, you know, higher bills. That's kind of part and parcel, and I'm not surprised by that. I've lived in larger cities. I'm originally from Long Beach, California, then Boston, and then the last 15 years here. But the bills are large, but I also worry a lot about increasing temperatures, something that anyone that's gone outside is probably also worried about. As those goes up, it becomes a bit of a sort of a vicious cycle, right, because that means the bills are going up, but it's also more dangerous if power gets shut down. So as prices go up, we're more and more at risk of the power getting shut off during the most dangerous time of the year. When we have a large elderly population, I'm getting there, but I'm also worried about others. So it's just something where I think, and again, my first time here, I'm a business analyst, business journalist, right? So I hear the language of business being spoken. I heard about RFPs earlier. So clearly, this just makes sense for anyone that came from that world, anyone that has that background. You just want to see what else is out there. What are the options, what makes sense for the city and for the people, and it seems like a nice enough of an ask and makes reasonable sense to me. So if the C members of the council would just consider that when you're going forward, and also if there are any sort of against to this. You know, if there's anyone saying, no, I don't even want to see a feasibility study. If they're not from Duke, I would love to hear from them. I would love to hear anyone that's pro, not even considering anyone else but Duke. Maybe you'll change my mind, but it seems like the only people that stand to lose from this are Duke employees, their families, I guess, right, and the company itself. So that is all, and I'll concede the rest of my time. Thank you. I want to call the two Zoom speakers. Thank you. James, once you're into the meeting space, please state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Hi. Can everyone hear me? Yes, sir. Thank you. My name is James Lacoste. I live in Riviera Bay, 2nd Street and 94th Avenue North. My comments are addressing the issue of the high water bills. I had a very high water bill in the same time period that a lot of these were happening. I've talked with the city several times about that. They've done the best they can for me, but the bottom line is that the water meter says I used that water, so I must have. We're talking about an amount of 10 times my normal volume for a period of time I was not even occupying the residence for the full billing cycle. There were no leaks, so there's really no good explanation for this that anyone has come up with. I know there are a lot of hypotheses given. I attempted to contact my representative on city council twice. I didn't hear back. Some of the hypotheses were that the water meters need to be tested, that the hurricanes or some kind of an issue with the hurricanes backflowing or something. I was even told maybe somebody stole the water. We're talking about 30,000 gallons of water versus a normal usage of between 2,500 and 3,000 in one month. So my understanding is that there's still no explanation and that the residents who have high water bills are just kind of stuck with these high water bills, and that's the way it is. The other issue, the Stantec report, I think there was an addendum passed approving $65,000 to Stantec to get to the bottom of this. I saw the report. It's well organized, but all it does is measure the anomaly. It shows how many times we had high water bills based on a three-month average baseline. It does nothing to explain those anomalies. It just measures them. And frankly, the amount of work that was required for $65,000 doesn't seem like there was a sufficient value to that effort. I still think the city has some explaining to do getting to the bottom of this for its residents. I know I didn't use 30,000 gallons of water in one month. It's only me that lives in that house. So if the water meters are not working, I know they test them when they take them out. Maybe that's what we should be looking at. I mean, it's more closely. Anyway, I would like the city council to ask for a more detailed report to explain this problem. Not just measure it and then say, well, we don't know what to do. Let's just charge people for it. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. E. Ray, once you enter to the meeting space, please state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Hi, can everyone hear me? Yep. Hi, good afternoon. My legal name is Dalton Reynolds. I am a St. Pete resident in Euclid, St. Paul on 16th Street North. I'm here today to express my strong support for publicly owned power in St. Pete. Based on the information presented at the most recent Hearst committee meeting, it seems St. Pete is not on track to meet our 100% renewable energy goals by 2035. And I believe our relationship with Duke Energy is holding us back from having a more sustainable, resilient, and affordable city. Considering that our contract with Duke Energy is ending in 2026, I strongly urge St. Pete City Council to follow in Clearwater's lead and fund a feasibility study for public power as soon as possible. Thank you. I can see the rest of my time. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. I believe it's Jim Clark and Jason Scott. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Hello. My name is James Clark or Jim. Councilman Givens, you are my representative. This is the first time I've gotten a chance to see you or meet you. You could give us your address. Oh, I'm sorry, 5444 Fifth Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Westminster Heights. I am here to speak about Duke Energy, but I think I have a unique perspective on this, which I have not seen in any of the talking points before. First of all, a little history. I moved to St. Pete when I was 16 with my family, went to Northeast High School, St. Petersburg Junior College. My number came up, and I went off into the Army, came back, worked for a while, and decided to use my GI Bill, went off to school, degrees from FSU and UF. I got my first job in Orlando, where I lived for 40 years, and this is my perspective, because I was in Orlando. We had OUC, Orlando Utilities Commission, as our power company. Let's see. Look at my notes. Okay. Here's my point, is because OUC was, the headquarters was five miles from my house, and everybody at OUC lived in the Orlando area. They were very responsive to their customers' needs. Phone calls, things would get done. The mayor, as mayor, was automatically on the board of OUC, and so if there were problems, people would call the mayor's office, and not somebody up in North Carolina, 500 miles away. People were very responsive. Let's see. Okay. Customer service, power outages, everyone in OUC lived in that area. They were our neighbors. They are kids who were on our sports teams. They went to our church. And in North Carolina, you call somebody, and they go, why are these people from Florida calling? Finally, I'd like to say with the trees, I know there have been complaints about trees getting hacked. Believe me, our trees were taken excellent care of. We had a neighbor planted a tree under the power lines behind our house. The tree service arborists came in and did a beautiful job over the years. We lived there 25 years of trimming around. They did a beautiful job. They did not hack trees. So, because of customer service, everybody there lives in the area. They know you. And I think for this reason, people should look into this reason as to have the power company in St. Pete, not based in North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good afternoon. Jason Scott from Coteconee Key Island, 4636 Redfish Lane. I came here to urge the city council to pursue a feasibility study on public power. This is due to the rising cost of Duke Energy, the poor communication and maintenance from Duke Energy. In District 6 in Coteconee Island, we have multiple issues of the utility easements not being maintained and causing outages and concerns. I also like to raise the concern of the Clean Energy Connection Program, which has a lack of transparency and accountability. I don't think we're going to meet our goals. The county has removed themselves from that program, and I think we should do the same. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Leslie Bowman and Jack Wallace, please go to the podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have to administer to the city council. Hi. I'm a retired social worker living on a fixed and limited—oh, Leslie Bowman, 2920 Burlington Avenue North. Sorry. I live on a fixed and limited income. I invested in solar panels years ago to save money and to do my part in reducing harm to the planet. My base fee has more than tripled, and I expect it to be going even higher if a contract with Duke Energy is renewed. It's important to me that I'm paying into a system that benefits our community, not-for-profits to executives, investors, and funding propaganda. I urge you to fund an unbiased feasibility study. I would love to see us move to a public power system. Thank you. Hello, council. My name is Jack Wallace. I live 4th Street and 11th Avenue South. I'm here to support St. Pete forming a city-owned power utility. We live in a time of increasing costs, from food to rent to child care to health care, basically everything, right? Power is no different. Is power something you can live without, I would say, here in Florida? Certainly not, right? We've seen record-breaking sort of heat indexes here in St. Petersburg and across Florida just in the last week or two, right? This is a human right, a human essential, right? Something we cannot live without. The Florida Public Service Commission approved Duke's plan to recover, quote-unquote, $1.09 billion over a 12-month period. I would say a more accurate word rather than recover would be something closer to loot or extract. Duke wants to loot the people of Florida to the tune of $1.09 billion over a 12-month period. The reason given by Duke for this looting is, quote-unquote, recovering costs from the 2024 hurricane season. I don't doubt that it was expensive, right, to repair all of the sort of necessary electrical equipment. This is a flimsy defense for the real reason, right, for this increase, which is, of course, increasing profits. In 2024, Duke's net profit was $4.4 billion. So I'll repeat that. In 2024, Duke's net profit was $4.4 billion, just for one year. All that profit is extra money that this company does not need to run their operations, and it is coming out of our collective pockets. A city-owned power utility does not have this problem. Why? Because it is a nonprofit model that keeps costs low by removing the requirement to generate profits for shareholders or investors. Utility revenues can instead be reinvested into maintaining or improving our infrastructure or, by, hey, directly lowering costs to the people of St. Petersburg. Public power would be great for St. Pete in other ways, too. Utilities contribute to the community by creating jobs, improving infrastructure, supporting the local economy. Again, one that's based in St. Pete and not North Carolina. These could be high-paying union jobs, ones that you could build a family on. I want to end with an example. The St. Pete Fire Department is run by the city. It seems sort of unremarkable to us, right? Why? Because it has taken for a fact that putting out fires is a public good, something that should not be at the whims of a group of faithless investors or board members from out of state. We've decided that, yes, it would be ridiculous to miss your bill for the fire department corporation and go, whoopsies, I guess your house is just going to burn. I ask you, how is power any different? I urge you to follow Clearwater's lead by funding this study, this feasibility study, and learn what our options are, and urge you to support forming the city-owned power utility. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Isla Borum and Jason Snifton, I believe that's what it is. Actually, Jason, you live on Haynes Road. Yeah, part of Haynes Road. Yeah. Part of Haynes Road is in St. Pete. Okay. Is that my turn? Yeah. Okay, great. My name's Isla Borum. I live on 34th Avenue North. I'm just here today, and I took a propanol to come here in the middle of my work day, by the way, to come speak at city council. I'd first like to ask in the future if there are going to be more opportunities for a public forum, which I really think, as a community, we need. Because I talk to people all the time and I'm involved in a fair amount of activism. Nobody thinks that showing up here or calling you guys is going to make any difference, and we really need to start taking accountability for slamming these all within the hours that are convenient just for the city. I really want to see more late night. I'm also here to support the feasibility study for the Dump Duke Project. I think that's an amazing idea. Those union jobs are invaluable to our city. They create real sustainable livelihoods for families. My Duke Energy bill has doubled, doubled. We're just two people with two dogs, and the dogs aren't using anything except for the air conditioning. You know what I mean? So please do that. Also, I think that for parking, like within two blocks radius during these meetings, it should be for free because I have to go now because my parking's running out. Okay. Bye. Go ahead. Jason Sniffen, 3803 Hines. I've lived and worked in St. Pete for a little over 10 years in a few different places. I came from Tampa, and we had Tico over there. That's all we ever had. That's all I ever knew. And then when I moved over to St. Pete, we had Duke, and I figured that's all we ever had and all I ever knew. And I guess for 30 years, that's how those things work. And then I find out that there's an option to do something different. And then I also find out that a whole bunch of other cities have, like, city-owned power, which is, like, a very different thing that I've ever heard of before, which sounds really interesting. So if Clearwater is doing a feasibility study to do something very similar, I don't know if we can, like, get on, like, a Groupon or a Group, you know, discount. Like, if they're already doing stuff in this area, maybe that would save money or something. But it just seems like even just for, like, haggling, it just makes sense to do it because why wouldn't you? And if it's 30 years, that's a long time. So that's me. Thank you. Next to you speaker. I'm going to call a Zoom speaker. Last Zoom speaker, Tina Yaddle. Once you enter to the meeting space, please unmute yourself. State your name and address. Yes, you'll have three minutes to address City Council. Can you hear me okay? Yes, ma'am. Hi. So forgive me. It says Gainesville, but we moved to St. Pete three years ago. And I'm just calling because I don't know where else to go. If you could please give your name and address, ma'am. Oh, forgive me. It's my first time. Tina Yackel, and I'm off 46th Avenue South. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. So we flooded, lost everything, was homeless for a little bit. House surfing with friends. In the middle of all that, we got a $1,000 water bill. I didn't have drywall in my house. I didn't have toilets in my house. Nobody was living here. I have continued to fight. I have not missed one monthly payment on my water bill, of my normal water bill. But I've not paid this $1,000 erroneous water bill. I had three studies done. I've had my pool looked at multiple times. I called back literally the next month. And the gentleman told me the conversation was being recorded. So I hope somebody could hear it. Because he said, well, congratulations, Ms. Yackel. You fixed it. Dude, I'm not even living in my house. Nothing has been done. Still been fighting it. Nobody calls me back. And they shut my power off. I had to pay. They won. I had to pay $700 to have my power, not my power, I'm sorry, I'm so emotional about it, to have my water turned back on for a bill that nothing was here running. Nobody was living here. And nobody there appears to have a brain or even will communicate with me or call me back to address this. So please, I know a lot of people are in the same situation. Could please somebody do this? Because they just basically stole $700 from me. Thank you. Next few speakers, please. Ronika, Wally, and Michael, Michelle, Lindsay, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address City Council. Hi, my name is Ronika Whaley. I live at 225 First Ave North. I know today we're not talking about the Clean and Safe Program, but I've been asked by somebody that told somebody that we need people down here to talk about it. So there's a couple of us here today. Okay, let's see. My name is Ronika. I'm a business owner, resident, and proud member of the St. Pete Community Club. I'm here today to strongly urge the City Council to fund and implement the Clean and Safe Program because our city, our businesses, and the people who work here deserve it. I'm not really quite sure why anybody is even fighting the Clean and Safe Program unless it's going in their pocket or they're misinformed. And I'm not sure, I guess I'm very confused by the pushback on this. Let me be clear. This is not about cleaning up trash or power washing sidewalks, though, yes, we need to do that too. This is about restoring safety, dignity, and confidence to our downtown. It's about making St. Pete a place where families feel safe to walk at night, where visitors want to come back, where businesses can thrive without having to clean up human waste or break up sidewalk altercations before they open their door. What I've seen happening to downtown St. Petersburg is business owners that are completely overwhelmed, employees that are afraid to walk their cars, customers are choosing to stay home or go somewhere else. Meanwhile, small business owners, people like me, are spending thousands of our own dollars on private security, overnight cleaning, repairing damage that shouldn't be happening in the first place. And even with that, we are not winning. We need help. So what does the Clean and Safe Program actually do? It puts dedicated, trained safety ambassadors on the ground, not police, but visible, friendly, community-centered personnel who deter crime and de-escalate tension. It employs a proactive cleaning team seven days a week to power wash sidewalks, remove graffiti, pick up trash, or keep our city looking like the place that we believe in. It connects with social service agencies. It does not criminalize homelessness, but get people real help while also seeking public spaces accessible for everyone. This is not about sweeping people under the rug. It's about raising the standard of care for everyone. So why would anyone not want to do this? Honestly, the only reasons I can think of is either misinformation or misaligned priorities. Some might argue it's too expensive, but we have to ask, how much is it costing us to not do it? How much tax revenue has we've lost because businesses close early or customers stay away? How many tourists leave with a bad impression and never return? Others worry that it will unfairly target vulnerable populations. That's a valid concern, but the model of the Clean and Safe Program in other cities proves the opposite. It's about compassion with structure, services with standards, and communities with accountability. This is not a political issue. This is not left or right. It's about livability. It's about making downtown St. Pete a place where we're proud of again. We want to continue growing as a world-class destination, a vibrant, walkable, safe downtown. The Clean and Safe Program isn't an option. It's essential. I'm asking you to do the right thing. Fund this program. Protect the businesses who invest in this city. Serve the residents who call it home. And show everyone, from tourists to taxpayers. Thank you. Go ahead. Hi. I'm Michelle Lindsay, and I live off 49th Street and 5th Avenue North. I was born and raised in St. Pete. My parents were also raised here. I have many family members on both sides still living in the city, so I have deep roots here. I'm a member of the League of Women Voters, St. Pete Chapter, and the Central Oak Park Neighborhood Association. I also live with four chronic progressive lung diseases, including a rare disease, so forgive me if I sound out of breath, I am. I'm here today to support St. Pete forming a city-owned public utility. I ask you to follow Clearwater's lead by funding a feasibility study now so we can learn what our options are. I live on a fixed income because of my health, so every dollar matters. And I'm absolutely not the only one in this position. There are 33 cities in Florida that have public power utilities like Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Orlando. On average, these residents save hundreds of dollars a year by having public power. We also need affordable power in St. Pete. And we also need reliable power. My power has gone out during hurricanes, during many minor rainstorms, and for reasons unclear. Sadly, we expect it now, but we don't accept it. And I need reliable power for my various daily lung treatments. This becomes a health issue for so many. We need a public power utility that reinvests in our infrastructure, not taking our money and leaving us powerless. Duke Energy has not provided us reliable and affordable electricity. And that's not only on Duke. It's also on the city of St. Pete, who signed the agreement with them. We don't want 30 more years or one more year. I've talked with many residents about their experiences with Duke, and everyone, no matter their political affiliation, want them gone. We now have a chance to do better. We want our investment to stay in St. Pete. We need reliable, affordable, and renewable energy. And Duke only seems interested in collecting our money and giving it to their shareholders. Again, I ask you to fund a feasibility study now to examine what it will take to move to municipal power. Thank you for your time and for taking our call to action seriously. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Maura Halai and Matt Widener. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Matthew Widener. I live at 1201 Eden Isle Drive. Guys, want me here? I'm here again to talk about water. It's the 6th, 8th, 10th time I've been up here, and there's been zero explanation to me about what happened with the water bills October, November, December, and elsewhere. You had a community the whole meeting. You guys talked about getting answers to me, to constituents. Zero answers. You in that meeting hired Stantec, gave them $65,000. That was supposed to provide a report to you prospectively to answer questions. It didn't. Apparently, that was just the backwards-looking stuff. The only answer to the question for all of the constituents is 10,000 gallons, 50,000 gallons. Whatever the meter said, that's what they used in that single-family home that no one was in. No one has taken the call to ask the question. No one has taken the call to put an agenda item up there. I'm here today because I see you've got an agenda item to talk about lessons learned from the hurricane. Where's that big lesson? Because these people that are here complaining about Duke power, there's also hundreds or thousands of people complaining about thousands and hundreds of dollars taken out of their accounts on water bills that are simply not possible. I didn't use 20,000 gallons. People did not use 50,000 gallons. It's simply not possible. And yet the only explanation is, too bad. Pay it or we're cutting it off. Ladies and gentlemen, how many cutoff notices are out there in the city right now? Are any one of you confident that the cutoff notices for 20,000 and 30,000 gallons for your citizens are legitimate? Are any one of you confident that the collection notices that are going out there for people for $2,000, $5,000 are legitimate? The answer must be no. They're not legitimate. And the reason why they're not legitimate is because no one has reported back to you the basis for that study, that report that came before the Committee of the Whole. The Committee of the Whole in which they reported that 6,000 bills had been adjusted during a September to January period. Remember that? What was the basis for those 6,000 adjustments? No one has any idea. Remember the Stantec report that talked about 4,000 overreads? No one has any idea. You folks have an independent duty to every single citizen that you represent to at least ask the question. Come before city council. If there's nothing to report, if nothing's going on, great. Let's have that report. But, Rob, you talked about the fact that people that were complaining, you knew they were good people, that had a problem that you couldn't do anything for because the city code said you had to have a plumber's report. That's what Rob said. I know Rob wants to help people. I know you folks want to help people because you have servants' hearts. That's why you're here. So why don't we have the answers to the question, folks? Why can't you explain to me why that 10,000-gallon bill in a vacant house exists for me? Why not? Or for your other constituents. Your servants' hearts. Serve your people. Thank you very much. Thank you. Quickly, council members, we've come to 30 minutes, but we're going to keep going. I think we only have five or six more speakers, so I just wanted to give you a heads up. We're going to continue out and let everybody speak this afternoon, so just as an FYI. Go ahead. Hi there. My name is Mor Halai. I live at 54th Avenue South and 22nd Street South. I'm here to reinforce the demand for a study on the publicly owned energy. Frankly, from everything I've heard today, I'm increasingly curious what the counterargument is. There are, as has been mentioned, over 30 municipalities in Florida with public energy, including the biggest and most important cities, but also very small municipalities, like I learned today, a 3,000-person city called Bushnell, Florida. And, yeah, I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Dylan Dames and Marley Price. Hello, Marley Price, 5034 32nd Ave North. I know you're all probably pretty tired of hearing from me, but when I see these big corporations that come to our community and they just take and take and take, I have to say something. So I'm just here, again, asking that you consider a feasibility study ahead of our renewal next year. And I want to point out some things from today. So the headline in the Tampa Bay Times, well, FPL deciding to double charge customers, FPL rate hike would double charge customers to pad profits. These companies are not keeping us in mind. They do have some people in the city in mind. And I learned recently about the mayor having the president of Duke Energy on his transition team. That is just wholly a conflict of interest, in my opinion. And I don't know how we're going to go into good faith contract negotiations when we have those existing relationships. And I just really hope that you all keep that in mind. And also, considering the water bills, I wish you guys would do a better job uplifting the utility review committee. I think that should be more frequent. And I think you should have some more flexibility with that, because that is a really unique, cool thing that obviously Duke doesn't have anything like that. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, counsel. My name is Dylan Dames. I live at 4546 5th Avenue North. I'm here on behalf of Faith in Florida to urge you to pursue a feasibility study for municipal power. I'm not really an expert on this, but what I do have experience in is St. Pete making bold moves. So being the first in the state, and I think the Southeast in general, to set a 100% clean energy goal, making major funding reallocations this year through the SPAR program, and this new clean energy training center in Charles Park that's fully renewable, that's really, really cool. I'm sure you've heard a lot already about how other cities in Florida are getting lower rates for their residents through municipal power, so I think it's important that we make way for this study. If not, we're leaving opportunities on the table, and they're kind of the opportunities St. Pete is known for. Faith in Florida is made up of a diversity of congregations, clergy, impacted people, black and brown organizers, and their allies. And across our membership, when I ask how people are doing, all I hear about is the White House. More resources and liberties are getting stripped from people who are the most vulnerable, and people are scared. They worry that no one on the municipal level can protect them from what they see on the news, but I think you can prove them wrong. Steps toward municipal power, like the study, are steps toward reduced cost of living, and a restored connection between residents and their elected officials. If in five or ten years, when there's no SNAP, or no disability, or maybe no unemployment checks, and inflation reaches its projected levels, it'd be really nice to have a cheaper light bill. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Chris Steinaucher and Ashton Herter. Those are the last two speakers. Last two. