City Council - Jun 08, 2023

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Copley Gerdes, District 2, and Council Chair Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5, and Council Vice Chair Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad. And District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. We will call to order the June 8, 2023 City Council Meeting, beginning with a roll call. Driscoll? Here. Muhammad? Here. Floyd? Here. Gerdes? Here. Gabbard? Here. Montenari? Here. Hanowitz? Vic Sanders? Here. Okay, we are going to begin our meeting today with an invocation. We are joined by Chaplain Janet Clark of the U.S. Coast Guard, Sector St. Petersburg, to give our invocation. And afterwards, if you would all please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. Let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your presence and ask you to sanctify this space for the sacred duty performed for the sake of governing to make it possible for citizens of St. Petersburg to lead a quiet and peaceful life. May they know and enjoy the dignity of seeing the fruits of their labors, peace with their neighbors, and hope in the face of any obstacles. Renew fresh each day, and each member hear the courage of their convictions that led them to serve. Cause them to listen and to understand, and then hold up every thought and argument against the light of your perfect wisdom and discernment to apply their authority with clarity. May this chamber always be filled with the spirit of faith, hope, and love, so in our community outside these doors we may live in good order, tempered with grace and mercy. Amen. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you, Chaplain Clark. We appreciate you being here with us today. Council members, we have an agenda before us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Second. And we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda, and seeing no request for discussion, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Seeing all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to pass the approval of the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. And next we'll go to open forum. Clerk, will you please read the rules for open forum? If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, you may sign up with the clerk. Only the individuals wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once, during the open forum, or when the agenda 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 at and after, which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raised hand feature button on the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you have reached 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 material must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum. If live public comments is disrupted by the violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have a speaker. Okay. Anyone on Zoom, clerk? No one on Zoom. David Sokol, please come to the podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address counsel. All right, thank you. Hi, I'm David Sokol. My address is 302nd Avenue North, which is an address for Fresco's. I also am a 40-year City of St. Petersburg resident and have a law firm downtown. You may have heard Fresco's was in the news a little bit with regard to the request for proposal that's coming out for the marina. The RFP stated that whoever bid on the marina could also bid on Fresco's. From my side, I just wanted to introduce myself, let you know I'm going to do my best to hopefully be selected with the marina group. And I just wanted the council to be aware. I've hired my own architect to do designs, the same architect that did the initial opening and design of the pier. I've got a $4 million budget to demolish the building and pay to have it rebuilt there. I've been around for 20 years when I built it and first took it over. It was tiny. And the first is 2003. Downtown St. Pete, with all due respect, was not the same downtown St. Pete we have now. And so to take on that venture back then, I saw the vision that ultimately we have now in our city. I spent $100,000 building the deck, another $100,000 paying for the awning over the next few years, putting more money back in, another $100,000 in improvements. And I've managed to keep it going now for a further 20 years through pandemics, through oil spills, through Red Tide. I've got several employees, I'd say well over 10, 15, that have been with me 10, 15 years that we employ a lot of people. So my goal is that you'll find a way to keep us, and I can continue to employ my people. And I'm trying to do from a business side the right thing to do, but I do care about everybody. Thank you. No other speakers? No other speakers, Madam Chair. Okay, we will close open forum and go to our awards and proclamations, and we are going to start with item D1. And I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Gerdes to present Aphasia Awareness Month proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues. I am very honored to be before you today on this side of the dais to present this proclamation for Aphasia Awareness Month. Also very honored to be your CAFI representative. I've met some amazing people through CAFI, and frankly, it's a committee I continue to be impressed with and learn from and very happy to share this proclamation with everybody today. I have some friends of mine. I have Debbie Yones, who is also a CAFI member and the executive director of Voices of Hope for Aphasia. I have the founder of Voices of Hope, Mike Caputo. Two founding members, Ann and John Dingman, and the treasurer and a board of director, MC Daughtry, with me here to share this today. And again, thank you. Thank you for the privilege of doing so. Whereas aphasia is a language disorder caused by injury to the brain, most commonly because of a stroke, but can also occur with other neurological disorders such as traumatic brain injury, tumor, or progressive disease. And whereas aphasia may affect a person's ability to access language needed to speak, comprehend, read, or write, while intelligence remains intact. And whereas many people with aphasia may also present with right-sided weakness due to the damage on the left side of the brain, however, no visible impairments. And whereas it is estimated that a stroke occurs every 40 seconds in the United States, accounting for over 795,000 people per year, approximately 30 to 40% of strokes result in aphasia. And whereas approximately 34% of those people are living with chronic aphasia, 1,924 to 2,220 of the residents of the city of St. Petersburg are living with aphasia due to stroke. And whereas stroke accounts for 72% of the cases of aphasia, and so many as 3,055 people may be living in our city with aphasia due to etiologies. And now, therefore, I, Copley Gerdes, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim June 2023 as Aphasia Awareness Month in St. Petersburg, and encourage all citizens to increase awareness, advocate for resources, and provide support for those and their families in our communities living with aphasia due to stroke or other neurological disorders. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd ask Debbie to say a few words. I'm putting her on the spot, but I'm going to do it anyway. Oh, gosh. Thank you so much, Councilmember Gerdes. Yeah, totally on the spot. This means a lot to us. Unfortunately, very few people know what aphasia is until it happens to them or somebody they love. So increasing awareness, having the backing of the city to recognize June as Aphasia Awareness Month means everything to us and to all the people out in our community that don't know that resources exist. And Voices of Hope for Aphasia is right here in St. Petersburg to help people with aphasia and their loved ones. So thank you very much. Thank you for being here. And thank you, Councilmember Gerdes, for bringing forward the proclamation. And thank you to the mayor. Speaking of the mayor, we are now going to go on to item D2, and we are joined by Mayor Kenneth T. Welch to give the Gun Violence Awareness Month proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair and Council. It is great to be with you, to all of our citizens and our great St. Pete team. It's great to see you today. We have some important proclamations that we want to continue with. And for the next proclamation, it's a recognition of Gun Violence Awareness Month. I want to ask Reverend Ken Irby to join me at the podium. And representatives from Not My Child, from Moms Demand Action, and yes, that is former First Lady Carrie Christman with that group. Dr. LaDonna Butler, she's arrived. Reverend J.C. Pritchett of the IMA. And Marquis Scott, if you would please stand where you are or join me for the reading of this proclamation. We all know gun violence is an epidemic that impacts us all, regardless of age, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation. On the news, on social media, we have witnessed the trauma of senseless gun violence. And just last night, you probably have heard that one of our St. Pete police officers was shot at. As your mayor, I am deeply concerned about this issue, and I know that council shares the concern as well. And we look forward to the day when gun violence is no longer a national crisis. And to move us towards that goal, we will work to bring awareness to this issue and support those individuals and organizations, like the organizations represented here today, who work every day to end gun violence in our nation. One step to bringing awareness is the following proclamation, and it reads, Whereas Florida has the 30th highest rate of gun deaths in the United States, with almost 3,000 gun deaths every year, with a rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000 people. Beyond the devastating human and mental health toll, the crisis also has a fiscal impact, costing the state more than $40 billion each year, of which $876 million is paid by taxpayers. And whereas cities across the nation, including St. Petersburg, Florida, are working to end senseless gun violence. And whereas protecting public health and safety is our city's highest priority. And whereas city elected officials and law enforcement officers, in partnership with local violence intervention activists and resources, know their communities best and are most familiar with the most effective tools to increase public safety. And whereas gun violence prevention is vital for community safety, as we see an increase in firearm homicides and shootings across the nation, increased calls to domestic violence hotlines, and an increase in gun violence in our own community. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim June 2023 as Gun Violence Awareness Month in St. Petersburg and encourage all citizens to reduce gun violence and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe. Would anyone care to say a few words? Reverend Irby, let's start with you. Thank you, Mayor and Council. And I think this group of individuals standing with us deserve a big round of applause. This is the seventh year that our main initiative in the city emanating from within the police department has pivoted from not my son to not my child, an acknowledgment of the value of all of our children and the equal vulnerability of girls in terms of gun violence. Bullets don't have particular addresses on them. And so we thank the city and mayor for the support and the faith community, as well as the activists and concerned citizens and parents that have made this a priority and continue to not only on every Friday night of the summer, but through a variety of teaching and reaching resources in our community, we're making this community a more safe and a more peaceful community for the future generations and for us who are still here. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Reverend Irby. Thank you all for being here, and thank you to Mayor Welch and the acknowledgment of this proclamation and gun safety awareness. And unfortunately, it's not just a once-a-month event. It's a daily, hourly, by the minute. And we appreciate the support, and I am honored to do the work with these fine women and women and men across the country to help people, you know, live their lives safely and not be afraid of gun violence and that it's going to happen in their community. And we just all need to work together and do this. And I appreciate the acknowledgment on behalf of Moms Demand Action. Thank you. Thank you. Well, good afternoon. Clark Hazley, pastor of the Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church here in St. Petersburg, to Mayor Welch and to this council. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you all. With the Not My Child initiative, we're continuing to, specifically in the area where I pastor, the Child's Park area, to pass this message that gun violence is senseless. And so we can do our part to make people aware and educated. So we're inviting the community to come with us on tomorrow. We'll be going out into the community over in the Child's Park area at 6 PM. If you want to join us, we look forward to seeing many of you out there with us tomorrow as we go canvas this community to continue the message of gun violence. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Marie Scott, I represent our keys for life. I want to thank the mayor and of course, city council for allowing us to be here today. I represent the parents who've lost their children, who are traumatized again when we see another child lost in our community. I represent the students who saw their other students' brains blown out in the schools where they had to return to and get education. I represent the LGBT communities who have had safe places where they were targeted, and they have to find new safe places to be themselves. We are St. Pete. We are the people here who go through the trauma. When we lose someone, we're all affected. But we also are St. Pete in the way that we've overcome the trauma. We have come to terms with it. We've reached a place where we learned that we have endurance. We learned that we were strong. We learned that we could share that strength in the form of love from one person to another, for change happens one person at a time. I challenge everyone to reach outside of your normal comfort zone. And if not just this summer, at least this year, maybe once a week, speak to one other person outside of your comfort zone. Share a kind conversation with that kid down the street or with that neighbor up the road. Because even though you take care of your family, that kid down the street may be the kid that takes your kid's life. And that gentleman you may speak down the street, you may stop him from taking his wife's life or even his children's life. We've lost a lot of love, but we've gained so much more strength. Thank you guys for allowing me to speak. Keith's for Life has, I think last year we had over 569 kids adopt nonviolent lifestyles from our safety training programs. We've got about 5,000 pledges in the city and 1,000 over in Tampa right now. So the opportunity you gave us to reach out to help others has blessed us and blessed so many more. I want to thank you guys again. I want to thank you, Mayor. And I want you all to know that love is the key. Thank God, memorialize my son, and always bring awareness to this gun violence issue. God bless. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mayor, thank you for bringing this forward. And to all of you, just thank you for all the work that you do in our community and each and every day, minute by minute. That's exactly right. I'm thankful for all of you. I also just wanted to quickly, because we talked about it this morning, Senator Roussan is here. And during this last legislative session, Senator Roussan was able to fight for $5 million to bring back to communities like ours in order to fight gun violence. So, Senator Roussan, I just wanted to thank you as well. Thank you all for all you do up and top. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Vice Chair, Fick Sanders. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We all know that gun violence is one of my passions, and it's one of the things that I really want to see the city of St. Petersburg deal with and address. Two years ago, well, June 2021, the mayor's office helped fund our Enough is Enough Hidden Voices Project. Well, we also look at a holistic approach in fighting gun violence and the impact that it has on us as a city. I was also going to thank Senator Roussan for his announcement today of that $5 million that I will be calling you about so that we can actually continue to fund the families that remain. But not only the families, those families make up our community. They make up our neighborhoods. They make up who we are in the city of St. Petersburg. So, Mayor, thank you so much for acknowledging the fact that this is gun violence month. But I agree that this is not a once a month, once a month, this is impacting us throughout the city all year long. And I want us to continue because as of July 1st, my heart is going to beat with my three boys out there on the street with this permitless gun carrying. It beats enough as it is. But now knowing that we're going to have that extra weight on our hearts and understanding that gun violence is real and it hits home. But we don't want it to impact us here in the city of St. Petersburg. So, thank you so much for what you are doing and to continue the fight. And for that, I will join you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing this forward and all of those who are present today. Specifically, those who advocate and champion gun violence, anti-gun violence and gun violence awareness. I want to say thank you to you all. I know personally that, oft times, this is not one of those things that we readily sign up for. And you look at all of the issues that impact our communities. In most cases, those who advocate in this area are thrust into that area because of some personal experience. And so, I've worked extensively with several groups. And I know how the challenge of turning your pain into a purpose is. And that fuel that you use. And you want to make sense out of the senselessness of the gun violence. And so, I really applaud you and sincerely appreciate the efforts that you all make. Because I know usually it's coming from a place of direct impact. And when you hear about things that happen to others, you're inspired to try and prevent it. And so, thank you for that. It was also one of the reasons why we got involved early on in, like, 2011, 2012, working with Reverend Irby in different capacities in barbershops and having these focus groups. And when we talked about stopping the violence, I realized also as a part of this work, every time an act of violence happens, it takes a little bit of wind out of your sails. And so, our response to that was we're not going to say stop the violence. We're going to say increase the peace. And then work on creating conditions that foster peace. Because if you're saying stop the violence and then somebody gets shot around the corner from you, it does something to you. And it's hard to keep going. And so, I appreciate you for that as well. I also appreciate the fact, Mayor, that when you crafted and read the proclamation, it acknowledges that this is not just a black people problem. Because oftentimes we hear about gun violence and we think that it's one of those problems that's in urban areas. We hear Child's Park and that's where the target is. But I think we're becoming more and more aware now that gun violence is not relegated to one particular demographic. It's an American issue and a human issue. And so, thank you all for the work that you do in that area. Going forward, because we heard that announcement this morning, of the $5 million I'm really hoping that we can begin to invest in conflict resolution and de-escalation programs. Because, you know, hearing the reports and now I get, you know, alerts and text messages when things happen. And my God, most of them are disagreements that, you know, someone had and they felt like the way to end it was by pulling a gun and, you know, resorting to violence. And so, seeing that we have, you know, resources available for us to make these investments, I would definitely love to see how we can increase conversations and programming that specifically works on conflict resolution and de-escalation. So that we can get in front of this and give people other ideas and thoughts, some emotional intelligence where we can know that the gun is not really the piece that it's been proclaimed to be. And so, again, I thank you all for your work. Thank you for the sacrifices that you make. And I unite with you in any efforts that we're doing to reduce gun violence in St. Petersburg. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Well, thank you, Mayor, for bringing this forward. Thank you all for your work and your advocacy. And as Council Member Mohamed mentioned many times, you come to this work through tragedy of your own. And I recognize that. And I want to thank you for being strong enough to continue to fight this, what sometimes feels like an insurmountable issue. But it is the awareness and the banding together that will help us be able to overcome this. As a mother, it is terrifying to me what we're seeing happen all across America and in our own community. And as a Council Member, it's really frustrating because our hands are tied in a lot of ways. We can't do anything because we are prohibited from the state for even really talking about wanting to do anything. And that is incredibly challenging. And so the awareness that we put around gun violence is critically important. And I'm so proud to serve with advocates here on this Council who stand with you. You know, every quarter we have our police chief come before us and he talks about the guns that are being stolen out of unlocked cars. And for everyone who is listening, to me, that is an issue that has to stop. And it has to stop immediately. The fact that we have gun owners in our community who are irresponsible and allowing guns to be stolen out of their cars and being used in our streets, children against children, families against families from guns that are stolen. That is an issue that has to stop. And the way that it stops is by all of us banding together and not settling for that anymore. So I just want to thank all of you for what you do. Mayor, we stand with you in any advocacy that you have going forward on this issue. And I just want to thank you for bringing it forward today. Thank you all. And Reverend Irby, if you could have a passage for a little rain tomorrow night. Yes. Mayor, we are now going to move on for you to item D3, which is our Juneteenth Day proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking for Ms. Terry Lipsy-Scott. There she is. There she is. Terry's going to join me as we recognize Juneteenth for the second year in our city. This federal holiday represents a milestone in our nation's march towards equity and justice. As I read the proclamation, I'm joined by Terry and some other community leaders, and I'll let them introduce themselves after. This holiday is an opportunity to celebrate progress, especially here in St. Petersburg, where we value diversity and we are intentional in our embrace of equity. We've come far, and I'm confident that as one St. Pete, our progress will continue. And the proclamation reads, whereas nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19, 1865, nearly 90 years after our nation's founding, enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally received word of their newfound freedom. And whereas those who were formerly enslaved were recognized for the first time as citizens, black Americans began commemorating Juneteenth with celebrations nationwide, honoring a tradition that lives on today. And whereas Juneteenth represents our ongoing commitment to honoring history, remembering our troubled past, and celebrating our hopeful future. And whereas Juneteenth is an opportunity to remember the evils of slavery and the lasting toll it has taken on our country and our people, including a dreadful legacy of systemic racism, inequality, and inhumanity. And whereas we know that as a nation and as a city of inclusivity, we possess the ability to heal and emerge with purpose and resolve. And whereas we are committed to further establishing and improving equity and justice through pathways forged by abolitionists, educators, civil rights advocates, and everyday Americans. And whereas we continue to work for progress as African Americans and people of color continue to face disproportionate burdens and negative outcomes despite their numerous contributions to society. And whereas Juneteenth in its second year being recognized as a federal holiday is a call to action. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim June 19th, 2023 as Juneteenth Day in the city of St. Petersburg and acknowledge the emancipation of African Americans, acknowledging the wrongs of the past, and committing to our collective collective work for an equitable future free of the vestiges of systemic racism. Mr. Mayor, chair, vice chair, members of city council, I stand today with our chair of our board, Frechette Bradley, and board member, Chiquita Clark. We are grateful for the opportunity that this represents in our community as we further demonstrate how important black history is to our community and to be recognized as a part of the fabric that we have woven together in order to ensure the unity that we anticipate being a model for across this nation. Here in the city of St. Petersburg and on behalf of those within the state of Florida, I'm here to say black history matters, and we're excited to represent the African American history and its culture. Thank you, and we're proud to say we are St. Pete. Thank you. Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Terry. Thank you, Mayor, and I really appreciate you all bringing this forward as well. This is the second year, my first year of being here during this type of presentation, and I would be remiss if I didn't lift up the fact that we still have a lot of work to do, and I think it's understood, and I appreciate those of you who are working to ensure that the history is taught, the Freedom School that's happening at the Woodson, and so that it's not, it's very understood that history is not hate, it's not indoctrination, no more than remembering the Alamo, you know, or, you know, never forgetting 9-11, you know, and the atrocities and the things that happened, you know, in those incidences, and this was not something that was, you know, for a year or two years or even 100 years, but there's a legacy that we're dealing with in this country, and the impacts of that, very similar to a Monopoly game where, you know, if somebody got a 200-year head start, if we want to have equity and equality, then we have to be willing to make the sacrifices that are needed in order to level the playing field, and I appreciate those who are on the board, on the field, that are doing this work, and so thank you for bringing this forward. Looking forward to the Jubilee and all kind of the celebrations that also keep it in the front of our minds and also remind us of the work that's in front of us and that is still yet to be done. So thank you, Mayor, for creating the office, the equity officer, and following the recommendation of the structural racism study and really implementing that, and we're also looking forward to working with you to really implement the other recommendations and everything that came out of that, and I think it's a great opportunity for us to pause and reflect, and so thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Vice Chair Fix Sanders. Thank you. It is always good to see Terry Lipsy Scott and the board representing the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African History Museum, and the reason why I say that is because when we address issues, especially from the dais, a lot of times when we talk about those issues that are generally characterized as black issues, and Council Member Mohammed, thank you for recognizing the fact that all of the issues that just don't impact black people, and so for that, recognizing Juneteenth, like every other proclamation that we've had, this is long-term, and when you made the point that we all have to make that sacrifice, well, we have sacrificed. We have sacrificed, and I'm looking forward to everyone getting on the same playing field. When we talk about dollars equitably spent in the city of St. Petersburg, I am appreciative that the mayor's office has taken that stance in the six pillars to assure that those dollars are in place, that the programs are in place, that the policies are being investigated for change, and that we are actually being heard more, so during this time, and is it long overdue? Absolutely. Should we feel sorry? No, we shouldn't. We are very appreciative for everyone recognizing the fact that we're all here together, but we all didn't get here the same way, and so I appreciate the recognition for Juneteenth. I appreciate those willing to work on behalf of equity. Yes, we do have city initiatives that we're working toward in rectifying the disparity study and the structural racism, because those were based on facts, not opinions. Those are based on facts, not opinions, and those facts are funny things. So with that being said, thank you all, and especially to the museum, for wanting to make sure that our story is told. Never remaining silent, never remaining quiet about the challenges and the sacrifices that we have made, and for that I am grateful for today in the acknowledgement of Juneteenth. Thank you, Mayor. Next, we will have item D4, our Codes Appreciation Week proclamation, given by Mayor Wiltsch. Thank you, Madam Chair. This next proclamation is going to recognize some unsung heroes, and today it's our guys and gals in blue, the other guys and gals in blue from Codes Compliance and Assistance. Our director, Joe Wah, had an issue that he had to take care of, but our administrator for housing and neighborhood services, Amy Foster, will join me. Codes Appreciation Week is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate a division of city employees employees, and I'll ask everybody in Codes if you would just stand up while I read this. It won't take that long. Let's give them a hand. So this is an opportunity to celebrate a division of city employees that have a challenging role in helping to ensure our neighborhoods and our city is healthy and safe. Enforcing our Codes is sometimes a thankless task, I'm told, but it is work that is foundational to the quality of life, the livability, and the safety of our city. In support of their efforts and appreciation of their work, I've issued the following proclamation, and it reads, whereas code enforcement officers provide for the safety, health, and welfare of the citizens in this community through the enforcement of buildings, zoning, housing, fire safety, environmental, and other codes and ordinances, and whereas code enforcement officers are responsible for improving neighborhoods and the quality of life for the residents, and whereas every day, assisted by support and program staff, they work to provide quality customer service to the public for the betterment of the community, and whereas at times their efforts go unnoticed, even after code compliance has been accomplished due to their efforts and expertise, and whereas code enforcement officers are dedicated, well-trained, and highly responsible individuals who take their jobs seriously and are proud of their department and the local government which they serve in the city of St. Petersburg, and they serve with duty and with great care, and whereas the Florida Association of Code Enforcement, or FACE, has declared the first week of June be set aside by local governments to honor and recognize their code enforcement officers. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim the week of June 5th through 9th, 2023, as Code Enforcement Officers Appreciation Week in St. Petersburg and express appreciation for the dedication and outstanding service provided by the individuals who serve as our code enforcement team. Let's give them a hand. Mayor, I just want to thank you for providing that recognition. I got a chance to see staff last week at their hurricane training and to say thank you from the city administration. I do, again, know that that work is often thankless, and we are so appreciative for everything you do. So I'll let council members share their thanks as well. Thank you, Administrator Foster. Council Member Floyd? Thank you. I just want to quickly say thank you for the job that you all do. One of the most interesting things becoming a council member you find out is just how much getting complained at about codes violations you get. I literally just looked down maybe three minutes ago and had another email about it. So I'm really grateful for the work that you do because, you know, without it, I don't know how our city could really function is the truth. And so I'm really grateful that you all are getting this recognition as well and keep up the good work. Thanks. Council Member Montaneri? Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, wanted to say thank you all for doing what you do. I'm sure you all have individual stories that you could tell and maybe even write a book when it comes to the good, the bad, and the ugly of what you all do every day. But we really appreciate the hard work that you all put in. And I'm sure there's some very trying times. But then again, there's also satisfying times when you address a problem, fix an issue that somebody's been dealing with, and you make our city better. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you do every day for the city of St. Petersburg. Council Member Mohamed? Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and inspired by my colleague, it's true. We get a lot of complaints about the code's compliance, and I wasn't really ready for that part of it either. So I appreciate this, and I mean, just for those who write emails, so I can imagine those who don't write emails and the encounters that you have when you're in the field, and so I appreciate the work that you do. As an immediate past president of a neighborhood association, I see Carl over there. So we spent a lot of time working on the mindset and the approach of the office. And so I also want to acknowledge and thank the mayor and Mr. Waugh in his absence of how I'm noticing the shift from heavy compliance to the assistance piece of it. And really getting in front of a lot of these things, working with residents who really may just be having a hard time correcting those things. And so the sensitivity that all cases are not the same, all situations are not the same, but we still have to enforce our city codes. And so being able to see that we are codes, compliance, and assistance, I appreciate you all making those calls on the spot and be able to get that information to the people. So thank you, and I'm happy to be able to support in any way that I can. So thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for the work that you do. Council Vice Chair, Fix Sanders. Thank you, mine is going to be quick. Thank you, just, I want to tell the story real quick. I was in Subway one day, and I don't know if, that was you? Oh no. I was in Subway one day, and these two awesome people walked in in their city code uniforms. And I told the gentleman at Subway, I said, hey, those two, I got them. And I don't know how you figured out who, well, I guess you saw them and figured out who it was. But I just wanted to pay for your lunch to say thank you, because you have a hard job. We have a hard job, because we do get a lot of code complaints, and it's hard to kind of funnel them through. But thank you. And I can't buy all y'all lunch, but thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you, and I concur with my colleagues in expressing our gratitude for all that you do, day in and day out. It is one of the tougher jobs in the city, and you do it so well. There are, it goes so far beyond codes compliance. As Council Member Mohammed mentioned, you provide resources, and you've got to stay up with all the different programs that are available, so that you can help to give folks a path for improvement. I also see how you work with other departments. So much of what you do overlaps with the work that's done by our police department, by sanitation. Jim Nixon in his office, there are so many other departments that you touch and that you help. And so I know that the gratitude goes far beyond City Council and across our city in that teamwork that you show every single day. Thank you for doing everything with the highest level of professionalism and really setting such a wonderful example for what St. Petersburg is really about as we keep working together to build stronger neighborhoods. So, thank you. City Administrator Curtis. Thank you so much, Chair. I'll be brief, but I couldn't let this one go. You know, we hear a lot it starts in parks, but I know that the heavy lifting is done in codes compliance assistance. And I just want to thank you all so much for what you do every day. Some of my most rewarding years as a city employee were spent with you and watching everything that you do, watching all the problems that you solve. It was so rewarding just to be a part of it with you, and I'm so grateful for all the work that you do in keeping our city safe and clean and beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, I always love when we bring city teams in so that we as council members get to look at you and tell you how much we appreciate you because we don't really get to do that very often. So, I just want to thank you all for everything that you do. Your team is so responsive, reactive. I mean, you're on top of it. I wish Mr. Wall was here because I just think he is such a great leader for your department. He is such a pleasure for our team to work with. And, you know, I can only imagine how challenging it can be out there for you all. But I know and I have confidence in you that you are doing it with grace and you are treating residents with dignity and that is so critically important. So, you know, we're a city of neighborhoods, right? And part of that quality of life and the enjoyment that we have from that is because of all of you. So, thank you for your role in that. Thank you for everything you do for our city every day. And Administrator Foster, thank you for heading up the team as well. Thank you for your work on all of this. And thank you, Mayor, for bringing this forward. Thank you. Great work, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And May, gonna go on that side. Going over there? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Very good. So, Mayor Welch, I'm gonna turn it over to you for your last one, which is D6, Mordecai Walker, Day of Proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair. And for this one, I'm moving closer to the honoree. And I think at 98 years old, he can request that. So, I'm happy to be here to recognize a man I've known for years, a man I admire and love and respect, and Mr. Mordecai Walker. He's a legend in his own right, and I'm blessed to call him a friend. He is a graduate of Florida A&M University. Where did Debra Fig Sanders go? Okay, there. Okay. I'm looking for some Rattler help. I got both of them. I got both of them. And he's also a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. You may have noticed the spirit in the room and the purple in the room. The men of Omega Psi Phi, if y'all would stand for this, it won't be long. And I'm also a brother of Omega Psi Phi. I think that clerk knew that, right? You knew that, Chan, didn't you? I'm so pleased to recognize a man of his stature with the following proclamation. Whereas Mordecai Walker, and I do want to thank Council Member Debra Fig Sanders, Vice Chair, for bringing this forward. Thank you so much. Whereas Mordecai Walker is a retired educator and military veteran. He served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, attaining the rank of Sergeant. Whereas Mr. Walker is a proud HBCU graduate. He received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree from Tennessee State University and a Master of Science in Agriculture Education degree from Florida A&M University. And whereas following his graduation from TSU and time teaching in Tampa, Mr. Walker moved to Pinellas County where he would spend the next 30 years teaching at various middle and high schools, advancing or building new departments of agriculture. His teaching career spanned 36 years. He retired from Pinellas County Schools in 1987. Whereas Brother Mordecai was initiated into the Omega Psi Phi fraternity incorporated in 1950 at Tennessee State University. And to this day, he remains active in the St. Petersburg Ada Row chapter. He is a charter member and is the last remaining living founder. And whereas Mr. Walker has received numerous leadership awards and continues to break barriers. In 2006, Tennessee State University inducted him into the school's Agriculture Hall of Fame in recognition of his many years of advancing the field of agriculture education. In 2023, Congresswoman Kathy Castor awarded him a U.S. Congressional recognition for black history. At the age of 86, he received a United States design patent for his invention of the rib slinger, a utensil for more efficient barbecuing. And whereas Mordecai Walker remains active in our community, attending St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, enjoying blues music, exercising at the Sunshine Center, taking Pilates classes, playing checkers and cards, and attending monthly fraternity meetings and writing his memoir. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do proclaim June 8, 2023 as Mordecai Walker Day in St. Petersburg and ask all citizens to join me in acknowledgement of his significant contributions to our community. Congratulations. And so thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. He said, he didn't want to say anything. ileen T. But I could say something. Right. So yeah, being his 1 of two sons. You know, it's the early Father's Day for me. It's a blessing. He's easy to support. They support him a lot, too, and so I just want to say thank you, and he's appreciative so much of the recognition, so thank you. Vice Chair Fix Sanders? Yeah, I just want to say, now, I grew up knowing him as Deacon Walker because he's been in my life for so long, and I just want to thank the men of Omega Psi Phi for making sure you got here for us to give you your flowers so that you can still smell them, because, what, you're getting ready to be, what, 98 young? 99. 99, oh, my God. So we almost have a centurion here, 99 young, so, again, on behalf, and I thank the mayor for that, but on behalf of the city of St. Petersburg, we appreciate all that you've done, and we want to celebrate you on Mordecai Walker Day. Thank you. I have the distinct honor. First of all, my name is Tom Packer. I have the distinct honor of telling you he comes as close to being an angel on earth as I've ever seen. I arrived in St. Petersburg in 1968. He gave me my first house. You notice I didn't say bye. He gave it to me. And one day, a friend of his, and I'll be very short, he had loaned about $400 to him, and the man never paid him back. So I said, Brother Walker, are you going to get your money? He said, he probably needed it more than I did. He said, what good is money if you can't help someone with it? I've never seen the man upset. He gives all the time. But think about it, giving a young teacher coming to Gibbs High School a house. I thought I had to pay for it until the next month rolled around and said, well, I got some money. He said, no, it's a gift. And for eight years, I lived there. So I grew up with him as his son and then men of us. And yes, we were all Omega Sapphire members. And for a long time, I did not know he was an Omega. One day, we were just talking about what we did in college, and we found out we were brothers and everything else. So thank you. This is my close person to the angel here. Thank you. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Mr. Walker, I don't know you personally, but I want to thank you for the legacy that you've built. And I was inspired to press my button because when you say, I don't want to say anything, I think that says a lot. And action speak and the resume that was read, I'm sure, doesn't do justice to all of the things that you've done. And the many stories that people can tell about you and your life. And so I know that as somebody who aspires to be a centenarian, I think that's what it's called. I'm taking cues, and it seems like activity and service to your community is one of those secrets. And so thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing this forward. Thank you to the men of Omega Sapphire for, again, ensuring that Mr. Walker receives his flowers while he's here. So thank you again, and I appreciate all that you do and all that you've done. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Well, Mr. Walker, I just real quick wanted to say how nice it was to meet you downstairs for the first time today. And thank you for being here with us. Thank you, gentlemen, for all being here as well to celebrate. I can see what a beloved member of your community he is. And when someone is loved that much, they must be doing something right. So congratulations on your proclamation today. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing that forward. And thank you for being here with us to allow us to celebrate you. I love it. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. All right, Council Vice Chair Fig Sanders, I'm going to turn it over to you for our Sunshine Ambassador Award. Thank you. I am so honored to stand here and present this Sunshine Ambassador Award. And I asked the mayor if he would stand here with me because I would like to recognize this young lady for all of her accomplishments. And I'm going to read them so you can hear exactly why I'm excited to recognize her. Mackenzie Davis Coart is the daughter of Dr. Delphina Davis. She is a graduate of the Bogosiega High School, where she maintained a stellar 4.4 GPA, along with receiving her EMT certification and EKG certification. She was also crowned the Pirate's Prom Queen. Mackenzie has had the honor of being crowned Alpha Kappa Alpha Zeta Upsilon Omega's Essence of Ebony Pearls 2023 Ms. Debutante. She was the senior class president and received the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award. You may have seen her highlighted on Bay News 9, ABC Action News, the St. Pete Catalyst, the Yahoo News, Spot on Florida, the Power Broker, the Weekly Challenger, and more for being awarded $807,175 in scholarships. Now, that deserves a round of applause. As well as receiving scholarships from NCNW, Anne is a Woodson Warrior. Also, she was accepted to all 14 of the colleges and universities that she applied to. Mackenzie plans to attend North Carolina Central University in the fall and major in biology to pursue a career in anesthesiology. Along with her mother, she is also the vice president of her own nonprofit, Kenzie's Corner, LLC. Ladies and gentlemen, let's congratulate Ms. Mackenzie Davis. So, Mackenzie, you picked North Carolina? Yes. All right. Well, this is one time I'm, for the record, I'm praising a Bogosiega Pirate. We are so proud of the work that you've done. And I'm feeling old, Madam Vice Chair, because I've watched her grow up over the years. But we are so proud of what you represent in terms of what is possible if you're dedicated and if you've got that support. So, we wish you nothing but the best of luck, and we hope you come back to St. Pete after you graduate. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for this award and this acknowledgement, and it really means a lot to me, and I really appreciate it. So, thank you. All right. Council Member Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Congratulations. And it's come up a couple of times, I feel like, over the last few months. But being a girl dad and watching a young woman like yourself and all you've accomplished before even going to college, I'm very happy, very glad that my daughter can look to young women like you and see what they can accomplish, what you can accomplish. And so, thank you for being a bright light to a girl dad and young women and young girls throughout our city and, frankly, now throughout the country. Because now you're going to go to North Carolina, and they're going to see it, too. So, I'm glad we got to see it. Congratulations. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Well, we will move on with our business of the day and go into our report items. And we are going to start with item E1, which is the Florida Institute of Oceanographic Update. And I'd like to turn it over now to Council Member Driscoll to introduce. Thank you. The Florida Institute of Oceanography is one of many of our marine assets that we have right here in St. Petersburg. It's located right next to the USF College of Marine Science. And although that is where it calls itself home, it actually serves universities and colleges across the state for those who are studying ocean science. And even beyond the university and college setting, they do an incredible amount of community outreach to help nurture those future oceanographers of tomorrow. The St. Petersburg Innovation District is home to the largest collection of marine science, oceanographic, and environmental research agencies and institutions in the southeast. Not sure if everyone knew that. But it includes private businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and also nonprofit entities. The Florida Institute of Oceanography is led by Dr. Monty Graham, who joins us today for this report. He has been the director of FIO since 2021 and with over 30 years of experience in ocean science, research, education, leadership, and advocacy. Dr. Graham has served on numerous national and international panels and boards. He's led development of key federal policy around ocean technology and commercialization. Just a very long list of accomplishments. And he's also been able to really work to get the funding that's required to do some of the major research that FIO conducts. He himself is quite famous in the marine science world. His expertise in jellyfish is so renowned that a couple of years ago, there was a jellyfish that was named after Dr. Graham. And although the Aurelia Monty is only, it only grows to about the size of a dinner plate. But the impact that Dr. Graham has had on the marine science community is much, much larger. And I am so pleased to have him join us today to give us an update on some of the exciting things that are happening right now down the street at FIO. Welcome, sir. Thank you, Council Member Driscoll. You flatter me with jellyfish. Thank you to the council and to Mayor Welch and the entire city administration. I wouldn't be an academic without a PowerPoint slide. So the first 30 slides, bear with me, graphs, charts. I'm kidding. So I've been here for two and a half years. This is my home now. And more importantly, if you'll get the pun, it's my home port. And I hope you'll understand the relevance of home ports and meaning that you go back, but you always have a place to come home. So I'm assuming I've got the slides here. Ah, turning it on. Most importantly, happy World Ocean Day. And it's now is a distant second to Malachi Walker Day. I like Malachi Walker Day better, honestly. But here we are in St. Pete, and hopefully you'll recognize some of the imagery here. And I don't have to tell you that St. Pete probably celebrates World Ocean Day every day. You are an ocean city, and the way that you embrace ocean science and education in your own community is really quite amazing. So you helped me make my job quite a bit easier. So, as the council member said, FIO, the Florida Institute of Oceanography, we're hosted by the University of South Florida on the USF St. Pete campus. So we are technically on the peninsula, on the peninsula, on the peninsula. And so we enjoy our views and our city relationships. But really, most importantly, with this arrangement that we have with USF St. Pete and our location, it has put us in a really at the center of, you know, the center of excellence for ocean science and education. We typically call this STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. And I'm going to play off of that here in just a little bit. But the USF St. Pete campuses, you know, provides that academic framework. The St. Pete Innovation District that we're embedded with provides all the expertise and employers that we could possibly work through to provide our expertise. And then that the newly opened but really quite successful maritime defense and technology hub has really brought this part of the world to the forefront. So we do enjoy all of our rich partners in innovation and education. So our consortium, while we're hosted by the University of South Florida, we are quite a large consortium. My bosses are the Board of Governors of the state university system. So I have 12 universities that I answer to. And we're even broader than that. We have a total of 32 members. They span the state university system, non-SUS institutions, public and private. Even we tap down into the college, state college system. St. Pete College is a member of our consortium. We have non-profits, for-profits, and state agencies. So 32 strong is our consortium. And we have a breadth across the state, but we have a reach throughout the United States, with an emphasis here in the southeast U.S. and the Caribbean. But we are a national and international power when it comes to supporting the mission of science and technology across the entirety of what we call this blue economy sector. Before I go on to the next slide, I'd also like to emphasize that, you know, Florida's $1.4-plus trillion economy, every penny of it is touched by the ocean. We have a saying in oceanography, if you like your five-day hurricane forecast, hug an oceanographer. Because we do the work to help make those forecast tracks and forecasted intensities something to pay attention