City Council - Mar 21, 2024

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Hopley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. I've already hit the gavel, so we've officially begun. We're going to officially call this meeting to order. I'm going to ask our pastor, Chris Foch. Oh, okay. I forgot. Roll call. I'm so excited, y'all. I'm just excited. I'm trying to hurry up and get to the announcement. Roll call, please. Montenari. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Nick Sanders. Here. Hriscoll. Here. Hamid. Here. Lloyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Here. Now we are officially going to ask Pastor Chris Foch from our Savior Lutheran to provide the invocation, and following that, we're going to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Will you please join me in standing? Thank you, Madam Chair. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we gather here today, we give thanks for your presence. We give thanks for your goodness. We give thanks for your forgiveness and mercy and grace that is freely given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, back when you created the heavens and the earth, you tasked the very first humans with being good stewards of your creation. And today, that stewardship continues with all of the residents of our city, but particularly these men and women who stand before us, whom you have called to help lead this sunshine city in the sunshine state. Lord, we know that serving as a leader can oftentimes be an isolating and thankless vocation. As a leader, you're expected to have all the answers and solve all the problems, oftentimes with very little encouragement and support. And so this afternoon, I ask that you would strengthen and encourage the members of this council. Give them peace and rest. Bless their families and their friends and their neighbors, the people who love them and encourage them as they continue to serve on this council. Bless those who will be recognized today for their service to the city. Bless our president and our Congress. Bless our governor and our state representatives. Bless our mayor and the city employees. Bless our men and women who protect us from harm and danger every single day. We also ask that you would bless our families, our workers, our seniors, our veterans, our widows, our homeless, and all who call this city that you have established as their home. Lord, may we all continue to help make St. Petersburg a community of progress for all residents each and every day. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who created us, the one who redeemed us, and the one who promises to be with us both now and forever. Amen. The pledge allegiance of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Fulch, for that. We really do appreciate the prayers. Council members, we have an agenda before us, but first we are adding item D-8, the Sunshine Ambassador Award, but we are also deferring D-1 to a future date. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and approval, clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Seeing that all council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. We have a consent agenda before us. Can I entertain a motion for approval? Move approval. Second. We have no cards, Madam Chair. No cards. Okay, thank you. So can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, can you please, are we good? Now that we see all present council members have voted, can you please announce, tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. So now we have come to the part that I have been just so patiently waiting for it. I am so super excited. I am so super excited that we actually have awards and presentations that we're going to provide, and I am going to ask, I'm going to ask. When you receive your award, because we have a lot of people celebrating, some really awesome people. Once you have received your award, can you please stay in chambers? Because as we move forward to acknowledge people, we forget our inside voices, and we go outside, and we're losing half the council chambers. And we want to give everyone here the respect and the acknowledgement for everything that they've done. That works? Y'all okay with that? Very good. I appreciate the cooperation. So our first award and presentation will be by our mayor, Kenneth T. Welch, for the Government Finance Professionals Week. Thank you, Madam Chair. And good afternoon to our city council, to our St. Pete team, to all the members of the public. Thank you all for being here on this first meeting of spring already. We have some exciting proclamations and observances today. And the first one, recognizing the folks that keep our fiscal house in order. As you all know, we have a billion-dollar operating and capital budget every year, and we couldn't provide the high level of service to our citizens without the commitment, professionalism, collaborative spirit of our finance team, led by CFO Erica Langans and Budget Director Liz McCoskey, in collaboration with Assistant City Administrator Tom Green. So they are in the back or in the hall. There they are. So I want to ask Erica, Liz, and Tom to join me at the podium. And I want to ask all of our – see, they just – I just call them and they just appear, Madam Chair. And that's the perfect example. They are always doing the work, even behind the scenes. And so – hey, Liz, you brought, like, entire team. So I'd like to present this proclamation. And it reads, whereas the Florida Government Finance Officers Association – you want to hold that? Yes, sir. Okay. Whereas the Florida Government Finance Officers Association is a professional association founded in 1937 and serves more than 3,300 professionals from state, county, and city governments, school districts, colleges, and universities, special districts, and private firms. And whereas the FGFOA is dedicated to being your professional resource by providing opportunities through education, networking, leadership, and information. And whereas this Government Finance Professionals Week, sponsored by the FGFOA and all of its member governmental organizations, is a week-long series of activities aimed at recognizing government finance professionals and the vital services they provide to our state and community. And whereas during this week, government finance professionals throughout the state of Florida will be acknowledged for their hard work, dedication, and leadership. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim March 18th through March 22nd, 2024, as Government Finance Professionals Week in St. Petersburg, and extend our appreciation to all the government finance professionals throughout the state and here in the City of St. Petersburg, including our audit, budget, and management, and other accounting-related professionals throughout the city for their hard work, dedication, and leadership. Thank you all so much. There should be like a spreadsheet up on the board. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, thank you very much, Mayor Welch. This ridiculous crown is a representation of the triple crown that we annually win, and it covers our outstanding achievement in budgeting. The document is reviewed by peers throughout the country and graded, and we consistently receive an outstanding award. It also covers our annual comprehensive financial report, which we'll be presenting next week to the Budget, Finance, and Taxation Committee. And it covers our, what is it, PAFR, the popular annual financial report, which is the more user-friendly, I would say, report. But I did want to take just one more moment to say, you know, $1 that is spent by the city makes a long journey. It starts in budget, approved here in chamber in the adopted budget, and ultimately ends in the finance department in that comprehensive annual financial report. But it makes many stops, and there are people in every department who are watching that $1, and we just want to recognize all of those folks today, too. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Got a couple of comments. Council Member, Vice Chair, Copley-Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, thank you for making finance fun. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's been an honor and a privilege over the last two and a half years to work alongside all of you, to watch the work you do on a daily basis with the resources that you have is nothing short of amazing, is nothing short of amazing. And so I just want you to know that it's appreciated, and thank you, and thank you for making finance fun. Tom, you do that a lot in our one-on-ones. Thank you for that. But it's just truly appreciated, so a big thank you from me. Thank you, Madam Chair. Anyone else speaking? It's an honor to serve the city every day. Liz and I work hand-in-hand on lots of things, and we really enjoy what we do here. And also appreciate the support of our team. We have really great budget, finance, audit, and different financial professionals throughout the city departments. And they make it easier every day. Yep. Couldn't live without them. Yep. Thank you, and congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. Come out next Thursday to BF&T. Next, we will now have a proclamation recognizing Transgender Visibility Day. Thank you, Madam Chair. Our next proclamation is recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility. Our LGBTQ liaison and St. Pete Service Center manager, Jim Nixon, works hard for us every day to ensure that we are informed, connected, and impactful. And, Jim, thank you for all that you do. As I read the proclamation, I want to invite Jim and others from our team, our community engagement coordinator, Eric Vaughn, an LGBTQ liaison for the St. Pete Police Department, Marcus Hughes, and guests Jane Haskell, Nathan Brummer, and Andy Satino to join me, and any other guests that we have for this proclamation. Y'all can come on over. Hold it. And it reads, whereas Transgender Day of Visibility celebrates transgender representation, activism, and equality, and whereas we come together as a community to promote visibility and fairness to all transgender individuals, and whereas we acknowledge the resilience of the transgender individuals throughout history and how they've contributed to the betterment of society and made our American tapestry even more vibrant, and whereas we believe everyone should be treated with respect and dignity in society and in lawmaking. However, repeated legislative attacks on trans people in Florida have made trans communities feel disrespected, neglected, and restricted as Florida citizens. And whereas we honor the bravery of the many transgender individuals who live in our vibrant city that is guided by the principal progress and intentional inclusivity in their authentic gender. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim March 31st, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility in St. Petersburg. And I encourage all citizens to treat each other with dignity and respect without exception. Thank y'all for being here. I want to thank Mayor Welch, Jim Nixon, the administration, and all transgender people and transgender supporters here in St. Petersburg. Visibility is often a double-edged sword, one that comes with a fierce knowledge of self, unshakable bravery, and daily courage to stand in one's truth. Visibility also comes with a risk, a risk of losing loved ones, employment, housing, and safety, especially for trans communities of color. I stand here today alongside Andy with the support of my Epic and Empath Health colleagues and this fine city proudly visible. I am visible to honor our ancestors, to celebrate those walking this journey with me, and to continue carving out space for future generations. I ask and challenge each of us here to consider how we will further ensure safety, dignity, and prosperity for the transgender and gender-expansive community. Now is the time. Thank you for standing with us today and every day, St. Petersburg. We see you, we honor you, and we thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm Andy Satino. I'm a transgender man, and I am as visible as I can possibly be at 5'2". I've been in St. Pete for 20 years now, and I've watched our city become more and more inclusive. And when you feel included, I'll speak for myself. When feeling included, I feel safe. So first I want to thank City Council, where's Mayor Wells, Jim Nixon, and a big thank you to everyone in community that has been doing the work, because we know nothing happens out of nothing. It took us to stand up, be proud, and say what we need. And you listened. Yes, there's a little bit more we need, of course. There's always going to be more. But thank you. I wish every city was just like St. Pete, because this country would be a much better place. Thank you. Next, we will now have a proclamation acknowledging Irish American Month. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues. I am very happy to present a proclamation for Irish American Heritage Month as a 26% Irish American. I'm very happy to celebrate this month with a brother born in the month of March named Patrick. It's very fitting. And so, you know, joined here with a couple of colleagues and just excited to celebrate what has sometimes, I think, gets lost as the party. But I think it's great to celebrate the heritage and the history of what Irish Americans have brought, not only to this city, but to our country. So the proclamation reads, whereas March is annually observed as Irish American Heritage Month and has been designated to identify the historical contributions of Irish American citizens. And whereas Irish Americans have made countless contributions to the city of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, the state of Florida, and the United States of America. And whereas Irish Americans, since America's inception, have provided and continue to provide leadership and service to this nation's political, business, and religious establishments. And whereas it is fitting and proper to celebrate the rich cultural heritage and the many valuable contributions of Irish Americans. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg takes pride in celebrating Irish American Heritage Month and recognizing the contributions of notable Irish Americans. Now, therefore, I, Copley Gerdes, vice chair, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim March 2024 as Irish American Heritage Month in St. Petersburg. And I urge all residents to join with me in celebrating Irish American Heritage, excuse me, history, legacy, and our profound contributions to our society. And I, I quickly, I know Councilmember Montaneri was making fun of me this morning because I wasn't wearing any green. I am always wearing green. My eyes are green. And then I realized I had my green watch on. So I, I got past Councilmember Montaneri. So, uh, but I'll pass it off if they, if our colleagues want to make any comments. Mayor Walsh. Oh, where are you? Oh, there he is. What are you hiding behind here? And Councilmembers, we want to thank you very much for allowing us to, um, share our Irish American Heritage, particularly here in St. Pete, where my brother Pete Boland was an instrumental in, um, putting together Paddy Fest this last weekend. And I hope you were downtown here because, uh, it was a magnificent party. Um, and, uh, quite frankly, the headache has just about gone away now, so I feel a lot better. Um, guys, I, I, I was actually sitting downstairs for a little while because I always show up early. And, uh, and, uh, and I fought with the, uh, the, uh, parking meter, uh, for about 35 minutes, uh, trying to figure out how to pay it. And, um, but I was, fortunately, I was enough, I was able to meet Angela, who was here for the, uh, Women's, uh, Month Proclamation. And Angela asked me an interesting question. She said to me, why is Irish American Heritage important? Good question. And the answer to, I gave Angela, and I, to you as well, is because Irish American Heritage, folks, is the story of America. If you look around and you think about it, none of us would be here right now if there wasn't a family member or multiple family members who said to themselves, we're going to take everything we ever did, our entire life, we're going to give up our language, we're going to give up our neighbors, we're going to give up our community, and we're going to go to a new land where we know nobody. And whether you got here voluntarily or involuntary, in the case of the Irish, thanks to the British, we occasionally ended up here involuntarily, um, we all ended up with ancestors who brought us here and developed a life for us. And it's so very important that we recognize this month, whether it be Irish American Month or just our own Heritage Month, take a little bit of time and think about those people who are strong enough to give us a life. And if you think about it right now, and please look around the room and look around to the people next to you, and ask yourself, where else in this country, in this world, would you find people of all heritages sitting together, planning a city, running a city, and doing it in harmony and in strength and in unity and in charity? And one of the things that we want this month to be not only a celebration of the Irish and Irish for the day, but a celebration of our, the people who got us here, and the fact that we are here now, and we can share our heritage together, and we can work together. We are starting what I like to call the first next six months is silly season, um, and we will have a bombarded by, uh, messages by the millions of dollars about what's wrong with our country, and what's wrong with the people on the other side of the aisle. And what's wrong with, and what are we going to do, and why our idea is the best idea. And all of that, I imagine, has value. Okay, but I think if you look around this chamber, you see what actually has value. And that we are ready, that we are doing, we have provided ourselves with the greatest lifestyle we possibly could. And we're trying, trying every day to include new people, and to include, keep our citizens safe, and to move forward. And that's what this story is all about, and that's what this month is all about. Thank you, folks, and I appreciate it. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you, and thank you, Vice Chair Gerdes, for bringing this forward. As someone whose dad's side of the family is Irish, I certainly appreciate it. Um, I did not remember to wear green today. I wish that I had. Um, but I have, oh, thank you. I wanted to show you guys, these are the, uh, prayer cards for each of my parents from when they passed. And, um, on the back of, and they passed away about, um, six months apart. And, um, I requested that the same, uh, quote be put on the back of each of them, and it is the Old Irish Blessing. And so, um, I do, I keep these cards with me. I just texted Brian to bring them out so I could, uh, show them and, and read this to everyone, um, so that we can all, uh, share these words together. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. I think that that kind of sums up what you just said. And I think that, um, we together are being held in the palm of God's hand, um, as a country that is united in far more ways than we are divided. So thank you for, for bringing that up and thank all of you for being here today. Thank you, Chair. Vermont and Neary. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just, uh, briefly wanted to, uh, also, uh, share that, uh, that my mother's side of the fam, my, uh, my family is, uh, Irish from, uh, County Clare. Uh, uh, in, uh, Western Ireland. And, uh, I got to visit Ireland a few years ago. And, uh, the connection between Ireland and the United States is still very, very close. And, uh, one of the things that I heard multiple times when I visited there was, uh, America is the next county over. Because that's how close, uh, Ireland is to the United States. And, uh, I also had to, uh, just push back a little bit to, to Vice Chair Gerdes, uh, reading a proclamation on Ireland and not wearing something green. Uh, I, you know, he, he pointed to his eyes and now he has to watch, you know, that's going like, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, it's always, always, uh, fun to, uh, and, and we always need to recognize, uh, uh, our heritage in our country. And we're, we're, we're a fabulous country of, of, uh, made up of immigrants from all over the world. And, um, glad we can recognize this day. Thank you. Uh, Pete Bolin here with Ancient Order Hibernians here with, with Brennan. Uh, thank you very much to the city for this amazing proclamation. Uh, also, I just wanted to quickly note just the incredible work that the city puts together to help us put on something like Patti Fest St. Pete. It's an incredible charity event. Uh, I'll let you know we're bucking some of the, uh, Irish stereotypes. That's, uh, two years, three St. Patrick's Day events in a row, zero rest, no need for a paddy wagon out there or anything like that. So it was just a really amazing thing. The city really came together again. Uh, it's, it's a really special time. We're really proud. And if you ever see some of those shirts we sell at, at Mary Margaret's, the Dublin, Boston, Savannah, St. Pete, you know, it's things like this. And, uh, the talk of, uh, of a St. Patrick's Day parade that's coming, that's really going to put St. Pete on the map as one of those great St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day cities and the cities of Irish heritage. So thank you. We've got lots of work to do. We can't wait to do it again with, uh, with y'all next year. So thank you very much. If there are no other requests to speak, I'm now going to provide a Sunshine Ambassador Award to Ms. Jahana Dennis. If you can come up. Our Sunshine Award is one that we bestow upon someone that we thought did something really cool and extra special. So I want to say that you are a powerhouse of service all within yourself. You received, we received an email from Dr. Monique Thompson, who is the founder of Zero Department College Project, informing us that you received the White House Presidential Service Award. Oh, Ms. Jahana is a 10-year-old student at Admiral Farrakhan, Westside, who in 2023, during the summer, was initiated, initiated a service project aimed at making a positive impact on the lives of children in need. She focused on collecting and donating books for children at CASA, the official domestic violence support and shelter provided in Pinellas County. It is encouraging to see young ambassadors like Jahana, who at such a young age are actively engaged in activities that contribute to the betterment of our community and the city of St. Petersburg. And we are proud to recognize you, Ms. Jahana. With our esteemed Sunshine Ambassador Award, for your academic excellence and community service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A round of applause. A round of applause. Congratulations, y'all. Where's mommy? Because she didn't do this by herself. Stand up, mommy. Ready, Mayor? Okay, we will move on to item D-4, Women's History Proclamation. Joining us, Mayor Welch again. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. Is Westside an official part of your title? Do I need to say that every time? I'm happy to add it, Mayor. Okay, thank you. It's quite appropriate that I present this proclamation after Jahana was recognized. And it's in recognition of Women's History Month as a proud girl dad, a husband of a gladiator, by the way. Yes, sir. And father of a gladiator, one of them. And son of an amazing mother. I witness the power and strength of women and girls every day. Several of you on the dais and many in the audience have broken barriers and changed the course of history, all for the betterment of our respective communities. I want to thank you all for what you do to advance and support women. And I'm proud to have members of the Business and Professional Women and the National Council of Negro Women in the audience for today's presentation. I'd like to ask Corey of the BPW and President Peoples, Ethel Peoples-Robinson of NC&W, and all of the members of both organizations who can, if you would stand and join me. I wanted to get you on this side, if you could hold this with Corey. That's where I was trying to go. Thank you. And it reads, whereas March is annually observed as Women's History Month and has been designated to identify the historical and significant contributions of women. And whereas women have made countless contributions to the city of St. Petersburg, the state of Florida, and the United States of America and the world. And whereas the National Women's History Alliance selects a theme each year, the 2024 theme is, quote, women who advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion, end quote. The theme recognizes women everywhere who understand that for a positive future, the need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely from our lives and institutions. And whereas we celebrate women everywhere, and especially the city of St. Petersburg, and we reaffirm our commitment to advancing the cause of equality and opportunity for women and girls. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim March 2024 as Women's History Month in St. Petersburg. And I urge residents to join with me in celebrating women's history, their legacy, and their profound contributions to our society. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much. Good morning. The National Council of Negro Women would like to be recognized as more than having the biggest breakfast in the country. We'd like to be recognized as being an advocate for our families and our communities. We are known for giving back to our communities. As of today, we have given, along with the Ralph Young Foundation, over $600,000 in scholarships to our students. Each year, we give away over 250 Thanksgiving free meals to our communities. That's how we want to be recognized. And we do not discriminate on color. We give back to our community. That's how we want to be recognized as the National Council of Negro Women. And we want you, you, and you to be a part of us. You can go online, NationalCouncilOfNegroWomenStPete.org. I'm sorry, the N-C-N-W, StPete.org, and become a member. And I would like to let you know that we have men also. Am I right, Mayor Welch? Am I right, Councilman Fig Sanders? And we also have other members that's in the audience with us today. That's a member. Jet Jackson, that's also a member. So thank you, and thank you for the honor, the City of St. Pete. Good afternoon, everybody. It's so good to see you. I am so honored to be here with my BPW sisters and brother. We have a man, too. And we would love more. And, by the way, Georgia and I were talking earlier, and I'm calling NCNW, and I am joining this afternoon. Woo-woo! What about women in St. Pete is we really try to lift each other up, and there are many organizations in our community that do that. BPW St. Pete Pinellas has been around for a very long time, 1965. We've been here. Some of you weren't even born when BPW started. And what working women look like now are very different than we looked in 1965. So we've got people that are full of wisdom like myself, and then we have some young members who are in their 20s. And our job and our role is to support each other, to be able to say, I don't know the answer, and ask somebody to help you find your way through. I am proud that, locally, we have Michelle Cavallo from Duke Energy, who is BPW Florida's president statewide, and she has really worked to get us back to talking again, to getting out of our silos. And I think that NCNW and BPW, we were together a long time ago, and we're going to do that again. Because without the communication, without looking at each other in the eyes, we still are separate. And all of us want to come together to make St. Petersburg a better community. So rely on the women, because we're going to lead the way. Thank you. Thank you so much, NCNW, VPW, all the representatives, everybody here celebrating Women's History Month. I just wanted to quickly say a thank you also to the four very strong women who sit up here and serve this city every day on council. I think a big thank you to you and for what you do, not only for the city, but as examples, as a girl dad, I hope my daughter turns out just to be like all of you. And so I very much appreciate it, and it's an honor to serve with you. So here's to you. Okay, moving on, we'll move to D7, where we are going to celebrate state champions, Gibbs High School Boys Basketball Tour. So I'll turn it over to Chair Fig Sanders with an assist by Mayor Ken Welch. Well, first of all, I'm going to take five seconds to say I'm so honored for Women's History Month. And what President Peoples failed to tell you is I'm also a life member of NCNW, so I'm proud of the differences that we make. You're a life member? Here we go. So this next award is near and dear, and I yelled and screamed and hollered in the whole nine yards because am I making it about me? Absolutely. Because I am Gibbs Class of 83, Senior Class President, and the mayor, you know, he sees it. I see he got on that little black and gold, and that's all right, that's all right. We'll work with him, we'll work with him. But to see our young men accomplish what they've accomplished in how many years has it been? Fifty-five years. Fifty-five years. To celebrate is an honor. So all of you all here representing Gibbs High School, just raise your hand. To acknowledge what you've done and the accomplishments that you've done, and I'm going to do the team first before I call the coaches, our leadership that actually took you there. So when I call your name, I'm going to ask you to come up, get your plaque, and if you would, just kind of stand over here so that you can be standing around your coaching staff as we acknowledge them as well. Mr. Jacob Daniels, number 10. Whole team just got here. And as Mr. Daniels is coming, I also will be remiss if I did not acknowledge our Pinellas County School Board, Ms. Dr. Laura Hines. Thank you. Number five, O'Neal Delancey. Nancy, I don't know if you've ever seen this young man's game, but he has one. How old do you, what grade are you in? Freshman, playing varsity. Mayor, you want to be a pick for this? I'm sorry, what happened? All right, yeah, I appreciate that. Okay, I'm going to move it along, I'm going to move it along. Number two, Fernando Maynor. Hello. Charles Block. At a junior. I was told as we were waiting, this state champion has zero seniors. They're going to be, yeah. Yeah. Number three, Brandon Perkins. Number four, Mathis Roberts. Dr. Hines, you want to come up? You sure? Come on. We got the principal sitting here, too. Stand up and let me acknowledge my principal. And also coach. Oh, you're the coach, too? Yeah, assistant coach. Oh, so you were, okay, a bunch of hats. Stand up, Coach Barry Brown. Number 21, Antron Eubanks. We're going to take pictures afterwards. And I know we all said, ooh, they're taking a minute. Well, it took a minute for them to get. Number 22, Bobby Crawford. What grade are you in? Hello. Okay, we got us a junior, y'all. Number 23, Ronald Williams. Number 33, Gerald Lewis. Number 34, Marianne Phillip. Okay, I'm not here. Y'all make sure he gets his certificate. Oh, my God. Okay. I got to get the back story on that. Number 35, Isaiah Medina. Isaiah Medina. Okay, this is what seven foot looks like. Thank you so much. So before I go into the leadership, I definitely have to give a shout-out to Matt Williams, who made it his business. Is Matt here? Come here, Matt. Matt made it his business to reach out and say, okay, you know who I am. I'm the president. We need to be recognized, babe. That wasn't even a request. And thank you. But I wanted to make sure that you knew that you were rooting for the right school and that you wanted to make sure that they were recognized. And we appreciate you for that. Thank you, sir. So now we're going to go into the leadership of this dynamic team. We could not have gotten here without black men. I'm a man mom. I'm a man mom. I go there. I had that heart for that. I know y'all had my baby. Leading this team. But more importantly, you showed them examples of what accomplishment and success looks like. And for that, we definitely want to acknowledge you and say thank you. And this first award goes to assistant coach, Daryl Miley. And the next assistant coach is David Russell. I don't know why I feel like we should have had the cheerleaders here. Next assistant coach is Walter Brady. Thank you. Next assistant coach is Brandon Spivey. He's not here. Assistant coach Brandon Perkins. He's not here. That's okay. And the coach and the number one is phenomenal assistant coach there is Principal Barry Brown. Wait. I think the mayor needs to be in this. Where is the mayor? Come on. You definitely need to be in this. You don't need to play in so long. This is going to be a long year. And last but not least, our head coach, Larry Murphy. We good? All right. Very good. So now I'm going to turn it over to the chief, Mayor Froese. So this is going to be a long year, council. The gladiator nation is fired up. We received calls from day one. Are you going to recognize Gibbs? Yes. We have to wait until the council meeting. We're going to do it. And as I said, you know, my wife and my firstborn daughter are both gladiators. But beyond that, it's the entire community that is excited about what the Gibbs basketball team has been able to achieve. And I just want to say, Madam Chair, thank you for this recognition. And it didn't take too much time because we take all the time in the world to talk about the bad things that happen. So we need to recognize young men who are doing the right thing. And young men, I just want to get your attention for a minute. That you are in the spotlight because of your ability, because of what you've achieved. And I know your coaches have told you about what's required of you in terms of what you do going forward. And so we're all supporting you. We all know you're going to do great things. And, yes, Madam Chair, I noted there were no seniors when I was talking to them. So looking for that repeat. We want to give each of you a lapel key to the city, to all of the coaches. And that's for all of the players and the assistant coaches. We want to make sure you have that as a reminder of the city's love for you and what you represent for the city of St. Pete going forward. And for Coach Murphy, and I was talking with him a little bit at the meet and greet, and Coach Murphy has been coaching for 20 years. 