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Chris Steinaucher, President and CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce. It's at 100 2nd Avenue North in downtown St. Pete. All right, I guess I got the wrong memo. I'm probably one of the only speakers that are going to sound like I didn't know what the message was about. But we talked about jobs this morning, or at least we tried to, and we didn't really talk about jobs this morning. But jobs, to me, if you would have asked me during that meeting, is about certainty of your economy. Your economy is just a perception of how people believe and what's going on. So certainty is everything. And when you look at why our jobs are decreasing, some of it was the hurricanes actually cutting things down. And a lot of the rebound that we did not see is some of the uncertainty that we're currently seeing. In the last four months alone, just in the Edge District, we have not signed any new leases. That's super unusual for us. So that's about business, community, kind of trying to figure out what's happening next. If you go ahead and say, we're going to go to try to do a city utility right now, when you guys have no money to do the things you're on the hook to do right now, you're going to create such an uncertainty in the folks who want to invest in your community. Developers, businesses are not going to take a chance in the next couple of years on a community that does not have itself rebuilt from hurricanes and now is going to try to build its own utility and invest in that at billions and billions of dollars. I understand we're not happy with Duke and as a utility. That's certainly been clear today. But I heard as many complaints about the city as a utility as I did Duke. So I don't know, like, grass is always greener, I guess, if someone else is doing it. But it's hard to provide utilities for your community. We do have to get good at it. So I would say, hey, I understand that there's a lot of conversations about this, but Duke is a good corporate partner. Duke does employ a lot of people in our community. Duke does employ and train a lot of people in our community as well. So when we're talking about jobs and the certainty of an economy and the eyes and the ears are around watching to say, what are we going to do with the raise? What are we going to do with the gas plant? What are we doing with the marina? What are we doing with Mahaffey and the Center for Arts? You add another level of uncertainty saying, oh, we don't even know if you're going to have certain power. We don't know when that will be. And we don't know how much we're going to have to invest and raise taxes to do so. But let's go do that now, too. I just believe we're just biting off more than we can chew right now. We've got to get our economy back stable. We've got to take the partners and community members who have gotten us here. And Duke Energy is over 110 years here in our community. I know people want to say it's someone that came from North Carolina, but that's one of the original companies of our community that you're talking about as well. So we're very excited about opportunities to renegotiate with Duke and challenge them. But at this point, to create uncertainty in our community, our chamber would be like, holy cow, please slow down on uncertainty and give us some real roadmaps for success. Thank you very much. Thank you. My name is Ashton Herter, 204 First Avenue North. Again, it's not on the agenda, but I'm here to talk about the safe and clean program as well. But I think you could also tie in everything else that you're talking about today. So, of course, the hurricanes did hit St. Pete pretty hard, right? And we've had problems with businesses coming back, residents wanting to come back. But if we did have a clean and safe program to make it more attractive to business owners, particularly large corporations, I have a small company myself, I manage one. But, you know, it's been difficult with, you know, the population of homeless people in downtown St. Pete. If we offered them an opportunity to get mental health, if we offered them a different place that they could go, possibly in one of these places that had been affected by the hurricane, we could, you know, rebuild it up and make it a place to where they can get mental health, a place where they can stay, a place where they can get skills to learn to go to use in our community. I think that would get them off the street to where we could make Williams Park a place where people can feel safe walking to. I know that we've done a good job on First Avenue, cleaning it up and making it pretty. But it's tough to, you know, I mean, my plants are destroyed. You know, I have them outside. I have a beautiful seating area outside. But it's, you know, constantly hard work for me and my employees to keep it up when there's, you know, there's not enough police officers or police presence down there or even security that we have to pay for to help keep it clean. But I think keeping it clean will attract these large businesses that will want to come down here, that will give us the tax revenue to, I know a lot of it is money, right? And that's what we're looking for. We have to figure out how we're going to allocate these tax dollars. And I think that that would be a way to get, you know, those tax dollars into the coffers so that we could build up the city, make it more attractive. I mean, it's a beautiful city. It's just growing. We just have to keep it attractive. We have to keep it a place where people want to come to, tourists want to come to. I mean, we did a great job with the pier. But, you know, we can see this is the revenue. It just keeps going down. How do we get it back? How do we keep, you know, paying for a sidewalk permit, you know, versus pulling everything off of the sidewalk and saying, sorry, I can't pay for it this year? So that's just my two cents. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you. Any more speakers, Mr. Clerk? No more speakers. Okay. So we'll go ahead and close open forum. And we're going to move into new ordinances E1, talking about restricting hours that you're able to solicit in Canvas. And I think we have Devin Haggett joining us. Devin couldn't be here today. It's a first reading on the ordinance, which has been to committee. I can answer any questions you may have. Okay. So we'll go ahead and read the ordinance. Okay. Proposed ordinance number 612H, an ordinance amending the St. Petersburg City Code, creating a new subsection, 17-1607, restricting the hours during which soliciting, canvassing, and peddling is permitted on residential property and providing an effective date. And the public care for this item is on August 7th, 2025, and we have no speakers. Move approval. We have a motion and a second on E1, seeing as no other council members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please leave your vote. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve it. June item E1, passes unanimously. All right. We are going to move into reports, and we're going to go to F2 first, an analysis of the 2024 storm season. And I know, Council Member Harding, this was originally your item. I want to give you an opportunity to introduce it. Thank you, Chair. In talks with Administrator Gerdes, the emergency management team that we have is always working on how we address the next crisis that we have. And I think we have a very well-developed protocol and set of plans. But this year, this past year, they were tested in ways that they had not been tested before. And I know that internally, they went through a post-mortem of how we did, both emergent and then, in this case, a big part of non-emergent, the 48 hours later when we started to deal with permits and whatnot. And there were probably more lessons learned in this case than, unfortunately, in most. And I thought it would be a good exercise to present that to the public and talk about what administration and the city have looked at and said, you know what? These are things that we definitely were ready for, but we need to tweak it in the event that this happens again. So I appreciate the administration putting this together. And thank you, Chair. Thank you. Welcome, Amber. Hello. Good afternoon, Council. As always, it is a pleasure to be here and talk with you. I like it better when I'm here to talk about fun, good things. Not that this isn't fun. It's needed. So I do appreciate you inviting us to come and speak about it. So today we're going to go over an analysis of the 2024 hurricane season. Just to give you an idea of scope, I don't want to get too in the weeds about what the response looked like. We came and did our report outs after each of these storms individually and got more in the weeds about what we saw. So today we're trying to keep it more of those overall themes divided into response recovery, the strengths, and then those areas of improvement. And there certainly, between these storms that we saw, there were lessons learned in areas of improvement. So I'm excited to go through some of that and talk about the great work that the city did and the great work that continues to happen to really fill those gaps as we've moved forward to make sure that we are ready for anything this year. Okay. So here's a quick snapshot of our 2024 hurricane season. In a nutshell, three storms that brought record-breaking impacts, each one, all within 67 days of each other. Our EOC was activated for a total of 57 days. We had a continuous activation between Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The city EOC was closed on November 12th. That doesn't mean that these dates that you see on the bottom of the screen up here, it doesn't mean that work only was contained within those. We had department EOC subcenters that were activated well before the city EOC, and then we had department EOC subcenters that were activated well after, and even still doing that recovery work. These graphics up here are graphics that Pinellas County provided. It's a great snapshot of kind of what we saw with each of these three storms. Just a reminder, they are countywide, but many of those stats come from the city of St. Pete, which I want to highlight some here. So the first storm that we saw was in August, was in Debbie. In her own right, Debbie was, it did bring, it was record-breaking. We had 10 inches of rain in 24 hours that really tested our stormwater system. We had a higher, you know, it was a true surge. It was two and a half feet, still put water throughout our streets, made them undriveable, and it was very impactful at the time Debbie came. And then it was pretty quickly followed up by Hurricane Helene. And as we know, the name of the game with Helene was that storm surge. We had about six and a half feet of storm surge that came through. We had about 12,000 residential structures that were flooded, about 5,200 major damage, 3,700 minor damage. 146 were destroyed, and 1,800 were affected in some way. And then, again, within less than two weeks on its heels was Hurricane Milton. Fortunately, we didn't see the storm surge with Hurricane Milton that we were expecting, and that's because Hurricane Milton ended up making landfall just south of us. So instead of those onshore winds, we had the offshore winds actually pushed water out of the bay. However, because it hit just south of us, we were in the northeast quadrant of that storm, which was the dirty side of the storm, and it brought more record-breaking rainfall. So Debbie broke the first record, and then we had Milton that came in dropping about 20 inches of rain in a day, or in a 24-hour period in some spots in St. Pete. And then also the wind. So we saw wind like we've never seen here in St. Pete before. It was gusting just over 101 miles per hour. You'll see sustained winds about 65, but our winds were gusting so often so high, it almost felt sustained, you know, closer to those 100-degree winds. So whereas Helene damage was primarily to our coastal communities, Milton came in, and it became widespread. So as we get into some of our conversation with recovery and debris operations and things like that, it went from being kind of a limited space that was impacted to now being citywide and really exacerbating that problem. By the numbers. So this is definitely not an exhaustive list of everything that was done throughout these storms, but it does help paint a picture of some of our local impacts and our preparedness response and recovery efforts. There's a ton more of statistics, and we're still working on gathering some of these numbers, and some numbers we may never truly know, but it shows the countless hours spent dedicated to ensuring the resilience of St. Pete. And really all the hard work that not just the city, but our community partners have put in to the city's recovery, whether it's the business community, local volunteers, the local organizations that we work with, and so many more. All right, so we'll hop into it. We're going to do an assessment of our response operations, and then we'll do an assessment of our recovery. You may have heard me say it before. I feel like I say it a lot, but the silver lining of these disasters is we can learn from them. Prior to the 2024 season, we were primarily learning from other people's disasters, which was nice, but it's not quite as impactful when you have your own disaster. So fortunately, unfortunately, we now have that firsthand experience and have somewhat been more battle-tested, and I say that with a grain of salt because we still have not had a direct landfall of a hurricane. So as record-breaking and impactful as these storms were, none of them were a direct impact to us. But I digress. So silver lining is we learn from these storms, and we should learn from them. That's what makes us the resilient city that I know that we are. Okay, so we've strengthened our response based on multiple storms and multiple activations. I believe 2017 with Hurricane Irma is where we really started, I feel like, kicking up that tropical activity, and just about every year since 2017 we have had an EOC activity in some form. So practice makes more perfect. It's never perfect because there's always something to learn, but we've gotten really good at pulling our executive policy group together to make those decisions early and start moving those pieces into place, such as the activation of the EOC and the department EOC subcenters. And with the activation of those emergency operations centers comes the preposition of resources, so deployment of things like sandbags, stormwater pumps to our more susceptible places to collect water, deploying generators or setting them up to be deployed to our critical infrastructure, staging our push teams so they're ready for that push storm, post storm, so we can get our responders out faster. Those are the things that really help set the city up and our residents up for success. We used Tiger Dams this year for the first time. So we requested Tiger Dams from the state to provide some additional surge capacity to help protect our critical infrastructure. So those were first deployed with Hurricane Helene at the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, and then again with Hurricane Milton at Northeast and Southwest Water Reclamation Facilities and Lift Station 85. And one of the common themes, I think, throughout all these storms, and, you know, maybe we should have put it first, is our staff, the staff going above and beyond their call of duty to get the city back online. And it's a theme through all phases of, you know, this storm response and all throughout 2024. But specifically, I just want to call out with this immediate response of this storm, you know, with Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, when that had to come offline during Helene, that was unprecedented, something that we've never had to do before. And to see our public works staff handle that, one with grace, but with hard work, and keeping people online as long as possible, you know, until they had to evacuate themselves out for life safety, and then returning as soon as possible to get it back online. And, again, we had never de-energized that plant. And to see what went into quickly making those decisions and executing, you know, what we needed to do to get that back online was nothing short of amazing. And then came Milton. And we'd already practiced a little bit and learned a little bit, and then we put those lessons learned back into place with Milton when we had the same issue with two plants this time. And then we had water interruptions due to all the trees that went down. And, again, seeing, witnessing it firsthand is one of probably my favorite experiences as an emergency manager, especially here at the city. Seeing what went into, identifying what the problems were, all hands on deck, trying to find, you know, where the issues were, how can we repair it. And it was something to witness, and it was a very proud moment as an employee of St. Pete, just watching the magic, if you will, happen in the background. And communications. Communications can be a strength, and they're always something we can improve upon. Some of the strengths here, we had to be very agile with these storms and the messaging because things were changing very quickly. So pre-storm messaging, announcing evacuations, providing the latest updates on city infrastructure once the storms hit, keeping the public informed. All of these things were paramount. The effective use of press conferences, lots of press conferences, utilizing alert Pinellas, social media. We did a lot of different, you know, videos that were published, city websites for public alerts. We kind of used everything in our arsenal to make sure we were communicating as much as we could with the public. And then finally, a strength, the swift deployment of our damage assessment teams. This is really one of the first priorities, you know, just after life safety, to get resources into our community. So it's that damage assessment as early as possible is what allows us to get the federal aid to come in, to get resources in people's hands, to request mass feeding and housing and things like that. So the damage assessment is our first eyes and ears out into the community. So equally as important as strength is identifying those lessons learned. Our team has worked actively to fill those gaps. And really, a lot of the things we're going to go over, we have, there's always still more improvement to do, but we've already filled many of these gaps or are actively working to continue to fill them for this season. I mentioned communications. As strong as communications can be, there's always room to improve there. So with the record-breaking season, there were impacts we experienced for the first time ever. And so with some of those, we were creating on the fly. Just an example, when we had water utilities reconnected, the issuance of boil water notices. In that situation, that was something we hadn't had to do before. So really having those pre-drafted, templated communications and procedures written out, and I'm happy to say that for 2025, we have all of those scripted for this year. Resource management was a very big lesson learned, particularly within my own department of emergency management. During any storm, any event, any disaster, the need for resources is large. During a situation in 2024 where we had the two back-to-back, the city needs a lot of resources, whether it is people, equipment, things, teams coming in. We all had needs, and it quickly outpaced the plans and procedures that we had in place. We got it done, but there was a way to do it better and more efficient. So we're working actively on plugging those holes. So far, we have re-scripted some processes and procedures. We've already held a workshop with all of our department EOC subcenters last week to go over that new workflow. And hopefully, well, it will be ready for implementation on the next activation. And then damage assessment, we mentioned it was a strength. Again, always areas to improve. A lot of needs with permitting. You know, we had our mobile permitting sites. We had residential damage assessment training and procedures. I'm sorry. And for the first time, we had our substantial damage assessment. And it was a big lift for our staff. So not only were they going out to assess damage for one storm, just for the flooded areas, then Milton came and it became a citywide assessment for all the damages. And then on top of that, we had substantial damage for the first time ever. So it just shed a light that not only do we need to provide more training for our staff, but just those improved processes and procedures to make it more efficient. And high-water vehicles, this has been a gap for quite a while. And we're excited to announce that we'll have three high waters coming in, hopefully, in August and before the height of hurricane season, and this time with some firefighting capabilities, which will be nice. Okay, let's hop into recovery operations. So recovery, unlike preparedness and response, it's not a defined amount of time. You have your immediate recovery, which is the days and even weeks following a storm. And then you have your long-term recovery, which is where we are now, and long-term recovery can last years. This certainly is not an exhaustive list. Again, this is kind of just some of those general themes we've identified, and there's certainly more. But again, first and foremost is staff dedication. Recovery is fundamentally driven by the tireless dedication of our staff. They're a great testament to the city of St. Pete, I think. And with that is HR-supported impacted staff through the care team. So there was an executive policy group identified fairly quickly that we had a large amount of staff that were impacted by the storms, and they reached out and made phone calls to every single one of them. What do you need? How can we help? And they stuck with staff for quite a while, providing resources where they could and connecting them to resources to make sure that they were still able to continue serving the city. Street teams. Street teams. Every year since 2017 has been a strength for us. And every year, every activation, they continue to grow and be more impactful. Our street teams are the eyes and ears of the city. They're out there assessing community needs as soon as conditions allow. They're talking to people. They're relaying information, vital information back to the EOC, so we can help connect resources to them. We had some really cool programs that were introduced this year to help meet needs of residents. Hometown haulers. We're local residents that signed up and completed over 2,000 residential halls. We had food trucks that were out into the neighborhoods kind of meeting immediate nourishment needs and those in the most impacted neighborhoods. And, again, expansion of the street teams. This time we put housing folks out with them to help, you know, connect those lines even more and meet needs. This year we did together St. Pete, which was a community meeting at the Coliseum. It was just a great platform that provided a direct dialogue with our citizens and really made them a stakeholder in our recovery process and allowed us to hear or to ensure that their voices were heard. And then debris. We did an amazing job with debris. We picked up 2.1 million cubic yards in 90 days, which is amazing. But we also were able to pivot quickly when we needed to to help fill gaps in real time. And one of those was establishing that temporary debris management site at Raytheon to enable a public drop-off option. Permitting. To accept home repairs, we implemented the mobile permitting offices and the post-disaster emergency permits. That waived all associated permitting fees to ease financial burden on residents. And then we provided crucial financial relief by waiving utility late fees, notice fees, and terminations, and suspended utility lock-offs for nonpayment. And this ensured continued access to essential services for residents that needed them at a very vulnerable time. Those were our short-term strengths. These are more of the long-term ones, things that we're still working on. So, Sunrise St. Pete Initiative, this is a cornerstone of our long-term vision. This is the just shy of a $160 million HUD grant, the plan that addresses unmet needs in housing, infrastructure, economic revitalization, and mitigation from the 2023 and 2024 storms. And it focuses on building stronger, more resilient St. Pete. We have the We Are St. Pete fund that provides crucial financial assistance to residents, small businesses, and city employees. Volunteers and partnerships are crucial. We say it takes a village, and it does. Our volunteers and partnerships really amplified our efforts when it comes to recovery. Partners like World Central Kitchen, Salvation Army, Feeding Tampa Bay, Daystar, St. Pete Free Clinic. I shouldn't even name them because I'm leaving out tons because there are so many. And that's just a sample of the folks that came together to create that village and help St. Pete recover. And then accelerated infrastructure projects. So, taking those proactive steps to accelerate critical infrastructure, including the key components of the SPAR program. And public assistance. So, working well with FEMA early and often and really getting those plans and procedures into place helps us post-storm because we're able to hit the ground running and jump right in. So, we've had several site inspections already and, you know, are ready for money to start flowing back from federal government back down here to the city. All right. So, I'd like to shift our focus to the valuable lessons learned for recovery. Good news is most of these have already had proactive steps taken to fill the gaps. Debris operations. Critical need for even greater coordination with county and state partners to ensure continuity of debris operations from day one. So, it's not just about city plans. We have to make sure the city plans jive with the county plans, with the city plans. So, making sure we're engaging all of our partners early and often is vitally important. So, the city right now is working with other municipalities in the county and collaborating with Pinellas County on pre-storm debris operations. We're looking at Senate Bill 180, making sure that we're compliant with everything there and kind of working together as a team to make sure that, as a county with 24 municipalities, we're all working with one another for success. While mobile permitting and the post-disaster emergency permits were innovative and worked well, there's certainly an opportunity to further streamline that process and procedures across the board. So, PDS has put together, or Planning Development Services has put together an improvement plan, already implementing processes to fill the identified gaps, including staff training plans, new checklists, and updated procedures that allow efficiencies to make post-disaster rebuilding faster and simpler for our residents. Long-term housing solutions. This is a big one that doesn't have an easy fix. Hurricanes underscored the necessity of robust long-term housing solutions for displaced residents. It's a core focus within our broader recovery strategy, and initiatives like Sunrise St. Pete directly addresses sustainable housing and community revitalization. Increase in personnel and cross-training. Last year, tested staff like it's never been tested before. And it just highlighted the need to increase staff where we can, but make sure that staff are cross-trained to do different functions as well. Here in the city, we have, everyone has an emergency duty designation, which is emergency critical, emergency essential, or non-emergency essential. So, last year highlighted the need to maybe look at all those, re-evaluate if needed, and make sure we have, you know, really equitable utilization of those duties. Critical infrastructure improvements for resiliency is not a one-time task, but an ongoing commitment. So, I just wanted to make sure we put that in here as an area of improvement, because we're always working to improve on those critical infrastructure projects. And finally, implement crane construction hurricane plan. The need for a comprehensive hurricane preparedness plan, specifically for cranes and construction sites to mitigate hazards. Previous state preemption on local regulations for tower cranes kind of limited what we could do. So, Planning Development Services has updated their site storm mitigation checklist to include crane hurricane preparedness plan and affidavit in compliance with the new Senate Bill 180. We are in the homestretch, folks. All right. So, themes for 2025, preparedness. So, as we head in, well, we've headed into this year. As we head into our busy time of the season, our focus remains squarely on strengthening the city's resilience. And that comes from learning from these past experiences. So, that's our roadmap as we move forward. Flood risk is a big theme this year. Last year, we had the big storm surge. But not only that, we had freshwater flooding. And I don't know about you, but have you heard the, I'm in a non-flood zone, but I still flooded, right? And that's a reoccurring thing that we hear. So, the city kind of put our heads together to work on this public education campaign, because it's not just evacuation zones. People who live in an evac zone aren't the only ones at risk of flooding. That means you're at risk of storm surge, and you need to get out if you're in an evac zone. We have FEMA flood zones, which isn't necessarily rainfall-focused. It's more, you know, proximity to bodies of water and potential for wave action. And then there's a stormwater floodplain, which is the likelihood that you could flood from freshwater or from rain, freshwater flooding. So, we put together a tool called Prepare St. Pete that allows people to go in, put their address in, and they can truly see, you know, what their zone is. So, know your zone, know your evac zone, know your flood zone, and know what your stormwater floodplain is, and then what each of those things mean. So, we're trying to push that so people understand their risk a little bit better for this year. Streamline recovery pathways. Recovery is hard. Recovery is complicated. And depending on who you talk to from which organization, it's different answers. So, this is something that we're working on to make sure we try to streamline those pathways so residents are getting, you know, more one voice when trying to recover. Partnerships are paramount. Not just partnerships with community partners, but for residents to understand that preparedness is a shared responsibility. Community preparedness is a partnership highlighting the vital importance of individual and neighborhood readiness. We often say, you are your own first responder. So, we really try to get our residents and their neighbors to understand that and to work and empower them to, again, be their own first responder and have those preparedness plans. And finally, flexible and adaptable response. We have a saying in emergency management, simper gumby, meaning always flexible. And it really emphasizes the importance of adaptability and flexibility. With these storms, we were constantly pivoting and flexing. And you just never knew what was going to