to. So the blue economy of Florida is big, but our impact is much, much bigger than you probably could appreciate. So at FIO, we're enablers of ocean science and education. And we take students out to sea. We're an experiential program, an experiential entity. So we live and breathe by getting students to sea. We also get them into marine labs and get them experiences. But it's critical for us and our world to focus on the experience. Even in this day of AI and remote stuff, you know, here and there, you can't be an oceanographer without getting people out and getting their feet wet and getting them into the environment. And most of us, you know, we get to do this, you know, maybe once in our lifetimes to go out on a research cruise. And so our impact to these students is pretty phenomenal, knowing that some of the students in some of these undergraduate courses are just kind of briefly touching ocean science. And so they get out there and they get to experience some incredible things. And this may be their only opportunity ever to do that. So we enjoy, you know, helping students through their Ph.D. programs. But just as much, we help students getting, you know, associate's degrees. And now we're even going down into the high schools and middle schools to work with them as well. So this is, at times, this is a discovery of oneself as much as it is a discovery of science as oceanographers. The work that we do here out of St. Pete and around the state and down in the Florida Keys, we focus on critical issues. Some of these issues are existential. Some of these issues are strictly, you know, economic impact. And some of the issues we'll talk about here in a little bit are really community-based. And we're very proud of these. I'll leave it to Dr. Sherwood to sort of drill down into some of the issues here locally in Tampa Bay. But these are big issues. And that's why, you know, we celebrate this once a year with Ocean Day. But really, it's an everyday gig for us to solve. And some of these are very big and powerful, very big and powerful issues that I'm sure you are very familiar with. And we don't just limit ourselves to STEM anymore. Now we've added the A in STEAM. And so it's science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. And the best way to illustrate this, this is a great group of young people from five universities, honors college programs. And they weren't science majors. These were humanities, arts, journalism, you name it. They came from all walks of backgrounds and interests. And our point was to take them out and show them the intersection between humanity and the sea. And no place like Florida to do something like this. And, again, it was just a life-changing opportunity for these young people. So we are infrastructure-based. In fact, the state calls us an academic infrastructure support organization. Please do not memorize it. It won't be on the test. But as an infrastructure-based organization, we're sort of entrusted with quite a bit of capital resources to make all of this happen. And I'll start with this one because it's the non-local one. It's the Keys Marine Laboratory. And so if you ever have driven to Key West, you drove right by us. Didn't even know because we have horrible signage there. Sorry. And you shouldn't take your eyes off the highway when you're driving down there anyway. The Keys Marine Lab is eight acres on Long Key. It's actually kind of within the boundaries of the city of Layton. But it's a beautiful place. And it's a very marine lab-y kind of environment where you have boats and labs. And students go out and they study things like coral restoration and conservation and work up in the Everglades and things. We're actually the closest laboratory to the Everglades. And a lot of people don't know that because they're all focused on the coral reefs. But then a little bit closer to home. Some things you might know a little bit more about. We have research vessels, including the Hogarth, named for our recently passed away former director, Bill Hogarth. The Hogarth is a very cool boat. You know, it's small and it does a lot. It's our primary educational research vessel, so we take a lot of students out. In fact, this last year, 400 undergraduate students participated in trips on the Hogarth. And we do that on a very limited, with a very limited state support, you know, in our budget. But we pull it off. And our gig is to get as many people as possible out there on the water. So we're quite effective at that. The Weatherbird 2, I call this, is like the pickup truck that you keep in your driveway when you need to go and lug something heavy around. So it's a real workhorse vessel. Does a lot of work. And it's really world-renowned because of the work that it did during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, really being one of the first ships on site to understand what was going on below the surface. And then most recently, and I don't know if Council Member Driscoll dragged you all down to the pier or not, but this is our most recent addition. And it kind of looks like a houseboat, but you have to see it to believe it. And you all have been invited. I know I've gotten RSVPs from some of you, but July 12th, we're going to have a celebration of its new home port. This is the RV research vessel, Western Flyer. It was originally working on the Pacific Coast, and we brought it through the Panama Canal into Tampa Bay. It's been an international ship repair for six weeks, getting ready to remobilize and do work for us here. And now it sits at the south end of our peninsula. So we're excited to have it here. And on July 12th, we're really going to unveil the ship to everybody and the programming of the ship. But I want to give you just a little bit of a teaser on what the purpose of this particular ship is. We've got research vessels, and we can do research vessels. But the one thing that this country, really the world, does not have is a vessel that is dedicated to broadening the reach of our workforce. If you get into ocean sciences, geosciences in general, they look a lot like me. And that is something that really struck me during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. What we found during Deepwater Horizon was scientists came in, and they said, okay, you communities are going to do certain things. You can't fish here. You can't do this. You can't do that. Whatever. It's all based on science. But the communities themselves had a hard time trusting that science because the scientists didn't look like them. And so we are tackling this within the ocean sciences, and we're going to tackle it with this vessel with a new program that we'll also unveil. With the whole point of this is to create a new generation of scientists that look more like the communities that science needs to inform for some of these very existential problems that we're having, sea level rise, climate change, and red tides, things like that. So there's a lot going on here, but the whole point of the program is to use technology, use the ship, use communities on the front end instead of the back end, and start bringing in a new generation of interest. And hopefully those new scientists will start reflecting the communities that they're trying to talk to. So I am going to hold off there. I think that will, if you take a picture of it, I think it will take you to our website. It might take you to our donation page, but I'm not sure. But if you need to know more, happy to answer questions now and certainly happy to answer questions at any point. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you so much for the presentation and for being here with us today, and congratulations on the jellyfish. Thank you. That's very cool. Very, very cool. All right. Thank you. All right. We will move on to our next presentation, and I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Montaneri to introduce the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, Item E2. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm very, very pleased that we have Dr. Graham here and Mr. Sherwood to talk about oceans and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. As a community that is surrounded by water, and I'm glad you referenced water and Florida's economy and the relationship, because when we were dealing with the red tide issue a few years ago, and I know in other parts of Florida, when we're dealing with the algae issues, you can see the direct relationship between the health of our water resources and our economy. And just from a quality of life and an economic point of view, it's vitally important. And I do serve, I'm the council representative to the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, and I'm pleased to introduce Dr. Sherwood, who's been the executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program since 2018, and he's been a program scientist since 2008. He's got a bachelor's degree in marine biology from the University of West Florida, and a master's degree in marine fisheries and ecology from the University of Florida. And welcome, Mr. Sherwood, and the floor serves. Thank you, Council Member Montaneri, Madam Chair, and other council members. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today a little bit about our program and what we're working on and some of our priorities moving forward to really address some of the recent events that have been facing Tampa Bay. And it was a great introduction by Dr. Graham, talking about the oceans and World Oceans Days that is coming up here. And we're going to scale down to the region, you know, to our backyard, the bay, and that is the vital part of our quality of life within the region and really represents, you know, the centerpiece of all the work we do at the Estuary Program. So I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you all, and if you all don't know what an estuary is, it's basically that magic place where the saltwater from the oceans mixes with the freshwater coming off our lands. And a lot of production occurs at that interface and really contributes to our local economies and quality of life within the region. I'm here representing my small staff. I have six other staff members as part of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, and we consider ourselves a small but mighty crew that are working on our variety issues. And one of the focus areas that we try to, you know, catalyze action towards is putting the little amount of funding that comes into our program towards research restoration, as well as community engagement and education projects that really will have a benefit of improving the bay's water quality, habitats, and overall community well-being within the region. So we are one of 28 national estuary programs. We're actually designated by Congress as an estuary of national significance back in 1991. There's three of the ones in the state of Florida, Sarasota Bay, Charlotte Harbor, and Indian River Lagoon. Our program has been working in the region for the better part of three decades, and our primary objective is bringing the region together towards common goals to implement a science-based management plan for the restoration and protection of the bay, our backyard. We're fortunate to have Council Member Montaneri on our policy board representing City of St. Pete, and also had Council Member Driscoll in the past representing City of St. Pete. But the four other counties representing the region, as well as the two larger cities, also see it as my, basically, bosses that I report to. As I mentioned, the management plan that we've developed is really focused on projects that will improve waters and sediments in the bay, improving the habitats that, you know, fish and wildlife will be able to thrive, and then, you know, really trying to interface with the community at large to get them to be better informed about the issues facing the bay's water quality and other habitat challenges that we face, and then, you know, invoking action through different grant programs and the community at large to help us protect and restore the bay. The larger management plan I talked about that is necessary for us as a national industry program can be linked and viewed at that ccmp.tbep.org. But it spans about 166 different strategies, 39 main actions, but they fall under that umbrella of those three programmatic priorities. We get our funding from a variety of different sources. We think we do a very good job as public stewards of a lot of public resources that come in through the federal government that we match with local resources, and then put that back out in terms of, you know, matching and leveraging funds from additional grant programs that we were able to procure and secure as staff. So over the past three years, we have about $15 million, a little bit over $15 million in projects that we're managing. And as I mentioned, I think we try to be a good stewards of public dollars that are coming into the program locally, and we're able to leverage a lot of, you know, the funds towards these larger programs that we administer. So kind of stepping to sort of the other reporting we do as an industry program, just giving you sort of the upfront punchline and some of the issues that we're now faced with in the region. We've had some large success in terms of working together towards the benefit of improving Tampa Bay. The bay is in much better condition than it has been in the past. But over the past couple of years, we've had some challenges as it relates to water quality, especially in the upper bay segments in the old Tampa Bay area, as well as Hillsborough Bay, where we've had fairly persistent harmful algal blooms. It's actually a different type of harmful algal bloom called pyridinium that produces a rust-colored hue in the water, but it is not red tide, but this bloom has been fairly persistent over the past summer going all the way back to the early 2010s. And because of that, we've lost a lot of seagrass resources, which are those underwater grasses that are foundational habitat for a lot of the fish and wildlife that we depend on in the region. And there's some renewed sense of urgency to start doing restoration because of some of the detrimental losses of seagrasses that have occurred in the upper bay. And really, the community has been engaged on those issues. There's things like the red tide events that have been fairly significant in the past, the Piney Point event, and then some of the other sort of detrimental environmental impacts from the loss of seagrass that have occurred in other areas, like on the Indian River Lagoon, where there's been manatee mass mortality events. Those habitats are very important to sustain, like I said, the overall quality of life and well-being along the coast, not only for the fish and wildlife that live in the water, but also the community that enjoys and recreates along the coast as well. So those sort of three take-homes are sort of where we're at with the current state of the bay and some of the metrics that we track as a program. And our focus, again, has been on sort of the sentinel habitat, which are seagrasses. Those are rooted plants on the bay bottom. There's three primary species that exist in Tampa Bay. And as I mentioned, you know, we've had some really great success of restoring back to benchmark periods, that bright red line of the amount of coverage that was present in Tampa Bay in the past. But since about 2016, we've had a fairly significant amount of loss of that seagrass. And that is sort of a precursor of what could come. There were similar conditions that were experienced on the Indian River Lagoon back in 2010, where we had this precipitous loss of seagrass, and now they've been dealing with constant and prolific harmful algal blooms other than the ones I was mentioning. So trying to get ahead of this and get the bay back on track in terms of our trajectory of seagrass coverage is very important to us. And one of the ways we've done that is trying to manage nitrogen or nutrient loads going into Tampa Bay. We've had a great amount of excess of reducing the amount of the total loads going into Tampa Bay. And right now, the primary source of nutrients going into the bay are from stormwater sources. But there's also other sources of nutrients from the atmosphere, as well as, as we all know, wastewater industrial sources and the others listed there. So that's important because, you know, over-fertilizing basically the bay results in more algal blooms and in the shading out of those seagrass resources. And we track these conditions using a fairly simplistic report card that's shown on the left, using red, yellow, and green color coding. And for the most part, green is good in that report card. And we've seen those benefits to the bay's water quality through the years. But we do have a problematic bay segment in old Tampa Bay. That pie is further broken down amongst permitted sources of nutrient loads to Tampa Bay, those wastewater treatment plants, as well as stormwater systems. So the red box I highlight there is basically the levels that are appropriate to maintain water quality conducive to continued seagrass coverage in the bay. And this is one particular bay segment where I'm highlighting on the left, that table there. The red bar is basically the city of St. Pete. And those two rows basically indicate permit limits relative to wastewater treatment plants and relative to stormwater that the city manages. So those are defined limits based on, you know, levels that were conducive, and we're kind of holding the line at those levels moving forward. As the region continues to grow, that's going to be a continued challenge to stay at those lines and those limits moving forward. So there's just got to be sort of forward thinking of how we deal with both our wastewater and stormwater infrastructure moving forward so that these limits aren't busted. Or else, you know, we can potentially continue on that trajectory of continued seagrass loss in Tampa Bay. So I just mentioned that, you know, we organize through the Tampa Bay Estuary Program a group called the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium. It