20 years with you. And Coach Murphy, in recognition of your achievements, you're shaping the lives of these young men. Did you step up here a little bit? Both on and off the court. Madam Chair, I want you to present this. Oh, of course. We want to present you with an official key to the city. So we also have T-shirts for the team. We didn't know everybody's size, and so we're going to give it to the coaches to figure it out, right? But let me show you. But as you all know, who are we? We are safe. Who are we? We are safe. All right. Thank you so much. Gibbs, once again, congratulations. I say this out of complete jealousy, having never won a state title. And so what an awesome achievement. Congratulations. And the mayor said it best. We'll see you next year after a repeat. Congratulations once again. Vice Chair. Vice Chair. City Administrator Gerdes. Thank you, Vice Chair. If I could just take a minute. I just want to congratulations, first of all, to the team. A state championship is amazing. But I just want to take a second. I had the pleasure of going to high school with Coach Murphy and watching him play. And he was a fantastic player in his own right. He was our point guard. And he was a quiet leader. And he was an unselfish player. He was a ball distributor, and that's what he did. And he was an unselfish person, too. And he was always so kind to everyone. Larry, I couldn't be happier for you and what you've accomplished and for your team. Congratulations. Okay. We will move on to item D6, where we are celebrating Super Bowl champion, St. Pete's own Marquez Valdez Scantling. And I'll turn it over to Chair Fig Sanders once again. How a mom moment, right? I do. Because I've been knowing your parents before I met you, but they did a fantastic job. And it brings me such privilege to recognize your accomplishments. And your mom will tell you I hounded her. I hounded her. Because you know what? So often when our young men don't do right, there will be 20 cameras in your face. But today you've made major, major, major advancement in just showing just what our young black men can do. Yeah, I'm on that. I'm still a man, Mom. I'm on that. So I want to read this for you. And I want you to stand up. Y'all can see just how handsome and how clean he is. Isn't he clean? A resolution recognizing Marquez Valdez Scantling for his athletic, entrepreneurial achievements, and humanitarian contributions. Whereas Marquez Valdez Scantling is a St. Petersburg native and Lakewood High graduate, and is being recognized today as an exemplary and shining example in entrepreneurship and athletics. Whereas Marquez Valdez Scantling, as one of the esteemed founding members of SIK Selection LLC, has played an integral role in shaping the urban specialty clothing line into a symbol of style and individuality. Whereas Marquez Valdez Scantling further demonstrates his entrepreneurship acumen as the CEO of Crafty LLC, a prominent clothing printing company headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. Whereas Marquez Valdez Scantling, his diverse portfolio includes ownership in various ventures and real estate properties, alongside his involvement in a thriving gaming company that continues to captivate audiences worldwide. Whereas Marquez Scantling's professional prowess extends to the realm of sports, notably as the pivotal player for the Kansas City Chiefs, contributing significantly to their victorious conquests in the 2023 and 2024 Super Bowl champions, following his impressive tenure with the Green Bay Packers. And whereas Marquez during his off-seasons served the St. Petersburg unhoused residents with toiletries and clothing essentials. Whereas he also enjoys times with his canine companions, Ace, a promski, and Spade, a husky. Whereas Marquez Valdez Scantling, committed to academic excellence, is commendable, having earned a bachelor's degree in communication from the esteemed University of South Florida. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Deborah Figg Sanders, Chair of St. Petersburg City Council, congratulate Marquez Valdez Scantling, our hometown hero, for his outstanding achievements in athletics, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and applaud his dedication to excellence in all endeavors. Let us congratulate Marquez. How many of y'all know a Super Bowl champion? How many of y'all know a Super Bowl champion? I think y'all need to get up and recognize this young man. So now I'm going to turn it over. Thank you so much, Marquez. Thank you so much. We appreciate all you. You all didn't know that he was so versatile, did he? Real estate, businesses, and the whole nine yards, that's what we do and keep doing it. Now we're going to have Mayor Welch. This one's a handoff, Mayor. Oh, Lord. So, Madam Chair, Marquez said, you know, Spartans for life is what he said to me if you wanted to hear that. So, again, we're excited to celebrate another hometown hero in Marquez Valdez Scantling, proud alum of the Lakewood High School right here in St. Pete. Through talent, determination, and resilience, Marquez has made his mark on the football field and, as our chairman just illustrated, off the field as well. And we're inspired by his dedication to excellence. His journey from Lakewood High to the NFL is a testament to the power of hard work and perseverance. And his achievements, including winning two Super Bowls with the Chief, have brought immense pride to the community and serve as an inspiration to aspiring athletes and young people everywhere. And we just confirmed he was the first USF bull to catch a TD in the Super Bowl. Mark Valdez is mayor of the city of St. Pete and a fellow Lakewood alum. I'm so proud. I'm not, yeah, I got to put it in there. You represent the love that you pour into our young people and what you represent in terms of the next step, business, community, service. You're doing all the right things. We respect what you're doing. I support you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Get up here and talk a little bit, man. You know, got to adjust the mic. I'm a little taller. I just want to say thank you all for having me out. It's truly an honor. Born and raised here in the south side of St. Petersburg. Grew up in Kokanakee my whole life. Lakewood Spartans to Lakewood High School, USF. So I've been here forever. You know, it's truly an honor to be able to receive an award like this because I know what St. Pete means to me. You know, anywhere I go is, you know, from Tampa, now I'm from St. Pete. That's important to me because, you know, I think the city raised me to be the man that I am today. You know, I learned a lot of life lessons early on that prepared me for, you know, life no matter where I went. You know, I was prepared for anything that was thrown at me, you know, no matter what adversity I had went through, you know, in life. I think St. Pete prepared me for that. You know, I want to thank, you know, God, obviously first for this position I'm in, my parents, you know, and obviously my friends who have been with me every step of the way. You know, I think that's something that is very important to have the right people around you and the right support system, you know, so especially for you younger kids that, you know, look up to me. Y'all doing the right things, but make sure you have the right people around you because that's more important than anything, you know, having the right people, having the right group of friends, you know, the right family members, that don't want anything from you but are going to support you the right way. You know, I just, I'm grateful for this city and everything that it's done and everything that we're continuing to grow to do. You know, I'm grateful to be a staple in this city and, you know, have my businesses and be able to give back to the communities. It's important to me and I love the bird. Oh my God, this is such an awesome moment. But we cannot thank his influence. Dad, stand up. This is such a special moment, Marquez. I know I'm going on and on and on, but it's a moment that we will never forget. And we hope that you feel the love that your city has for you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think we could have planned that any better, Marquez. And thank you. First, congratulations. But thank you for sharing that, your perspective and your story, especially in front of a state championship basketball team, really paving the road, showing how it can be done and how it should be done. We couldn't have painted that picture any better, and thank you for doing that. And thank you for everything you do in this community. It's an amazing blessing to St. Pete, and you're a big part of that. Thank you so much. Okay, before we move into open forum, city council is going to recess for 15 minutes. We'll come back at 2.50. Thank you, everybody. For the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted. And ask to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by e-mail only. And, Madam Chair, we do have several speakers, and I'm going to call them two at a time. And also I want to remind the audience that the first 30 minutes is for open forum. Lynn Wilkinson and Mary Gerken, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Lynn Wilkinson, 534 22nd Avenue Southeast. Thank you for a really inspiring hour. In December 2021, after years of investigation and negotiation, former Mayor Christman selected Midtown Construction Group, a Florida-based construction firm with an excellent reputation, to redevelop the gas plant property. Still working out details with the county, it was not submitted to city council before he left office. It seemed logical to this citizen that the process should continue as charted. So I and thousands of other St. Pete taxpayers were gobsmacked when a few months after his inauguration, Mayor Welch threw out six years of hard work and money and restarted the gas plant property RFP process. Sadly, I was less surprised when suddenly the Rays, who did not even bother submitting a real proposal under the previous RFP, held the winning hand without ever showing theirs. The city surrendered all its leverage to the Rays when negotiating this deal during the selection process and now proposes to spend $1.6 billion of our tax money with no disclosure of the Rays' true financial situation. This means future basic needs for the city will be pushed aside for a new baseball stadium that the team can well afford to build themselves. In the world of stadium boondoggles, this one sets a precedent for greed. Let's do a quick comparison. Number one, no home run, Rays Hines. Developer spends $0 on site infrastructure up front. Midtown, it's a home run. Developer spends $168.8 million on site infrastructure up front. This includes demolition improvements to 16th Street, Pinellas Trail, Booker Creek, 175 Bridge, Central Park, other street improvements, and site remediation. Number two, no home run, Rays Hines. No known development commitments, time frame scale, and penalties ill-defined. Midtown, home run. One, 400,000 square feet in retail and office development required at the same time as infrastructure. Three, no home run, Rays Hines. Purchased land parcel by parcel without performance and development requirements. Midtown, home run. Purchased land in four-phase large parcels with performance and development requirements. Number four, no home run, Rays Hines. 1,200 affordable housing units, only 600 on site and 600 off site, most at the high end of affordability. Midtown, home run. 1,800 affordable housing units, all on site, most at the low end of affordability. My favorite, no home run, Rays Hines. Community benefits are being paid by the city. They are coming out of the land purchase price, and again, many goals, but no requirements. Midtown, home run. Community benefits paid by the developer, all requirements, no goals. These are five major reasons to say no to this deal. Please don't let another generational tragedy happen. Thank you. Mary Gerken, 1345 15th Street North. Over the last few years, I've gotten more interested and involved in local government, and one of the huge reasons is because of the redevelopment of the historic gas plant area. My home is in Euclid, St. Paul, down the street from the stadium, but more important to me is how this project, the largest of this kind in the nation, from my understanding, will affect my now hometown of St. Pete. I love my city. It's a treasure that exists very few places. Some of my main concerns are about the deal and the sale of the city-owned property. It sounds like it's a very discounted rate. Another one is affordable housing. I don't think I could live in the city of St. Pete based on the prices that housing is coming up to. And we're also going to lose diversity if we don't address the fact that we're building so many large homes that are houses that are expensive. I also want to understand how the area will be developed and built. I know because of city's ISAP standards, St. Pete-owned buildings will be built in a resilient and sustainable standard. But what about the land that we sell? What standards will they follow? I consider myself a fiscal conservative and an active environmentalist. I ride my bike constantly. I put solar panels on my house. I installed a city-supported rain garden in my yard last year. We're fast becoming a city that seems to be affordable only to the upper class. I attended a number of the CBAC meetings to listen and learn so that I could understand what this was going to mean to us. We must build resiliently for future weather, storms, and climate change that's coming our way. And we have to build sustainably. I heard a lot from Hank Hines about the past projects and their cutting-edge net-zero construction and their history standards, but nothing specifically about us. What is in the contract? And from my understanding of it, these committee members don't actually have the contract. They have a framework, and I don't understand how people can be voting or making judgments if they don't have the actual details, because the devil is in the details. I really appreciate all your work. I know it's hard. As I've gotten more involved, I see how educated you have to be and how many resources you have to have to make this judgment. And so please really look at this to see if it's the right move for the citizens. Thank you. I'm going to call a Zoom speaker. We have one speaker in Zoom, Madam Chair. Jeremy Tolberg. Jeremy Tolberg. He's in Zoom, Chair. He's in there. So, Jeremy, once you're entering to the meeting space, please state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Hi there. My name is Jeremy Tolberg. I live at 417 Lito Way in St. Petersburg. I'm also here to speak out in support of the people here that are against the giveaway of the taxpayer dollars to fund this gas plant stadium project. It seems appropriate to do so after that earlier discussion this morning about fiscal responsibility. One of the speakers commented about how long a dollar spent has a journey of by the city. But in this case, a dollar spent by the city has a pretty short journey. It's going to go directly from our public bank accounts into the very private pockets of the team owners. Chairman Gerd has spoke about cities getting themselves into trouble, but I can't think of a more perfect description of this stadium proposal. It will empty our city's finances and provide no public benefits, no return on investments, and no long-term protections against financial or natural disasters. And the sales pitch for this corporate giveaway is that we won't get a better deal or that it will result in a fantastic return of wealth. I submit to Councilman Gerdes and the rest of the council that that's the language of a gambling addict. It's the exact opposite of good financial responsibility. It makes about as much sense as trading your house for a handful of magic beans. I'd also like to remind everyone that we already have a stadium. It's not paid off yet, but it suffers from no structural issues or flaws, and it's hosted more than 200 games and countless events last year alone. And if this new proposal is somehow approved, it will be destroyed in short order. We might as well add that stadium's cost to this new project because all of those public dollars will have been spent, only to end up into very expensive rubble. I'd like to thank all the council members who have considered the real facts, details, and financial hazards of this project, and those that have come out strongly against it. Rejecting this proposal may not garner fawning coverage or ribbon cuttings, but without a doubt, it's the right thing to do. I urge everyone on the council to unite in opposing this corporate giveaway to keep the city out of trouble and to protect our citizens. Thank you. Thanks to the speakers, Madam Chair, Donna Peltier and Robin Devedo. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Donna Peltier, 4801 Osprey Drive South, Apartment 205, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33711. As a taxpayer and resident of St. Petersburg, I strongly object to the Ray Hines proposal for a new stadium and the development of a gas plant district. It's a bad deal because it requires the city to contribute tax revenues to for-profit businesses. Those funds should be spent on infrastructure improvements and on other critical needs, such as affordable housing. My parents retired to St. Petersburg in the 1970s, so I have a long attachment to this city and expect its elected officials to act in the interests of all of its residents. The city council should reject the Hayes-Rhynes deal and direct the administration to negotiate better terms or seek another partner for the development of the site that is so important for the city's growth and prosperity. Thank you. Hi, Madam Chair, members. My name is Robin Davidov. I live at 4830 Osprey Drive South, and I'm here on behalf of the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg area, and I want to also tell you that the League of Women Voters of North Pinellas have joined us in our study and our position. I brought for you today in a folder the results of a survey that we did, and we sent this to all registered voters in the city of St. Petersburg, and almost 800 voters took the time to read what we told them to go to the city's own website, where we had a link so that they could read the city's description of the project, the Heinz-Rhyse presentation, and the city's finance plan. And you can see from there that there was overwhelmingly opposition to spending our tax dollars on a project that is returning very little. I know you'll take time to look at that. I also want to bring to your attention a new data that's just come from the Visit St. Pete Clearwater group. They collect data from visitors to this area, and they do this on a monthly basis. And I've given you a graph that shows the results of their interviews during 2023. And as you can see, and it was pretty shocking to me, that when they asked which of the attractions did you or will you visit while on your visit to St. Pete Clearwater, 3% responded Tropicana. In comparison, 8% of visitors to this area visited Sunken Gardens. This is very interesting, and I would say surprising, because we're going to invest almost a billion dollars in a tourist attraction, which not even 4% of the tourists visit. And this is by their own data. I hope that you will make your decision based on data and based on the voices of the taxpayers. And I thank you for your time and your efforts. There's two speakers, Madam Chair. Douglas Homier, I believe that's what it is, and Hanny Baker. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you. My name is Douglas Homier from 166 18th Avenue Southeast in the South Side. And I'm here to say, first of all, thank you for letting me come here, and thank you for the service you do for the city. I really appreciate it. As an active citizen of the city, I've met some of you out there, and I really enjoyed visiting with you and getting to know you all better. As a citizen, with the Heinz Ray's development, which I ask you to vote yes for, I'm excited about the people I will meet, the things I will see, and the events I will go to. As a business owner, I'm excited about the growth. I moved here from Arkansas because I was seeing no growth. They never did anything to really provide stuff for the citizens and the business community to see some growth in the industry I was in. I've also lived in Houston, Texas, and I've experienced the Rockets in an NBA championship playoff situation and the Astros. I also lived in Memphis, Tennessee in 2000 when they brought the Vancouver Grizzlies to Memphis. They brought the NBA to Memphis. They did that. They had a nice facility, the Pyramid, which is Bass Pro Shop now, and built a beautiful facility, the FedEx Forum, right on Beale Street, where you just rolled right out into Beale Street. And the thing it did, it brought people together, young and old, any income level, all races. We were standing side-by-side cheering. Everywhere you go, we talk about the Grizzlies, or around Houston, the Rockets. So I'm excited about this proposal for the Heinz Ray's facility, and I plan on living here the rest of my life, and I really look forward to seeing this developed and for my kids to be able to enjoy it and their grandkids. You know, the Rays are our team, and they're here to stay. Hey, y'all are our team. Let's get our teams together and make this thing work for the city of St. Pete and the citizens of St. Pete. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, esteemed members of the city council. My name is Hanny Beckier. I live at 1014 56th Avenue South. I'm a proud resident, active community member, and a business owner here in St. Pete. Professionally, I'm a franchise consultant, and I help investors and entrepreneurs find franchise businesses that align with their financial objectives and life goals. I should also mention that prior to this career, I was involved as a developer on international similar large-scale mixed-use developments, both successful and failed projects, and thus provide my comments based on professional knowledge and personal experience. I'm thrilled to voice my enthusiastic support for the proposed historic gas plant mixed-use development project. This ambitious project presents an unparalleled opportunity for economic growth and vitality within our city, with far-reaching implications for businesses like mine and the entrepreneurs that I serve. By attracting investment dollars, stimulating local businesses, and creating jobs, this development will not only benefit me directly, but also provide new opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs to establish successful franchise ventures within the development's commercial spaces. Moreover, the inclusion of mixed-use elements such as residential, commercial, and recreational spaces will enhance the overall quality of life for St. Pete's residents and visitors. As a franchise consultant, I understand the importance of accessibility to amenities and services, and this development promises to provide precisely that, promoting walkability, encouraging social interaction, and fostering a sense of community cohesion. Furthermore, the addition of a high-tech stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays within the development brings exciting possibilities for our city. Not only will it bolster our reputation as a sports destination, attracting fans from near and far, but it will also infuse new energy and excitement into the surrounding area. This, in turn, presents unique opportunities for hospitality businesses like hotels and restaurants to thrive, catering to the influx of visitors, and enhancing the overall experience for residents and tourists alike. Additionally, the commitment to sustainable practices and environmental stewardship in this development aligns with the values I uphold in my business endeavors. By promoting green building practices and energy efficiency, this project demonstrates a dedication to responsible urban planning and sustainable initiatives, which are increasingly important considerations for both investors and consumers in today's market. In conclusion, I urge the City Council to support the approval of this transformative development project. Not only will it directly benefit me as a business owner and franchise consultant, but it will also be a tremendous asset to our city, enhancing economic prosperity, enriching our cultural fabric, and securing a better future for all those who call St. Pete home. Thank you. Madam Chair, next two speakers, Angela Sweet and Reverend Andy Oliver. Madam Chair, Ms. Sweet has requested a reasonable accommodation. She has her statements on a recording, to which I've listened to. She's going to put it up to the microphone. Okay. Because visually she can't see. My name is Angela Taylor Sweet, 3709th Avenue North. And appropriately, I'm here to, I'm seeking the mayoral appointment of proprietary liaison for the city of St. Petersburg. Open mail. That's it. You got it. Oops. You have to help me out. That's your turn on voiceover. Voiceover is already turned on. That's your open mail. That's your open mail. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Technical difficulties. As proprietary liaison for the city of St. Petersburg, the National Council on Educational Policy affiliated faith-based educators of America in partnership with the Urban Technology Institute and Kingdom Come Ministries, what we'd like to do is we'd like to present a proposal to distribute high-tech advantages to the underserved. We'd like to, I had a speech ready and it's not, the phone is not working. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to do it another time. But I will send my proposal to the mayor. I'd like to get appointed as the proprietary liaison, which it sounds like you're going to need one. And I'll get that proposal to the mayor. Thank you so much. And I'm so sorry. My phone is not working. Reverend Andy Oliver, pastor of Allendale United Methodist Church. I offer these words in hope that St. Pete will never again treat a homeless citizen like we treated Eriberto Alejandro Sanchez Mayan. A little over a month ago, I pulled into the church parking lot to find 12 unhoused people camping on our property. I'm happy to report today that we have successfully helped 10 into housing solutions. Our campers were great neighbors. I spent almost my entirety of working hours at the camp earning trust by listening, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned is that St. Pete's best resource to respond to homelessness in our city is our street outreach team under the direction of Amy Foster and the mayor's office. Helen, April, and Shanice are exceptional at working with each person's unique needs to find individual solutions. The best thing we could do to help people who are unhoused in this city is to multiply their budget tenfold. At the camp, neighbors showed up with expressions of hospitality. I was also present, though, in the camp to hear harassment from some of our neighbors who went out of their way to dehumanize, filled with irrational fear. One neighbor served us with a nuisance abatement. Apparently, if you don't like gardens growing food for hungry people, you also don't like having to see people who are homeless. The camp is for now shut down, although one person refuses to leave. In the center of our empty lot sits a statue of Jesus in a tent. Homeless himself, he will stay as a nuisance to those who respond in fear and choose to dehumanize the least of these, calling us instead to see the divine in every person struggling with homelessness, which has the power to abate our fears. Here are some helpful ways to reframe the ways we think about homelessness from a housing expert named Jonathan Russell. Homelessness is not a mystery we need to solve. It's a social injustice we need to end. Homelessness is a policy choice, not a personal choice. We're not all one paycheck away from being homeless. Many of us are, in fact, generations of wealth and social privilege away from it. Not naming these truths obscures the very real racial and social injustices, which do make some radically more vulnerable to being pushed out of their homes. If we made groceries essentially unaffordable for millions of Americans and then observed the devastating effects of severe malnourishment, we wouldn't call the problem foodlessness and wonder what caused it. So why do we do this with homes? In the most important housing statistic, 100% of people deserve to have dignified, affordable housing in their city. In closing, I want to thank you for not giving into the fears of some of your constituents. Thank you for your patience, especially you, Council Member Montaneri, in allowing us to take the time we needed to earn trust and help 10 people get a new start. Thank you. Speakers, Madam Chair, Loretta Ryman and Cynthia Lippert. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, everyone. First, I want to say thank you for that hour before the recess. Wow, St. Pete is an awesome place to live. It was wonderful. I was glad I was here. My name is Loretta Ryman, and I live at 2336 12th Street North in St. Petersburg. I've lived here in St. Pete for over 40 years. This morning was extremely chilly, surprisingly. I got up in my warm house, had a cup of coffee, got in the car, went to the Y, and I thank God for the roof over my head and also for so many other blessings that I have. And my guess is that many of you had the same kind of mourning in one way or the other. For many of our brothers and sisters working full-time jobs in our city, the stress of making ends meet when their rent is due and takes the majority of their paychecks is real. When I woke up this morning, I had no concern at all to check my bank account to see for the fact that my Duke Energy bill paid, my city water bill paid, and that grocery trip I made last night, how much of my income was that going to use? Was there going to be a balance for the half of my rent that I had to save by this time in the month? Many of our brothers and sisters are actually just one paycheck away from homelessness, one family emergency away from being threatened to get out of their house. I am a member of St. Paul's Catholic Church, and we are a fast congregation. Our faith calls us to work with you, to work together, to address the issues that are in front of us, which have to do with providing affordable housing for people in our city. I love our city, and I feel like as a city, we can do better. The mayor's current affordable housing plan is just not enough, and it's just not targeted enough to those most in need. It's time to bring the hard-working citizens, making less than 80% of the AMI, to the front of the affordable housing line. I'm asking the mayor and all of you to attend the Nehemiah Action on Tuesday, April 30th, at 7 p.m. at the First Baptist Church on Gandy Boulevard. I hope that you will be there so that you can show your support to be part of the solution for the affordable housing crisis that we're experiencing in our city, and thank you for your time. Good afternoon. Thank you for your public service. My name is Cynthia Lippard, and I live at 8415 17th Street North, 33702, and I'm a member of Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Petersburg. And my congregation is a member of FAST, and we're a group of 50 diverse congregations across Pinellas County. We call ourselves a justice ministry because we're working not to just give out sandwiches, bags of food, gas cards, hotel rooms, but to look for the solution to the core problems that cause injustice. And in St. Petersburg, we have affordable housing crisis for families making less than 80% AMI, and that's a family of four making $65,000. And I can think in my neighborhood that's many people. And in 1980, as a single working woman, I could not get a mortgage. Imagine that. In 44 years, we've come a long way. I can't, young women would not believe that, that 44 years ago I could not get a mortgage as a single woman. So I have a little, I have a minimal empathy and understanding of the people that struggle to get affordable housing, although I'm grateful for my home, and I've kept it and moved all over Florida and always thought, I don't want to leave St. Petersburg, so I always held on to it. Thank God. But Mayor Welch's current affordable housing plan is insufficient. The hardworking people of our city need more, and there's more the city could be doing. People who are essential to our city, child care workers, nurses' aides, hotel, hospitality workers, my two heroes, my nieces who are public school educators, cannot find places to live in our city. Affordable housing doesn't just benefit the people who are struggling. It benefits all of us when people can find a place to settle, live, grow, and contribute. It's time for our city to put people over the profits of a developer. That would be correcting an injustice. I am here to ask the mayor and all of St. Pete City Council to attend the Nehemiah Action on Tuesday, April 30th at 7 p.m. at the First Baptist Church on Gandy. We hope you will be present to show that you want to be part of a solution to affordable housing and also to try to correct an injustice. Thank you. Sure, we have a minute left in the open forum. How many more speakers? We have about seven more speakers. Okay, we'll go ahead and close open forum. We do have a second open forum at the end of the meeting for those who are left remain to speak. Okay, so now we will close open forum and move to our legal items, beginning with item I-1. And joining us is Assistant City Attorney Heather Judd. Good afternoon, Council Members. I'm Heather Judd, Assistant City Attorney. I'm here in reference to two cases today, the first one being Allstate as subagree of Harry Powell. Now, this was a companion property damage case to a case that Mr. McCollum presented to you about a month ago. He did the bodily injury case, and I had the property damage case. This was a police cruiser-involved accident with a gentleman who had a brand-new vehicle. So, the demand was around $60,000-plus fees and costs, and the settlement amount that we reached at mediation was $36,000 pending your approval. Second. Having it been properly motioned and seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, place your votes. Now that all Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Next, we'll have item I-2. Joining us is Assistant City Attorney Ken McCollum. And I am not Ken McCollum. I, again, I'm Heather Judd. I am filling in for Mr. McCollum. He is currently in an arbitration, so he apologized that he cannot be here with you, but asked me to fill in the lawsuit of Catherine, and I'm not sure how to pronounce this, but I'm going to say 5A. It might be Fivet, but I'm going to go with 5A. And this was a sanitation department truck-involved accident. There was no pre-existing complaints. The causation of the individual's injury does appear to be related to the accident, and total medical bills were in the six figures. Mr. McCollum was successful in reaching a settlement agreement, again, pending City Council approval, for $60,000. Move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and a second, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all council members, president, have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Now we'll move on to our council committee reports of H-1, Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Frankly, this is good news. I just want to thank both the team from Brown & Brown and City Blaze. Thank you for your work on this, and we need to read the title, right? Oh, okay, perfect. Move approval. Now that we have a motion and properly seconded, I'm going to ask the clerk to open the machine for voting. Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H-1A passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving right along. Now we're going to take up our report items, beginning with F-1, and joining us is St. Anthony's Hospital president, Scott Smith, requested by Vice Chair Gerdes, and we are asking for 10-minute reports. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, council. Vice Chair Gerdes wants to say a few words. Is that okay? Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was able to spend some time with some representatives from St. Anthony's Hospital and BayCare while I was in Tallahassee, and I thought it was a good time for an update. I'm a little partial to St. Anthony's because it's where I was born, but just very, very proud of St. Anthony's. It's Catholic heritage in our community, and just wanted to give them an opportunity to give us an update. It's a very special hospital to the Gerdes family, and excited to hear what's going on. So thank you so much for being here, and excited to get this report. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair, and I will certainly keep us on time. What I'm going to do is talk a little bit about community benefit. I'm going to talk a little bit about economic impact, and going to do so a little bit through a little bit of storytelling. I was at a meeting at lunch today and was characterizing St. Anthony's, and really just characterizing St. Anthony's just from a social fabric standpoint. It is part of our culture and community. I really characterize it as being embedded in our community. And if you go back to the history of St. Anthony's Hospital, it was founded in 1931 when some courageous nuns, the Franciscan Sisters of Allegheny, chose to purchase the Faith Hospital that had opened in 1921 for the sum of $40,000. They moved here from Allegheny, New York, and set this up as an opportunity to serve the community with a mission to serve the people, to meet the needs of the people. They immediately began construction of what is now the East Tower and is still a wing that's in operation at St. Anthony's to the tune of $240,000. So a tradition that began in 1931, a tradition that began by meeting the needs of the local people and of the local community, that mission flourished. And in 1934, the same sisters opened St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa. So the same sisters, the same congregation are responsible for much of the health care that's available here in the Tampa Bay market. And they were instrumental in the formation of BayCare in 1997. So I'm going to toggle a little bit between both BayCare and St. Anthony's when I just showed, just from a comparative standpoint, what our overall community benefit and economic impact is. So if you look at BayCare as a health system, we're about a $5.5 billion health system. We give back $550 million in community benefit to the Tampa Bay region. That's 10% of our net earnings. And that's something that I believe is embedded into that fabric and that framework of who we are as an organization. And that harkens back to our sisters all the way back to 1931. The categories include Medicaid and income-based programs, charity care. We have the most generous charity care policy in the entire Tampa Bay region. And then unbilled community services. If you were to show this same graph for St. Anthony's, last year, St. Anthony's gave back $43 million in total community benefit. So for a local hospital entity, giving back $43 million, I'm going to focus on just the unbilled community services. The unbilled community services are things we don't have to do, but we do them because they're the right thing to do. We do them because it's how we serve our community. And we've given back over $9 million last year in unbilled services. Those are programs, and we'll have a couple of examples here, in how we support the local communities, how we partner with other agencies in the local community to serve those who are underserved. And then, more specifically, we have a community health needs assessment that we conduct every three years. It's part of being a not-for-profit health system where we target very specific action items, very specific calls to action that say, what are we going to do to focus in these very specific areas? So it's inside of total community benefit, but it's really carved out just for that CH&A focus areas. And our three focus areas are behavioral health, access to health and social services, exercise, nutrition, and weight. And over the three years, those focus areas, we've contributed over $6 million. What do those things look like? These are just examples. If you want to focus on homelessness, these are three specific projects, three specific areas under homelessness that we are looking to partner with. The STEER project, we really partner with our federally qualified rural health clinic, Evera, to help administer that program. We help fund that program. Pinellas Hope, we work with Catholic Ministries. We actually put a mid-level nurse at Pinellas Hope to serve the homeless population, to provide care to that homeless population, and to prevent trips to EDs. That benefits every other hospital in the market. We fund it, but it benefits all of the other hospitals in Pinellas County as well. One program that I'm very pleased with, and you see the picture there of someone who had benefited, we provide a nurse to the PATH team, the St. Pete Police Department PATH program, where we embed a nurse that goes out into the encampments, goes out into the fields, and provides health care services and provides for those individuals in that particular area. Again, these are things we don't have to do. These are things because it's embedded into who we are as a health system. They're embedded to the DNA, into the fabric of who we are as St. Anthony's Hospital. To pivot to one final slide, people often will get hung up over, yeah, but you're tax-exempt. You've got all this extra dollars. We challenge ourselves. We run about a 10 percent. Think of it as a tithe, almost. Ten percent of all of our earnings go back to community benefit. We challenge ourselves to say, are we giving back more in community benefit than what our tax-exempt status is? The little dot that you see there in the middle of those charts, that's what our tax-exempt benefit is. And what you see at the top is our total give back above and beyond what our tax-exempt benefit is. That's a question that will come up frequently. So we challenge ourselves to that effect as well. If you look at BayCare as a total economic engine, again, 16 hospitals across four counties, 30,000 team members, $10 billion in overall economic impact. If you look at BayCare's impact fueled just by hospitals, that's about $7.8 billion. If you pivot and look just in Pinellas County, we've got a number of hospitals in Pinellas County, but $4.5 billion in benefit just to Pinellas County, 15,000 team members, household income, $1.7 billion gross domestic product. And there are still tax implications. We do still pay taxes in some avenues and venues. So that's in Pinellas County. Then if you look at St. Anthony's, we're almost a billion dollars in total economic impact just here in southern Pinellas. Over 2,000 team members, almost $400 million in household income, gross domestic product, half a billion, and then another $100 million in taxes. I want to pause here and go to the Ray's-Hines deal as well. We're committed to challenging ourselves to doing the right thing. If you look at the economic impact of these large industries and these large developments, there is huge economic impact. As a business leader in southern Pinellas, as someone on the chamber and on the EDC, I have to weigh in in favor of the Ray's-Hines, 30,000 jobs. If you look at the amount of income, if you look at the amount of economic impact, and it still delivers on its affordable housing promise. And affordable housing won't be solved all in one single location. I digress, but I had to throw in that support as well as a business leader, talking about the economic impact of what an engine like that can provide for the residents of southern Pinellas and St. Pete. Just an update, and I know we're sensitive to time. People always like construction. St. Anthony's is near and dear to many people. We showed you some old pictures, successful new projects. We did complete a new 90-bed tower. That was about a $150 million project, and it is completed and open. A lot of people ask, why do you have so many holes in the ground out at St. Anthony's? One of the big reasons for a bunch of disruption and holes in the ground, we're expanding our emergency department. This will be state-of-the-art ability to manage behavioral health patients and medical patients in a new pod that ACA at the state level recognizes as best practice and best standard of care. That will be coming forward by the end of the year. The other big hole in the ground is an imaging expansion. This is the south side of the building that faces Fifth Avenue. I promise we're going to clean it up and make it beautiful, but it's a big hole in the ground right now. It's the cost of progress. And back to the earlier comment, there's a cost of progress. Sometimes you have a hole in the ground, but we absolutely build that into who we are, and it's always embedded around a sense of community. We are part of St. Pete. We are embedded in this community, and we'll always deliver service and value to the residents of St. Petersburg. With that, I will conclude and open to any questions. Thank you, and I congratulate you on your obedience. Yes. Thank you so much for that, because I have to commend you for the service that you provide. And I thank you, Vice Chair Gerdes, for the invite to have President Scott here with us. But we do have Council Member Montaneri, who would also like to share a few words. Thank you, Madam Chair. Scott, thank you for coming in and providing that update. BayCare and St. Anthony's Hospital are just a gift to the city of St. Petersburg and to the whole Tampa Bay region. And you all always get recognition whenever there's contests on the best places to work. I mean, BayCare and St. Anthony's are always at the top of that list. And the investments that you all make just from a human resource point of view and the quality of care that you provide to the residents of St. Petersburg and across the BayCare network in the region is just amazing. Whenever I think about medical care and hospitals, I want to focus on quality. And from the experience of just walking in the doors of St. Anthony's, you can see that. And it just starts at the top. The leader always sets the example, but it works its way through the whole organization. A few years ago, I used to be a frequent guest at St. Anthony's Hospital when I was going through some medical issues. And I owe my life to the people at St. Anthony's. And I always want to recognize all the people there at St. Anthony's for saving my life. And I know you all do that on a routine basis throughout your business and the services that you provide to us here at St. Anthony's Hospital and across the BayCare system. So thank you for coming in and giving us the update. And please thank everybody in your organization for what you do. Thank you. Thank you so much. And seeing no other requests to speak, again, thank you so much. Now we will have items F2 through F5 that will be presented by our engineering director, Rajesh Preyman, although we do have to vote on them individually. How are you? I am great. So I was just curious, since I have four items, so I get 40 minutes? Are you going to need that? Okay. I'll go 10 minutes. I think you're good. Okay. All right. Good day, council. Rajesh Preyman, engineering captain and provenance director. It is a pleasure to be here today. And just to clarify, do I have to speak about each one individually and then ask for approval for each one individually? No, you can go through them all at the same time. Okay. Thank you. We don't have to vote all at the same time? Not for these. Okay. Okay. I'll go ahead and get started with item F2. It's a Southwest, it's a FTP grant for the Southwest Operations and Maintenance Buildings. This is, for the building there, this is approximately $8.8 million. This provides operational efficiency and safety improvements for daily as well as during emergency operations. The facilities down there are not currently equipped to operate during emergency events. They are flood-pruned. They're within the surge limits as well. And during the time of the building and continuous expansion of the site, the SCADA system is attached to multiple different facilities. This allows us to centralize that so we have better operations during an event as well as during daily operations. The next item is the Shore Acres Resiliency Project, otherwise known as the Connecticut Avenue Northeast Vicentee Storm Drainage Improvements. So, this grant is for approximately $7.8 million, which is about half of the cost of the construction of that facility. This was one of the projects that was identified in the Shore Acres Resiliency Study. We developed a basis of design report, which allowed us in 2022 to pursue a grant, which we were successful in obtaining in early 2023. With this project, we're expecting to improve level of service for approximately 10 miles of roadway by reducing the flood risk and, as such, mitigating risk to our residents for flood-prone property areas and avoiding risk of damage to those properties as well. The next item is F4, which is the Basin Sea Resiliency Salt Creek Conveyance Improvements Project. This project is accepting an FDEP grant for approximately $550,000 for a total project cost that we're estimating about $1 million. And the best way I can compare this project is almost in staying in line with the last presentation. As a hospital, if you're dealing with a clogged artery, you need to clean that out to get the conveyance going. So, that's the Salt Creek system. We're looking to clean that out to help, and it's all part of a series of projects. The other project associated with this is the next one I'll be talking about, which is the Basin Sea Resiliency Salt Creek Pump Station Project. So, we've got to get that flow towards where the pump station is, and then we'll be discharging it. This grant is for approximately $10.6 million for what we estimate the project cost to be approximately on a magnitude of about $21 million. So, this project will mitigate sea level rise impacts by providing a more efficient way of discharging the stormwater. In total, the grants that we bring to you today is estimated on the 4013 fund, which is the stormwater fund, a savings of approximately $19 million. And on the enterprise funds related to the water, it's approximately $8.8 million. With that, I do ask for approval. Move approval. Second. Seeing that it's been properly motioned and seconded. So, I have a question. He went F2 through F5 by one vote that's covering all of them? If the motion. Should I? The motion should specify whether you're intending it to be everything that Mr. Kramer covered. Which is 2 through 7. No, 2 through 5. 2 through 5. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'll move approval of items, item F2, F3, F4, and F5. Thank you. Second. Yes. Second. Seeing that we have a proper motion and seconded, would you please open the machine? You're welcome. Well, first of all, okay, I see you up there. I was trying to see if we need to go ahead and vote initially, but I do see that we have Council Member Driscoll that would like to share. Yes, thank you. And I just want to thank you for all of the work that you're doing with these various projects, but especially Basin C. We've been talking about it for years. I learned more about pump stations and where the best places are to locate them than I ever thought I wanted to know. But this one is a particular way to help improve the health of Salt Creek, Lake McGorry, and all of the residents who live around that area as well. Can you remind me, what are we looking at for the total cost of this project for the pump station? So the pump station itself is going to be around $21 million in today's dollars. That's what we're estimating right now. So we're getting about half of the funds to cover the cost of that project. Right, which is fantastic because when we first started talking about it, we had nothing. So seeing these grants coming in and getting the funding to make it happen is really amazing because one of the first things I learned was when you say pump station, you're talking a lot of money. So thanks for all that you're doing for that. And you bring up a very good point because all these were early deliverables on the stormwater master plan. So because we took that time to do the analysis of it and come up with really strong basis of design reports, you know, presenting these to grant entities really gave us that foot in the door. Right. Thank you. And this combined with the work at Bartlett Lake. We're currently implementing on that right now. Oh, yes. And that's a lot of money, too. But you're moving forward on it, and it's just going to be an incredible difference for a lot of people who experience, you know, the current effects from the floodwaters and even when we have high tides and heavy rains. So I'm just so appreciative, and thank you for all the work that you're doing on this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Montanieri. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Brej, for the report, but also just your years of working on these things. I do want to focus on the Connecticut Avenue project because that's been a five-year work in progress in Shore Acres. And I want to approve and have us move along, but I also want to kind of share with the public how important of a project that is for St. Petersburg. So if you were to drive into Shore Acres from 40th Avenue and you get to the four-way stop sign there at 40th Avenue and Shore Acres Boulevard, if you go straight through the intersection, Connecticut Avenue connects in there. And that is the lowest part of Shore Acres and this system, like I said, as we've been, the city has been working on, on trying to get this done for, for over five years, but it upsizes pipes, installs box culverts and starts, installs a stormwater pump station, backflow preventers, and then elevating certain parts of the roadway. I want to see if there's any other detail you want to add to this project so we can just kind of communicate to the public and to the Shore Acres residents what this means to that neighborhood. Thank you for that opportunity because what's critical with Shore Acres and that entire neighborhood, that district itself, is it's all relatively the same elevation. What we call the profile of each of the sub-basins within that area of relatively within six inches. So your analysis could not be more accurate that this is one of the lowest points. So when you start these major improvements, you really have to be strategic and work back, really identifying what's your critical path. And the critical path was that location. And then as we start to implement other projects to support it, we'll start to see other benefits. So, yes, even after we implement this project, the reason we're seeing approximately 10 miles of road right now, again, going back to that, all of the areas are relatively the same elevation. If we're getting high flood condition in another basin, sub-basin, it's going to trickle. It's kind of like in a yard. It's going to flow all around to find its normal place. So as we implement this one, we'll get benefit. But as we start to implement the other projects supporting it, the benefit continues to increase. So that's such a good point that you bring across. And while there will be benefit, the benefit will continue to grow. And it's part of a longer plan, a bigger plan. Yes. Yes, it is. And I know we have two other major capital projects coming in the future for Shore Acres. And then just one other thing. Whenever we have a high tide event, whether it's a tropical storm or a hurricane or a no-name storm, this area is usually where the media goes and takes video. And it's right next to the Shore Acres Rec Center, which was built up higher. But a lot of people have seen this area either in the newspaper and pictures or on TV. So this project has been long overdue, and I'm glad we're moving it forward. And I'm very happy that we're getting state help with this funding that we're approving today. So thank you again. Thank you, Claude, for being here and all your work. And thank you, Madam Chair. If I may also just add on to what you mentioned, because what's key in this project is this really addresses, you know, looking at the sea level rise, but also the increased rain intensity. The backflow preventers that we're working on will help us with that back flush of that surge. So they go hand in hand, but, you know, the tidal impacts of surge is still different than a stormwater. So this is for rain. This will help us. But tidal sewage is always something we'll be concerned with. Thank you. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. And thank you so much, Bridgesh and Claude, for all of your work. I just wanted to make sure, you know, just to kind of sum it up for the residents that, you know, are, I think, have been a touch impatient, thinking that nothing is happening, that indeed it is. And today we're bringing in $28 million worth of grants, right? So this is now two meetings in a row where we have approved some sort of resiliency measure, all the while behind the scenes, Claude, administration, Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. It's kind of all hands on deck trying to put forward an action plan for what we need to do into the future while still working every single day on mitigation efforts now. So, you know, none of these happen to be in my district, but that's okay because we did get two backflow preventers replaced this week in Riviera Bay. And so very, very happy to vote yes on this and just want to thank you both publicly for all of your hard work. Thank you, Madam Chair. Seeing no further requests to speak, has been properly motioned to approve F2 through F5 and properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda items F2, F3, F4, and F5 passes unanimously. Thank you, thank you for that. Always a pleasure, thank you. Next, we will now have F7, and presenting is our Assistant City Administrator Tom Green and Economic Development Director Brian Kaper. Good afternoon, City Council, Brian Kaper, Economic and Workforce Development. This item is to increase the not-to-exceed amount engagement letter with favorite drinker, biddle and wreath, from $550,000 to $950,000, approving a transfer of $400,000 from the balance of the general fund contingency to the legal department. Back in February of 2023, City Council had confirmed the appointment of Fagre, Drinker, Biddle and Wreath to provide legal services for the city, for our outside legal support related to the historic gas plant district, both in the stadium, as well as the surrounding redevelopment. At that time, the not-to-exceed amount was $250,000. As we've continued to work with outside counsel on this, we came back to City Council in November of 2023, seeking an increase to $550,000. And Fagre, Drinker, has continued to work with our legal team, Pinellas County, Administration, Rays, Hines, putting together these documents, drafting, providing legal assistance to us. And we are now at the point where we are seeking an additional $400,000. This $400,000 is anticipated to take us through the rest of this process. So we do not expect to come back again seeking additional money for these invoices. However, we are at a point where, based on current projections, we would not have funds available to extend this agreement with Fagre, Drinker, Fagre, Drinker, excuse me, beyond the end of this month. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Green to talk about the general fund contingency balance. Thank you. Good afternoon, counsel. And sorry I don't have my crown on any longer. But I just wanted to share a couple of slides with counsel just to reorient everybody and remind everybody. When we adopted or when council adopted the FY24 budget, it included a contingency in the general fund of $1,791,000. We had estimated at that time that approximately $1 million of those resources would be deployed to support the outside professionals we might need in the continued efforts to negotiate the historic gas plant as well as the stadium. As Mr. Caper mentioned, in November and December was the last time we asked counsel to deploy some of these resources, and I've itemized those there. Inner Circle at $274,000, Fragrie, Drinker at $300,000, and then also Bryant, Miller & Olive was approved at that time for $100,000. And last time we were here, counsel had requested a history of all the expenses associated with not only this current iteration of the historic gas plant, but the previous RFP process. So this table, although on the screen it's pretty small, I think each of you got a hard copy of it. But it itemizes all the expenses that we have incurred for the previous RFP process and then this current process. And you'll note at the bottom approximately $1.43 million has been deployed. The yellow highlighted are the actions taken by this council back in November and December. And the top kind of half of this are expenses for Inner Circle and for Victus. Those were shared expenses with Pinellas County, so you can see that 50% of those expenses have been allocated to the county. 50% were covered by the city. And then you see kind of right in the middle the HRNA expenses and then PFM. There was a small amount that we engaged them to work on. And then the legal section at the bottom. So that just reorients. That's the entire amount of resources we've deployed on both the previous RFP, starting from FY21 through FY24 as of today. This next slide shows the actions taken or actions we've requested council to take on the deployment of the contingency for FY24. Again, the first three you see, those were actions taken in November and December. Today we're asking for the $400,000. And as you can see, I've broken that out because the $326 of this expense can be borne by that estimated $1 million that we had intended for this project or these various expenses associated with this process and this project. $74,000 of that would have to come out of that $791,000 that we had earmarked for other investments. And then you see at the very bottom, the Courageous 12 Art and Public Places. That's our share of that project for $113,000. So net net at the end, if council approves this, there would be $604,000 in the general fund contingency for the balance of FY24. And I think that's the last slide. And so if there are any questions, we certainly can respond to those. Move approval. Second. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. How many hours have the outside attorneys worked and what's their hourly rate? I haven't calculated the number of hours. I certainly could get that to you. I believe their hourly rate is $525. I'd have to double check that for you. Okay. That was at a significant discount from their normal rate. And I'm just curious because I know, Jackie, you're working on it and others in the legal department that's in-house. And we don't, obviously, you don't charge an hourly rate. I'm starting to think about it. Well, I'm wondering how many hours are, do you keep track of the hours that you've worked on this deal? I mean, we don't keep track of it, but it's more than a full-time job for us. Well, I mean, as a Council Member, I've noticed that you've been extremely not here as often as you normally are because you've been busy with other things, which is this deal. I would say it's, you know, full-time during the week, nights, weekends, for several of us. Over 40 hours a week, I assume, probably? Well, just on this. Okay. I'm just curious. Last time we negotiated the deal with the Rays, did we hire outside Council? You mean the original contract, the original? I don't know the answer to it. That was before my time. I'm not sure either. I'm just curious to see if that occurred and we spent the resources that we're spending last time on outside Council because we are trying to do this as fast as possible to get it done. We could always do some research, but... I would love to know the answer to that. I would love to know whether or not we did the same thing. I mean, obviously, we have contracts that were drafted before, and I understand, you know, legality change and things could get complicated, but I'm just curious. Right now, we are close to a million dollars in outside attorney's fees. We're using in-house counsel, pretty much working full-time on this, which kind of tells you how complicated this is. We're trying to rush this out the door, which is concerning to me, and, you know, it would be interesting to, actually, I would like to see the attorney's bills, and I assume that they delineate what they've been doing. Okay, that would be great. I would love to see that, but I'm not going to be supportive of this because I frankly think that the reason we're doing this is because we are pushing this as fast as possible, and we're having to use outside counsel more than we need to. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert. Thank you, Chair, and first of all, I just want to start by saying a thank you to Tom because, once again, you have granted my request to have a detailed tally of every penny spent to date, critically important for the transparency of the dollars, so I just want to thank you for putting that together yet again, and I guess my other comment is just to thank you, Jackie, and your guidance on our legal team, and you and I had a very in-depth conversation about this item, and I completely support giving you whatever support you need to make sure that you feel as though the documents that are coming forward to us are the best they can be, that they are written in a way that protects the city as much as possible, and I trust you implicitly and just know that if you had another minute to squeeze out of a day, you would find it and you would use it to get this done without costing us another penny. But I also recognize you are all human. You only have so much that you can do. I mean, we received a folder this week electronically with the drafts of all of these documents that you all have been working on, and it is voluminous, and it is impressive where you are to this point. And so, for me, this is money well spent to make sure that when we finally have final executed documents that we know it is the best legal documents we can possibly review, regardless of what the outcome is. So, I motioned because I support you, and this is a motion that, for me, helps you do your job in the most diligent way possible. So, money well spent to make sure that those documents protect our city. So, thank you. Thank you for all your work, and thank you, McCall, Michael, everyone on your legal team for every ounce of effort that they have put in and will continue to put in to get us to this finish line, whatever the outcome may be. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted some clarification. The outside counsel is for – is there anything the outside counsel is doing that your office can't do, or is it to try to offload what's the significant amount of workload? I'd say it's a combination. There is a significant amount of work to do. I consider our contracts team up to the task with anyone. That said, our outside counsel also has a significant amount of expertise in deals of this nature, and this isn't something that we've run across every day. So, we both need extra hands on deck and rely on their experience as well. Okay. And so, I'm assuming, like, it's more than just consulting them for information. They're doing actual work as well in order to take some load off of you all and what I assume would be make the process go quicker. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Okay. They're drafting a significant number of documents. We're working with them on that, reviewing them, giving them feedback, but they are doing heavy lifting on drafting all of the documents. Okay. Cool. I just ask because I, you know, made my issues clear on the negotiations, but I want you all to be in a position to where you feel like, you know, if this is going forward, you have the best, like, legal analysis available to you. So, I understand that. But, yeah, I also struggle with, like, trying to hurry up and do something as fast as possible that I have more and more questions about as time goes on. So, I just wanted to make sure I understood totally where you all were coming from. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I think one thing we can all agree on is that this is complicated, and that's why we do need to have the additional help. It's not because they're trying to do it fast. We're trying to do it right. And on top of that, there's other city business that needs to be tended to that we need our city attorney's office to be handling for us. So, I can understand and appreciate the need for this, and I, too, appreciate all that you, Jackie, Janine, and the rest of the legal team have done so far on this and on all of our city business. To me, the more eyes that are on this and the more people who are working on this who are highly, highly qualified, the better off we are going to be when it gets to us. So, I have confidence in this, and I'm fully supportive. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to also thank Attorney Jackie for what you do. And we don't see, just like a lot of people don't see what goes on behind closed doors. They don't see the work that goes into it. They don't see the things that happen outside of our control. And because we actually came to a somewhat resolve on this project, the regular day-to-day didn't just go away. And we don't handle deals such as this every day. So, I do appreciate the person that realizes that they don't know everything and reach out to those that do. Because, you know, I might need to go back to school for $500 an hour, but I think that utilizing that expertise is a wise move because moving anything forward or not forward, I appreciate your attentiveness to ensuring that we definitely get it right. And, of course, you know, you just, you know, you can't project what the future holds, but as long as you're giving it a full version. And, again, you know, having that extra set of eyes is comforting for me. So, I do want to thank you for that. And, again, I didn't think that you all were doing this to rush it through. You were doing it because you wanted to make sure it was right. So, I don't think it's a timing issue for me. That's not even a concern for me. But, again, I just want to thank you, you know, thank you, Jackie, because we've worked with you. I don't think even with everything that we have going on that we've reached out to you and you haven't returned it. See, we forget that. And even though you're knee-deep in it, you call us and they talk to, we talk to you. You don't put us, you know, to anyone else, we talk to you. And so, even with all of that that you have going on before you, you still have not lost, you know, the time to spend with us. So, I'm going to go ahead and stop there, and I'm going to call Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you. I just want to make it clear. Part of the reason I said what I said is because I have full confidence in our in-house counsel, period, end of story. And this is the type of deal that has been done in-house before. And I have full confidence in our city attorney and everyone in the city attorney's office to deal with this deal. And I had no problem spending X amount of money on outside the council if necessary. But we're to a point where when you're at the million-dollar range, it has nothing to do with just advice. A lot of it is driven because we're trying to do this quicker. And I think that our office is capable of doing it, and I have full confidence that they can do it. And so, we are taking on these costs because there is a deadline. We want to get this deal done as soon as possible. And I think that's what's driving the cost. Of course, there's a capacity issue. If you don't have enough capacity, if you want to get this done and the contract's done quickly, you have to pay more attorneys to do it. So, that's my issue with it. I think we all agree. We have the best attorneys. And frankly, I would love them to do the deal on their own, but we're not there. So, thank you all for what you do. But I still cannot support giving outside counsel this much money because I think it's driven by other factors. Thank you. We have a motion, and it's been properly seconded on F7. Can I please ask you to open the sheet for voting? Council members, please place your votes. Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F7 passes 6-2, with council members Driscoll, Figg, Sanders, Gabbard, Gerdes, Montanari, and Mohamed voting yes, and council members Floyd and Hanowitz voting no. Thank you. Thank you. So, now we're going to actually recess the city council and convene this CRA. And we will now take up item CRA-2. And joining us is Economic Development Officer George Smith. How are you? Good afternoon, council chair, council members. We are bringing forward to you a request that we amend the program for affordable single-family home ownership. We are requesting that, the administration is requesting that the agency and city council approve an amendment to the affordable single-family home ownership program to increase the maximum award of down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time homebuyers from $60,000 to $75,000. The affordable single-family home ownership program was approved by city council in 2018. The program includes down payment and closing cost assistance, first-time homebuyers, rehab assistance for owner-occupied homeowners, including barrier-free mitigations for those homeowners, provides funding for homebuyer education, credit counseling, and foreclosure assistance. All of our housing programs are restricted to households whose income does not exceed 140% AMI. In addition to that, the homeownership programs are administered by the Housing and Community Development Department. When we speak of AMI, this is a chart that will give you some indication of revenue or the income the homeowners' income may not exceed in order to qualify for the program. This past year, we invested $1.4 million in 24 units for down payment assistance. In addition to that, we invested $166,000 in rehab assistance for homeowners. We have budgeted for this current year, FY24, an additional $1.5 million for this program. The program also has repayment terms and conditions. For homeowners whose income is, homebuyers, if you will, whose income is at 120% or below AMI, payments are deferred and fully forgiven after 10 years. For those homebuyers whose income is between 120% and 140% AMI, the payments are deferred for five years. And then 50% of the loan will be repaid over the remaining five years, then forgiven. All of these loans are at 0% interest. So, again, we are requesting that you approve, recommend, and approve the amendment to the Affordable Single-Family Home Ownership Program that will increase the maximum award from $60,000 to $75,000 for first-time homebuyers. Move of approval. Second. Okay. We do have Council Member Sett would like to speak. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair, and, George, thank you so much. I was very supportive in committee, and I said it then, and I'll say it again, to some people, $75,000 might look like a lot of money, but if you are out there in the home market right now, it is just a drop in the bucket as to what it takes to actually be able to afford to own your own home. The income needed from the year 2022 to the year 2023 across the state of Florida doubled in order to be able to afford a home. It used to be if you made $60,000, you could still make it work, and now that same home, because of the way that prices have gone up, you need almost $120,000 income to be able to make those numbers work. And we know income is not keeping up to that scale. So what can we do? We can respond by increasing our down payment assistance for people and helping to drive down the amount that they owe. So thank you so much for bringing this forward. I'm incredibly supportive. I just wish we had more SHIP dollars to be able to do more citywide, but we'll keep working on Tallahassee for that. So thank you again. Thank you, Madam Chair. You advise Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I completely agree with Councilwoman Gabbard. And I also just, I wanted to just express my appreciation for the conversation of this item in committee. I thought the feedback and the points of view in committee, I was just very appreciative of. And I'm so supportive of this item. I actually met with FAS two weeks ago and spoke specifically about this item coming before us this week. And so just super excited to support this. And, George, thanks for all your work. And, again, thank you to the HLU committee for the discussion on this item a few weeks back. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, George, for the presentation. I wasn't at the HLU committee, so I just had one question. The barrier-free mitigation. Can you explain that to me, please? Sure. Individuals that may have accessibility challenges or issues may need a ramp, may need grab bars, may need a light in the home because they're visually impaired. So we have resources available to assist bringing the home up to standard to be able to address those issues. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. That was it. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Council Member Hanna. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, George, for the presentation. Mine is actually a quick thing on the Affordable Single Family Homership Program, the amendative program for FY24. I was reading it, and where it talks about consistency with the South St. Petersburg Redevelopment Plan. It quotes, and this is just for my curiosity, it quotes 2016 numbers, and it says, in 2016, the percentage of households with housing costs exceeding 30% of income was 53% in South St. Petersburg and 38% in the city. Do we have more recent numbers in 2016? We can get that. That would be great. I would just, because, I mean, things have changed so much from 2016 to now, and so while I was reviewing this, I was like, those numbers have to be much higher, and it would be good to see those figures in there. I'd be glad to. The reason that was in there, this was the initial program document. Right. In fact, we only amended one portion, which was to increase the amount of the award, so that's the only change that is reflected in there. I get it. Okay. Thank you. We'll get that information. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I'm supportive of this today. I appreciated the conversation we had in HLUT. I just, something Council Member Gabbard said actually sparked my interest. I mean, don't look too excited. It's just, we, all right, now I'll be critical. I just, I'm grateful that this program is in existence. I just hope that, like, we have a long-term vision of what homeownership looks like and what our best way we can support homeownership in the city, if that's what our goal is. Because prices continue to increase while wages continue to stagnate. And so I just want us to be, have that in the back of our head around sustainability of these types of programs and fairness around these types of programs as well. And so I don't have anything profound to say today. I just wanted to reiterate that, like, I hope we can come together in the future and think about, like, what this looks like over the long term. Because this is a stopgap for now is really the truth. But that was all. Thank you. I can comment, if you will. In addition to the down payment assistance that we provide to the home buyers, we also have resources that we provide to the developers to bring the sale price down, bring the cost down, and the sale price down. And so we're trying to address the need from several different perspectives. This just happens to be one of them. That's interesting. Thank you. Thank you. I am fully in support of this. But I know Administrator Gerdes can attest, I am not over, but I am still looking to 120% AMI, like, being, I want to help. But the 80% AMI, I really would love to see more of those type of developments. Because even when I look at 120% AMI, even at almost $80,000 a year, that still doesn't fit a lot of our teachers and a lot of our officers and a lot of. And so I would love to just see a more, just a tad bit more 80% AMI and concentrated programs on that particular rate. So I will leave it there. We'll see no one that further requests to speak. I know we have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting for CRA2? Council members, please use your votes. And seeing that everyone in speaker has voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes unanimously. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Smith. So now we have, we're going to go ahead and adjourn as CRA, and we're going to reconvene the city council, taking up report item F6, and joining us again. Is that approval? Second. Second. Okay. Now, probably been a motion and a second. Can you please, Mr. Clerk, open the machine for voting. Council members, seeing that all council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving right along. Thank you very much. Now we will take up new ordinance E1, and joining us is our arts, culture, and tourism director, Ms. Celeste. Good afternoon. Can I read it? Yes, please. Proposed ordinance number 576H, an ordinance amending chapter 5, article 3, division 1, related to works of art in the city. Expanding where works of art acquired with monies from the art and public places fund can be displayed in expanding ownership options for such works of art and providing an effective date. The public hearing for this item is on April 4th, and we do not have any cards, Madam Chair. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you. Are you going to do a presentation? I don't have a presentation, but I can answer questions. Okay, because I wanted, for those who weren't at the meeting, I mean, there were some, a lot of questions that we had on this, and I know it's before city council right now. We just have it at first reading, but I wanted to bring some points forward because there has to be an in-depth discussion, I think, the next time around on some of these issues. And, first of all, if you can make it clear, why is it that we are changing this code, or if somebody can answer that? It provides more flexibility for the requirement for public art for projects that city funded, that are city funded, that are construction projects. And so, the way that it reads now is the art must be installed on city-owned property, as well as it must be owned by the city. So, the proposed changes provides the ability that we can have the work on property that is not city-owned and that is not titled to the city. Okay, so, my understanding of the purpose of this article, it's works of art in the city, is it's city using our own money to purchase art in public works projects. And there's a separate ordinance that deals with public art that's not owned by the city, which is in section 6.20.120, which some of the changes that you're proposing here are kind of suggesting that you can have it in property. It's not publicly owned, it's not publicly owned, right? Correct. Okay. It is not city-owned. Exactly. It's also, you're making changes that would allow city council to allow us to remove our ownership of the property of the art. So, it wouldn't be public art, even though the purpose is we're using public monies for public art through a public works project. Is that correct? I would kind of look to maybe Sharon to give more detail on that. So, all this does is create flexibility, like Celeste said. So, as you probably remember, anything that comes under Chapter 5, any of those projects, they're always going to be subject to city council approval. So, there would never be a project that comes up that's going to be not owned by the city and not on city property that city council wouldn't have a say and be able to put some parameters there to make sure that we still would have an interest in the art or in the property somehow. So, whatever that arrangement may be, but as far as the ordinance, it doesn't specify any of that. That would be something that would be up to council to decide on a case-by-case basis. Right. But we can basically divest title in the city's name based on the changes, right? That is. Correct. That is allowable under the code. Under the new change. Yes. Right. And also, in the same ordinance, right, we're supposed to maintain insurance, repair, and maintenance costs on this art, correct? That is part of the Public Arts Commission's duties is to make sure that all the art in our collection is maintained and repaired. Most likely, if the art was on a different location, that would be part of what we work out. So, if it's on property that's not owned by the city, we would probably make sure there were terms and conditions in there that the maintenance would be covered. I mean, it's really all subject to whatever we agree to. So, there would always be protections that we could negotiate if we were to ever utilize this flexibility. Did this issue come up because of the raise and the stadium? Right. Yeah. That's why administration wanted to bring the change. Well, because it hasn't been mentioned yet. Yes. Yeah. That is part of the reason why we're bringing it forward. Obviously, with the stadium, the land will be owned by the county, and this would allow that. Okay. So, if the raise would be paying for their own infrastructure costs, would this ordinance even apply? If the raise were paying for their own... Infrastructure costs on that deal, there wouldn't be... Let's say we weren't doing any public works on that piece of property. And legal could chime in. Yeah. If there was no city contribution whatsoever, then it would not be a public works project under the Chapter 5. So, there would be no contribution because it's always going to be a percentage of our contribution to a public works project. Right. So, what this does basically is, and let me see if I understand it. The point of this is because the stadium is going to be built on land that's owned by the county. The reason it's owned by the county is so you don't have to pay ad valorem taxes, which is the reason why the county gives it to the city. The city leases it to avoid ad valorem taxes, yet we're using an ordinance that allow public taxpayer money to go into public works projects to pay for public works of art, right, for this, and then put it... Let me just quite finish. So, let's say we put in $75 million of infrastructure for the stadium, we're looking at probably the max is $500,000 that we would put of public art on that land. Is that what we're looking at? Yeah, the maximum... Yep. So, it would be coming from taxpayer dollars. So, we would be putting public art. We would be paying for it. So, is this not something that can be negotiated in the deal? Can't the Rays pay for public art on the property? They absolutely can pay for public art. Okay. This is allowing public art to be placed on a county-owned property. No, I understand that, but that can be negotiated, right? Right, but if that was negotiated into the deal, then they still wouldn't be able to put it on the property without this change to the ordinance. No, I understand that, but the problem is that there are sections of this that not only can we give up our right, like, if we don't want to divest, you know, give up our right to it be owned by us, right? We have to maintain it, because that's part of the ordinance. I mean, we would make sure that it is maintained. How exactly that works, like I said, it's always going to be subject to whatever it is that we negotiate. That's just, it's just not possible to make those, it's just not possible unless we make these changes. So it wouldn't be possible to negotiate some deal where we have art on someone else's property that they maintain unless we were to make these changes and allow that art to be on. But this is supposed to come from our monies under this ordinance. Right. Not from somebody else's monies, from our monies. Well, it could be partially funded by the city, and it would still require a percentage to be set aside, if there's any city funding whatsoever. But it does contemplate that there may be funding from other sources as well. But if the city contributes any money to a project, then it becomes a public works project, and it's subject to Chapter 5. How does the, how does the public art 16.20.1, 20.9 play into this? How does that section of the code play into it? Chapter 16 is going to apply to private developers, so it's a different, it's a very different process. So Chapter 5 is really intended for public works projects, meaning projects that are funded with city funding, and then we want to make sure that we get art on those, on those sites. Because we've contributed money to a construction project, and so we want a percentage to be set aside for art on that project. Chapter 16 is a requirement for developers who are developing their own private property, that they are then required to either put art on the property or contribute money into the fund, so that then we could put art on city-owned property under Chapter 