come up next. So, I'm really embracing agile planning, enabling us to quickly adjust our strategies based on evolving storm threats and real-time conditions. Council Member Harding mentioned the disaster operations plan and updating that plan. So, we can say we have all these strengths and all these areas of improvements, but if we don't write them back into the plan and then exercise them, then we're letting it go to waste. So, we will be updating our disaster operations plan with all these areas of improvements. These are just a few here that are those more overarching big-ticket items. We're still evaluating everything that's currently in the plan and the things that we learned to make sure that a full update will take place as soon as possible. And then I just wanted to end on our formal after-action report and improvement plan. It's vital we have that thorough, documented review of our response. So, to ensure we don't miss anything, we're working with Hagerty Consulting to develop this plan. The items we presented today will be formally reflected in this report. We're wrapping up Phase 1, heading into Phase 2, which is after-action review, facilitation, and analysis. So, we're scheduling stakeholder groups with all the sub-centers and all the different groups inside the city to really capture everything that happened. The timeline, what went right, what went wrong. And Hagerty is going to put together a formalized document to us and present to us by October. And with that, we are happy to answer questions. We have the whole team on board ready to go. Thank you, Amber. Okay, we're going to go to Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Amber, for the comprehensive report. Two things. Number one, when you do do the update to the disaster operations plan, if you can give us the redline version so we can see the difference of what was before and what the changes are, that's probably going to be very helpful. So, we know what's being addressed in terms of changes. I look forward to receiving the October after-action report improvement plan. And some of my questions or some of the things I'm going to ask, and whether it's you or someone in the administration, if they can answer, I reviewed the county did their own after-action report and improvement plan that was dated in May 2025. So, there were some things that they noted that areas of improvement, that includes all jurisdictions in the area. I just wanted to see where we were on some of these items. What I'm asking is not comprehensive. There's a lot there, but there are a few that caught my attention. And with damage assessment permitting, all jurisdictions need to have a contract in place to execute to get additional personnel to work as plan reviewers, inspectors, flood managers, et cetera. That's something we're working on? Yes, good morning, good afternoon. James Corbett, City Development Administrator. That is something that we're working on, Council Member Hanowitz, and we're actually partnering with the county. They're putting out an RFP for multiple things, and we elected to participate in that as well. Okay, good. But we are looking to establish relationships ahead of time for damage assessment, plan review, and all the other functions related to permitting post-storm. Thank you. In terms of debris, every jurisdiction needs to have pre-identified debris management sites. I am making my way through it. Good afternoon. Barb Stalbert, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation. Yes, we do have five different parks that are pre-authorized through FDEP to use as sites. We're also actively working with Duke and other private landowners for potential sites. Thank you. And which parks are we talking about? I can provide a list to you. They include Bear Creek, Woodlawn, soccer, one of our soccer fields, Burrier. Burrier. Mm-hmm. Also, there's about five or six of them. I'll send those to you. I would figure, Council Members, if those parks are in their district, they probably want to have an idea. If we could just touch base on this issue a little more, because I think Council would be interested, and you may have some additional questions. I mean, I think this was one of really the most difficult challenges we faced. To be frank about it, we were caught a little bit off guard by the move by the county to not allow residents to use the waste-to-energy facility. We weren't expecting that. The county started to move people towards private providers, sending residents to private providers. That capacity, you know, turned out probably not to be sufficient for the number of residents that were involved. We were able to transition to Raytheon and to get our own site set up for the city. And, you know, we had some other sites, and like Barb said, we're working through it. But one of the other issues here is that a lot of these smaller cities may not have a location to use. So, of course, we've heard from smaller cities. I don't know if they're, you know, going to be able to find locations, or we're going to have to work through that together. But this is going to be an ongoing challenge for another significant debris event. No, and I agree. I mean, obviously, we're a very dense county. So, when I'm going through all the bullet items and I saw that, it stuck out to me because of that exact reason. So, and I'm sure all the residents, you know, the reality is how much debris did we have from this storm, and it wasn't even a direct hit. So, but I'm glad for that update, and it would be good to get more information on that, obviously, as you work through these issues with the county and our other partners. That would be fantastic. On utilities, another thing they noted, when a utility provider is going to turn off systems, critical facility partners and the public need to be notified with clear guidance on measures they should take. And they also need to identify thresholds for when they may have to shut down locations due to forecast storm surge. So, I just want to make sure that that is something because, obviously, we had short notice, and the more information for our residents to be able to decide what they're going to do, whether they're going to leave or not leave, this kind of touches on that. So, if you can touch a little bit on that, and I can repeat it if I need to, Brajesh. No, thank you. Good day, counsel, Brajesh, engineering and capital improvements director. So, Amber touched on something that was very important, and I'll give you an example of some of the process improvements to prepare St. Pete viewer. How that has been developed is that we can geolocate those affected residents, and the intention is that that view will always serve as the common point of how notifications could go out to supplement any press releases or anything done by the mayor or the administration and the executive policy group. So, it's always that one common point, because I know the biggest challenge during a storm is you don't know where to go. You don't know, there's multiple sources of information, multiple areas to go, but if you have that one link all the time, plus you're getting that press release information, that always gives you that location to see. I type in my address, I fall into that polygon, I'm now affected. Okay, thank you. And then the other thing, there are a couple that I had in here that, Amber, you touched upon already, so I'm not going to cover that. The last thing so I could give other council members, as we have a lot of council members that want to comment on this, healthcare facilities during Hurricane Milton with the loss of water pressure in St. Petersburg, five hospitals were at risk for critical systems failing within their facilities. An assessment of all hospitals by the Tampa Bay Health and Medical Preparedness Coalition and the Regional FDEM Response Coordinator will be done with an action plan for identification of critical systems and resources needed for hospitals to be self-sufficient during the storms and the days following. Who provides? Number one, when do we get this information? When is this expected and what's happening with this? I know that FDEM and the Tampa Bay Regional, or I'm sorry, the Tampa Bay Health and Medical Preparedness Coalition, I believe they just wrapped up all of those site visits. The last report I had, and it was just a verbal report, I haven't seen anything written, was they went extremely well and all five of the St. Pete hospitals are proactively making changes in their procedures to kind of help provide that redundancy if something should happen. If I don't have the written report, I'll look for that and ask for it. Yeah, whatever report there is in terms of this issue with the hospitals and anything that needs to be done, I would like to see in the future. But that's pretty much it. That's all my questions. Thank you all. Thank you. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Amber, for the presentation. I've seen you now twice in one week at Riviera Bay. Amber did their annual hurricane meeting on Tuesday night, and I was just so proud of you. Not only are you a resident, but you have been through this yourself personally, and then to share that story with the residents from the lens of the person that's in charge of keeping the entire city safe, it was just mind-blowing to see you stand up there, share your story, and how you connected with the residents in that space. So I wanted to just publicly thank you for that and really the whole team. What everyone did in those days and what everyone has done after the storms to try to make sure that we are better prepared, you guys are really the backbone of all of that. So thank you for everything that you've all done, sometimes even when you've been dealing with it yourselves in your own homes. So I didn't want to get into my questions without at least stopping to thank you all again. And I'll do it again and again every time we have these updates. So first of all, speaking about the immediate response, the Tiger Dams, I went yesterday, and I think most of my colleagues have probably gone by now, to see the aquafence that is being put up at the lift station at the Albert Whitted facility. And I will tell you that that kind of technology, you know, John Pallinger called it like the best insurance policy, $700,000 to protect an asset. That could take millions of dollars to get back up online if it were to be affected. But, Brzeesh, can you just talk a little bit, for those who are listening, Tiger Dams, a great deployment in the moment, has its specific uses. Aquafence is great in the moment, has specific uses. Can you talk a little bit about how your team is really looking at all of our city facilities and kind of not too granular, but how you go through a process of determining what is deployable and appropriate based upon the site, so that people understand it's not a one-size-fits-all. So you hit on the perfect point there, site-specific requirements. Everything is context-appropriate. Lift station 85, by example, was a solution where we know the hydrostatic risk is there, but also the wave action, as opposed to somewhere that we just have a tidal surge that's coming in, so we don't have to put that much of a heavier installation. So that leads towards the installation. Also, given the site, I'll use an example on some of our newer constructions, like the Rex and Ours, what we're continuing to look at is actually flood barriers that will be installed at the doorways, as opposed, and that's something that you also mentioned recently as well, and I completely agree. So their context, it all depends on the site constraints. The one that's shown on the image right here, because we have very limited storage on site for this location, and it's also a site that's set back further from wave action, this type of barrier works well. At lift station 85, as I mentioned, there's a risk of that wave action. That's why we went with a heavier-duty wave barrier system. Yeah, and I think that's a good point about, you know, being able to put floodgates in some places. I mean, Lake Vista Rec Center, you know, it was taken over by the flooding from the water in the back, and how do we go through a process of assessing every single city facility? I would bring the Mahaffey, for instance, and the fact that, you know, that water came into the back, and it flooded that orchestra pit, things that I don't think we really ever thought about before, we have now experienced, and so I just want to make sure that we are looking at every single city asset to understand exactly what a deployable for every single asset may be, what that financial, you know, investment would need to be from council, and then we just start gradually every year ticking away at those so that we make sure that we are ready whenever the next event comes. We hope that we have time to do it. We hope that it's not this year or even next year, but we need to start getting a concerted plan together about deployables for every single city asset. So I really want to see us do that. Okay. Yeah. So I'll move on quickly. You know, we've got a lot of questions. So on the long-term recovery strengths, my question is more, I think, on short-term and long-term, really, because you talked a little bit about, like, the volunteers, the partnerships. I think back to the days after those storms immediately, but then even a few weeks after, where those of us, you know, who are trying to connect the dots of resources for people, and you're literally taking phone calls from individuals saying, my neighborhood wasn't damaged, but we can get together some supplies of X, Y, and Z, and we can bring them to your neighborhoods. Like, that sort of boots-on-the-ground volunteer community aspect of it. It was so beautiful to see, but also for those of us, and I give huge shout-out to Shelly and David. They were doing some of that work, too. Amy's team, really everybody. Like, if somebody had a contact for somebody at the city, they were offering resources. But we didn't have, like, a network to be able to really connect all of those. It was much more granular. And so I want to understand what that, what potential is there, Amy? And you and I have talked about this. Yep. What is the potential for building a community network that we can activate when we need it? Great question, Councilmember Gabbard. So we are partnering with the Foundation for Healthy St. Pete. They have hired the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. And we are working through that scope of work right now. But there is going to be multiple engagements where we will plan with folks who are representatives. So we're not going to be able to invite every neighborhood association, but we'll be able to invite representatives from Kona. We're not going to be able to invite every single faith community, but we may be able to invite IMA and other leadership groups. So that plan is coming together right now. And whatever comes out of those convenings, the Foundation has offered possibly financial support, whether that's developing a resource guide or a platform that allows those connections to happen. And so we're really thankful for the work that we've been doing with them. And we're working on those dates right now. But we're hopeful that they'll happen before we get into the heavy part of the season. Amen. And I would highly encourage you all to work with city council members to get our feedback, because, you know, many times we are the point of contact in these moments for our neighborhoods. And so being able to give our real-world experience as well and some of the individuals that we had worked with that we would like to connect. So I just wanted to make sure that you utilize us as that resource. Rob, you talked a little bit about the frustrations with the county. I'm not going to get into it too much. I would have loved to have gotten into it more publicly when it was happening, because, quite frankly, I'm just going to say the county let us down. I can't even say it in any other way. That was such a frustrating time when the county would not work with us in the way that we needed them to work with us, especially with another storm coming. Those moments were infuriating, and the fact that, really, I find it to be a failure of leadership at the county. So I'm going to expect a whole lot better from the county going forward. More partnership, more collaboration. Our residents deserve it. Now, one thing we were able to eventually get with the county as a form of partnership was the Toy Town site. Because for my area, taking it all the way over to the west side of town was really, quite frankly, just slowing down so much that we could not get debris off of the streets. And once we were able to partner with the county and get Toy Town open to make that site close by, things started to move, right? I would like to see, for my district, a commitment from the county that we can set that up going forward so that there is no conversation about it. A major incident happened. We need to move debris. This site opens. So that is a request that I have from District 2 specifically, and I hope that that will be taken seriously by the county. Long-term housing solutions, of course, I made a note about that. Amy, love to continue to talk with you about that offline. I know that's a passion of yours and a place where the work is great. Amber, you talked about streamlining the permitting process and procedures. I'm not going to get into it because we could be here all day. There is no surprise to anybody that that is an issue that my office has taken very personally to be able to advocate for residents daily on helping them through the process. So I'm going to ask, as you're going through this streamlined permitting process and procedures activity, I would like a one-on-one. I'm sure my colleagues would also like one-on-ones about this, but I would like to work with the permitting department on this because myself and my legislative aide, Kim Amos, we have triaged hundreds of permits for people through the office, trying to elevate them, trying to follow up on them, trying to help people understand the process. And we have a lot of feedback to give. So I would like to be a partner in that and then would like to eventually mat to city council for a report item so that city council understands completely how the permitting process is going to be made better for people. So I wanted to ask for that. And with that, Chair, oh, last thing. All right, so we talk about flood risk outside of AE flood zones and education about this. So I have screamed this from the rooftops for years. X is a flood zone, everyone. Just because your mortgage company does not require you to have flood insurance, you still should. And it is so much less expensive to do so because you are not in those higher risk zones. I would like to see this be part of the public education campaign. When people are insured, our community is more resilient, period. We can only do so much to help people rebuild. Our processes need to be easier. We need to give more opportunities for people. But if they are not insured, the likelihood of them being able to be made whole is slim to none. So I would like to make sure that we are advocating for our community to be smart about the way they insure themselves and for everybody to be encouraged to have a flood insurance policy in the city of St. Petersburg. And I'll leave it there, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you so much. And thank you, Amber, for the presentation. I appreciate that. I'll try to be very brief. A lot of my questions have already been asked in points and sentiments expressed. But I do want to just echo the fact that I do support streamlining our permitting process. I definitely believe that we've reduced that backlog. And a lot of that has been at the help of a lot of the work that we've solicited from third parties. So I want to make sure that a lot of that is continued. So that way we don't have a lot of those issues that we experienced early on last year. I also want to make sure that we focus a lot on our street teams. We've done a great job at mobilizing a lot of the boots on the ground that we have. But I want to do more. I'm thinking about something that was brought up this morning. Excuse me. Our neighborhood teams. Right? Like, that is something that is an asset. And then we can do more. I really think the Mayor's Future Readiness Academy is a great place to start. We also have other partners like PERC. We've got other community partners like, it sounds like, the foundation who's willing to help support that as a funding partner. Right? I'm thinking about if emergency hits. Right? What do we do? FEMA's dismantled. We no longer have them. How do we respond? Right? It's going to take mobilizing those efforts. You talked about communication. Well, if we don't have cell phone signals because there's no power, there's no Internet, how do we communicate to people? Right? How do we get that word out there? We need more people out there knocking on doors, touching people. And I really think we have to utilize those community navigators. Right? Get them out there so that people know what resources they have at their disposal. I know you talked about expanding that effort. Do you want to go a little bit more in depth there? Yeah. And I think it's one of those, an example of one of those problems that's constantly being improved with each storm. So, with this storm, you're absolutely right. Like, we saw even greater need. Right? We had a greater presence this storm that we learned that we needed, you know, from prior storms. So, it's that process improvement. So, we can certainly take that back. Joe, I don't know if you have. Good afternoon, Council. Joe Waugh, Codes Compliance Assistance Director. Appreciate that feedback, Councilmember Gibbons. So, as Amber mentioned, we really expanded. In years past, this was just a Codes street team. But over the past couple of storms, we have been having help from housing and community development, from social services. We even had people from parking enforcement with us this year. So, I think as we expand those non-critical employees who want to volunteer and help out during the storms, we're going to continue to add people to the team and be able to get them out into the community. On top of that, we've also recently partnered with the Storm Squad. So, we just went to their town hall this past Saturday. So, we're creating that partnership to make sure we can really connect with those neighborhoods and really start using the boots on the ground within the neighborhoods that aren't city staff to get the message out as well. Exactly. And that's where I was going, is let's utilize those community partners who are doing the work. The Storm Squad is a great example of that. So, thank you for mentioning that, Joe. And then also just recognizing the fact that there are many people who work for our city who were pulled off of their jobs to respond, right? Disaster relief. And I want to make sure we don't continue that if there's opportunities for efficiency, right? And that starts with collaborating with community partners, also training those neighborhood leaders. Neighborhood associations are another great place to start. Is there an opportunity, Amber, for the Fire and Rescue Department to provide some sort of certification? I've seen other municipalities doing something similar. So, we're not just sending folks out there freely to help folks, you know, recover, but you have professionals or at least some sort of educational cred behind your name. I'm talking about the CERT team. Yes. So, we don't currently have CERT. It's certainly something that we can look into. In the past, it, I don't want to, certainly something we can look into. Other communities have been very successful with CERT. In the past, St. Pete, we've always been a very resource-rich city. But I think these storms have shown, no matter how resource-rich you are, there's work that can be done. Exactly. And I appreciate that, and we'll talk more because a lot of those resources are disappearing, you know, and more will be gone. So, I want to make sure we're doing all that we can to help those who are most vulnerable, because we still have a lot of people who are homeless. I saw the numbers. I think we had 12,000 people who were in shelters at one point, I think, during Milton. And to me, that is a staggering number, and I'm just thinking about how many of them would have needed someone to help guide them through the process of storm recovery. So, thank you so much for the hard work. And, again, thank you to all of our staff who dedicate their lives to making sure that St. Pete sustains, and we keep going, and we keep moving forward after storm after storm. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Harding. Thank you, Chair. Amber, thank you very much. You guys were incredible through all of this, and I appreciate the willingness to look at your own performance and find the places that we can get better. It's not an easy exercise, but I greatly appreciate the presentation. Can you talk a little bit about communication, especially what I was thinking about is we did something that we haven't done before when we de-energized the plant, and we didn't have a ready-made way to reach out to folks in a very emergent time frame and let them know that, hey, you shouldn't do this, or this is what's going to happen. And to that point, what have we looked at in terms of platforms that are available to us? Sure. So, we have Everbridge available to us, which is the Alert Pinellas platform. So, the city does have the ability to send those alerts out. There's the option for folks that have opted into the service, we can send out to the opt-in. Or, in an emergency, you can, you know, look at the map and create the, you know, the shape file, and it sends it to everybody within that shape. So, that's what we were looking at for when we had to shut down the utilities. So, what we had to create more on the fly was where exactly is the service area, and how do we get that information into the mass notification system? So, that was the piece that was the big kind of area for improvement is pre-identifying those areas and then making sure that we have a quick upload option into the Everbridge system to send that notification. So, we do have a great system to make the notifications. It was just getting the right information into the system to push it out. But, that system is, you have to sign up for it. It's opt-in? It is opt-in, but we have the ability. It uses our functions like a reverse 911 system. So, we can send, we have, we can send any message, really, through the opt-in portion. If it's a public safety issue, life safety issue, we can push it through the reverse 911 side. That's what I was getting. So, you don't have to be opt-in. It works very much like a, it's kind of like an Amber Alert. So, we have a tool. Yes. Or, we'll have a tool available to us. Thank you for that. Second question is, is communication after the fact. There is a, there was a, the best example I have is picking up what people put on the streets in their houses. There's a, there's a big disconnect between what the city was able to achieve and, and what I felt at my house. And I think with a, with enough feedback from the community, I think what it was based on was, I wasn't aware of when. Is it today? Is it tomorrow? Is it next week? Is it two weeks from now? Now, it turns out that, that we were able to do it in record time. And that's awesome, but it still didn't make me feel better. And, and I got that, that feedback from a lady in Venetian Isles that put it in perspective. She said, it's okay. Just tell me the day so I can plan my life. Do we have a better, do we, in terms of that kind of communication, have we thought through anything that, anything technology-wise that we'll, we'll move towards to, to, to, and this is not to take away from the success of what we're able to accomplish. Just the, just the ability to notify me of, of, of what's going to happen in my neighborhood. Good afternoon. Thank you for your question. So we are working with Tetra Tech, our monitoring company, on their mapping capabilities. There have been some municipalities who have really toyed with the concept of what, where we are next, right? And they've gotten mixed responses on that. Some had tried it and then walked back a bit and stopped doing that due to the need to have, basically, the way they put it was, they had to have, basically, a phone answering service to answer all the questions of, you said you were coming here this week and I haven't seen you yet. So it is certainly possible to predict where pickup will occur next. And we can certainly move in that direction. We would just need to be prepared to have the people to answer the increase of questions that would likely to occur, because those change based on the amount of debris per site that they're picking up at. There's so many variables that might change the outcome of how quickly they move or what direction they're able to move next. Thank you. Sure. Moving to a different topic, Council Member Gibbons alerted to or brought up and you alerted to CERT. I've had a little bit of experience with them. I like the program. Maybe it fits, maybe it doesn't, but I would encourage that we at least look further into it. I think it has value. My last question has to do with permits, and I know it's been brought up. But we had to, on the fly, create a system that allows for the fact that there are not enough contractors in the whole state just to help St. Pete, let alone everywhere else. And so the PDEP program came about. Going forward, I'm sure there are lessons learned, especially in that we're now allowing homeowners to work with the city directly, but the homeowners aren't necessarily educated in this industry. So there's a lack of education. We did the single best thing that we possibly could, but we're asking homeowners to do some things that they're not familiar with. And that David and Goliath battle is something that, by virtue of the fact of how many buildings we had damaged, had to go on for six months. And I think that that James Jr. team did a phenomenal job, but I don't think anybody had fun anywhere in any part of that on either side. What can we do different, or what do we