is a larger public-private partnership of both municipal governments as well as private entities that have that responsibility, that permitted loan responsibility of nutrient loads going into Tampa Bay. And as I mentioned, you know, the water quality conditions for the most part have improved, but we've had this fairly persistent bloom of pyridium that occurs every summer. It's actually started to bloom already this coming summer up in Old Tampa Bay. And that has really affected the prevalence and the sustainability of seagrass coverage, particularly in the upper bay segments. And if you look at where the most losses have occurred from that 2016 period to now, you know, the majority of losses have been in this upper bay segment in Old Tampa Bay. So we need to do a little bit better in terms of managing the nutrient loads going into that bay segment as well as look at other interventions that might complement how the bay's expression of those nutrients manifests into algal blooms or our potential seagrass loss. One of the programs that we've been involved with and continue to try to support municipal governments are on are some of the residential fertilizer ordinances that have been in place in the region for quite some time. So the Be Floridine campaign is, you know, focused on educating homeowners that, you know, during this summer rainy season, as much as we can to limit the amount of fertilizer use within the bay area, that will have a water quality benefit. As we all know, you know, it's fair. You can set your watch to the rains that do occur. In the afternoons and any fertilizer put put down in the environment has a tendency to wash off and then contribute you to some of these nutrient load issues that we're now facing in Tampa Bay. So we want to continue to educate homeowners on, you know, proper fertilization practices, as well as ways to improve their their backyards to Florida friendly landscaping. Another key issue that we've been working with the city, the county, as well as other municipal governments is addressing some of the sanitary sewer overflow issues that have occurred from high rainfall events, particularly around the 2015 to 2016 time period. So we developed another campaign focused on educating homeowners, particularly those homeowners that have homes built prior to 1970, that there are starting to develop these incentive programs to actually inspect, repair, replace, what's called a private lateral. Those are those the pipes that lead from your home to the central sewer system. And we know that damaged pipes allow for infiltration or rainfall water to seep into this pipe and then overwhelm our wastewater treatment plants. So we are actually targeting some funding around the 2026 time period to help support either repair, replacement, or inspection programs that are being rolled out throughout the region to address some of these issues around private lateral failures. Other programs that we administer are through specific grant programs called the one is one of which is called the Tampa Bay Environmental Restoration Fund. This is another public private fund that we administer or co administer with Restore America's Estuaries. And this is directing a little bit more funding towards on-the-ground restoration research or education programs. An example on the right is the City of Safety Harbor's Living Shoreline Marsh Restoration Project that has been implemented. And we're also helping to fund some improvements at Maximo Park through this Tampa Bay Environmental Restoration Fund working with the city. So looking at shoreline improvements as well as stormwater improvements that might occur through that Maximo Park improvement project. We also have a smaller community-based grant program called the Bay Mini Grant Program. It's funded primarily through sales of our license plates. If you don't have an estuary program license plate, I encourage you all to consider it. The funding from the sales of that license plate come back to our program, and we put it back out to the community in the form of these small community-based grants. And so this gives us the opportunity to work with stewards of our urban lakes, Shorecrest Elementary, on smaller-scale projects that have a benefit to either educate our community on these issues or directly restore some habitats. And last but not least, through some additional funding that's coming in through federal dollars, and we're also being able to direct some larger projects to improve stormwater along Tidal Creek systems. So a lot of the creek and channelized systems that flow through our communities basically ultimately lead to the bay. One of the projects we're working on with the city is looking at improvements along Little Bayou Creek and South St. Pete, and again, that will hopefully, through nature-based solutions, improving the habitats along those tidal creeks, will have a downstream water quality benefit for the bay and get us back on track in terms of improving water quality for the benefit of restoring those seagrass resources. So all in all, why are we making these investments? Dr. Graham mentioned it before. You know, there's both an environmental and economic incentive to making these restoration investments along the coast. The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is just finalizing an economic valuation of the Tampa Bay, of Tampa Bay itself, to the region. And some of the draft numbers indicate, you know, there's over a $30 billion economic impact of the bay and the jobs that the bay creates within the region to the tune of over 200,000 jobs. So we're making these investments because it matters where we live, work, and play. And, you know, the quality of life and why we live in the Tampa Bay region is centered around, you know, the bay remaining healthy into the future. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you all have, and I appreciate your patience and attention. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sherwood. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I've, you know, been keenly interested in our impact on the bay through development and whatnot, and I spend a lot of time out. I like to go fishing in my kayak. And you can really see the last couple of years that things are not going well in a lot of ways. But I really, I wanted to bring up the discussion you had about not just red tide, but algal blooms in a whole variety of ways. There's like, I was told it's macroalgae, like basically blooming and then just covering the grass beds. And that's one of the problems I've seen in areas that I like to frequent. And I was just wondering if you could speak to that, like, is it just nutrient runoff, same as anything else that's causing stuff like that, or what your opinion was? Yeah, primarily, you know, nutrients are going to cause an overproliferation of either phytoplankton, those algae that are in the water column, or the macroalgae, those larger, basically seaweeds that can smother and also cause problems in and of itself. Right now, we feel like we're out of balance because of, like you mentioned, the observations that many are seeing that we have a lot of macroalgae in the bay. And there's been a huge turnover in the bay's ecology in terms of that loss of seagrass I mentioned that's also potentially contributing nutrients. So, you know, the remedy of that is to put ourselves on diet again and really limit the amount of nutrients that are going into the bay so that there isn't this overproliferation of either phytoplankton in the water column or that macroalgae on the seafloor. But we recognize that, you know, that is also a contributor of probably some of the seagrass loss we've experienced over the past couple of years. Okay, great. Thank you for that. And let me ask something. One slide, you had a, like, you had basically a heat map of where we're losing seagrasses. And it seems like around St. Petersburg, we've been holding steady, maybe gaining a little when I think it was Old Tampa Bay has been losing. I'm just guessing, but I'm not sure that that, how much that says about us as much as it says, like, we're right near the mouth of the bay where tidal flow is going to be stronger. And so if we're doing nutrients, it might not be just as bad as anywhere else, then it might not show up as much. Anyway, I was just hoping you could speak to the map and some of my thoughts. Yeah, so we've seen losses baywide, including portions of Middle Tampa Bay, which is about St. Pete, but the largest losses have been in the upper bay segments. Just to, you know, put in perspective, you know, some of the allocations that we're talking about, the, you know, the divvying up the pie, the city of St. Pete contributes to three bay segments, Old Tampa Bay, the one where we're having problems, as well as Middle Tampa Bay and Lower Tampa Bay and actually Boca Seaga Bay. So there's contributions of nutrients from the city in representing all four of those bay segments. So what we've collectively tried to do through the nitrogen management consortium is ask our partners, municipal governments, like the city of St. Petersburg, do what you can to reduce the amount of nutrients going in the bay, either from your, you know, point sources or stormwater sources that you manage. And right now, you know, that's going to become increasingly more challenging as we get more residents coming into the region because that's going to put some strain on your wastewater treatment facilities as well as our stormwater system. So we've got to get ahead of that. And it's not just in that old Tampa Bay segment. It's throughout the region where we're seeing losses throughout, you know, Tampa Bay. So our focus right now with a lot of research and restoration is in the old Tampa Bay segment, but these actions could be pursued ubiquitously throughout the watershed. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that. Just real quick also, the last thing I have is how much do you all do around Boca Siega Bay as well because your Tampa Bay estuary program, but that's, you know, right here. Yeah, so our program area goes about midway up the coast to the Narrows. From the Narrows all the way into Boca Siega Bay, that's part of our boundary. Okay, cool. Okay, that was good to know. Yeah, because I got a whole slew of thoughts about Boca Siega Bay and what's happened to it, but I'll leave it there. So thank you very much for your presentation and for answering my questions. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you. And thank you, Doctor, for the wonderful presentation. No doctor, just mister. Okay. So I want to actually mention something that I just saw in the Tampa Bay Times, and I'm sure we've all seen these pyramids by Skyway Bridge, the wave attenuation devices, that are being installed by FDOT. And there was, you know, mention, like, it can help with biodiversity and erosion and seagrass. And I was just wondering, what are your thoughts of that? What are the impacts of that? I mean, it's 844 structures that they're putting in. It's a huge project in Tampa Bay. So I'm just curious, like, does that play into the Tampa Bay estuary? Do you guys play a role with that? Yeah, I mean, we're interfacing with those organizations, and I think the primary reason they're putting that infrastructure in is to protect the Skyway Bridge because they're having a lot of original issues around that Mandy County side of the bay on the south side. So there could be benefits of reducing the wave action and restore some seagrasses behind the placement of those wads. There's also some fish and wildlife benefits in terms of placing artificial reefs like that in the bay. We're working on other projects trying to address inappropriate artificial reefs that are present and putting more appropriate material down. So we are actually actively working with Pinellas County on a reef that's off Pinellas Point to look at addressing some of the materials there. So, you know, it's primarily a protection measure right now. We would love to see other interventions that, you know, would enhance habitats. But because of the amount of wave energy that probably exists along the Skyway, that's probably the only intervention that's going to work to protect the bridge. That's helpful. And then the other question I have, obviously you're talking about fertilizer and making sure it doesn't go into our bay, yet, you know, this year the legislature wants to preempt state, the local fertilizer bans. And I think currently it's in the budget bill, right? Is that where we're at right now? Yeah, it's primarily going to affect entities for the current iteration of the bill. It's probably primarily going to affect entities that don't have, you know, a higher level ordinance already in place. So our region has been fairly fortunate in terms of passing those ordinances fairly early on. So Pinellas County and just last year Hillsborough County passed similar ordinances to try to limit the amount of fertilizer use during this summer rainy season. And that has matched up with Mandy County ordinances that have already been in place. So, you know, it's hard to read the tea leaves of what's going to happen next legislative session. But for the time being, I think our region is safe because we've already had those protections on the books. Great. Well, thank you so much. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Sherwood, thank you again for the briefing. And Dr. Graham, I appreciate you being here also. So I did want to recognize our Director of Engineering, Brejesh Preyman, who a lot of people don't know, but he serves on the Management Board for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. And Brej is, as everybody knows, just a gift to our city and a gift to the Tampa Bay Estuary Program also because of his knowledge. And he gives this continuity because we have council members cycling on and off and other elected officials cycling on and off the board. But the management board is consistent. So I want to acknowledge Brejesh and thank him for all the work that you do for us. I'm also glad that both Dr. Graham and Mr. Sherwood talked about Bill Hogarth because he was a fixture here in St. Petersburg and for not just Tampa Bay but the whole nation for decades. And he served on the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. I got to know him, I think I met him 10, 12 years ago. And he was just, he had this folksy attitude that you could relate to and kind of understand the problems. And he was just a very interesting man to spend some time with and talk to. And we miss him. And I don't know if you all noticed, but in our lobby area, we have a model of the WT Hogarth that he had built and he gave that to City Council and the City of St. Petersburg because we used BP funds to help fund that vessel. So I wanted to mention that. And I also wanted to mention, I was glad that, Dr. Graham, you talked about the Weatherbird and then the WT Hogarth and now the Western Flyer. I like the trend that we're on and the attention that we're giving to our water resources. Can you talk just briefly about the tire removal project that's going on in lower Tampa Bay? Yeah, so we had some funding to help with the assessment of there's a remnant tire reef just off Pinellas Point that basically put in place probably somewhere around the late 60s, early 70s. At that time, that was thought to be a good material to develop an artificial reef. I think we've learned some lessons since then. And some of the, I think, newspaper articles related to the tire race over on the East Coast on Burrow County. You know, there's now work to remediate some of those sites. And Pinellas County was fortunate to receive some NOAA funding. Again, working with us, Pinellas County City of St. Pete, we're hoping to remediate that site and put more appropriate material there. That's the plan, I think, from the Pinellas County's perspective because tires can break down. They can come dislodged from where they've been placed and wash up on shore. And they're looking for ways that we can put better material there in the future and still allow it to be an artificial reef site that has benefits for fisheries use as well as for fishermen. So it's actually just set a meeting this past month, sort of kicking off that NOAA grant that Pinellas County received. But that work's probably going to happen over this next year, year and a half. Okay. Well, thank you for the update on that. And I'm glad we did this briefing. And I want to have this done every year. And you have a State of the Bay briefing because that seagrass trends chart that you gave, we need to pay attention to that and kind of sound the alarm. Hopefully it will be better news after they do the assessment this winter and we see an upward trajectory of some of those resources. Good. Good. And we've talked before about the seagrass mitigation bank that we're working on, and we hope that that's going to solve some problems in our Bay also. So thank you for being here. Thank you both of you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the update. It's always such a pleasure to see you. And, Brash, thank you for serving the estuary program as well. Early in the presentation on the slide, it says the three takeaways. On the third one, it says that additional resources are becoming available to support community-focused collaborations and Bay improvement efforts. Could you tell us a little bit about what that is? Yeah. So I kind of alluded to it towards the end, but as a national estuary program, we're also receiving bipartisan infrastructure law funds through EPA, and we're trying to direct a little bit over, I think it's about $4.5 million, towards either Tidal Creek restoration or wastewater treatment improvements, either through septic to sewer conversions within the region. So that's some additional resources that have been coming to the region that will have a benefit towards these activities that we know we need to start pursuing. We also, talking about Dr. Hogarth, we are also in line to receive some additional Restore Council funding to look at a multi-jurisdictional stormwater master plan and actually implement stormwater actions using