do different next time? And did the idea of a lot, I guess, start with did the idea of allowing homeowners to do this help the process? And if so, do we help to educate them further or, you know, thanks for the question, Councilmember Harding. Obviously, there were a lot of lessons learned. First of all, I want to just thank the the permitting team. They they still are experiencing extremely high volume with and to be quite honest, there's still quite a ways to go. We believe there's probably 4000 homes plus or minus that still have not received or applied for an emergency permit that need to. That being said, there is a long list of ways that we can improve a lot of lessons learned into your point, Councilmember Gabbert. We look forward to getting the feedback. I know you all get hundreds of emails because I see some of them and it's probably some that I don't see. But there are definitely opportunities for improvement. One of the things that we're going to implement. So there's always been an opportunity for a homeowner to pull their own permit. A homeowner has always had the ability to do that. Most homeowners do not because it's a it's a very technical task and it's not something that they want to undertake. Under the post disaster emergency permit process, one, because of the timing, two, because people wanted to get back in their homes. More people tried to navigate into that that the waters of pulling their own permit. So what we're going to do is we're going to create how to videos. Something that Amber mentioned before is we're going to preposition some of the things that we've seen and be ready for them if they were to ever happen again. So now what we what we want to do is a how to video, walk you through the entire process, show you screenshots on where you would apply the information that you would need, kind of walk you through step by step. So it doesn't seem like such an overwhelming process for someone who has never pulled a permit themselves. The, the, the process is actually not that hard, but if you don't know where to start, you've never, never done it before, it certainly can be overwhelming. So one of the things that we're going to do is create a series of how to videos. And one of them would be if you needed to pull an emergency permit or post a disaster emergency permit, kind of walking it through. And that's something that we're working on now. Okay. And I, and I want to be clear, Don Tyre and his team and Hannah and, and everyone in that building, um, they, they, they, they bravely fought a battle that just never ended. Um, and, um, and in the end we, we owe them something. Um, I find what they have, they have done amazing, but this is just too big for them to handle in within the, within the, the confines of, of what we normally do. So I, I appreciate their efforts. I think they were phenomenal. Um, and my point simply was, and I appreciate you addressing it, that, um, that we didn't envision this in any way, shape or form. And, um, and now it's happened. We need to envision it. So I appreciate the, the effort going into it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. Many of my, uh, questions and remarks have already been made by my colleagues. So I appreciate that. Sometimes it's nice to go later in the list. Um, I want to go back to. So, um, on slide 14, you talked about some of the things that we can do differently. And I want to talk about cranes. And this might be a James, this might be a James thing. Um, cause we talked about this before. I have a new business item that's NPS and I. We had the original discussion. We've gotten a little bit of change on the state level. But there are two parts to that. There's the regulation stuff, but then there's the communication stuff. And in that original PS and I meeting, um, I, um, talked about the need for better communication with residents who are, um, within a certain radius of those taller cranes and could be in danger. So, and we talked about a few different ideas for having some, uh, better communication in advance with those residents. So, I wanted to find out, um, what you guys have, have been doing since then, what you've been working on. So, the, um, website, uh, website that Bridgesh mentioned, one of the things that you have the capability to do is type in your address. And you'll be able to see if you're in the radius of a crane, you'll also be able to see the, uh, the capability of that crane. So, what type of winds can it, uh, sustain? Um, and so, what we plan to do is to push that information out proactively to areas that are in, around cranes to let them know that resource is there. Because obviously, as the storm is approaching and things are changing, um, you know, if the crane, I'm just using an example, if the crane has, is built to sustain a hundred mile hop-hour winds, but, uh, you know, a few days out, it's predicted that the winds will be even higher. Uh, someone will have the ability to know that well in advance, before there's even a storm, to understand, one, if they're in the radius, and what the capabilities are of that crane, so they can make an informed decision about the risk that they could potentially be under. So, it'll be, um, really just up to everyone to go to a website. Um, is this going to be integrated into communication? Well, it's, it's definitely going to be, I guess my point was, we will, we would notify everyone in the surrounding area, that the website is there, because the website will be updated, it'll be kept up to date, they, they'll be notified that the website is there, and if they ever have a question about if they're at risk, they'll be able to check the website. Leading up to the storms, we will still do, um, what we did this time, and, and then some, to go notifying individuals, but we think it's important that people know well in advance, if there is a potential risk as it relates to cranes, and, and if that risk changes, by having the website, they can see the updates, they would be able to know that they're maybe more at risk than they thought they were, when the storm, you know, was initially announced. But we will push the information out to the various residents and businesses. It might be, um, um, more efficient and more, um, effective to also talk with the property managers of each, you know, we've got individual residents, but the property managers have the ability to, you know, post a sign near the mailboxes or, um, you know, put something in a newsletter, put something under, um, on the, on the doors, you know, for multifamily. Um, absolutely. There's, there's a real resource there with those property managers. So I would think about, about doing that just to add another layer of communication with those. Um, would you, do you see a scenario and this might be for Amber, do you see a scenario where people who are living within a certain radius of one of those taller, more dangerous cranes, um, be advised to evacuate? Or do you avoid that language and let everyone just make their own decision? Because, um, many of the people who, like, just thinking of, like, the, the current state of things and the current development that's happening right now, um, you've got quite a few people who are not in an evac zone and have no other reason. They're not going to get an A, a B, or a C, uh, notice, but there's a crane. So how do you, do you see a scenario where we would advise people to evacuate because they are close to a crane? Oh, I'll let Amber answer. I would say, I don't know if we would advise people to evacuate. I think we have to advise people of the potential risk or the things that may impact them. No different than, for example, if you were, um, we talked, you know, we talked about the first time that we had to, um, shut down the, the, the water. Um, so if, if someone knew that that was a potential risk, we wouldn't advise them to leave. But if that was something that, like, I've heard people say, well, if I knew this was going to happen, I would have evacuated. So I think that what we need to do is make sure everybody understands what the potential risks are. And then they make a decision based on their tolerance to that risk or their, their personal situations. I don't know if we could tell someone that you'd have to, I mean, other than the normal county ones with Amber, I don't know. Yeah, I, I think we would want to follow up on that more. We'd want to talk to the city attorney's office about any issues, um, related to that. So that's a good question and we can certainly come back to you on it, but there's some, some issues around evacuation. I think we'd want to think. I think that just depends on the words that you use. Um, but at the same time, then I, you know, no matter how you tell everyone, make the best decision for you, well, is that something that we've got to talk to the county about to make, to, as to include those numbers when they're evaluating the amount of shelter space that they need to have? So, because, because this might be, and that does not need to be answered today, but it is something that I think about, like, what is the ripple effect of this? So that we can keep people safe and make sure that they have a place to go and evacuations. Like you said, they're 100% based on storm surge, right? So it was one of the issues we ran into is downtown where we had the potential risk for crane. It's all a non-evacuation. And we ran into the same issue with Milton when everyone evacuated from the coastal communities, you know, into some of it in interior St. Pete, but then we got the 20 inches of flooding and there was still rain in there, or fresh water in their house, so they still flooded. So I think, to James' point, it's all about working with residents so they understand what their risk is. You understand the evacuation zone. You understand if you're still at risk from fresh water flooding, and you understand if you're at risk of the crane. And some of these are very fluid things, like the crane. It could be up one day and down, you know, the next. So that's where the Prepare St. Pete tool came about as a way, obviously, it's not an answer to the problem, but it's another tool in the tool belt to help people understand what is your risk. Because every single person's risk is going to be different, and you can't plan for your family, prepare for your family if you don't understand what your risk is. Are you at risk for fresh water flooding, storm surge, crane, a tree that's next to your house? So it's a big public education campaign as a piece of it. But to your point for planning for shelter space, I believe shelter space, the state and the county does evacuation implementation studies, and I believe it's all based on storm surge values and doesn't take other things in consideration. Okay. I'm going to let legal just jump in real quick. Council Member Druskal. Yeah, I would. Thank you, Chair. I would echo the approach just from a legal standpoint of what James and Amber relayed. I don't think the city, we've looked at this issue multiple times in the past. Anything that seems like it's an evacuation order, I know this would be different than the typical one of just mandatory or recommended evacuations for a zone, but that any evacuation authority really does rest with the county. So it would certainly be the better approach, I think, for this to be informational to aid people in their decision making. We probably would have to stop short of anything that told them to evacuate. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Because there's, yeah. I'm really happy to see that there's an improvement in the way that we handled this. We kind of had to learn the hard way. Another thing is, I think that John Tyre had said something about asking builders what type of crane they were using as part of the initial process so that we kind of have that on the books and we kind of know what we've got out there. Is that happening now? It is happening now, and that's a part of any application. So once one submits for permit to build a building that's going to require a crane, they have to provide that information as well as the winds that it could sustain, shop drawings, and other detailed information. That's all going to, that's currently being implemented now, and that will be included in any new construction. Okay. Thanks. Just sticking with shelters for a second. One of the things I noticed that some people had a challenge with was when a shelter closed, and especially when it was special needs. And again, I know this is county stuff, but we got to make sure our people are taken care of, right? So, and Rob, I think it was you that I talked with about this, about having that step-down shelter availability. You know, we had a couple of people with special needs who took them a couple days to realize that they can't stay in their home, and then they didn't have anywhere that they could go because they had special needs. Yeah, I really give credit to our team, especially Administrator Foster and Administrator Corbett and Amber on, you know, the Coliseum being a step-down shelter this year. It's something that, you know, we haven't typically done, so I, you know, that was a big step forward. We really, I think, helped the county out on the step-down side, and I, you know, I do understand that, you know, at the end it can be difficult with a few people to try and find a place for them, but I think Administrator Foster and her team are doing a great job on that. I don't know if she wants to add anything else to that. She said no. No? Okay. She's shaking her head no. Right on the right rack. And just a quick note about partnerships. So we're always working with the county. They're always, you know, asking municipalities to identify areas for step-down sheltering. So for the city, it was, we identified the Coliseum last year, and they requested that that be made into a special needs step-down. So we provided the wraparound service, and Beth Herendine and her team came out to make sure we had the electrician on site to, you know, manage the generator and all the, you know, facility staff to accommodate that. There's a lot of information that has to be communicated before, during, and after. I think the biggest challenge that I had that I think didn't meet my expectations, didn't meet my needs, was communication after, especially in the first few days after. This is a time when you have many streets that are closed, and you don't know which ones are open back up unless you go check it out. You've got a whole district. You've got neighborhoods and neighbors asking so many questions, and you're trying to help. I didn't have, like, I wish that I had had one single point of contact to help with that. And, you know, I'm sure each city council member had their own experience. I'm not speaking for everyone, only for myself. But it became very frustrating to me, because I know that you guys were working your tails off and just trying to get, you know, a handle on things citywide while I was working my tail off, trying to get my district, my neighborhood, all of that, knowing which streets were open, knowing if they could go back onto, into their neighborhoods yet. And, you know, in my district, I had a crane in a stadium that got wrecked. So there was just a lot. And if there's one thing that I could ask for, it would be, give me one person, one person to talk to, whether it's, you know, you guys are all great. I don't care. It doesn't matter who it is. But one point of contact, and I don't know if that would make sense to have that person as the point of contact for all city council. I don't know if we need to look at having Janie embedded in EOC. She's probably really mad at me for even suggesting that right now. But, like, what will it take to make sure that city council, who is not there, y'all have to remember, those of you who, you know, go into EOC, you're there. You see everything that's going on, and you're working it. But we're where we're supposed to be, but we've got to be plugged in. We've got to know what's going on. And so what I'm looking for is a good solution for that. And I look forward to hearing what that might look like. I appreciate that. And, you know, I certainly understand your point. And I think on behalf of the whole team, you know, I want to thank city council for your partnership and all the work that you did pre, during, and post-storm. We do appreciate it, and we know that you're out there doing a lot for the residents and the constituents. I think you make a good point. I think one of the issues is pre-storm and during the storm, it's very tight at the EOC, and it's a lot easier to have a single point of contact that can communicate out, a point of control. After the storm comes, the recovery starts moving so fast, and the administrators and the chiefs are out in the field. Everyone's out in the field. It becomes a little more difficult for that, and I think that's probably why you were hearing from chiefs and administrators separately. But I take your point, and that's something that we'll look at going forward. So thank you. Thank you. And if I could just take that wish to a next level, I think it might be even better since PD has, and I'll just let you guys decide and chief and everything, but if there was an administration contact and then a PD contact that is not chief hallway, so if it's, you know, if he's got two majors that are assigned to all of us or whatever, I think that could be really helpful because they are out there, and I just know personally for me, it would be a huge help. So thank you for the consideration on that. That's all I have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I actually, everything that's on my list has been brought up by my colleagues. The last thing that wasn't there was what Councilmember Driscoll just mentioned. I was just going to talk a little bit about how city council could interact in the future, although I did feel that we were able to get the information, but we did have to just go and ask a few different people. Just wanted to make a suggestion like, yeah, it might be easy if we streamline that process somehow, and having, you know, someone that we can reach out to is a good idea on that front. Then I just have a couple other things I'll mention quickly. First, you know, I saw the Prepare St. Pete. I think I saw it on Facebook a few days ago, and I really like the map. That's one of the things that I share with people most often, but to have it all in one place right there for a hurricane, really helpful. I've mentioned that that's been really helpful in the past, so I'm glad to see that that's the direction we've continued in, particularly the stormwater map. I think most people are aware of what flood zone they're in, but whether or not they're in a stormwater floodplain is a completely different situation, so I'll definitely be sharing that. I know you all will, but I'll encourage continue proactive sharing of that information, and not just around storms. I know that's what we're here today to talk about, but the stormwater floodplain map is important for people basically all summer, and so, you know, I saw the share of it. As summer gets going in general, as rainy season gets going in general, making sure that we constantly are harping on that will, I think, benefit a lot of people. And then I was also going to bring up, when we were talking about permitting, but Council Member Harding did it already, and then Administrator Corbett touched on it. Yeah, the homeowner permits, you know, that's a confusing process. Now, if you go to the permit office, they will hold your hand and be very patient with you, but it's intimidating before you get into that, so I'm grateful to hear. I was going to say, like, any sort of guide. I'm grateful to hear that there's videos. You know, myself personally, I prefer the written word to video, but so if you had multiple medias, that would be beneficial as well, but anything at all would be helpful. And not just the process of getting a permit, but the process of setting up an inspection afterwards, closing things out, like the whole thing. I think it would also benefit the permit office in general. You know, I was spending a lot of time going there and asking questions. And then the last thing I'll say is about permitting as well. I'm fully prepared for, like, drastic solutions to make things speed up quickly. Like, I cannot reiterate, as much money as it takes to hire new people, like, I'm willing to make compromises in other areas because the backlog has become so significant and frustrating for all of us. I know administration, I've expressed that to you all before, but, like, I want it to be said in front of all my colleagues and here in the public, like, I will, anything that we can come up with, and I'm using the word drastic on purpose because this is not just impacting people recovering from the storm, although it definitely is impacting people recovering from the storm. It's impacting just the environment, the economic environment of our city right now. I have people who I don't get along with politically who are reaching out to me and begging me, even though the last time we had a conversation we argued with each other, to say, like, their business is suffering and whatnot. And so, anyway, and it just shouldn't be like that. So, you know, I mean, whatever it takes, I'm on board with. I see other heads shaking, and I think, you know, I don't, we can have that discussion at some point. I'll reiterate, there's some things that are not, this is my last point, separate. There are some things that are not on the face of them storm permits but are 100% related to the storm, and I think that's a place for us to grow in the future. We've had the discussions about rebuilding people's homes. I think if you have an open storm permit and you're trying to do another permit and it's not quite a storm permit, that's a place for us to look and see what's going on. But, yeah, I think I'll just leave it there. I appreciate the update and, you know, look forward to making sure our communications are stronger, really, whenever we go into what, unfortunately, will probably happen again sometime in the future. So, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you. So, I'm going to make my comments of thanks. As the chair of city council, when all of this was going on, it was quite a year for the city of St. Petersburg altogether. Everything that my colleagues have expressed, you've heard it, and I agree with so much of it. But, as the chair and spending time with you all in the EOC, I saw what was going on. I saw the conversations. I saw the decisions being made. I saw all of the key players in place trying to ensure the fact that our constituents were taken care of. Were there some unintended consequences? Absolutely. Absolutely. We never experienced anything like that before ever in our lives. But I think, from my experience, could the communication have been better? Absolutely. Could the permitting process be improved? Absolutely. But could we have had a better team to address those needs during the time of those emergencies and those storms? I don't think so. I am very appreciative for the fact that so many of you were experiencing the storm yourselves in your own private lives, but you found it necessary to be in place for the constituents of the city of St. Petersburg. So, out of all the problems and things that happened from it, I am going to say thank you. Because I was there, I got the phone calls, I got the texts, and it was overwhelming for me. And yet and still, I was getting the text from the comfort of my own home, you know, a lot of those times. So, thank you, city, administrators, departments, for what I witnessed that you actually did to try to get us pretty much, no pun intended, to weather the storms. So, I appreciate you for that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Well, I just have a couple of questions really quick. I'm going to be real brief. So, Amber, this is probably for you or Brej. So, Vice Chair Hanowitz brought up a question about notification, and we talked about the Prepare St. Pete website. And so, Brej, I guess it's probably for you, because it was something you had said. Should that be the, like, conduit in which people should be looking for notifications? Like, if they want to find, like, if, I know this morning we were talking about how, like, a pop-up will come up for employees in Oracle. Is that the same type of thing, or did I misunderstand that inside of Prepare St. Pete? So, this will just be a map. Okay. To provide additional information. Got it. Normal conduits of communication will still exist. Got it. Okay. I just, I misheard, so I just wanted to make sure clear in my head. I probably miss books. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's almost certainly me, so don't worry about that. So, I love, I love the idea of this. This is awesome. I think in listening to all of my colleagues and answering the questions, Council Member Gabbard, I love the idea of, like, the Citywide Resource Guide. Thank you for bringing that up. There might be an opportunity to have, like, the other, like, kind of like this presentation. We've got Prepare St. Pete and maybe a Recover St. Pete website where we have the videos. We have the white papers on how you do those things. We have the resource guide. I'm certainly not trying to create more, but, like, if there's one and we want people to go to one, like, it seems very easy for there to be a second page of this where it's, like, this is before and this is after. And so, that's kind of what was going on in my head as I was listening to all of this is that, because I love the idea of there being a single go-to to prepare for storms and to be prepared all year long. And not just for hurricanes, but for, like Council Member Floyd said, for all storms. And I think this is an amazing, yeah, I'll be quiet. Ben at Brzezki Marketing Department. Good morning, or good afternoon. It's not morning anymore. Yeah. To your point, so we do have the Prepare St. Pete map and that resource. After any named storm, we have stp.org slash Helene slash Milton. So, that'll be where people can find resources for debris collection, any distribution of resources, shelters, any recovery resources, basically. So, once the storm is coming, we'll prepare that page, and that'll be the resource for people to go to. And I love that. My just thought was, is that a page that is available all year long to have those resources. So, if I wanted to prepare for an upcoming storm, and maybe one was on its way, I could go to a page and see, okay, God forbid this storm comes before we've created that Helene page or Milton page. Okay, God forbid my home gets destroyed. What are some of the things I can go do after when I come back? And just, again, prepare for it, but in a way that I'm recovering. That's kind of my point. And so, but thank you for making sure that we're talking about those things. I'll take that note back. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I think that's, those are my two big things. I'm going to echo what, quickly echo what Council Member Fig Sanders said. Um, if there's one thing I want the entire team to bring back to every single employee, because listen, you're talking about parks and rec, water resources, sanitation. I mean, you're everybody all the way down. I mean, I met, I think I met a hundred different employees just at the Raytheon site from all across different departments. There is no other word to describe all of our employees other than heroes, period, end of story. And so, uh, if there, if there is one takeaway, at least from this council member, it is thank you and make sure that all of our employees hear it from me. And so, and I think I speak for the rest of my colleagues too. And so it was nothing short of miraculous. And I know I've used that word a couple of times in meetings over the last couple of months, and I don't use it lightly as a Catholic. And so, and, but I mean it, uh, and, and you are heroes quickly. Um, I also want to give credit to my colleagues. Uh, I think council member Gabbard, council member Driscoll, council member Floyd, all sustained damage to their homes. I know they were out on the streets while dealing with that count. I saw council member Fig Sanders. I, she, I think was in the movie multiplicity because she was at several different locations at the same time. And I'm not how sure how she pulled that off. I saw council member or vice chair Hanowitz on multiple Facebook posts of her being all over her neighborhoods and taking care of places that have never flooded before. And then we had two brand new council members who weren't even on this dais. Council member Harding was giving up parking at his business. So cars wouldn't flood council member Givens was out giving, uh, giving food away and making sure people had food and shelter. And so to my colleagues, thank you for continuing to fight the good fight. Even when you're, you're dealing with your own stuff and just know that doesn't get lost on me. And I'm proud of you. And I thank you. So thank you for the update. Amber, you're a badass. There it is. Okay. We are going to move on to Mike. Have you been waiting for waiting long enough? We're going to move on to F1, a presentation for the St. Pete Economic Development Corporation. Thank you all the staff that was here to answer questions. Thank you. That doesn't get lost on me either. To Economic Development Corporation update. We've got Mike Swayze here. Mike, take it away. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairperson Gerdes and council. And thank you for allowing me some time to give a little update on the St. Pete Economic Development Corporation. My name is Mike Swayze, CEO of the St. Pete EDC. We're at 102nd Avenue North. And as you can see, that's our new logo that many of you or most of you have probably already seen our new logo. We went through a year-long branding process last year and rolled it out this year as really a call to action. So we want you to become St. Pete. We don't want you to come to St. Pete and change it. We have a special place here. And so we're calling that out on the front end. Let's see if I got this right. Our mission is to help out-of-market companies discover, explore, and choose or become St. Pete. And as I mentioned, that's very important to us. The St. Pete EDC grew out of the Grow Smarter Initiative in 2016. It was really along with the Innovation District at the same time. And it was really founded by the city and the chamber. And so we appreciate your longstanding support in helping us get off the ground early in our existence, along with additional investors. So we have private sector investors, which I'm going to touch on in a minute as well. So our mission is to create top-of-the-funnel leads of companies that we want to recruit to St. Petersburg, recruit to either relocate their headquarters, their operations, or just a major expansion. And then we nurture those projects until they make the decision to move to St. Pete. Why do we do it? We do it to grow the jobs here. We want a strong economy with higher-paying jobs. The median household income in St. Pete is around $75,000. We want to recruit companies that are going to enhance the median wage to provide additional purchasing power and wealth for our residents. Who do we serve? The people of St. Pete. We want to bring, as I mentioned, the higher-paying jobs to St. Pete to current and future residents. To date, this year, we have identified 36 additional companies to the pipeline. We've opened 18 new projects. And we've hosted 12 prospects in St. Pete that are considering a location here. And, in fact, just this week we've had three, and two of them are signing leases by the end of the week to open up a location here. One's a European company. This will be the North American headquarters. Did I go too far? Wait. There it is. Oh, I didn't go. It'll be their North American headquarters. First entry into the United States. And the second is a Canadian company that will be moving their headquarters from Toronto to St. Petersburg. All of their investors don't know yet, so I can't say the names publicly, but you'll be reading about that soon in a newsletter that we'll have coming out. And then we're very close on four additional projects. One super exciting would be a headquarter move and a manufacturing operation, which would be great jobs for our area. So who uses the services of the St. Pete EDC? The services are provided to site selection consultants that are considering a location for their clients, business executives, commercial brokers, and then anyone who may have an influence on where a company will either relocate or expand. So I call them business influencers. That could include accountants, law firms, and you name it, who's ever providing advice to companies. Our typical or who we work with really are three areas. I'll say the growth stage companies, which are generally around, let's say, 40 to 50 employees, larger headquarters type of operations that are looking for higher end, maybe class A space. And then we do assist startup companies as well. I do a lot of sports analogies, so you may have heard me talk about hitting a lot of singles and doubles recently, and we've done that. Part of that is because of the lack of office space, especially downtown, that's available. I do have two projects that we lost to our neighbors across the water because we just didn't have enough space for them. So with the Halcyon project and residents of 400 has office space, which we recently read about Dynasty moving over there, and then the new Waldorf Astoria, they'll have office space there. So we're starting to see some relief and really some light at the end of the tunnel on office space, and we're excited to get those projects rolling. The typical type of company that we talk to that's probably, again, our target market, if you will, generally speaking, they're privately held. Leadership is active in the company, and we target companies that are business-to-business and not business-to-consumer. And so we don't target retail. We target companies that are, you know, their primary economic base is not dependent on a local economy, so more national and international companies. And often they will have some affiliation or they know about St. Pete or the Tampa Bay area through vacationing here or business opportunities or whatever it might be. And then, however, we are starting to see a lot more activity from the larger corporations. I'll talk a little bit about that later. And then companies that will create quality jobs for our residents. We don't focus our marketing efforts in Florida. We focus our marketing efforts out of market. However, if a Florida company comes knocking on our door, we certainly help them, and we'll help them move to St. Petersburg. We're starting to see more of that, but we do not. We just, as kind of a gentleman's agreement, we don't market to companies in other parts of Florida. As I mentioned, we're starting to make inroads with space coming online with the larger entities. In fact, obviously, we all know about the Foot Locker deal. That was an awesome project that really kind of raised the awareness of St. Petersburg as a place to move your corporate headquarters. And an interesting fact that I didn't know until I got here, Tampa Bay has the highest concentration of Fortune 500s in Florida next to Miami. And St. Petersburg area has the highest concentration in Tampa Bay. So we're excited about that. A few of the recent success stories. So ARK Invest, they really gave us international visibility when they chose to move from Wall Street to 200 Central. And they have become St. Pete by funding, you know, a lot of organizations in St. Pete. But they also additionally created an innovation curriculum for Pinellas County middle schools and invested heavily in the innovation center, ARK Innovation Center. Secondly is Dynasty. That was kind of a single or a double where they came down here with 40 employees. And they're currently at 170, and they're expected to be at 300 within about 18 months after their move. And they're involved in all kinds of community organizations, Chamber, EDC, and many others. And additionally, last year they donated $50,000 for hurricane relief. Webull was kind of a single because they came down here with just a handful of people and just recently went public. They bought a building here, went public, and they're involved in all kinds of organizations. And they're planning to create hundreds of jobs now that they're here in St. Pete. And this is their global headquarters. And then finally, I mentioned Foot Locker. This was really a job retention and a job creation project. So with Champ Sports, they had about 150 employees in the market. And if they chose another location for this headquarters, then those jobs would have been at risk. And they are pledging at least 150, probably closer to 200 new jobs in the market. And they are definitely share the values of St. Pete. And it's been great to work with. Who we serve and why they're moving here. As I mentioned, there's a lot of activity with headquarters operations moving to Florida in general. But St. Pete, we're seeing our share of that. Generally, it's companies that either want a second location or an HQ2, which became a popular term with Amazon a few years ago when they were the first company to kind of call it that. So we're seeing that. Also, companies, as I mentioned, the two we're working with currently that need to establish a U.S. operation. And then companies that are in high-cost bureaucratic areas and companies that are, quite frankly, trying to find a place that's quality of life where employees will move to and they can retain employees. And so, you know, we hit all of those buckets. And then what do we do for our prospects? So, as I mentioned, we help them discover, explore, and become St. Pete. First of all, we help them discover St. Pete through a lot of avenues. Our website, obviously, social media, attending conferences, meeting with site selectors one-on-one, going on marketing trips, and meeting with CEOs and consultants that advise companies where to go. LinkedIn, a lot of digital marketing. And for the first time ever, we just rolled out, starting this month, I think I just got the first bill, a national PR campaign. So, we anticipate getting some national placements and raising the awareness of St. Petersburg. And explore, what do we do to help them explore? So, we kind of play, we're kind of the quarterback, boots on the ground, if you will. And so, we identify space that's available. We identify opportunities to help workforce. We navigate any incentive opportunities there might be with local, state, or county, and city, state, or county incentives. And then we're a connector. So, we connect the businesses with resources that are in the area. And then we're kind of the liaison, if you will, between, you know, city, county, state, whatever it might be, whether it's incentives or permitting, just kind of their go-to if they need to make one phone call and get some answers. And then finally, when we get them, if we can encourage the prospect to visit St. Pete, our closing rate goes through the roof because it's such a beautiful place and they love it here. But at that point, we have a great shot at getting the prospect to land in St. Pete. And so, we will coordinate the site visits, the tours. We have kind of what we call concierge service. And so, in fact, when Dynasty was looking here, we actually set up an opportunity for their employees that were moving here to go visit schools and neighborhoods and things like that. And we do that with key employees for any company if they're trying to recruit key employees down here. People often ask me, who do we compete against and who do we lose to? And I think we lose to the project not happening. We generally aren't losing or, like I said earlier, if we don't have the space. And so, those are the two reasons we lose. So, if we continue to grow our industrial base and our office space, we're going to continue to win. We have many partners that we work with and we all have our own swim lane, if you will. We work together as a cohesive group, but these are the partners that we work with most often. I hope we don't miss one up there. But as you can see, we have the city, the county, all the workforce sources, the innovation center, the greenhouse. And we really try to make it as seamless as possible for companies to say yes. Oops, that's in the wrong spot. Oh, here we go. So, the EDC's lane, swim lane. Our lane is business attraction, as I just mentioned. We don't give the incentives. We don't own the property, any of that. But we help navigate the whole process to be able to move here and say yes. And then we don't advocate. We advocate only for specific business expansion or retention projects. Other people's lanes, other organizations' lanes, I guess, if you will. There's our other partners we work with, kind of the traditional economic development with city, county, and CareerSource, and higher the St. Pete way, where it's workforce programs, minority ownership programs, site prep, international trade, things like that. The incentives, as I mentioned earlier, play the quarterback role of making companies aware of what incentives we have to grow. And then the Chamber of Commerce, they do a lot of small business work, as well as they're more the advocacy group that we rely on. So, who supports the EDC? One, the city, and we appreciate your continued support and founding support, as well. But it's also companies and organizations who want to invest in St. Pete and help the St. Pete economy grow. Currently, or two short years ago, we had about 62 investors. And today, we have over 80, and we probably have five more in the pipeline that will be added to this list. So, you can see it's a great list of companies that are supporting the mission and supporting the economy in St. Petersburg. A little bit about how we talk about the Sunshine City. So, in 2022, the EDC commissioned a study of C-suite executives and site selectors outside our market. What was their perception of St. Petersburg as a place to do business? And the key findings were, one, we need to lead with business. St. Pete must make business sense first before a company can move here and create a new opportunity in St. Petersburg. We need to emphasize that we're part of a greater Tampa Bay region, which is 3.5 million people. That's what the companies are looking at. It's a workforce, right? It's a population where they can draw workers. We need to emphasize that we're no longer just a vacation destination or a retirement destination, that we have a strong business community, and we can attract talent to workforce here. St. Pete is where innovation and creativity converge. We're also, St. Pete's forecast for business is sunny, and what that means is business benefits of Florida and a genuinely welcoming community. We've got space. We're going to have more space soon, hopefully. And so we promote the space that we have available to companies across the country, around the world. The access to our market is amazing, and it's getting better. So with the interstate systems and with over 150 nonstop flights from both PIE and TPA, very important. And then, of course, the workforce. So where's the workforce coming from? We have a growing population, but we also have a very educated workforce that's already here. And we have over 100,000 college students in the region, and we graduate about 30,000 a year. So keeping them in St. Pete and Tampa Bay is very important and kind of top of mind at all times. And then the quality of life. So we call it an effortlessly cool quality of life. It's easy with arts and culture, sports, outdoor entertainment. It's just a great place to live and an extremely welcoming community. And that comes across pretty evident the minute people come here and visit. So we kind of have three brand pillars that came out of our exercise last year were business-friendly, balanced opportunities, and balanced environment. As we looked at the research, St. Pete's main attributes were these three buckets that we promote. And many of the attractions support multiple buckets, right? So, for example, the opportunity is powered by a strong workforce. And that's companies lead with workforce, right? They need to be able to hire the workers or they will not be successful. And then businesses find it easy to attract people and retain people in St. Pete. It's just such a great place to live. And a couple more slides here. We call this the elevator pitch with all the strong words that really define why it's a great place to do business. You know, each of you can put your own spin on this. But just the yellow items are very important to businesses, to the business community. And then the blue items are really what define us and separate us from other communities, not only in Florida, but across the country and around the world. And then we all need to keep up to date on what I call our bragging rights. So, just recently, Site Selection Magazine voted, ranked Florida number one economy in the United States and number three best place to do business. And then the Site Selectors Guild, who is very close to us, they went on CNBC and bragged about it. So, that's just things like that. We, you know, if we keep that top of mind, that's great to tell people when you're sitting on an airplane or they're visiting or whatever it might be. And we spent a lot of time on those words. And so, that was a year-long process. I went through kind of quick, and there's our awesome logo again. And happy to take any questions. I do want to say real quick before I take questions. You know, the staff at the city is awesome. Absolutely love working with them. Rob, James, Brian, and the team, they're just awesome. And we're great partners and couldn't appreciate it more. With that, any questions? Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And, Mike, thank you for being with us all day. Yeah. I'm going to say good morning, too. Go play. But it's a great day for you to be here because of the discussions that we've had earlier today on, you know, the state of job growth in our city and what we need to do to continue to grow that. And I wish we had had more time to talk with you then, but I knew you were coming to this. Yep. So there is, I want to make sure that Administrator Gerdes recognizes the running theme here on the need for office space. If we want to grow jobs, if we want Mike to still have a job, we've got to give him a place to put people. So, but thank you for what you're doing. You're a perfect example of becoming St. Pete. Thank you. Since you've been here. And I have loved seeing that. And you just seem like someone who's been here forever. So you really have walked the tug. Thank you. On that one. Now, next to space, you said most of the time it's because if someone doesn't choose St. Pete, it's because the project gets canceled or just isn't going to go forward. Space is important. What would the next biggest reason be? It's probably industry specific. So there are multiple answers. It could be the workforce. If we don't have the type of workforce that they need, it could be the size of the market. Sometimes it could be connectivity to direct flights to other parts of the world. Are you tracking that? Do you do reporting on that, like internal or that you share with others that shows, hey, there were five companies that, you know, decided to look elsewhere because we don't have a strong workforce in this specific area or because we don't have enough flights from Denver or whatever? Are you keeping track of those details so that if there's a pattern, we can try to address it? Historically, I don't know that we did that in a great detail. But, yes, we are. We are now. We're starting to build, you know, reasons why the projects don't proceed. What were the triggers? What were the hot points that we actually were successful in the project? And then we worked very closely with both airports on any data, any information that we get. You know, we need more direct flights to Toronto or whatever it might be, and we need better European connections, things like that. So the short answer is we haven't historically done a great job of that, but we are now. Okay. So there's no other factor that seems to be a running theme right now. Not really. That's good. We're seeing a lot of success in what we're good at with, you know, financial services, with, you know, getting companies out of New York because it's just too expensive or whatever. It doesn't make sense for them to grow there. So we're getting a lot of technology jobs now. So I would say that could be an area where, you know, if we don't keep growing the tech area, the tech jobs, you know, it just kind of builds on itself when you get a workforce. It's easier to recruit a person to move here if there's multiple opportunities, if that opportunity doesn't work out for them, right? And so we're keeping our eye on that. Nothing comes directly to mind. It's more just, you know, space. And if it makes sense for the company to be here. Sometimes they need to be closer to a customer or whatever it might be. And so it's like, well, we can't find a rail site, which is exactly what we're working on right now. There's no rail sites. And so they're probably going to be somewhere else because we just don't have that. So it's every project's a little different. I always like to say that economic development is an art, not a science. That's true. Yeah. Thank you. Well, and you make it look like an art form. You're very good at this. Thank you. And we're lucky to have you. So I'm lucky to be here. And, you know, I sit here and I see the effort that everybody puts in. You guys have been here all day, right? We have an amazing city and I'm lucky enough to be able to sell it. And that's my job to sell this amazing place that we live. And basically, it's a slice of paradise. Thank you. And yes, I'll vote for the line item in the budget to continue our contribution to the EDC. I appreciate that. All right. Well, I hope you'll come back again when we do have that follow-up discussion in committee about office space because I think that your insight could be very valuable as we try very hard to chart a plan forward on that. Yeah, in fact, this morning when you guys discussed it, I immediately told Brian, I said, count me in. I'd love to be part of the discussions. Okay, good. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And, Mike, good to see you again. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your hard work. I think you really are the best salesman for our city. You know, we've had conversations. And each time that we talk, I learn something new from you. I had a question for you. So as you get out there and you're talking, I want to pick up where Council Member Driscoll left off. And you're having conversations with corporations, businesses here in St. Petersburg, and those who want to come to St. Petersburg, and we're discussing office space, specifically speaking, those tech jobs. I would love the idea of growing our tech hubs. I really think that is a direction that we should be moving more in that direction. So especially as we stretch outside of downtown and move to areas like districts, right, and we consider the redevelopment of the gas plant industry, I want to make sure that we are considering tech hubs. So have you found a need for more tech companies who are willing to come here? And on top of that, have you spoken to companies who are willing to collaborate to provide maybe temporary office space for those companies until they find something permanent? Yeah, yes. And that's the beautiful thing about the entrepreneurial young tech companies is they're open to that concept. And I've had a few newer entry companies who entered the market say, hey, if they need a space, you know, we've got some space and we can help them out. So the short answer is yes. It's just more of a reaching out and asking. We don't have a formalized process right now. And I appreciate that feedback, and this is probably a question for administration, but, you know, I've had conversations with Janie, and I really would love to see if there could be an opportunity for business startups, specifically entrepreneurs, to use vacant city buildings, right, those buildings that are just sitting there empty. To eliminate the blight, let's turn those vacant buildings into vibrant buildings, right, vibrant tech hubs. I don't know if we're already doing anything like this, Administrator Gerdes, but is this something that we can talk about supporting in partnership with the EDC? I mean, we're always open to using city facilities for the best purposes possible. Is there a specific location that you're looking at? Throughout the city. I think there's a need probably out in West St. Pete. There's some places out in District 2. I just, I'd love to talk to you more about it, but I definitely think that it's something we can look at. Yeah, happy to sit down and chat. Sure. And those are my questions for you, Mike. Again, thank you for all the hard work. Actually, I did have one more. I was thinking about the Tampa Bay Black Business Investment Corporation. Can you talk about your collaboration and the work that you've done, specifically with minority businesses in the Tampa Bay Black Business Investment Corporation? No, I'm not as familiar with that group as I probably should be. So we've, you know, we're just laser focused on, you know, bringing companies into the market. So as the attraction, we don't work as much with existing companies. It wasn't in our mission. We're starting to, and I think we need to, and we will at some point. But in the past, that hasn't been a focus for the EDC. And I appreciate you sharing that. And that's what I was getting to, so thank you to alluding to that, is I want to make sure that we are not only recruiting more businesses that come here, but focus on retaining those that are currently here. So we're still basically, let's say, a startup entity-ish, right? We're phase two of startup, basically. And so I think when we created the EDC as a recruitment tool, I get it. That's what we should have done. We need to raise the awareness of St. Petersburg as a place to do business. A true EDC does more than that, right? They do a lot of business retention and existing industry outreach, right? BRE is what they call it. I'm trying to do more of that. We haven't done that as much in the past as I think an EDC needs to do. City does it. The county does it. We do a little bit of the chamber, maybe a little bit. But if we get a coordinated effort, then we can go after organizations like that and say, hey, we want to help your members, and we want to help them grow. And that's my vision, is to get to that. It's a process, though, because there's also turf issues. Well, I certainly hope that our administration will be willing to support you. I know I am more than happy to, and I'm going to start by connecting you with the Tampa Bay Black Business Investment Corporation. So thank you so much, Mike. I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, Mike, for the report and the update. When you have a chance, do you, I don't know, do you have copies of the annual report and the priorities for the year? That would be great, because I don't know if I have an updated one. Okay. But that would probably be wonderful for City Council. Yep, I'll send it to the entire Council. Yeah, I think that would be a good resource for us, kind of summarizing all the work. You did a great job at the presentation here. The other thing I was going to ask, you know, obviously we've had this discussion about target industries and making sure we update all that. I know that we had our target industry, I think it was, what, 10 years old in terms of something around that. And so hopefully we see something happen with that that's updated. Are there any other opportunities and challenges that your board has identified that hasn't been covered here today that you're looking into for the upcoming year and for our future? So going to your first comment about the targeted industries, so that is about 10 years old, the report that was done. So obviously things have changed in a lot of ways. But we are, we put together a strategic planning committee at the EDC, just kicked one off this year, like we've had two meetings now, and that's the focus is to, you know, take a look at the organization, how we were established and does it make sense to still be established the exact same way or what do we need to do with bylaws, all that boring stuff. But then also, in addition to that, you know, what are barriers to growth and what's our strategic direction as we go after the targeted industries? And we'll probably have to hire somebody to do the analysis, even though I think we could probably do it ourselves. But, you know, you get third-party validation on that. And that is very good that you mentioned that, because many years ago in a committee meeting when we discussed this, when I was looking at the report and we were discussing how the future report was going to happen, and I wanted to make sure that it was very data-driven, and not just by locals, but broader with information from other cities that would be peer cities. And I think that would be very helpful for all the industries here, and obviously that would take an outside firm that would have those resources. And so I'm glad to know that we're kind of thinking the same way. I know it costs, you know, there's a cost associated to that. But the benefit is, especially if this is something that's guiding you in the future and our growth and where we're going to have the most impact and what we're going to attract to our city, you want to make sure that it's data-driven and it's not just hyper-focused local. It's much broader than that. The other thing we need to take a look at and everybody needs to take a look at is what's the effect of AI on jobs and which jobs are maybe not going to be here, you know, and what does that mean for our local economy and for our industries that are here? Good. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. Hey, Mike, nice to see you. Always enjoy the updates. You know, we've talked before, and one thing I'm big on is that I think a big way that we win is our lifestyle and our arts and our culture here, and, you know, that's what I like to invest in for economic development. So in that vein, could you talk about if you see any, like, deficiencies, like anything the city could be doing, investing in that you think people who are attracted to our area because of the lifestyle might be interested in seeing more of, or you could just talk about strengths as well, if you, just anything you have to say on the topic? I will say when visitors arrive, they're just wowed by our arts, our culture, all the natural resources that we have. Nothing jumps out to mind that we're deficient, extremely, like all cities, we have, you know, things we can probably do better and do more of, but the amount of, you know, festivals we have and the murals and the museums, I don't know if there's as many cities that can compete with us. And so I would just say people are pleasantly surprised if they don't know about St. Petersburg when they get here. Okay, cool. So what I'm hearing from you then is making sure that everyone knows what we've got going on. And I heard you saying some of those things as far as, like, starting a national campaign. And I know, you know, the area is known for marketing itself, but I think you're probably talking from a business angle and a lifestyle angle instead of, like, a tourism angle. And so when Visit St. Pete Clearwater splashes New York City with $10 million in ads or whatever, I'll start getting messages. What's the business focus on this? And usually we try to go right behind Visit St. Pete Clearwater and go meet with companies and splash them with digital marketing efforts, however we can get to them, because we think it's kind of top of mind or they were on the subway or whatever they saw on ad. So we definitely try to double down on that. But with the PR campaign as it relates to business, getting our national message out, part of it is the arts and cultural side of things that we have here. So we will definitely, like I said, I think I just paid the first month's bill, so we're just, like, getting into the weeds now with that. And that's going to be part of the focus on selling St. Pete. And that wraps around workforce, right, workforce recruitment and retention and being able to keep your employees. Okay, cool. That all sounds good. You know, as long as the, you know, Visit St. Pete Clearwater and the TDC are spending the money on marketing, it would be good to partner with them. Like you said, like following up and whatnot and any partnership you can create there as long as that's what their priority is. And I'm glad to hear that people are showing up and being blown away. I think you mentioned when you get people to visit, it often goes well. So I'm glad to hear that. And I think, you know, my focus will be continuing to make sure that happens. So I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you so much. And I'll be brief. I was just thinking about something, Mike. Since we have you here, I value your opinion. Considering our workforce, so if Job Corps were to close, do you foresee there being any impacts to our local economy? Specifically, you know, just thinking about there being a shortage now in training. What do you see those impacts being? It definitely is a tool in our toolbox, right? It would have a negative effect. There's no doubt about it. Would other organizations somehow pick up where we're deficient? I would hope so. And that's something that, again, it's kind of out of our swim lane, but we support that and we would help move the ball forward if we can step in and help other organizations. Yeah, it's something we're keeping our eye on. Thank you for that, Mike. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mike, thanks for being here. Always good to see you. I just really have two quick things. So on page 18, thank you for providing this. And actually, Council Member Gibbons was just talking about some of the partners that you're talking about. One of the things that I felt like maybe, I'll call it an opportunity, and maybe you can touch on this a little bit. One of the things that I couldn't help but notice was missing from here was Eckerd College. And so can you talk about that a little bit? Is there any partnership? I mean, when I think about Eckerd, I think about, like, resiliency, maritime, some of the things we're super focused on. And I just thought that, like I said, I would call it an opportunity. It's a huge opportunity. And in the past, they were part of the EDC, and we were a lot, prior to my time, we were a lot closer to them, and we've been trying to make inroads to get back on that level for sure. Yeah, 100%. Good to hear. Cool. Now, of course, I forgot the second thing I was going to say. Oh, the other thing I'll say is, Mike, we're actually having a conversation next week at our Committee of the Whole about, and I think maybe it was Council Member Driscoll that brought it up, the role of chamber versus greenhouse versus procurement. Certainly welcome to be at that conversation, because I think a lot of times we know what each individual kind of silo is doing, but we're not real sure how the silos are working together, and I think certainly you're a part of that conversation. And so I know it's short notice, but we're going to be having that. It's an item of mine that I brought together, because I want to make sure that the recruitment is going along with the small business education, along with the, you know, retention of the chamber and the advocacy of the chamber, along with procurement, and procurement is capturing all these businesses that we're training up and recruiting to do the work in St. Petersburg. So I certainly think you're part of that conversation and would welcome you to be a part of it. Happy to. And really looking forward to that conversation next week, too. Happy to. Always good to see you, man. Thank you. Okay, if there's no other comments, Mike, thanks so much for the presentation and the update. Appreciate your comments. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to move into F3, where we've got license agreements and the termination of the development agreement. We've got Aaron Fish joining us. Legal, do we need to do A and B separately? No, you can combine these however you want. Just wanted to make sure before we get into it. Aaron, welcome. Good afternoon, Council Chair, Vice Chair, members of Council. Aaron Fish, Director of Real Estate and Property Management. Of the two items before you this afternoon, I'll start with the license agreements. For some background, in 1995, the city and the Rays entered into an agreement for the Rays' use, management, and operation of the stadium property. For the purposes of the conversation, we'll call it the current use agreement. That current use agreement was amended in 2024 to remove certain parcels to make way for the new stadium development. Those four parcels were intended to be a new stadium parcel and two parcels related to parking garages and the operation of a marquee was the fourth parcel to advance that. The city and the Rays have agreed to the terms and conditions of two license agreements for the use of those four parcels that were carved out of that use agreement. And the first license agreement includes three parcels totaling them of approximately 14 acres of land. These parcels include parcels that would be used for parking, storage, and the marquee signage in these parcels we're referring to as parcels one through three. There's a separate license agreement for a parcel we're referred to as parcel four. This parcel includes land of approximately 2.29 acres for the use of parking and storage. The term of both of these license agreements would commence on August 1st of this year and terminate upon the expiration or earlier termination of the current use agreement, which would be at the end of the 2028 Major League Baseball season. The city may terminate for convenience the agreement for parcel number four at the conclusion of the 2026 Major League Baseball season. The Rays shall pay the city annual rent in the amount of $400,000 for the use of parcels one through three and annual rent in the amount of $12 for the use of parcel four. And to clarify why it's structured like this is the annual rent of $400,000 was to apply for all four parcels. However, because of the earlier termination provision for parcel number four, the city didn't want to apply a higher value on that parcel and then thereby reduce the amount of overall income that the city would receive. So if the city does terminate the agreement for parcel number four, the city will still receive the $400,000 annual payments for parcels one through three. The Rays will be responsible for all of the maintenance, utilities, fees, and taxes associated with these parcels. And moving on to the termination agreement. This termination agreement is related to the historic gas plant redevelopment agreement, and the vesting development agreement that were entered into in 2024. Other agreements related to the stadium development and funding automatically terminated in March of this year, and the city desires, and so does the Rays, to execute this termination agreement for that redevelopment agreement and the vesting development agreement. This slide shows the overall look of the stadium property, outlining the four parcels, which are subject to these two license agreements. Parcel one, two, and three, again, are subject to one license agreement. And parcel four, which, again, the city does have an early termination provision for, is at the northwest corner of the property. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay. Thanks, Erin. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. My first question is for legal. In terms of these license agreements, are the substantive terms of these license agreements standard terms in these types of license agreements? Yes. Yes. We did not make, there were some clarifying changes to the normal license agreement. Nothing substantively changed. These are just as positive for the city as any other license agreement. Okay. And this is for administration, probably Rob more than Erin, but in terms of the number, the $400,000 number, how was this number determined to be an appropriate compensation for the license? So, thank you, Council Member. We took a look at the number of spaces that are involved in the license agreements. We ran some basic numbers on some potential revenue that could be generated from those. We based an initial offer to the Rays on that. They came back with a much, much lower offer. We ended up meeting somewhere in the middle. We're comfortable with the $400,000 a year. That's $1.2 million. As you know, we're putting significant money into the stadium repair. We do believe we'll get reimbursed for a significant portion of that, but there's a portion that we won't get reimbursed for. This would help us offset some of that cost, this $1.2 million. So, it was based on negotiation, but the administration is comfortable with the number. And just to go over a little bit why there's two different license agreements, why is one where you can basically, there has to be reason to terminate and one you can terminate at will. So, you know, the marquee parcel, I think that's self-evident. You know, we don't have any interest in controlling that marquee. You know, some of the other parcels are more primary to the site. For us to take those over now, try and redevelop those, there's operational issues with that. Lot four, parcel four, we have a significant interest in potentially moving forward much faster on some of the commitments that the mayor has made related to senior affordable housing, the Woodson Museum, job growth and job development, workforce development. We see that as a potential parcel that's in play much sooner for redevelopment, and therefore we want to be able to get out of this agreement at our discretion. And just to be clear, these termination clauses, specifically make sure that we have the flexibility. Yes, to do that, yes. Okay. As to the termination agreement, it's going to come, and this is just my comments in general, it's going to come to no surprise to anyone here on the dais and is listening and has heard me on the deal. I was not a fan of both the terms of the agreement in the economic sense and in the legal terms. And this termination agreement is an example of that, period, end of story. Because at the end of the day, when you have a termination agreement that you have to now negotiate to terminate an agreement that had a termination clause, like the stadium agreement that terminated automatically on March 31st, this agreement that we're terminating through this approval should have been terminated then. And I understand that was the bargain that people wanted to make, but this is an example of one of the concerns that I had with the agreement. And I had various conversations with people in my district and in neighborhood meetings asking me about the agreements and why isn't it terminated yet and what's going on. And what I try to explain to those who may not understand legal agreements, because they're like, well, there are attorneys involved, and why does this happen? At the end of the day, these decisions are based on whatever the client or the parties that are to the agreement decide. Attorneys can advise and say whatever they want, but at the end of the day, if I direct my attorney to do something, if you're charged with a crime and your attorney tells you don't take the stand, and you're the person that decides to do it, if they tell you the pros and cons of whatever it is you're signing, you at the end make that decision. And I want to make sure this is not a criticism as to the attorneys who wrote the agreement or worked on it or anything like that. This is, to me, just I did not like the terms of the agreement, and this is one of the legal terms I had a problem with because there was no real termination clause in this agreement, and that was the bargain between the parties. So I just wanted to make that clear. I'm happy that we are here today and this is happening. But the agreement terminates when the parties, after, if we approve this and counsel approve this, the termination will be the date this is signed. That's when this termination occurs. And I just want to make sure with legal that my understanding is correct. That's correct. Just like many agreements are structured that way in the preamble of the agreement, it establishes the effective date is the date of execution. So that date will be filled in at the time that the agreement is executed by the parties. So for clarity purposes, the agreement had to do with the redevelopment of the land will be terminated once this is signed by the parties if it's approved by counsel. So that's all I have to say on this, and I'm happy it's come to this, but I will tell you this worked out this time, but this is just an example of things that happen in the future in whatever deal. Parties could at one point get along and parties at one point may not get along. And so that's why there are provisions that are standard in contracts and there are provisions that are important because it's typical in contracts and parties that come to terms on a deal during the term of the deal to somehow not be on the same page. And that's why it's important to be clear on these provisions, have clear termination provisions in contracts. So I thank administration. Having said all that, I thank you for the work of getting this to where it is today. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Aaron, for the presentation today. And Rob, I just want to say thank you. From me personally to you, I know that this has been a hard mountain to climb. I know that you have continued to stay strong through these further negotiations, and so I just really want to let you know I appreciate you, and I appreciate all of the updates to Council behind the scenes getting us to this point so that at least I can speak for myself. I have felt very included in the conversations and never had a worry or a doubt that we would end up here today with something that I think is very reasonable to help us move forward as a city. The only question that I have is just wanted to understand. We discussed this yesterday. Essentially, we approve the resolution for termination, and then at that point, in order for the licensing agreement to actually be signed, they will have to agree to the termination as well, correct? Yes, these items were all negotiated together, and the Rays understand this. I mean, we would not enter into these parking license agreements without the termination agreement being signed. And that gives me a lot of comfort because we know who we're dealing with. We know that promises were made that were not kept along the way, and that's why we're here doing this now. And I just wanted to make sure that we were not agreeing to anything until we had the hook that we need. So thank you for that. I appreciate your prudence on that. And then legal, can we take both of these resolutions together, or do we need them separate? You can take them together. Okay. I make a motion to approve both resolutions before us. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the explanation. Regarding, so about a year ago, we did a zoning change for Parcel 4, and I believe one other parcel. Which one, what was the other one? You know, I'd have to go back and recollect, but I think they were the ones west of 16th Street. Okay, but not one of these four. Four was included. Four. Yes. That zoning remains. And then something else. The zoning will remain in place even if we vote for this. Okay. Yes. Now, there was a time when Parcel 4 was going to be considered for a parking garage. So that leads me to ask, with these agreements, it says that it can be used for parking, but this cannot be built upon. No. Okay. So I thought so. I just wanted to make sure, and, you know, we did have a couple of residents who had some concerns about that, and so. And just to be clear for everyone, it could be built upon by us or a partner of ours, and that's why we set it up this way to where we could terminate it for convenience. But, yes, they could not build a parking garage on it. Got it. Okay. Good. Well, so much could be said about all of this, but here we are, and I appreciate all the work that everyone has done on this, and I'm glad to support it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. You know, I put myself on here to ask a question, but I actually don't think that's important right now. So I'll just say I know this, you know, isn't everybody's preferred outcome, favorite thing to do today, but, you know, what a gift that we were able to get to a point where determination has a minimal impact on our city. We found out, or some of us found out who we were dealing with before we got too far down the line, and I'll just reiterate things that I've said in the past, which are, you know, I think we have an opportunity now that we wouldn't have had if we were to go forward with this, one in which we have a lot more finances to move forward with the things that we need in this city. The things that we're going to get in this deal that we're positive, we can still do, and maybe even more of, and so I'll just leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. I would just echo Councilmember Gabbard's comments. Rob, thanks for all the work. Thanks for the communication. I know, you know, multiple meetings with Heinz Rays and just appreciate all the work and the open lines of communication. And that goes for the rest of the team, too, because it's not just, you know, but I know you were on the forefront. So, okay, we've got a motion and a second on F3A and B. Seeing as no other Councilmembers wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present Councilmembers have voted, Clerk, please tell me and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, I want you to approve a gen item F3A and B passes unanimously. Okay. Thanks, Aaron. All right. We're going to move into F4, and it's really F4 and F5, where we're talking about Tropicana Field. So, we've got Raul and Beth. Welcome. Good afternoon, Council Chair, Councilmembers. Beth Herondine, Managing Director, City Development Administration. This is really Raul's report and Raul's show, because it's construction-related. But I really just wanted to make sure that the public is aware that I know there's been talks about the sale of the team, but with the use agreement, the current use agreement in place, who the city is still responsible for fixing the stadium, and whomever owns the team, regardless whether it's sold, Mr. Sternberg, any owner is obligated to use the stadium through 2028. So, I just wanted to make sure that the public is aware that a new owner does not change the fact that the team needs to use the stadium. So, with that, I will allow Raul to tell you the facts. Thank you, Beth. Thanks, Beth. Raul Quintana, City Engineering, Capital Improvements Department. I'm here to discuss item F4 and F5. We'll go through them pretty quickly, and I also want to give you an update on where we are with the work itself. So, item F4 has to do with the design-build agreement. And just to step back, there are two major agreements we have with the construction managers. One is the design-build agreement for the roof, and the other one is a construction manager-at-risk agreement for the non-roof portions. So, the first item, F4, is really to go back to that agreement and to include in it an insurance update, minor modification. It's basically to add entities as indemnified parties and additional insured, and it's something that our city attorneys and city risk management has resolved with the construction manager and the other parties involved. So, that's a simple one. And F5 has to do with the bulk of the work that we want to discuss here. It's acceptance of the second GMP proposal with ACOM Hunt, our construction management team, in the amount of $5,261,349. And that's for specifically the repairs to the sports lighting and the catwalk electric systems. I'll talk about that in a second. And the second part of that is just to accept that GMP proposal as part of the second amendment to the CMAR agreement and to approve that. So, this item has really the work that we've been scoping out, receiving pricing, and they're long lead items that we're bringing forward to you now so that we can coordinate with the actual installation time. This is to replace approximately 100 light fixtures. We're talking about sporting the sport fixtures, the light fixtures within the bowl, and all of the components that go along with that, the lighting drivers, the controls, all of the electronics that got damaged during the storm, and it's also some bullpen lighting. Generally, you've been seeing, if you've watched once, I think it's once a month, they've been testing the lights. The lights have been running. You've got to continue to run those lights, make sure that they're operational. And so, this is the bulk of the work, and we've got the construction, general conditions, and the other costs, leading to a total price of $5,261,000. Then, I also wanted to just step through kind of where this fits in the overall project. As I said, the design-build agreement for the roof replacement, that's all locked in. A lot of work going on on that one, $23,277,399. And the non-roof portions consist of four GMPs, of which the first one was approved about a month or so ago, and it's for the replacement and the repairs of the metal panels that were damaged. And these are the vertical metal panels, both inside the stadium and exterior, that have fallen off, have been dislodged, and we're repairing those. That work, it has been coordinated. It's already been bought out. Shop drawings are going through. Some of that work can happen prior to the roof being put in, but it's just coordination at this point. And then, the second one is this one we just talked about with the catwalk electric. So, we've got two more that we're deep into the process of finalizing. GMP number three is the one we've been spending most of our time on and a tremendous amount of effort. That I'm bringing to you on August 7th. So, we are effectively submitting it tomorrow to the clerk. We should have that in front of you so very soon. So, we're turning it over very quickly. And that one's going to be really the one that we've spent the most effort on, kind of in the details. And it specifically deals with all of the spaces that are surrounding the bowl itself, a lot of the architectural finishes, the flooring, those sort of things, the audio-video components of the project, the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing components. And I'll get in more detail with that once we have that GMP in front of you. And then, the fourth one is the video production, which we're also in the process of scoping, getting that GMP put together. And that one's going to be September 4th. So, these are going to come pretty quickly, sequentially. And then, the last one is not part of the construction manager scope. We're going to do a direct purchase with Shaw Construction, who is the field contractor, who's done all of the field turf work for the Rays in the past. We're working directly with them. It's going to be a procurement item. We're also going to bring that on August 7th. And all of these are just, again, is to get this work ordered, get shop drawings approved, get it all in place so that it's timed with the completion of the project. So, this is kind of maybe a little bit of a lot of information on one page, but it was meant to be kind of just a snapshot of where we are this month and going into August. It's not indicative of, you know, beyond the end of August. For the fabrication and the delivery of the roof fabric, you've probably seen, and I'll show you some photos of the work that's been going on, the access netting arrived July 14th. And they're in the process of installing the netting now. It's going to take through the month of August. And that's the blue netting that you may have seen if you've driven around. That work is significant. It's essential. It's hard work. I would say that I would not go anywhere near it. It's this very specialized folks that are hanging off the structure and installing that netting, which serves as a work platform. That netting is where they're going to work off of in order to pull and set the actual panels, the fabric panels. The delivery of the – there's four groups of separate deliveries of the PTFE panels. The first group, each group consists of six bundles, and that's a total of 24 bundles in the entirety. The first group, we expect the first week of August, and the installation of that first bundle, the first group of six bundles, will take place between August 9th through the end of August. So a lot happening quickly in terms of getting the roof started. The next series of bundles in September, we'll get the second bundle, and it'll be installed in the month of September. Same thing with the third bundle, end of September through the month of October, and the fourth bundle in October and November. So as you see, we are on the target schedule that we said we would be, barring any major weather issues or concerns. I don't see there being – other than that, other than unpredictable weather, I believe we can achieve the schedule that we set out to achieve. So the non-roof portions of the work, where we are right now, again, the metal panels, which were approved, we're going to take procurement through the month of August, and then following procurement, it's going to be starting to schedule the work. And also in the month of August, this GMP number two that we've just – asking for approval on, it's really – it's more of the preparation of the submittals. It's getting all the procurement done. And same thing with the other major components. So the month of August is really finalizing the scope, getting procurement, getting it all set up. Really, none of – most of these elements in the non-roof portion really need to happen after the roof or most of the roof is dried in. And so possibly in the month of November, December, January, February, March, that's when a lot of this work is going to take place. The field, the field is going to be one of the last things we do. So the field will probably be a February date. So for right now, it's going to be mostly just getting the approvals and so on. So I wanted to just – I've shown this before, but just so the public can see, because now it's actually – you can actually see it. This is a real quick little diagram of how we go about putting that membrane roof back on. The first one is basically just getting it set, hoisting all the tools and the panels and putting them on the ring beam. The second image there is installing the netting. And as you can see, the netting is installed every other bay so that they can work off of the netting in order to install the panels itself. There's a lot of support rigging that goes into this and a lot of work to get it done. And then the third, on the bottom left, the first one is start unfolding the first panel. So you pull the panel up, easy shown, but not easily done, and then securing the panel against the rigging and tensioning the panel, putting in all the strands and the valley cables, and then ultimately removing the netting and working off of the previously installed panels to install the panels in between. So it's a lengthy process. Here's an image taken, I think, this week, earlier this week. As you see, the crane that's assisting with lifting the netting. They're laying out the netting on the slab of the bowl, the field itself. And here's a gentleman up on the netting earlier this week. And you can see the – and also in this image you see the lights, which we're requesting under this GMP. And then I think they've got – they're working off of center field and kind of home plate. So those are where they're starting because those are the first – that's the first bundles that are coming in. So the timing is get those in first, then provide for those panels to be installed. And here's just another image. So with that, happy to answer any questions, and I appreciate all your support. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you so much. And thank you, Raul and Beth, for all your hard work and for your one-on-ones. Appreciate you. I'll be honest. I do have hesitations with voting on this, specifically when consulting with residents in my district, residents across the city, who are concerned that we are in a hurry, we are in a rush to move these repairs forward. Meanwhile, the Rays, still unknown what's going to happen, right? They're dragging their feet. Meanwhile, it's full throttle with us. So it's almost like, you know, the priorities are solely baseball. And I'm not saying that we can't walk and chew gum, because I know we are, but it's just there has been so much of a focus placed on repairing a stadium where the future is unpredictable after 2028. So I just want to know, with the new ownership coming on board, what happens if we spend all this money on repairs only for he or she to come along and say, oh, we want to change things? What does the existing agreement say? Are there any provisions that protect things that have already been done? Yes, Councilmember, that would not be an option. I mean, as Beth indicated, there's an obligation, just as we have obligations related to the repair of the dome, there are obligations on the other party to fulfill everything that's laid out for them. And that would include coming back and playing home games. So that's irrespective of any ownership structure of the team. Change of ownership does not remove that requirement. Thank you for clarifying that. And if you'll also clarify, Jackie, for those who are listening, should we say, hey, we want to neglect our responsibilities and not move forward with repairing Tropicana Field? What are the legal complications or, excuse me, consequences? I mean, then we would be in breach of the agreement. If we did not fulfill it, there could be a lawsuit against us, damages sought, and potentially other remedies. And I appreciate that. And my last question for your old, because I know other Councilmembers have questions as well, the CBA. So I'm thinking about the community benefits agreements, right, and how it will help minority contractors. So not in this GMP, but in future GMPs, is there an opportunity for them to tap into this project? I'm thinking about mechanical, you know, engineering. I'm thinking about electrical. That's a great question, Councilmember. And we have been diligently working on that. And these GMPs did not provide for those opportunities because they were very specific to a product that just didn't work out. But the next GMP absolutely does. It has involved our construction manager has done an outreach to the community, to the SB market, to the minority market as well. So there's going to be representation. I don't have all the details, but I will have it next time I'm in front of you. So there has been opportunity. You're absolutely correct. And we've been striving that we've been actually really supporting that effort on their end as well. And we've engaged our Office of Diversity as well. And so we expect to have that answered fairly, very quickly for you. That's great news, and I appreciate that. And I'm just thinking about, you know, outreach. I would love to help you as a Councilmember, right? So when those opportunities do arise, can you let us know as Councilmembers so that, hey, if there is someone who we know who specializes, right, in plumbing, electrical, we can put them on notice. A lot of times the community just does not know about opportunities. And I don't want a prime opportunity, 86 acres, right, to just slip away from us, and they didn't have a shot at this redevelopment. So I just really want to be intentional about connecting our partners to opportunities that are available. And let me just say one more thing. One of the key team members here is Hennessy Construction. And Hennessy Construction has been asked to be the lead in that effort because they understand the community a whole lot more than AECOM Hunt does. And so the Hennessy team is the one that's been generating that outreach and contacting the support members and the subcontracting team. So I think we heard that clearly, and we've been telling and reminding the team that, yeah, they have got to come out and show us what they did to demonstrate that they did the outreach and supported that effort. Yeah, and I want to know what they're doing because I'm still talking to these subcontractors who would be perfect, right, for these opportunities, and they don't know. Okay. And I don't know how to connect them, right, because I don't know when these opportunities are available. So that's why I don't want to be kept in the dark. So when these opportunities do arise, please, please, Raul, let me know. Okay, well done. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And the photos are really helpful. It's really quite striking. At first glance, it's like, wow, that's what it would look like if it was an outdoor stadium. It's pretty wild. I will be getting with Beth to get over there because I want to see the incredible acrobatics of the people who are doing that. It kind of flips my stomach a little bit just looking at it, you know. And, oh, the question that I had, this is good. I mean, I do understand, you know, what's required. Is MLB good with everything so far, meeting those standards that are required? Oh, yes, absolutely. Both the Rays and MLB have been a part of the discussions throughout. We have weekly meetings with them. They understand what's in the GMP. If there's an approval requirement from Major League Baseball, we obtain it. So, so far on this, the early GMPs, I don't think we've seen that. We're going to see it on some of the other ones, particularly the field. They have to approve that, absolutely. So, they're very engaged and they're very aware. Okay. Something that's not required is the offices outside of the bowl, as Beth calls it. So, that is not something that we have to do. We don't have any plans to do anything with that. But the reality is that the Rays do not have offices in the building and their temporary offices are up against the clock now because that block is going to be redeveloped, has there been a conversation, and a short answer is fine, with the Rays about repairing the offices at their expense just to whatever extent they want so that they become usable. And if they were open to that, and maybe I'll already have the conversation, I'm just wondering what would happen then. Would we be able to work together to make sure that that happens? We're not preventing it. We're not stopping that from happening, right? I would just say that they're aware of that possibility, that they have that option, if they would like to go forward with that. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that there's nothing where we're saying they cannot do that, if it's at their expense, if they wanted to do that. Because I know they've got to figure that part out, too, when they, you know, have to leave their current digs. Right now, we're not on the next GMP that is dealing with those sort of issues. It does not include, it will not include any of the Rays' offices. Right, right. And that's how it should be, because it's not required. If they were to engage on that and have an interest in doing that, what would the timing need to look, when do they need to let you know if they want to renovate the offices? Beth, if you've had a conversation, it's a hard question. Well, because you were talking about the schedule and the. Yeah, it would, so the work that's being brought to you on the next GMP has already had, you know, outreach and bidding and procurement. So none of that's been done on anything other than the work that we're responsible for. So I would say, yeah, it wouldn't be done quickly. It would have to be additive, and I would come back with, you know, that impact. But right now, it's not on our radar, and we're just so laser-focused on the things that we have to do. And it doesn't have to be on your radar, but if that were to happen, I imagine some coordination needs to take place. There's going to be coordination. And I'm happy to hear that we are open to that. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Roll, thank you very much. I think we, the whys and the wheres and the rest of this have been answered in a well-traveled path. What we're left with is the how. And I just wanted to take a minute to commend you and your team. This is a one-time thing. You have no mentor. You have no path to follow. You are manufacturing product in multiple countries on multiple continents. Literally, the sun does not set on this project until it all arrives here. And this is outside of the normal wheelhouse of what this team does. So thank you very much. The heavy lift is noticed. I think that along the way you're having a little fun with it. But this is a Herculean task in a very short period of time. And I wanted to say thank you and commend your team on behalf of us up here. Appreciate it very much. Pretty impressive. Chair, with that, I'll move approval of F4 and F5. I think we can put them together. Yes. I think we already have one. Do we? I didn't think so. Do we have a motion a second? I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. So we've got a motion. Second. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Fix Sanders. Thank you. Sorry about that. Council Member Hardy. Just want to kind of clarify, especially one that worked on the CBA process. This is a city project, for those that are listening. It has absolutely nothing to do with the CBA process. So I do commend the city for encouraging the contractors to use the SBE, MBE vendors that we have. But the CBA process is something separate from this that we're working. We're going to have to revisit that. So when I heard the CBA process and the TROP, they're not connected. And the hurry, I would like to say, would be hurricane season. The sooner we get it done, the better the outcome would be, especially with the clarification that we've had for the longest, that we have to do it. We are legally bound to get it done. And so the hurry would be to ensure hesitation would not cause additional damage greater than the amount that we've already sacrificing to repair this TROP. We have to do it. And, unfortunately, you know, we are the administration that is fulfilling it. But moving forward, I think we have to ensure, and I think the conversation that you're giving in regards to why we're moving in the steps, because we've already gotten the timeline, and I think we're on point with our timeline. So those of us that were presented the timeline kind of expected it to be at this point. My only concern is going to be additional funds that I spoke in our 101. But I just don't want people to think that this is a part of the CBA process, because it is not. So with that, thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember McCoy. Thank you. So, Raul, really cool to hear that things are on schedule. Very impressive. And, you know, if they continue to be on schedule, I think you're setting a high bar for city projects in the future. So I'll say that I do have one question for administration, really, since, you know, this topic's come up. So, I guess, how do I frame this, FEMA reimbursement, are we still feeling as optimistic as ever, or what? Because, you know, the news every day about FEMA is not good. Good evening, Council. We are working diligently with FEMA and the state of Florida on all the projects that we have underway. Clearly, this is the biggest one that we have, obviously, with Tropicana Field. But we are providing all the information they are requesting. We are putting ourselves in the best position. Certainly, no one has a crystal ball as to, you know, what is going to happen ultimately with FEMA. But we are feeling really confident about the work that we're doing, the information that we're providing, that we're sharing with FEMA. And we are going to position ourselves the best to get as much funded out of that, netting out insurance proceeds and other things that we will have. Okay. And I'm glad you brought up other projects as well. Yeah, I've just been curious, in general, if we were just still feeling good or optimistic or had, or even broader than that, had any negative indications yet. And so that's not what I'm hearing from you. So I'm grateful to hear that. But that's all on that. I'll just end by touching on a couple of other council members have touched on it. I might touch on it every single time this comes up. My preference for this project would have been a settlement. And my colleagues did not feel the same. And I don't feel we had an adequate conversation about that possibility at the time when we did the roof. So I voted against the roof. That door has closed completely now. And so I'm going to continue to support us making sure we, you know, finish the project out and complete our legal duty since I don't see a way out of it at all. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you. I just wanted to make mention, I'm not going to go back and forth on this, but that the CBA has nothing to do with the TROP. I just want to make mention the CBA is a very crucial part of the Tropicana Field redevelopment. Whether it's a city-owned project or not, that has nothing to do with it. I want to remind some council members that there was an entire community that was displaced to make way for Tropicana Field. So anytime we talk about redevelopment of Tropicana Field, it better have everything to do with community benefits because a community was displaced. Especially when we talk about the benefits to South St. Pete. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Anowitz. Just to touch on what Council Member Floyd said, look, I don't like this. I don't think anybody likes this, and I think part of the problem is that you need two parties to come up to an agreement, and we know that those parties are not on the same page. And I just, you know, at the end of the day, it wasn't going to where it was going to go into settlement from everything that happened. And unfortunately, we had an agreement that we had to deal with, but trust me, I agree with you. Would I like us to be in a different position and not pay this? Absolutely. But I do want, and I think it's a general sense, and I don't want to speak for other Council Members and for administration or anybody involved, but it does, I'm pretty sure, give a lot of people heartburn that we have to pay this and not know what the future brings to Tropicana Field. And for those out there, they're wondering, well, why are we doing this? Because the reality is, under the contract, we just have to. That's the bottom line. And this is a contract that was entered into many years ago. And if there was a way out, trust me, I would have been screaming about it, one way or the other, and some other people on Council would have, too, I'm pretty sure, an administration. So I just wanted to just put that out there to make sure that you're not the only one that felt like that, and I feel the same way. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We've got a motion and a second for F4 and F5. 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 agenda items F4 and F5 passes unanimously. Okay. Council Members, it's 5.15. We've been going almost four hours. We do have public hearings that we're supposed to start at 5.01. Do you guys want to take a 10-minute break, come back? Okay. So I heard one yes, so that's enough for me. So we're going to come back at 5.25, go straight into public hearings, and then we'll do the rest of our agenda. Council is in recess. Bring City Council back into order, and we are going to skip down and go into our public hearings. This is quasi-judicial matter. Clerk, could you swear in all parties, please? Anybody wishing to speak on this matter, please stand. Do you swear or affirm that evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Okay. All right, and then if we could please read the ordinance. Proposed ordinance number 138 HL, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, designating the Rule G Gilbert House, located at 1027 38th Avenue North, as a local historic landmark, and adding the property to the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places pursuant to Section 16.30.070, City Code, and providing an effective date. And we have no cars. Okay. Administration, you're up. Kelly, welcome. Good evening. Kelly Perkins with Historic Preservationist of the City of St. Pete, and we are here for local historic landmark designation of the Rule G Gilbert House. And we receive no public comments for this item. This is an owner-initiated designation application, and the subject property is located in the Allendale Terrace neighborhood. So here's a photograph of the house. It was built by Cade Allen in 1925. It is a mix of Mission Revival and Mediterranean Revival styles with whimsical elements, and this eclectic blend is a hallmark of Cade Allen designs. So Cade Allen is from New York, where he was a brick mason. He and his wife moved to St. Petersburg in 1911. During the teens, he dabbled in the local real estate industry and operated a farm near Crescent Lake. In 1920, he purchased 135 acres of land that had previously been a citrus grove. The photograph of him and his wife and their children are on the bottom left. So he kind of developed the neighborhood that is now known as Allendale Terrace, and the development was guided by rigorous deed restrictions, limiting development to single-family residences of a minimum cost of $10,000, which were to be constructed in the Spanish, Gresham, Moorish, Mission, Italian, colonial, or English types of architecture. Houses were required to be built of masonry and have at least a partial second story, and all building plans are subject to review by Allen himself. So Cade Allen has built a lot of the houses in this area, and he was known to be a very high-quality builder in this area, even through the bust and the Depression, retained very stable housing prices, and a lot of that was attributed to the high-quality of building in this neighborhood. So in Allendale Terrace today, there's been identified at least 40 houses that were built, rehabilitated, or designed by him. Six are currently local historic landmarks, and this property would be the seventh. So as stated, the home was built in 1925 as a speculative house for sale, and it was purchased by Ruel B. Gilbert in April 1932, and he and his wife were residents of the house for many decades until both of their deaths. So Ruel Bernhard Gilbert was from Tennessee, born in 1875. He's credited as being one of the originators of the J.C. Penney store. Staff cannot fully verify that, but we did find that he had managed a J.C. Penney store in Oklahoma for 11 years, and in the newspaper announcement about his retirement, they talked about how he'd spent decades opening stores in Tennessee and Washington, which indicates a long involvement with the company. He also retired in his mid-50s and moved to St. Petersburg, where he and his wife became significant donors and philanthropists, which indicate, obviously, a significant wealth that was probably tied to the J.C. Penney store. He passed away in 1960, and his wife continued to live in the house until her passing in 1983, and her obituary stated that she continued to manage her husband's estates and gave to many local charities for social causes. So just to give an indication on the newspaper article on the right, it's from 1950 where he donated $50,000 to the first Methodist church to build a new chapel. $50,000 in today's dollars would be more than half a million. So there's been little changes of this building from the exterior to the interior, which still contains a lot of the hallmarks of Kate Allen designs, even including the original kitchen cabinets, which I think is very fascinating. So staff found that, you know, one, the building needs to be more than 50 years old, and this house will be celebrating its 100-year anniversary birthday in October. So it exceeds that minimum age. And staff also found that it meets three of the nine criteria for eligibility. It's identified as a work of Kate Allen, who is a master builder. Its value is a recognized for quality of its architecture and having distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style valuable for the study. It's also for areas of significance. It's for community planning and development for being located in the Allendale Terrace neighborhood, for its quality of architecture, and its association with Kate Allen. Staff also found that it met all seven factors of integrity. And then here's a list of its character-defining features, which I can read them all here. They're also in the staff report, but a lot of it is related to some of its whimsical elements, such as that decorative stucco, all of the raised spiral ornamentation that's throughout the house, the decorative plastering of the leaves and the birds, as well as the style of the chimney with the elaborate chimney top. Last month, CBPC voted unanimously to recommend this application for approval, and staff is also recommending approval. And thank you. That is the end of my presentation. I do not see that the owners are here. They do live in Sarasota currently. Okay. But I'm here to answer any questions. Thank you. Okay. So applicant obviously has no presentation. Assuming there's no opponent. No. Okay. So this should be relatively easy. No cards. All right. So we'll go into cross. City waves. Okay. Not sure who you'd question anyway. Obviously applicant and opponent. No, not here. Any closing remarks? No. Thank you. Okay. Then we'll move into executive session. We'll go to Vice Chair Hanowitz. Well, thank you for the presentation and the wonderfully written report. I love to read all the history. Very detailed. I want to note something in the report where it talks about Kate Allen, that he lived at 1492 4th Street North. That's Free Bird's Taverns. Yes. And it's like the house, if you look at it, that's where they lived with his family. It's just like such a neat piece of history. Most people don't realize that that's where Kate Allen lived. So I just wanted to point that out. But anyhow, first of all, the house is beautiful. I've passed by this many times, 38th Avenue. And you see a lot of the homes there that have the Kate Allen style, which is beautiful. And so clearly who owns it now and who's owned it before have done a good job at trying to maintain it. I'm sure it takes a lot of work. As us that have older homes to understand, it is a lot of work. And so I'm very excited to support this. I wish it was one block south, which would be in my district, but it is in Council Member Harding's district. And so I'm very happy for the city and for Council Member Harding to have this in his district. So I'm going to be very happy to support this. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. These are always my favorites because first it's owner initiated. And, you know, we read a lot of boring stuff in these agendas. This is the fun stuff. This is where, you know, you just really get a sense of where we came from in our city. And I'm sure that it is a lot of fun for you as you do the discovery on these types of items. I do wish the owners were here so that I could thank them for this effort. And just the way that this home has been preserved, both interior and exterior, it's just extraordinary. And these are the types of designations that we want to see more of. So that, especially now in our time of so much growth, that we continue to honor the past in ways like this. So thanks for all of your work on this and for giving us something enjoyable to read. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Move approval. Thank you. Second. We have a motion and a second. Kelly, thanks for the presentation. It's a beautiful home. I agree with Council Member Driscoll. I do wish the owners were here so we could celebrate it. But it is a gorgeous home. Thanks for the presentation, Kelly. We have a motion and a second for J-1, seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you open the machine for voting? Council Members, go ahead and answer your votes. Seeing as all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, I motion to approve a gen item. J-1 passes unanimously with Council Member Floyd being absent. Okay. Thank you. All right, Council, we are going to recess the City Council and move and convene as the CRA and move into CRA2, where we've got a presentation. And Corey Malishka is joining us on an in-town redevelopment plan. Yes, thank you. Corey Malishka, City of St. Petersburg, zoning official. Today, I bring you the subject property that's located at 322, 332, and 344, 4th Street South, and is currently developed with four buildings. One is a two-story, four-unit apartment building that was built in 1916. Second is a two-story, two-unit apartment building built in 1920. A two-story, four-unit condominium building built in 2003. And a three-story, 19-unit apartment building that was built in 1920. The applicant is proposing to demolish the existing improvements and to construct the proposed development. A little background. On January 4, 2024, the Community Redevelopment Agency found the plan to construct a 25-story building with 152 dwelling units, 4,800 square feet approximately of commercial space, and a 130-space parking garage that was located at 332, 340, and 344, 4th Street, consistent with the redevelopment plan. The applicant is seeking this modification to the previous approval to increase the number of floors to 29 from 25, increase the number of dwelling units to 165, incorporate the property to the north at 322, 4th Street, into the project. The previous approval also did include a level of underground parking, a rooftop bar, and a condo hotel or short-term rental. The modification includes removing all of these three items. The proposed commercial square footage will decrease slightly by 790 square feet. This is the overall site plan, so you can see to the left-hand side of the screen the incorporation of the lot, which is actually on the north side of Charles Court. The proposed 29-story building will be centered along 4th Street, leaving a large uncovered open space along 4th Avenue South and a service parking area in the north side of the existing alley. The upper portion of the proposed tower overhangs the ground floor of the building, leaving an area for a covered open space along 4th Street South and 4th Avenue South. The ground floor of the proposed tower will consist of the residential lobby, commercial space, back-of-house facilities, loading areas, uncovered and covered open space, and the parking garage entrance. The parking garage entrance will be from 4th Avenue South and provide access to three levels of parking. The fifth floor will be devoted to amenity space. Floors 6 through 29 will be devoted to residential units. Pedestrian access to the lobby will be from 4th Street South side of the building, and pedestrian access to the commercial space will be both from 4th Street and 4th Avenue South. The loading area, service parking, and dumpster areas will also be accessed from the existing East-West Alley, also known as Charles Court South, and the North-South Alley. The service parking lot will be shielded from view from 4th Street by a three-foot-tall decorative block wall and landscaping. Before you today is the north and south elevations. The north elevations will be visible from 4th Avenue. The building, as described by the applicant's architect, is designed in a contemporary architectural style, infused with modernist cues. At street level, the art plaza engages directly with the street. The pedestrian space connects the building with the public realm. The three-level parking podium is distinguished from the base and the upper floors of the building by using sculptural curved lattice screens. Above the podium, the menu level opens to the sky as an airy landscape terrace. The tower is defined by a thoughtful interplay of balconies and openings. Prying the tower, a sculptural rooftop feature, is a circular oculus. Warm champagne-hued accents contrast the tower's dominant beige palette, while textured, prefabricated concrete panels introduce richness and depth. This is just going to be the east facade, which is interior to the property. This is the western facade, which will be visible from 4th Street. Here's a little bit of a rendering if you're standing across at the church looking northeast. So it's part of the redevelopment and the process and why we're here is that the CRA is required to review this for consistency with the redevelopment plan. Prior to the implementation of this plan is the overall land use emphasis in order to achieve the concentration and form of development desired. Within the redevelopment area, there are four focused areas that do include the core, web city, the stadium complex, and the surrounding residential areas. This location is within the residential area of the redevelopment plan. The IRP is intended to help implement that 24-hour work and live environment, which is an important component of the redevelopment plan. The IRP also does include design and development guidelines to ensure compatibility with existing and new developments, as well as the types of development that the city is looking for. These include compliance with land development regulations. Developers shall submit projects to the CRA for review. Development should provide design elements that could include trees, canopies, street furniture, entryways for a building to be scaled with a human dimension. Development shall provide appropriate architectural variety. Parking structures shall provide a decorative facade. Open space shall be directly linked to the pedestrian system, as well as open space relates to activities within the block place. Infill development should create a sense of place and identity. And all new developments shall relate to other buildings within a similar scale mass. Development should be consistent with other permitted uses within the downtown. And finally, development intensity and uses shall be governed by the underlying zoning district. So, with respect to the land development code, the property is located within the DC2 zoning district. Multifamily and commercial uses are both permitted in the zoning district with a max FAR 7.0. The proposed development has a proposed FAR 7.0. Proposed building will also fit in with older or newer developments in the redevelopment plan area. The building's urban scale, pedestrian-oriented features, including ground-level commercial space, lobby entrances, floor-to-ceiling, storefront windows, and covered open spaces. Proposed building height, placement, and massing are consistent with other existing and proposed developments within the media area. Site improvements do include a 10-foot-wide sidewalk, street trees and landscaping, large uncovered and covered outdoor open spaces, bicycle parking, and a new drainage system. The pedestrian improvements will also contribute to a pleasurable walking experience and provide wide-shaded sidewalks and covered open spaces. Another rendering, if you're looking at northeast again, but this time near the actual interstate entrance or exit. The existing development pattern does contain a variety of building types, styles, heights, masses, setbacks, and orientation. The building form and the relationships of the building are consistent with other developments in the district. Here's another view if you're standing on the south side of 4th Avenue South, looking north. Other multi-story residential developments with the immediate area include the Sage, which is at 400 4th Ave South. It's a 13-story residential building. Camden and Pier District, which is at 330 3rd Avenue, 3rd Street South, excuse me, is an 18-story building, also mixed-use. Salterre is at 301 1st Street South. It's a 35-story mixed-use building. And Evo Apartments at 334 2nd Ave South is a 24-story building. At 235 3rd, it's currently under construction, and that will be 33 stories. The building design took into consideration the relationship with newer developments in the immediate area by creating a continuous street edge, integration of open space and landscaping, and concealing the parking garages. Lastly, the applicant is proposing to contribute $700,000 to the Workforce Housing Trust Fund. In conclusion, staff recommends approval of the attached resolution, finding the proposed plan consistent with the redevelopment plan. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any cards on this item? Okay. All right. We'll go to Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you so much. I will have to say, Corey, I'm disappointed. I'm saddened. I am not anti-development, but I'm smart development, right? I'm pro-smart development. And to me, this just is not smart. We're talking about squeezing another Montrosity into a half-an-acre site. We have 165 units, 30 plus, 29 floors. Neighboring this, we have a 35-story building, a 33-story building, a 24-story building, an 18-story building. We can't handle that. Our infrastructure just cannot support projects of this magnitude consistently in the same area, too. So I'm just concerned. I have one main concern, which is just a lack of parking capacity. And the one that stands out to me the most is the fact that we are demolishing four buildings that, although they don't have historic designation status, nevertheless, they are historic. Buildings that were built in the 1920s are getting ready to just be bulldozed and erased to make way for a luxury condominium that most of us can't even afford. So when do we stop the squeeze? Where does it stop? I understand that's not up to you, but at what point do we say no to these developers? Is that a real question? Yeah. So, you know, I think that this is a much larger discussion that we should have, and we'd be happy to meet with you one-on-one. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of benefit to the city by putting density in an area where it's zoned for density, and we have a comprehensive plan. We work with city council on where this is going to go, and we have a plan, a guiding plan that Corey's here to present to. And we feel we certainly have the infrastructure and the capacity, and we'd be happy to sit down with you and walk through all the details. I do have to say, you know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and I'll just say personally, I don't see that architecture as a monstrosity. So I'll just put that on the record. Thank you. Fair enough, yeah. And I would love to have that one-on-one conversation. I don't know if it's going to change things moving forward because I understand, A, property rights, right? We can't impose on that. But at the same token, we have to send the right message, right? And what is the message that we're sending? The fact that employees who work just a few blocks away at Publix will never be able to afford to live here? The fact that it's already bottlenecked at that intersection when you're trying to get on the highway at rush hour, and now we're getting ready to bring 165 more units right there? I just have concerns and trepidation, so I just wanted to go on record saying that, so thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. Corey, this was the old condo hotel proposal, and so I wanted to speak because I think both Council Member Driscoll and I last time voted against this, and so I do not see some of the people that were here last time, and I just didn't know what some of the outreach had been regarding this development. Yeah, that would be great. And the other thing before, and one of the other things that maybe while people are here and you can think about, because I didn't have an opportunity to talk to you about this, and I brought it up at the last time we brought up this issue. So, you know, downtown, you get density, obviously, and that's fine, but obviously there are different districts in downtown, and, you know, you have the D.C., the core, D.C. 1, you get to D.C. 2, and there are different standards, and when we're looking at this, and this is an issue that I've struggled with, and it says it's in compliance with the zoning district standards, and therefore it is consistent with the IRP, and that's the finding or the recommendation. When I look at the standards of the D.C. 2, just like the D.C. 3, D.C. 2 specifically says heights in the district begin to taper down, and so I think sometimes when we start getting pushback, it's like how does that work, right? You read the standards. I know there's the floor area ratio and all that, and the idea is, right, the closer you get to the core of downtown, the higher it gets and the closer it gets, and so can you just touch a little bit upon that because I think sometimes that's what residents that may be close to those areas, they have issues with in terms of, like, knowing, understanding that, yeah, it's downtown, but there are different parts of downtown with different zoning and different intensity and all that, and then I would love to hear, you know, obviously from anyone who's here would like to speak on the development and whatever outreach and what's happening and all that to give them an opportunity to speak and hear from Council Member Driscoll also, so thank you. So, yes, there is that statement in the code about D.C., and that relates to the height map. So it's not saying that, you know, the height map is not inclusive of the zoning districts. So in parts of D.C. 2, it's unlimited, and other parts of D.C. 2, it's restricted, especially if you're going out west to the interstate. Recently, the Tropicana site, we did a change in 2019 to actually increase the building height because it was restricted to 200 feet, which is what mostly you'll see on the west side of ML King. And as you get closer into the core, it's unlimited in parts of the core, and then, of course, if you go D.C. 2 to the north, now you're getting to all northeast. It's getting restricted again to 200. On this side, we're abutting USF. We're abutting the hospital campus. It's far more intense than what you see on the north side. So in this area, yeah, the height map is going to be different for D.C. 2 based on the surrounding development patterns. And, yes, a lot of constituents that we do work with on the citizen side do say, well, this is what the code says. I'm like, that's the intent of what the map is. This is like the intro to where this map came from. Good. Thank you. And to give the applicant opportunity, if there's anything that they want to say in terms of any community outreach or? Yeah. Matt Poling, 200 Central Avenue, here on behalf of the applicant. So, Councilmember, the applicant worked directly with the Sage Condos. That's who was here last time. And we're happy to say they're in support of the project at this point. Good. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Thank you. Is that it, my chair? Yeah, that's it for me. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And just to finish on that, in two weeks, we will be taking this to DRC. So, that's a public hearing. Public notice has gone out for that process. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Corey. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I was opposed to this project with its previous iteration. And the changes, the modifications that have been made to the project really have shifted this for me. It's almost like they fixed it. And now, I will be supportive because, even if I did have hesitations about, you know, the density or the height or whatever, what we're here as the CRA to do is vote, is to decide whether or not it is consistent with the IRP. Can you tell us maybe just two quick things about this project that make it consistent? Just in layman's terms, like, anything about blight or, you know, that usual stuff? Yeah, well, blight is one of the criteria or one of the reasons why the CRA exists. So, that can include buildings that are dilapidated as well as vacant property. You know, the apartment building that's there, the older building on the corner of 4th and 4th, is in significant disrepair. We have been receiving a lot of complaints. So, this would take and remedy that situation. It also talks about open space, the relationship of open space to the street. And they're doing a significant amount of open space on this project, especially on that corner. So, you're actually pushing the building back away from the corner, which is great. And the entrance into the garage is actually coming off the 4th. So, hopefully, the bottleneck will not be an issue. And even as part of this, it does comply with the land development code. But this also goes through and gets reviewed by our professionals, our engineering department, our transportation department, our water resources department, our real estate department, to ensure that this project today has capacity for our traffic, water, sewer. Because, yeah, at one point down the road, a project may not meet that. But right now, this project is being evaluated for that. Yeah, yeah. It does check the boxes. And I will say that the buildings that are there, the ones that are on the one or two by the corner there, are in really bad shape. And they have been for a very long time. So, I mean, I can tell you 10 years ago, 15 years ago, living downtown, walking my dogs by there, it always smells like mildew. It's gross. I would be, I was surprised that people would live there. But when you need to find something you can afford, you know, you make sacrifices. But it is, it has been, you know, it's old, doesn't always mean we got to save it. So this one was, these are just in significant disrepair and beyond help. So I am glad to see that this is being redeveloped with something that makes more sense for the space and the uses are more compatible with what we really want. I hope you never bring us a condo tell idea again. But I do want to point out that, yes, the residents who spoke about this project before had the same concerns that I did regarding the noise, regarding the condo tell aspect, and all of that. And that has all changed. So I am interested to see what the DRC has to say about it, as that is the next step. And then is that one then, it is not, is that one appealable to city council? Sorry, I know you know the answer to this one. So yes, we're limited on what we can talk about. Yeah, I'm not hearing anything about that. So thank you so much for this and for continuing to work with them to come up with some changes that actually make sense. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Yeah, my only comment would be thanks to the applicant for working towards a solution. And so thanks for bringing us something that I think is different and what we asked for from the original project. Okay, members, we have a CRA2 in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. 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 with your item CRA2. Passes 7 to 1 with Council Member Givings voting no. Okay, we will come back and convene as city council, and we have G1 in front of us. It's a new business item from me. And just quickly, a little bit of background before I read the notice. If you're not aware, at the end of the year, the enhanced premium tax credits are sunsetting. And if you're not aware of how that works, I will give a 30 second. So if you went on to, like, healthcare.gov or even through a third party and you got an income-based premium plan, healthcare plan, sometimes, certainly through a third party, you only saw the premium you were going to pay based on your income. You didn't see the subsidy in which you were receiving because of your income. That subsidy is going away. And so for a lot of people, they don't even know that they got one, and they don't know that their premium is about to go to what it was without the subsidy. And so this, in your backup material, as you can see, I tried to go through the right channels. Frankly, my heart wanted to just bring the resolution. My head told me to do it the right way and bring it to layer first. But this is just a resolution in support of continuing those enhanced premium tax credits because I think it's important that we came together as a city and talked about the importance of these for our residents. So I'll just read the new business item real quickly, and then I'll go to my council members. I'm respectfully requesting a referral to the Legislative Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations Committee to receive an update from our federal lobbyists and federal delegates regarding the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credit. And there is a resolution attached. And I'll go to Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Just whenever I read your item, the only thought that I had on this, because we do have our next layer meeting, is our federal priorities. So we will be talking about that. And so it would be perfect for that. I am not sure that delegates can be at that meeting, so that was my only point for the way that you wrote this. We can certainly – we will extend the invitation, and if they can be there, that would be fantastic. But we are planning on having our lobbying team there. And so certainly entertain, be glad to move this. But I would have also been just fine if you wanted to bring this as a resolution today and would be fine if you wanted to move this as a resolution today. Quite frankly, I think philosophically that I can't understand a reason why anybody would not support this. This is a very, very important piece of individuals being able to maintain healthy lives. We have an entire goal here in the city, a healthy St. Pete goal, and this plays hand-in-hand with that. So for me, I would have been happy if it was a resolution. And so I'd like to hear from my colleagues what they think about that, because legal, if it's okay, I'd be happy to move the resolution today. You could. Thank you, Council Member Gabbard. Very appreciative. I know in the past I have talked about process. I know. So I just wanted to respect that. Yeah. And I can't make motions, so I'll leave it to you. But I obviously would love to do that. But, again, wanted to respect the process. Well, for the sake of discussion, I'll make a motion to approve the resolution. Second. Okay. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And what I was thinking about when I saw this is I think it would probably be more effective to have the resolution pass if we all agreed to it before we actually went to the meeting. It's not complicated. It doesn't involve our budget. It's us supporting an enhanced premium tax credit, and it wasn't – I mean, I went through it. I support it. So – but I don't – again, I want to make sure that everyone else is fine with taking it up. But I just thought, based on your agenda item, it's going to layer, and that's where our delegates are going to – well, they're not going to be there. But at least maybe we can get some feedback. We can forward it to them and then get some feedback from whoever shows up at the layer meeting. And so I think that would be productive. That was what I wanted to chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I was just going to echo, like, yeah, I think it's appropriate sometimes just to bring the resolution straight here. I've done it before, but I've also sent it to committee before. This is something that we had a chance to look over. It's very straightforward. So I have no problem with the process of bringing it here. Things pop up in my mind. I think about bringing them straight here sometimes. We know. Yeah, I know. Y'all have all been through it, yeah. Occasionally I bring it – I've brought it to committee before as well, you know. So, yeah, look out. I probably will do it again soon. I'm like – it's, like, been a long time since I've brought something here for us all to – yeah, you know. We'll die of suppression. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, but, you know, I appreciate you thinking about the process, but I think it's totally appropriate, so I'm happy to support it. Thank you, Council Member Floyd. Council Member Gabbard. If this ends up passing as a resolution today, I will make sure that after it's signed, we will make sure we include this in our invitation to our delegates so that they know that we already have this as a priority. So I just wanted to make that commitment to you. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Okay. So do we need to change the title of the item, or is it just fine with G1 we're passing the resolution? I find that it's still G1. Okay. It's all under the same thing. I think as long as the motion reflected that it's passing the resolution rather than just referring it to a committee, that's fine. Okay. Oh, we're, hold on, we're doing it both. We're, hold on, we're having the, oh, no, you're not, okay. The agenda item is already the federal. Right. Yeah. Okay. I want, it's already happening, so yeah. This was just me attaching, so part of that conversation was this resolution. Right. Okay. Well, listen, colleagues, I very much appreciate it. Again, this is a world I live in, and I've got multiple clients that I've helped through this process, and so just thankful for your support. We have a motion and a second on the resolution. 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 gen item G1 passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Okay. We're going to move into open forum. Clerk, could you please call two at a time? I think it's Talcyana Haverkamp and Eli McFarland. McFarland, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to adjourn. I don't know who to look at. Who's going first? My name is Tatsyana, so I believe you said my name first. Let's go for it. Hi, thank you. My name is Tatsyana Haverkamp. I live at 871 64th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida. I'm here with the Bay Area Dream Defenders today to talk about our Save Our Streets program. What we are here advocating for and looking to get from you, council members, is a holistic approach to the youth programs in this city and more funding for said youth programs. We know that there are programs that exist in the city, but we're specifically looking for more investment into the Child's Park area at this time, which is felt left behind compared to other parts of our city. And we know that there are some good programs that do exist already locally, but people need help navigating this. If you go around and you talk in these communities and you talk to your neighbors, you know that folks don't really know how to find what they're looking for, how to get the help that they need. Or if they're financially restricted in any way, there's all these additional steps. If you've got to go through to get the grants, the funding in order to get your kids into these programs, we're looking to have that improved, have people help them navigate the process, get more people employed in these programs. Frankly, a lot of people feel pushed out. There's a loss of opportunities, not just in our city, but nationally due to the state of the world. And there's no such thing as too much investment in our future and in our youth. It builds up our communities. It reduces violence. This is what we're looking for and we're hoping to get from the city where the city puts its money reflects its priorities. So let's just make sure that the youth of Child's Park feel just as connected and valued as other youth in this city. Thank you very much. I'm Eli McFarland. I'm from 3601 30th Avenue North. I'm also in the Dream Defenders. And something that I think we should consider for increasing the funding for youth programs is the huge federal budget cuts for SNAP benefits, health care, and them destroying the Department of Education that will specifically affect children. And so I think we're really going to need youth programs more than ever to support the community when all those budget cuts hit. So it feels like a necessity at this point. If the federal government doesn't care, its only option is for the states and the cities to use our taxes the way people need them. Or else these problems that people already have are going to get way, way worse in about a year or two. So thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Jay James. Jay James and Yordanis Mola. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Hello. This needs to be up here still? Yeah, it just stays there. Okay. Sorry. Hello. My name is Jay James, pronounced a dim and dare, lifelong resident of this city, 2042 27th Street South, 3712. I don't know. I've been coming to y'all for years about various different things. But specifically for Save Our Streets, it's been, what, three years now? At first, we were told, oh, you're ready too late. You got to come earlier. So we come earlier. And then we go to, well, you're still waiting too late. You got to come earlier. It's like, what is it? It's like, we keep getting a runaround. All we're asking is for more funding for youth programs. We all say that we want to see more opportunities for our youth. Then let's put the money there. It's like, we've already cut, what, $8 million this year because of the tax, whatever. But still, we need to invest. We're raising the police budget by $10 million. So if we're kind of $8 million here, but we still have the money to raise the police budget by $10 million, but you're telling me we don't have money to actually fund the youth program, something is not adding up to me. It really is not. And, you know, the police are after the fact. We're trying to be before the fact. So it's like, it's wild to me that we keep getting told, you're waiting too late. I don't see how. And as Eli was saying, the situation nationally is getting worse for our youth. All the programs that we already know are federally funded are being cut. This is the time for the city to step up. This is the time. I don't know. It's starting to get a little, not starting, it is getting a little bit frustrating. It's like, we follow the procedures that people are telling us we should follow. You know, we come, we talk to y'all, we have one-on-one meetings with y'all in the mayor, and we still don't see things changing. You know, and I don't know. So it's getting frustrating, and it's disappointing. Yeah, that's all I'll say. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jordanos. I live on 2000 Gandy Boulevard, North St. Petersburg, Florida, 33702. And I'm here just to reiterate that the city budget should be a people's budget. We know there was a budget open house earlier in April, and we know that there are budget hearings coming in September. So we just wanted to continue the momentum of speaking our voice for our budget priorities for the community. And we know that there are already good programs in the area that do make a difference, but they are under advertised and underused. As we've mentioned before, when we speak to community members about what programs do exist, some of them don't know what exists at all, and some of them don't know what are the updated information for the programs that do exist, how to apply, what are the standards, et cetera, et cetera. Also, we had mentioned that the city needs to invest in more positions to engage in outreach. We've heard that there are a couple of navigators that exist through the city, and I know there are safe, I think it's called Safe Friday summer programs that are happening. I believe there's one coming up actually August 1st, and there were two already this summer. But we suggested for the city to come to existing community events in addition to hosting their own. One of the suggestions we have given while talking to city council meetings and also meeting with the mayor last week was to be able to go to those organic city or organic community events where people are already there, people are already organizing, that they may not hear about what city events are happening in the community, whether they don't see it on social media, they may not see it on the website or newsletter or through word of mouth. Another idea we have met and talked to the city council and the mayor is not just hiring the community organizers and specialists to be able to do outreach, but one idea that came out of some of those meetings was to hire youth as part of that initiative. So this also gives peer-to-peer outreach so that youth already know what programs do exist because they're hearing it from other youth rather than adults. And it also gives a job opportunity for youth and also helps them build leadership skills that they can utilize in life. And we want this idea to become a reality. So like we mentioned, the goals of the Save Our Streets campaign is a public safety issue and should be reflected in the city's public safety budget as the public hearings will be happening later this September. As Jay has already mentioned, we have noticed from the budget drafted, which was released earlier this month, that there was an extra $10 million allocated for the police to the 2026 fiscal year budget. And we deserve to see our local public officials prioritize safety of our people through these comprehensive solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. On the speaker, Mr. Chair, Sierra Clark, please go to the podium. State your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address it. Joyful day, beautiful people. My name is Sierra Clark. Address is 4544 22nd Avenue South. So again, I'm here with the Dream Defenders. We've come several times taking your advice on how we should probably try to do things. It's really confusing. It's a lot probably more confusing for our young people because they don't even know that they depend on you and that their families depend on you and that making the streets safe is dependent upon the choices you make. This isn't just about numbers. It's about our neighborhoods. It's about little people. It's about safety. Every city has a budget. Not every city has a heart. This is your opportunity to build and to invest in both. Public safety starts long before crime happens. It starts with prevention, connection, and opportunity, especially for our youth. Our young people don't need more patrols. They need more paths. We have nothing, no places for our young people to go. What are they supposed to do besides to get in trouble or I don't mind? It is your civic duty to listen to the voice of the people and not just listen. We've been face-to-face with many people, with our mayor, a lot of our council people, and we're just talking. It is our civic duty to make some changes that look like change, that feel like change, that sounds like change, and so to invest in more than just punishment but possibilities. What if you could say, I help make the streets safer, not by fear, but by faith, funding, and truly listening? We're resilient. We've proven that. But how far can the sycamore tree go if we keep cutting down opportunities for our young people to look and rise high, and they'll never know? Well, and is it fair for them to only believe in what probably they'll never see, right? If their parents are struggling, then the household struggles, and it's just a time for a change. They talked about the numbers, but if we are the bodies that God uses to make the change, and every decision you make should be for the betterment of the people. When Jesus died on the cross, he just didn't die. He went to sit on the right hand of God to intercede for us, because we are the sinners, and we are the ones who are still needing care. Our young people are still needing care. They are still needing our hands, our money, and we know that where we put our money shows what we care about. Why can't we not have our budget reflect that we truly want something safe for our youth? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think we have one on Zoom. Yes. Okay. Bryce Springfield, once you're into the meeting space, please unmute yourself. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address. City Council. Thank you, Council. My name is Bryce Springfield. At 11850, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street North, apartment 16209. I'd like to speak in favor of funding a feasibility study for public power, which is a basic standard of civilization across much of the world, as a majority of the world's generation and distribution of electricity is under public control. Public power is a great way for the city, subject to democratic accountability, to ensure our electricity production and distribution are incentivized to meet residents' needs, cut costs for residents, businesses, and the city, and feasibly get on track for our sustainability goal of 100% renewable energy by 2035. Given the great impact of the future of our electricity, great impact that it will have on us, regardless of the clear benefits of public utilities, I believe that it is a duty of the city to investigate all potential models. Public power, in particular, is, I think, a promising one, and we must pursue it. Thank you. Thank you. More speakers in person or in zone. Okay. We'll go ahead and close open forum, and we'll move into announcements. Any announcements, Councilmembers? Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it. I just wanted to remind Councilmembers, I know we heard from them last week, but Carefare will be taking place this weekend. And for those Councilmembers that are able to come out and get a tour of the Everett Health facilities, you'll be able to see those free physicals and dental examinations that they'll be offering, as well as free back-to-school supplies, right? So put the word out. Even if you can't attend, let your district know, as well as back-to-school on the deuces. So there's a collaboration taking place on 9th Avenue and 22nd Street. So that'll be at 10 a.m., so you have one starting at 8 a.m. You can eat a little something and get a couple of backpacks and walk on down the street and get a couple of more backpacks and a little bit more food down at the deuces, so at the Catalyst. So please come out. That's at 10 a.m. on this Saturday. So thank you so much, Chair. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. I just have two quick things. Just a reminder, on July 30th from 6 p.m. to 715, Representative Lindsey Cross is holding a town hall meeting at the Shore Acres Rec Center. And so I'm sure that'll be an informative discussion on a lot of different topics when it comes to the state legislature. And then also, last but not least, it's Council Member Floyd's birthday tomorrow. Oh, buddy. Looks like he thought he was going to get away with it. I hope. So let's sing Council Member Floyd, Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Council Member Floyd. Happy Birthday to you. Okay. Well, if there's nothing else for the guilty order, thanks, everybody. Council is adjourned. Thank you.