Restore Council funding. That still has to be approved by the full council, but we're looking about a little bit over $9.5 million to support some of those initiatives. And that work is going to be focused primarily in the old Tampa Bay watershed where we have a lot of issues, but the old Tampa Bay watershed includes portions of the city of St. Pete, Hillsborough County, City Oldsmar, City of Safety Harbor. So we're trying to, again, work collaboratively along jurisdictional boundaries to look at the best options to reduce nutrient loads emanating from stormwater through that funding. Mm-hmm. That's great. Thank you. Really, any time that there is an opportunity for the city to help with accessing funding, I mean, we really, you do so much just for St. Petersburg, let alone the entire region. And I know I'm very supportive of everything that you do. Just really grateful. With today being World Oceans Day, I think it's wonderful that we had FIO and you guys here. And we heard from Monty earlier about, of course, that focus on education. And you guys have some great educational resources and opportunities as well. If you wanted to talk about that just for a moment. Yeah. Actually, to celebrate World's Oceans Day, if you guys don't have anything to do this Saturday, we actually have a give-a-day for the Bay over in Bishop's Harbor on the other coast. But it is a cleanup event around Mariposa Key. We're asking folks to bring their kayaks and paddle boards to paddle out to some of the mangrove line areas in Bishop's Harbor and do a trash cleanup. So a lot of those events we try to pursue during the cooler portions of this year. But because World Oceans Day is in June, we're having that event this Saturday. So that's one event. I mentioned our Bay Mini Grants. That is a smaller community-based program that we fund a lot of either school groups, community organizations, or homeowner associations on actions they could pursue in their backyards, either at stormwater ponds or further involve the community in understanding the importance of the Bay. So we've worked with a variety of groups of getting access to the Bay from folks that don't normally get a chance to go fishing or learn about the critters that are in the Tampa Bay Estuary. So we've worked a lot with those smaller organizations trying to get the community and kids from K-12 out on the Bay and experiencing why we're trying to protect it. Yeah. And I know some of the recipient groups from those mini-grants. And it's just wonderful the work that that, the good that that does with the work that they're doing. And, you know, anytime you guys are out at these community events, people are learning from you. And so it's, I just, I really appreciate how visible you are in the community and how open it is to people of all ages to learn more about how they can be better stewards of the Bay. So, thank you for all you do. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And thank you, Mr. Preyman. If I may, just to close off and to be in line with some of the recommendations and thoughts as part of this. We will be bringing to council soon the declaration of cooperation for Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium for city council to approve. This will provide us as a region to work together over the years 2022 to 2026 period to provide FDEP with an updated reasonable assurance plan in 2027 ensuring that state water quality criteria will be met. So that will be coming soon, consistent with the practices and to Councilman Montanari, kind with, greatly appreciate it. But honestly, the way you've stepped in and just absorbed everything is amazing. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the update. And thank you, Councilmember Montanari, for bringing that forward. Thank you. Okay. And speaking of things you're bringing forward, we'll move on to your next item, item E4, which is the Jewish Federation of Florida Gulf Coast update. And Councilmember Montanari. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pleased to introduce Maxine Kaufman, who's the executive director of the Jewish Federation. And she's joined by Stuart Berger, the major gifts and community relations associate. And the Jewish Federation's mission is to ensure the continuity of Jewish life and culture locally in Israel and around the world. And welcome to City Hall. And I'll give you the floor. Okay. A little technologically not so good, but we got it up there. So good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maxine Kaufman, and I have the honor of being the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Florida's Gulf Coast, serving Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties. I'm here with my colleague and friend, Stuart Berger, to tell you a little bit more about the Federation. This past fall and winter, I had the opportunity to meet individually with all of you, either in person or by Zoom. It was during my meeting with Councilmember Ed Montanari that this notion of coming before the entire City Council was born, and I'm thrilled to be here today. Okay, we've put together a very short PowerPoint presentation that highlights the work of Federation. So, without further ado, let's get to it. Actually, I'm going to try this. And if you can hit the video. There you go. I'm going to speak a little bit more about these four pillars, but this is a video that was brought by our... What is the Jewish Federation, and what do you do? The answer is really quite simple. We help people. We help the 13 million Jews living around the world. We help every Jew, every day, in every way. We educate children so they build Jewish identities. We act when Jewish families are in danger. We care for the elderly by providing medicine and food. We connect newcomers to our community. We empower leaders so they make a bigger impact. How do we do all this for all these people? This is sometimes the tricky part. We work as a system with local and overseas partners. Instead of focusing on one need or cause, we look at the community as a whole. This way, one donation supports the issues you're aware of, as well as those that are less obvious, but no less important. Being aware of the growing and changing needs in our community and creating solutions to meet them is something in which we take great pride. Whether it's helping a senior stay in their house longer, sending a Jewish child to camp, feeding a family in Russia, or educating an at-risk youth in Israel, we're there to help. Our work varies widely, but each program we support is vitally important to the people who need them. This is all possible because of generous people in our community who make contributions to the Federation annually. The coolest part is that it's not just about people giving support. It's also about people deciding where the money goes. Each year, dedicated volunteers review the programs and partners we support in the area of effective programming, governance, and finance and administration. Thanks to this dedication, we know the community's dollars are hard at work each and every day. So, that's it. That's what we do. We help people. We hope you'll join us and get involved, make a donation, or simply learn more. Thank you. So, that video was put together by Jewish Federations of North America, which is our national office. I'm going to talk about the four pillars. As you saw from the video, Federation raises funds from generous donors in our community. Then, based on the recommendations from our leadership, these funds are divided into four categories, which are the basis of our organization. This chart shows how the funds were distributed this past fiscal year, July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. The funds for these expenditures were raised in the previous campaign year. The first pillar, slice, is the green, building Jewish identity and community education, planning, and referral. This is our largest pillar. Almost half of our budget lies within this section. Let me point out just a few. We allocate funds to Hillel's of the Florida Suncoast. Hillel is an on-campus affinity association for college students. The Florida Holocaust Museum, I know you are all familiar with the museum and the gem of a museum in our own community. Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival is a joint program we do with Tampa Jewish Federation. We also have our own documentary series entitled Reel to Reel, R-E-A-L to R-E-E-L. I happen to like that. Jewish Camp and Israel Program Scholarships. We help children get to Jewish overnight summer camps and teen trips to Israel because we know that these types of immersive programs are the best way to help the next generation understand and appreciate our religion and our traditions. Congregational support. We help our local synagogues and temples with special projects, including advertising in our weekly e-newsletter and maintaining our community calendar. The Jewish Press of Tampa Bay. There are two editions of this paper, one in Pinellas County and one in Hillsboro, Tampa. Our federation helps with the distribution and delivery of the Jewish press to over 7,500 homes in Pinellas County. And the paper is published twice per month. Our next pillar is donor development, administrative expenses, and organizational management. This is the cost of doing and maintaining our business. The third pillar is caring for our most vulnerable. As you learned in the video, we love to help people. We are blessed in this community to have a fantastic relationship with Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services. The Jewish Family Services Program helps our most vulnerable in our community, which includes Holocaust survivors and emergency food and housing needs for the Jewish community as well as the non-Jewish community. Menorah Life is a senior health care facility located here in St. Petersburg, and we make sure that the residents and patients that are located there live their lives with dignity and care by providing a spiritual comfort program. We allocate funds to the Jewish war veterans, and we allocate funds to Suncoast Hospice Empath Health Network, providing a way for those in end-of-life scenarios to hear culturally Jewish music. The fourth pillar is Israel and overseas programming, as well as education and advocacy. We work with our international partner, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and have a relationship with an area of Israel called, the city called Chedera. It's in a region called Eron. I was there a couple weeks ago as I spoke with Council Member Montanari. It's a bit northwest of Tel Aviv, and the relationship with this area forms a living bridge between us and the people in Israel. We have a one-to-one partnership. We have exchange programs with teens, educators, artists, those in the medical field, and more. This is also the pillar that encompasses our JCRC, and I am going to let Stuart talk a little bit more about it. Thank you, Maxine. Hello, counselors. Hope you're all doing today very well. I am Stuart Berger. I am the director of Jewish Community Relations Council, or otherwise known as the JCRC, of the Jewish Federation. The JCRC is responsible for doing several very important things. First of all, we are the community outreach arm of the Jewish Federation. We have an interfaith initiative that exists to create positive relations with members of the non-Jewish community. In March, we got a group together to take the deuces tour of South St. Petersburg, where we learned quite a bit of the history of South St. Pete. And also, we learned about the vibrant community that was disrupted by the building of 275 and Tropicana Field. I thought it was a very great tour. We had about 12 people. We're probably going to do that again at the end of the year. I also represent the Pinellas Federation on the ABC Action News Diversity Council. And coming this Sunday, the JCRC will be participating in the National Amity Day celebration held at the Baha'i Center in Clearwater. It is also under the JCRC banner that finds me taking part in a new Black Jewish Dialogue group that Councilman Floyd is actually part of. And basically, we just get together as friends and discuss issues that are important to everybody. And we just started that group, and it's a wonderful group, and we hope it grows. The Interfaith Initiative believes that the survival of humanity depends on growing closer together and sharing this wonderful gem of a planet that we have. And we have to do it together, or we're going to perish together. Another important task of the JCRC is that we are engaged in the fight against anti-Semitism, the baseless hatred of Jewish people as a group. The award ceremony in February that many of you attended at American Stage, honoring Mike Eagle of the Florida Holocaust Museum, was organized by the JCRC. The JCRC is also the group that successfully lobbied the Clearwater City Council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism. This non-binding definition helps local law enforcement, public officials, and the public as a whole to understand what is anti-Semitic and what is not. For example, criticizing the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic. However, saying that Israel is responsible for the creation and spread of COVID so the Jews can dominate the world, well, that is anti-Semitic. Also, in my capacity as director, I address different groups, both Jewish and non-Jewish, about the long history of anti-Semitism and Jewish persecution. And that's all I have. Maxine? So, thank you, City Council of St. Petersburg. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. And thank you for the proclamation that was made in May, recognizing Jewish Heritage Month. These open dialogues and communications are key for us all to live together harmoniously and respectfully in our community, and especially in our beautiful city of St. Petersburg. Any questions, comments? Thank you, Ms. Kaufman and Mr. Berger, for your presentation. We appreciate the valuable information that you've shared with us today. We're going to ask Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Vice Chair Fick Sanders. And thank you, Ms. Kaufman and Mr. Berger, for coming in and talking about the Jewish Federation. And I apologize for calling you when you were in Israel at one time. I think you had just landed after flying all the way across the Atlantic. Oh, did you? I did. Anyway, the Jewish Federation and everything that you do is very important to us here in the city of St. Petersburg. And we need to make sure that we support you, support the Jewish community, talk about the history of the Jewish people. And I was glad that you came in and talked a little bit about your federation and everything that you did. And that program that you had at American Stage for Mike Eagle, that was a night well spent and a very interesting evening. So I hope to get invited to more events like that. So thank you for coming in. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Maxine Stewart, for the presentation. And thank you for inviting us in February to the Noa Tishby conversation on anti-Semitism. Some of us were there. It was really wonderful when there are other events like that. Keep us in mind. It's always good to get in here in spaces like that and find out what is happening out there. You know, the increase in anti-Semitism that has happened since in 2022, the largest ever, well, since 1979. It's like 30-something, 6% increase this last year. And that's just shocking. And even in the city of St. Petersburg, where people think, well, we are the most welcoming city, everyone's welcome, there's anti-Semitism here. And in my district, there are flyers that are being thrown out. And I know it happens in other city council members' districts. And it shocked me every time I get that text from the police telling me that there were just flyers with anti-Semitic material being thrown out in our neighborhoods. And it happens more often than people realize. You know, a statistic that's important to remember, and Mike Eagle, I was on a panel with him recently. He mentioned it. I thought it was important to mention it again since we're talking about it. It's 2.4% of the population is Jewish. But anti-Semitism drives 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes. That's just mind-boggling. And I think that statistic says so much. So, you know, I just, I, hopefully you can continue the education, the outreach, and, you know, and the conversations that we need to continue having. Because, you know, the rise in hate crimes, it's scary. It's scary. And it's not, you know, just here. It's in other places in our nation. Charlottesville, you know, happened not that long ago when they were saying Jews are going to replace us. And here we are in 2023, and that's happening. And so, I appreciate the work that you do, is what I'm trying to say. So, thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for that, the update, the information, and for everything that you do to ensure that we have, that we're always striving to be a more inclusive community. Stewart, you were talking earlier about some of the activities that you're involved in. And, one, you mentioned the resolution that was passed by the city of Clearwater. The IRA resolution. Yes. Yeah. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It's a consortium of different nations, of 36 different nations, that got together to come up with a working definition of anti-Semitism, so people have an idea of what is anti-Semitic and what is not anti-Semitic. And it's being passed by many, many municipalities. We just got it passed in Clearwater. About 36 different municipalities in Florida, mostly on the other coast, have already passed it. And we just think it's an important thing for that, you know, for the first responders to understand and for the police officers to understand what is and what isn't. And that's an ongoing issue, and that's something that we continue to work on. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to see that language and have a conversation about that with you. So, if you wouldn't mind, just send me an email with that, the resolution language, if it's not too much trouble. Oh, no, no, not at all. And then I'll just follow up with you so we can have a conversation, and we'll talk with PD as well. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Madam Chair. Maxine Stewart, always good to see you. Thank you for the report. It was funny. I was talking with my aunt, who lives in Haifa, and we were having a bunch of conversations, and I was telling her about the Noah Tishby. I called it a candid conversation because the way she communicates, I love. Because it's very direct, and she uses words I like, too. So, but she connected with everybody in that room, you know, from the college students all the way, you know, to elected officials, and we had, you know, just kind of a full spectrum of people in that room, and she connected with all of them. And I, and I, it was such a great, great event. I was, I was so happy. I was, like, overjoyed walking out. But also, it was, you learned a lot, too. And so, just very thankful for the invite. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. It, I, it really, I walked away from that going, man, I'm coming to this every year. So, just thank you so much, and thank you for the continued work. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Maxine Stewart. Good to see you again. And I know we got off on the wrong foot a little bit. But thank you for taking the deuces tour. That was something that we were talking about and encouraging. So, as a part of that Black-Jewish dialogue, this cultural exchange, and I was invited but couldn't attend to be a part of the group. I sent my regards, and I'm sure that you received them. But thank you for being open and willing to have these types of conversations and these exchanges. To Council Member Curtis's point, sometimes it can be tough and straightforward, and we have to just say what needs to be said. I've been engaged in several conversations with members of the Jewish community lately. And the parallels between our two communities, I think we have more in common than we realize. Whether it's our histories of oppression, slavery, and making bricks out of straw, so to speak. And so, just to see the parallels and be able to have the conversations, I participated in the reading of the names. And while I was there, it reminded me of a candlelight vigil that we had in Childs Park where we read names. And so, just looking at a lot of the things that we have in common, and so I've been really excited about participating. I think there's a book club meeting that I'm going to be attending next week as well. And so, really just wanted to let you know how much we, I've seen and really realized. I've always known it, but having these conversations lately have shown me that we have a lot more in common than we differ on. And so, how can we build on those commonalities and really look at the successes that have been able to be achieved by members of your community? The resilience, the unity, and a lot of the things that we talked about even in the proclamation around Juneteenth. And so, seeing how we can continue the cultural exchange and knowledge and dialogue to build a better relationship with each other. So, thank you all for coming in and thank you, Councilmember Montenari for bringing this forward. Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely, and thank you all for being here with us today. Good to see you as always, and thank you, Councilmember Montenari, for bringing this forward. We appreciate you. All right, thank you. So next we are going to go to item E5, which is our St. Petersburg Housing Authority update. I'd like to welcome Mr. Lundy, who is the CEO of the St. Pete Housing Authority, and I know you've got some board members here with you today as well. So just want to welcome everyone, thank you all for being here, and Mr. Lundy, I believe you have a short presentation for us today, so thank you for your patience and hanging in there with us. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, thanks to this great council, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, for this opportunity to speak before this group. And I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge a couple of my board members that I have here and thank them for being here in this great space. We have my chairman, Chairman James Dates, and we have Terry Lipsy Scott, who is sitting right here. Thank you both for being here and supporting me and supporting the Housing Authority. And we probably have some other board members who are joining us virtually, and so this is a good opportunity to thank the entire board for its support, for the Housing Authority, and the good work that we do to bring affordable housing to the great citizens of St. Petersburg. So I'd like to begin, and I have a little bit of a slide presentation. I would like to begin my update with the state of the St. Petersburg Housing Authority is strong. Over the past three years, I've had the pleasure of working with a solid board of commissioners, super staff, strong residents. To yearn for good affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, quality schools, good paying jobs, and small business opportunities. This afternoon, or evening, I want to highlight three core areas. Organizational restructuring, real estate redevelopment, and supportive services. Organizational restructuring. 2021, the St. Petersburg Housing Authority Board of Commissioners approved organizational restructuring plan. To improve the agency's operations while strengthening its competitiveness in the marketplace. Since the restructuring, we have embarked on extensive staff training with topics ranging from fair housing to good customer service. In 2022, the Housing Authority rebranded with new logos with bright, inviting colors and a new tagline, creating opportunities for stronger communities. Now, our new structure and focus on staff training has produced results. And for fiscal year 2021, our agency achieved a high performance status from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in its Housing Choice Voucher Program with a cumulative score of 96%. In 2022, it received a perfect score of 100% in its Housing Choice Voucher Program. And I'm happy to report today that recently we received a high performance status from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for our public housing program as well. And we scored in the percentile of 90%. We now hold the distinction of being a high performing agency in both of our major programs. So with this confidence, I report to you through a solid board of commissioners, strong staff, powerful partnerships. We have the foundational building blocks to begin to meet the affordable housing needs of our great city. With respect to real estate development, we have three real estate initiatives that I want to share with you that are on the front burners. The first one, of course, you all know, Jordan Park. Many thanks to the city for its generous contribution of $2 million of its community reinvestment area fund, combined with some of the funds we got from the county. With a total redevelopment package of $93 million to renovate 206 family apartments in Jordan Park. As well as the construction of a 60 unit State of the Arts Senior Building enshrined with the new name, The Legacy at Jordan Park. The mid-rise is about 90% complete with the following features. Community balconies, large community clubhouse, hurricane impact windows. Stations, one and two bedroom windows, granite countertops, washers and dryers, game room, pickleball court. Walking paths, emergency, generator, and emergency outlet in each of the apartments. While the family apartments at Jordan Park are about 80% complete, phase one, which is 97 apartments, is completely renovated and the families have relocated back to those units. And that occurred back in October and November of 2022. The remaining 109 units are projected to be completed late summer, fall of this year. The renovation of the family site includes the following. New kitchens and baths, new hurricane impact windows, new roofs, new gutters, downspouts, exterior doors. New washers and dryers, water heaters, exterior and interior painting, additional parking spaces, and landscaping. We anticipate having the relocation completed by the end of this year and everybody into those units by the end of this year through a term key transaction. Our next real estate initiative is our Hartford site. The housing authority owns three parcels, totaling about two acres, located on Hartford Street North and 32nd Avenue North here in St. Petersburg where we intend to construct 35 family units and 12 senior units. Now adjacent to the parcels is our Saratoga property with 34 apartments that we intend to renovate as part of the 81 unit redevelopment plan. We currently are pursuing a free developer and anticipate having under contract later this year. Recently we were awarded $250,000 from the TD Bank's charitable foundation to replace roofs and windows there at Saratoga. The installation is slated to take place late this year. The arising for the total reconstruction, new construction there at Hartford site is projected to begin sometime next year. Our third real estate redevelopment initiative is our Ed White redevelopment. Once again, many thanks and how grateful we are to this council and to the mayor for his generous financial contribution of approximately $10 million for our Ed White redevelopment initiative. In 2021, the Housing Authority purchased the six-story, 211,000 square foot former hospital to provide 70 affordable housing units for seniors at 80% below the area median income. As an added value, we plan to relocate our entire administrative staff to the property to strengthen our connection with the community and our customer base. The redevelopment budget is upwards of $30 million. Our architectural joints for phase one administrative offices are complete and are right now with the city for permitting. In May, we posted a solicitation for a general contractor to conduct the renovations. We plan to break ground for phase one within the next 60 to 90 days. We will be sending invitations to all of you and we would love for you to join us on that marvelous day. Phase two will include 70 senior apartments. The drawings are about 30% complete and is scheduled to be completed by October, November this year. We anticipate beginning construction sometime in 2024. So in summary of these three real estate development initiatives, I can say that we are very excited here at the Housing Authority, St. Petersburg Housing Authority, about our capacity to bring new and improved affordable housing units to the marketplace. As our plans come to fruition, we would have renovated or improved 240 existing units and would have constructed 177 new units for a grand total of 414 affordable housing units. As you can see, the St. Petersburg Housing Authority is creating opportunities for stronger communities. Now allow me to share a little bit about our supportive services program. Although the bricks and sticks and mortar are essential, what makes us unique is our direct and indirect services that we provide to our residents, enabling them to experience the quality of life consistent with the American ideal. And my first program I want to share with you is our family self-sufficiency program. Our family self-sufficiency program is a five-year program developed in conjunction with the St. Petersburg Housing Authority's case managers and the residents to establish measurable goals and objectives that lead to self-sufficiency. The self-sufficiency program is incentivized with a HUD-approved escrow account that participants accrue savings eligible for activities, such as education and home ownership over a five-year period. We currently have 122 families participating in our family self-sufficiency program. And we have 47 families on the waiting list to enroll in the family self-sufficiency program. So as we build capacity with additional case workers, we will be able to serve more families. The beauty of the program is the motivation and the engagement of our residents in their individual pursuits towards self-sufficiency. The next program I want to share with you, the final program, is a home ownership program. And it is thriving. Simply stated, the home ownership program utilizes housing choice vouchers that are issued to our housing choice voucher participants. Upon completion of prescribed program requirements, the rental assistance vouchers convert to a home ownership voucher. At which point, the participant pays a portion of the mortgage based on their income and the balance of the mortgage is paid through the housing choice voucher program. Since the beginning of the program in 2022, nine families have purchased homes. Four families have purchased homes through the traditional marketplace. And five families have purchased homes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. And we have another six families who are in the home ownership pipeline. So yes, our supporter services program is another expression of our intentional effort to create opportunities for stronger communities. By creating pathways to enable many of our affordable housing residents to move up and out of public housing as we know it. So in closing, I just want to share that this administration has qualified, competent, compassionate staff in place. And over the past three years, we have solidified the affordable housing building blocks and strengthened the existing partnerships by creating relationships that position the agencies to stretch itself to begin to meet the ongoing affordable housing needs of this great city. Thank you, and I'll open up for questions if you have. Well, Mr. Lundy, I just have to say, I am always continuously impressed with you. You know, it wasn't that long ago, 2019, Housing Authority was in a mess. And myself, Council Member Montaneri, Council Member Driscoll, we were sitting here like shaking our heads like what is going to happen, right? Like what is the future? And Ms. Lipsy Scott brought a lot of things to light in those days. And a lot of work has been done to get to this place. Not only the relationship that we have, but the work that you're doing for the community. I just cannot thank you enough. Just absolutely incredible. So thank you just for what you do, who you are, how you lead, to your entire board, Mr. Dates. You know, you just have such a fantastic team. In the very first meeting you and I ever had in 2020, you told me about this home ownership opportunity program. And you said you were going to make it happen. And so I just want to also congratulate you on that because home ownership is the catalyst for helping people be able to maintain stability of their own. And you see that vision. You saw that vision. You came here with that vision. And you implemented it. So I just have to thank you so much, not only on behalf of Council, but for the community itself, because that's where the real work is. You can see it in the success that you're having, and I just want to congratulate you and thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I must give respect to my staff. They do a great job. Fantastic staff. You can't do anything without them. Absolutely. And this is just part of our vision to move people beyond public housing as we now know it. That's always been my vision. I've shared with groups from time to time. Used to live in public housing. And I can remember the time when my dad, the first time we moved into Finlay the Gardens in Cincinnati, he called my brothers and me over and said, listen, as nice as this apartment is right now, we're going to leave the same way when we leave. And we're not going to be here long. So as soon as we can give up enough money, we're going to move out. Our first home was, my dad purchased us through the VA. So it was a zero down payment. I didn't know it at the time. We were there like five years and moved out and bought a home. And it didn't click at that point. Later on, as I went to school and I came back and had a chance to work as a social worker, I realized, wow. This is what we should try to do for the good people who live in public housing. Try to create pathways for them to become self-sufficient. Move up and out when they can. So thank you for your comments and thank this council for all of your support for the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. So I was not on city council pre your leadership. And it sounds like it's good because what I see now, I love. And it's wonderful to see what you've done with the organization. I will tell you like every project that you have upcoming, I'm excited about the Ed White Hospital. The fact that you're providing housing for our mature experienced citizens is very exciting. So I'm just very happy for everything that's happening. I do have an ask. So I got an email from y'all on your performance report. Yes. Which is fantastic. I looked at it online. Do you have hard copies you could give us? Yes, we do. I think it's great. There's a lot of good information in there. And so I don't think we got hard copies. So I think if you can share with city council because there are really good graphics in there. We do have hard copies. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for asking. Make sure you have one. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I'll be quick. I just want to say thank you for the presentation and for everything that's been going on. I'm really excited about the new development that you're bringing, the redevelopment. Two of those projects are in my district really close to where I live and I'm really happy about it. I'd love to see y'all not just being stable but growing and I hope that we can continue to support that in the future. So thank you so much for everything. Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be very brief. Mr. Lundy, it's always great to see you. And you just, as Chair Gabbard talked about, the housing authority was a mess before you got here. And your leadership style, your humble nature, but your way of getting things done just, it's very clear to us the great value that you bring to the housing authority. And I'm so thankful that we've got you at the helm of this organization and everything that you've done. And thank you for sharing that story about your father and you growing up because you shared that with me before and I forgot about it. But it's a great story to tell and it gives people hope and people need hope. So thank you for leading. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the update. Thank you to your staff and board members that are here too. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you, Madam Chair. Vice Chair Fick Sanders. Thank you so much. You know that I wasn't going to let you come and not say something. I caught you as soon as you were walking in the door asking for something, didn't I? So that's the relationship we formed and I want to thank you for always acknowledging the fact that I can reach out to you in regards, especially with the Senior Village, which really brought me into this space with the St. Pete Housing Authority. And I want to thank, you know, your team that's here and they talk about Mr. Lundy made it happen. It was Terry Lundy Scott that said it all. So I am just so glad, yes she did, because a lot of us didn't know, right? Unless you live in that environment, unless you took place that you knew what was really going on, council members didn't know, the community didn't know. And so it took that courageous voice to introduce what was happening over there and you came in during that time and you embraced the voices, you embraced the advocacy and you embraced the change. And for that I want to thank you, but I just definitely need to acknowledge Terry's role in this and your board's role in this. And the council members that were on city council during that time who knew what a mess it was. And also, I remember the whole council met at the Housing Authority, showed up at a meeting, the whole council. Got in the little bus and went all the way to St. Petersburg, we were mad, the whole council. So that lets you know the impact that this has had over the city of St. Petersburg, not just Jordan Park, but the city of St. Petersburg. So with that, Mr. Lundy, I still have your number. I will still be calling, but I do thank you for the things that you're actually trying to do in our community and you've done a great job at it. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you again, Mr. Lundy. Thank you. Come back any time. Thank you. All right. We are going to move now to item E3, the West Central Revitalization Plan. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I just asked for a quick update. And it's good timing because I think you probably saw during agenda review that we see an item next week to add to this. So I just thought it was a good time to just get a quick update on what's going on. I want to thank again my colleagues for your vote to invest in Central Avenue on the west side of St. Petersburg. I can't wait. I see the work happening every day. I'm very excited for it and I'm very excited to connect West Central with the rest of Central of St. Petersburg that really has blossomed into a beautiful corridor. So again, thank you to my colleagues and I'll turn it over to Burjesh and thanks for the quick update. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Good day, Council. It's always a pleasure being here. And just to give that quick update and it couldn't be better said, just some quick little background on this project. The planning really started on this project for a community that has been waiting all the way back to 2006. So that's how long this project has been in the planning until funding was identified, concepts developed, and now in the implementation. So just a quick overview of what the project is, it's equitable development within the corridor, the streetscape improvements, pedestrian safety, roadway safety aesthetics, and infrastructure upgrades. We couple this with knowing that all infrastructure, the water main needed to be replaced, not having to go back to the future. So we are replacing the water main, which is the main time-consuming part of the work. As a general context, and back in 2022 when I came to request council approval, I mentioned looking at this, this is the gateway to the city in and out from the west side. It wasn't appealing then, and our intention is to make it somewhere attractive to foster growth within the western section of the city. So the project limits itself starts from Park Street and continues down to 58th Street. And it consists of water main as well as streetscape improvements. We have two general different configurations that we'll be implementing based on how the businesses are oriented within that corridor. So quickly, just again, the detailed overlook of it, we're looking at sidewalks and accessibility improvements. Replacing some of the span wire traffic signals with mast arm systems at Park Street, 66th and 58th Street. Landscape median, signage, and striping replacement. Enhanced pedestrian crossings with RFBs, as well as dedicated bike lanes throughout the project. And the resurfacing was originally intended to be done separately, but we will be coming with this as an amendment to the contract in a future council meeting. Primarily, again, because all the resurfacing contractors, and we've seen this across the industry, have opted not to renew their contracts in the last year with many agencies because of the cost inflation they experienced. So, again, just continuing on the detail work, and this goes to the water element. Those are what you see right now. These are not bicycle racks, I assure you. These are water mains, backflow preventers. So some, and you see ballers hit on it. Quite often our utility departments have been out there repairing these long corridors because cars hit it. And I'll be honest, just vandalism of people breaking it. Construction coordination, we're looking at 540 days, and if some of you have traversed that section, you would see that we've started work on the western section of the project, progressing to the east, and it's primarily the water main. This is why we mentioned to the public, and we keep mentioning, they've been really great with us. Understanding that construction, they may not see construction, even though the project has started. They may not, they may see construction for the next week, and may not see it again for the next two months. Reason me and I can give an example in the next set of images. Here's a perfect example, the water main. So we're installing the water main right now starting at Park Street. We're approximately at 63rd Street. We have to complete that entire section while keeping the existing water main in operation still. Then we have to pressure test it, bacteria test it, clean it and test it. Then send those reports to DEP. Once DEP signs off on it, then we come off individually and move each one, each service connection from the old line to the new line. Then we can abandon the old line. Then we can come back and restore on top of it. So it looks like a lot of work I've done and people are going to ask the questions. And this is generally for water main projects. So if you all see these in your districts, this is generally why we can't cover it up. Until we get that clearance from DEP that says it's cleared, we should not be covering it up because we don't want to go and dig it back up again. We don't want to take all the concrete because then we will be responsible for that cost. So once we switch everything across, then we'll come back and restore. Unfortunately, how the construction industry is right now, we're fighting for two truckloads of concrete as opposed to somebody who's ordering 100 truckloads of concrete. So we have to make sure we get far enough ahead that we can call the restoration crews in and they can stay there and continuously be working. And have enough work to catch up while we work the next section. So it's strategic planning, sequencing, and we've had to adjust based on this environment that we experience right now. The mast arms, I'm not going to go into depth in it, but anybody wants to understand how drilled shafts are constructed, I'm all about that. So just quickly, the drill, insert the reinforcement, and it's under construction. Once the concrete cures, we'll go ahead and install the mast arm. Current status, as I mentioned, we're about 60% complete on the water main. We're waiting on the pressure testing right now on DEP clearances. Drill shafts should be completed all of them soon. Short-term look ahead, really aggressive push, trying to get enough room for the concrete and restoration crews behind us. And then long-term, we're looking to complete all the water main work by October. And it's going to be a quick push with that with the streetscape improvements and final milling and resurfacing and striping. And with that, I'll go ahead and ask any questions. Answer any questions, sorry. Council Member Curtis. Rajesh, thank you again for putting this report together and bringing it here. And I would be remiss if I didn't also thank the Mayor and City Administrator Gerdes for being nimble and making this funding happen last year. And I know, Council Chair Gabbard, I know that affected you a little bit, too. So again, I appreciate all of you and very excited to see this. So thanks again. Thanks, Madam Chair. Absolutely. And a worthwhile transfer of projects is, let's be honest, a lot of construction going through there. Probably didn't make sense for it to happen right now, right? But with redistricting, not my district anymore anyway. So, you know, we'll let Council Member Montaneri deal with that. Oh, I'm happy. So, yeah, yeah, he's good. He can handle all that complaints over the construction and the damage on the road. So, if you need backup. Sure. They still call. So, but thank you, Brijesh, for the presentation and for the update. I appreciate you bringing this forward, Council Member Gerdes. And thank you very much. Good to see you and have a good evening. All right. We will take up our last report item, which is item E6. This is an emergency procurement report. And for the first time I get to say it, Community Enrichment Administrator, Mike Jeffries. Thank you. I appreciate it. And it certainly did not start in parks at this meeting. Thank you, Mr. Administrator. We heard you earlier talking about codes. So, today we have a presentation prepared for you. But we are here to formally notify you that the mayor has activated the emergency procurement provision, section 2-213 of the procurement code, where we have gone in a different direction with our summer lunch food program vendor. I have contacted each of you. We've chatted about it. The new contract is in place with Pine House County Schools. I have Lynn Gordon here. We have the director of procurement here as well. If you have any questions, we're happy to either give you the presentation, give you more details, or consider yourself notified. We don't, we don't, I mean, is there a motion to be made? There's no action that's required. No, there's no action, so. It's just emergency. No, I don't. Well. One on one was good. We do have a question, though. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for the memo that outlined what happened and for going back to last year to where the problems really started so that we all understand how we got here and why you had to act so quickly. And it is, quite frankly, it's heartbreaking to have children who rely on meals through the summer food program going without. And I don't know, I just, I was just in disbelief as I found out about this. And I'm so glad that you were able to at least work quickly because it was just, what, a week, a week ago or so that you were able to, you know, that you had to make some decisions. And. I'm glad you mentioned that. It was absolutely a group effort. The legal department scrambled. The procurement department scrambled. Our Kim Lito and Healthy St. Pete, she was all over it between the three groups working together. They were able to work with our amazing partner, the Pine House County School System, and they stepped up and said, we are, we are willing, we're able. They literally got word on probably Thursday and had food delivered eight o'clock Monday morning. So I cannot thank our, our partners internally and externally enough to, to scramble and make this happen. So, um, and then again, as I spoke to each of you, um, there were just, again, just strong advocacy for the program and for the children. So we, we thank you very much for that. Good. Thank you. And I don't do this often, but I am going to call the culprit by name. Um, canteen refreshment services, shame on you, shame on you. Never again. Do I want to see us doing business with that organization? Thank you. Well, Mike, I just want to thank you so much. Um, I have my little mini me in your program and immediately on Tuesday evening heard about the issues. But what I also heard was how professionally your staff handled the issues that day. And every day last week, the kids were fed. It may not have been easy. It was a struggle. It was a scramble. But your staff made sure it was taken care of while you all were coming up with a long-term solution. So I cannot say enough, not only as a council member, but as a mom, thank you for how well you take care of our kids. Um, you really just, it does, you do an amazing job and it just gives me such relief to know that, um, the children of St. Petersburg are well taken care of when they are in your care. So thank you so much. Our management team, Lynn Gordon is here right now. They get all the credit. So we've got a fantastic team. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. Very good. Thank you for sticking around with us today. Thank you, Lynn. All right. We will go to our final open forum of the day. Madam Chair, we have two speakers. Two speakers. Okay. Evan Jones and Cynthia Allen. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Mr. Jones. Good afternoon, council. My name's Evan Jones. I live at 2314 Woodlawn Circle West in St. Petersburg. And it's just an unbelievable pleasure to sit here for a couple hours and listen to everything that's going on in St. Petersburg. This is a fantastic community and there's so many community assets that we have that we're utilizing and taking advantage of. It's absolutely wonderful to see. I'm here in particular today to talk to you about another community asset and that's the Tampa Bay Rays. I'm following up with the council regarding the success and importance of retaining the Tampa Bay Rays. I spoke to you about the value the Rays represent according to Forbes magazine last month of $1.3 billion. An appreciation of eight times their investment that Stu Sternberg and the management team made. I, at the time, implored Stu Sternberg to come here and apologize for the statement that he made that he was hopeful that an agreement could be reached for a new stadium. But if it couldn't be, they would have to consider other options. They might be moving the team, presumably to a more lucrative market. At that time, the Rays were 7-0, had a perfect record. Six games later, they tied the Major League Baseball record for 13-0. The attendance since then, I'm pleased to report, has been 40% higher than last year. The TV viewership has eclipsed 200,000 per game. Bally Streaming reports an increase of 125% on the cusp of being awarded the winner of the RFP process to develop Tropicana Field. I implore the Rays management to negotiate in good faith with the City of St. Pete and realize the full potential of what the City has given them. Finally, it should be known that the team that the Rays play next is the Texas Rangers. That's important because not too long ago, the Texas Rangers signed a 20-year, $20 billion marketing agreement with their local TV station. The Rays who customarily are willing to sign one-year contracts. The irony of all this is that the Rays have been rumored to be marketing a percentage interest of the team that I suggested or even sell the team. Something that in order to monetize the profits and good fortune that they have, it's time to stop the charade and negotiate in good faith. That the Rays are not an asset to trade like baseball cards. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jones. And I believe the- Cynthia? Allen? There's no one else here, so. Okay, anyone on Zoom? No. Okay, we will close open forum and council members, we will go to announcements. And I'm going to start today because we have two birthdays. On Tuesday, we had our council administrator, Cindy Shepard. And this Saturday, we have our normal birthday announcer, Councilmember Gerdes. So, let's sing happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. You guys know how I feel now. Happy birthday to both of you. Happy birthday. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to everybody for that. Not a birthday if you don't get embarrassed by your city council. I did want to make one announcement just in congratulations. One of our legislative aides, J.C. Pritchett, was accepted to Stetson University Law School. Really, really big deal. So, I just wanted to publicly say congratulations, and I'll poke fun at my dad for a second. When he applied to Stetson, he was first denied. But then came back and got highest GPA in the summer class. So, he stuck it to him. But I just know how tough it is to get into law school and that process. And he's going to be going to law school part-time while still continuing to serve the city. Thank God. It's just commendable. Sorry. Did I say that out loud? He said thank God. And so, just very proud of him and congratulations to J.C. And also, it's a big series. We're playing the second best team in the American League this weekend, the Texas Rangers. So, if you can, go out and see him and go race. Thanks, Madam Chair. Absolutely. And I did have one other announcement I forgot about. Tomorrow evening at the Youth Farm is the fourth anniversary, fourth celebration. So, if you are out and about tomorrow evening, six o'clock at the Youth Farm. All right, anybody else? No? All right, everyone, meeting adjourned. Thank you.