5. Right. So I'm just curious, because this all is coming up if, again, we're putting infrastructure monies into this project, right, that's being developed. Right. I just want to make sure there's transparency, and city council understands. To me, it's much more complex. That's what's presented here. It wasn't presented this way at BFNT, and the details were not presented in terms of why we have this before us. And I just want to make sure that people understand that this has to do with the stadium, and it has to do with putting art at the stadium, and it is paid by taxpayer dollars, right, through public works. That's taxpayer money, right? So I just want to make sure that we're doing all this to make sure that we can put more money into the deal somehow. Councilmember Hanowitz, the main reason why we're doing this is to allow us to be able to put public art on county-owned property, irregardless of the amount. So as Sharon said, even if we put $1 into it, it becomes a public works project, and the art would have to go on city-owned property. So the amount we're putting in is completely separate and apart from where the art can go. We're having a discussion about the amount. Even if it were $1, under the way it's written right now, we would not be able to place the artwork on this property because it's owned by the county. I understand. Look, I've been told that you can't put trees on private property. We only put on right-of-ways because we don't want to go ahead and make sure that we put it on private property. And we're having this discussion on public art, and we make a big deal about our tree program. It's like, well, we can't put it on people's yards, and we're talking about a lot less money. And so here we are talking about this. It only came up because of the raised deal. This is the reason this has come up now is my understanding. And it applies when you read this. It applies to any private property. It takes city-owned out, and it just says property. You could do this anywhere. But it won't be anywhere. I understand, but, I mean, it's not public property anymore. It says property. You've taken out city-owned in the allocation of funds section. And so I just want city council to kind of understand and look at this because, to me, this is public money that's supposed to go to public art and public works projects. And this land that it's being put on, you're not even paying ad valorem taxes. So I have issues with it, and I've made that clear. But we'll have a further discussion at the next meeting. So, Chair, if I could just make one general comment. First of all, we don't know what's going to happen with the stadium. But if city council decides to invest a significant amount of money in the stadium, we love public art. The administration loves public art. I think city council loves the public art. So all we're trying to do is make sure that there can be public art on the stadium site if the stadium is built. Because under the current ordinance, because it's county-owned, we wouldn't be able to put the public art there. So what we're trying to do is promote public art if city council decides to spend these resources on the stadium. So I just, hopefully that's clear. Move of approval. Second. And just to answer that, I don't have a problem with public art. My issue, obviously, is how this is coming about and whether or not those resources for the public art should come from someone else or from us. And so that's what I'm trying to figure out. Should it be that the deal says the Rays are going to pay for the public art that's going to be there? Or should it be us? So that's my point. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I'm going to vote for this to move forward today. But I do still have more questions. So I'll be asking for a meeting to discuss this further. So does this, but would this mean that the city would be able to pay for art that would go on private property? It would be possible, but it would only be if we somehow had a public works project on a private property. Because you could only place it on either property that's owned by the city or property that there's a public work on. Because the purpose of this division was to make sure that whenever we have construction or renovations, when we have a public works project, that the money that's set aside for that goes to the same. The idea is that it would always go to the same site where that public works project was located. So you wouldn't ever just take the money and then put art on private property without any public works project associated with it. And does that have to be a public works project that is city initiated and paid for? Or is it for any? Well, the way that the money gets set aside is if the city, I mean, what makes it a public works project is that the city has provided funding for it. Okay. All right. We have a lot to talk about, but I'll support it today. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Flory. Thank you. And I got a couple of quick follow-up questions. So would it have been possible to have stated it to where it was like, I mean, I think the focus was county-owned property here. Why did it end up broader than that? I mean, there's a lot of ways that it could be written if there was something else that you wanted. I think we just wanted it to be as general as possible. Yeah, I think the idea behind it, like Sharon indicated, it's not like it has to be this exact language. But typically, if we're modifying the code for something like this, we try to build in maximum flexibility to then allow council to ultimately make a decision but not have the code overly restrictive. But again, it's not like this particular language is written in stone. Okay. I was just wondering. And then is there implications, again, if we'll just focus on county so that we don't go into everything, like as to – is there implications as to, like, them having some sort of a say on what gets placed on the property if it's not city-owned property? Well, there always would be. If you're going to be putting something on somebody else's property, they would have to be okay with it, if that's what you mean. But it's – yeah. I mean, a lot of these questions, really, the answer is it just depends on what you negotiate. Yeah, yeah. So the code just creates the flexibility to allow you to then negotiate however you want to protect yourself and to get what you want. Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate those couple of responses. Yeah, I already see, like, occasionally we get pieces of art up here, and we struggle to agree. And now, you know, just – I was just imagining a future in which now we're asking someone else to agree with it as well. So that's interesting. All right. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. I just wanted to clarify something. I know it said that it would prevent you from placing it on the property, but it could also be placed adjacent based on the code right now, right, to the property. Right. If you didn't make changes, then the purpose section says that – the purpose is that the art either be at the same location or adjacent to the property if it's not possible to be on the property. Or even if for whatever reason it can't be either of those, then it could be in a different location completely, but it's just not really the intent. The intent is that it goes with the project when possible. And what was the intent of requiring just title to vest in the city of the property, of the public art, if we're paying for it? You mean the – Adding that we can waive that provision. That's the same. It's because of the structure of the county property. The improvements on it would also probably have to be owned by the county in order to get that tax exemption. So – I'm sorry. So the – Are you saying that we would have to approve – are you saying – so basically what you're saying is that we would have to – if, let's say on this deal, there's public art, then for it to be on that county property, we would have to probably divest title to that art. That's why this provision is in there? Yeah, I mean, I'm not – I don't want to speak for exactly what the deal is going to look like because I don't know. But if all the improvements on the county property have to be owned by the county in order to maintain that tax exemption, then this art would also be an improvement on the property. And therefore, if we owned it, then it wouldn't be exempt. Why is that not – why is this not clear? Like, we are making these decisions, you're asking changes for an ordinance, and this is just not clear. I read this last night. No, let me finish real quick. I read this last night. I have so many notes because there are so many legal issues to this, and it's public art, and it's public money, and it's through public works projects. That's the point. And I have a concern about divesting that. I love public art. It should be public art. Publicly owned. Public land. All of that. And there are things up here that just throw that out the wind. And now we find out that the reason that probably that is in there is because it has to be county-owned. We're certainly happy to meet with you one-on-one for this discussion. We can try and do a better job presenting this at the next council meeting. I mean, the goal of this ordinance change from our perspective is very simple, and I'm sorry if we didn't present it in a way that you like. But really, all we want is if city council decides to invest in a stadium, that part of those project funds can build public art because we love public art and we want public art on the stadium site, whether we own it or the county owns it. And we're fine with that because getting the public art is what we really want. So I'm sorry we didn't explain that better, and we'll try and do a better job in the next presentation. Look, we'll all agree that we love public art. Nobody here does not like public art. But when we, as a city council, are making changes to ordinances that are going to have repercussions that we don't understand at the time that we're making these decisions and everyone's not on the same page, that's a problem. And at the BFNT meeting, it was never made clear how this would impact, how the Rays deal, how all that would play out, and why this was being done. And that is important because we are the ones that have to ask questions. We're responsible. These ordinances are passed by city council, and we have to understand these issues. I don't care where people end up voting on it. I need to understand it. I think everybody else should understand why they're voting for a reason. This is not, oh, it's a cleanup. It's more than that. I understand your concerns. I think I've acknowledged them. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Monteneary. Thank you. I wrote down my questions kind of along the same lines where this discussion was going. So in the current use agreement that we have at Tropicana Field, we conveyed the property to the county so that we don't have to pay ad valorem taxes. And can you just clarify, and I don't need a very long explanation, Jackie, but if the Rays weren't playing baseball there anymore, the property reverts back to the city. Is that correct? That's correct. That's correct. That's correct. The county owns the property currently. The city controls it via a lease back agreement between the city and the county. And then the city has the use agreement with the Rays. Okay. So we're going to have a similar type of arrangement with a new stadium. Is that correct? That's the intent. So the public art, if we do something with public art in front of the new stadium and the current agreement expires and the property reverts back to the city, who owns the art? I mean, so if you have a statue or something like that, would it revert back to the city of St. Petersburg, just like every other improvement on the property? That's correct. That's how it's currently structured and how we would anticipate structuring it, that whenever any type of reversion is triggered of property, it's the property itself, the real property, and any improvements thereon. Okay. All right. That's it. Thank you. Seeing no request to speak, I do understand we have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting for E1? Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item E1 passes 7 to 1 with council members Driscoll, Fick Sanders, Floyd, Gabbard, Gerdes, Montaneri, and Mohamed voting yes, and council member Hanowitz voting no. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and quickly go through our new business items, beginning with G1. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. This item respectfully requests a referral to the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee for a discussion on potential actions to appropriately recognize the historic significance of the Lincoln Cemetery and the Greenwood Cemetery, and I'll move approval. Second. And we have two cars, Madam Chair. Thank you. Two speakers, Debra Shoes and Sierra Clark. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Joyful day, beautiful people. Is it not good? State your name and address for the record, ma'am. My name is Sierra M. Clark. My address is 4544 22nd Avenue South. It doesn't really seem like my address is important because it doesn't whitewash out my reality of, like, what I'm hearing and what I'm feeling and what just I, what I've experienced. So, you know, the saying, like, it starts at home. Most of hardworking individuals are doing their thing, they're working hard, and yet still really what starts at home starts here is what I realized, right? And so I didn't know Ray Hines had so much say-so in my life, in my past life or what happened to my families in the Laurel Park area of where the interstate went through, in my present life. And then even when I died, because the stadium is even buried over, over people, over grave sites. So really, all public things benefit private. Ma'am, I was just told that you aren't speaking on this current item, and that's- I am, and this is all about the current item. And so this is, because all this ties into, because here in the report from Will Michaels, which was presented November 24th, 2023, that raised Tampa Bay, opposed the efforts to honor the families and loved ones that were previously buried in the Oakland Cemetery, which was where the cemetery is. This is the Lincoln and the Greenwood Cemetery. I know, and all of this is about that, because I have a loved one buried in, currently in the Lincoln Cemetery. So I was giving a backdrop to how this really affects not just my present, but my past and my future, all about this same thing. And so to be able to talk about this, I had to highlight all of those other things, because it's kind of- Okay, well, you have a minute and 49 seconds. I'll grant you to go ahead and continue. So the idea of making sure that this is back annexed in the city of St. Pete is very important to my past, my present, and my future. And so we're here talking about how important that is, and also I think the other cemetery should also. Most of the city of St. Petersburg residents are buried there, along with my grandfather, who was an immigrant, who came from Belize, who fought for this country, who lived in Laurel Park, who owned property in the city, who paid his taxes. And much like me, I've been working since I've been 14, and I can't even afford to still live here. And yet my history, which is buried in the Lincoln Cemetery, is not being represented. There's a lot of people buried there that need to be honored. And so the idea of this being- So this is a civic responsibility. This is the St. Pete. Like, this is our responsibility. At some point, we paid to have the cemeteries to de-annex this property. And so the idea of putting it back in my city limits that I know to be my home and my roots, and hopefully where I wish that I, too, can die and call home. But now I'm not even sure of that. But to honor my grandfather, because I wouldn't be here without my grandfather. Many of our ancestors are there, many people who did great things in the city of St. Pete. And we're not honoring them. And so hearing this, which Will Michaels presented, which cc'd our mayor, so you already have this somewhere, so we can read. And he brought up ways of how we can start to do this, annexing it back in the city of St. Pete is number one. But being able to honor those who graves still have no names on them. Thank you. Next card, please. She's there. Blessings, council members. My name is Deborah Shuse. I am a born and raised native of St. Petersburg. Currently reside in Gulfport. And my grandmother also was a gas plant grocer with two community grocery stores in the 1940s and 1950s. So I have some roots here. So I've been advocating for Lincoln Cemetery for several years. I used to live a block away from it. And Sierra Clark, who just spoke, who's a descendant, and I've been blessed to meet a number of descendants, she spoke to the Historic Preservation Commission meeting here September, excuse me, June of 2013, 2023, excuse me, 13. And Sierra was here along with Tamika Wright, who's also a descendant. There were descendants here today who were here with Corey Gibbons, community activists, and they had to leave. They had to go back to work. So they were here to share their voice. Anyway, I wanted to say this. I'll give you a little history. I'll make it real short because it's been a long day for, I think, everyone. The city of St. Petersburg council member in 1967, because Lincoln Cemetery, making it short, followed the path here. Lincoln Cemetery in 1926 was established in the city of St. Petersburg. It is four cemeteries, four St. Petersburg cemeteries combined, Oakwood downtown, Evergreen, Moffitt. They were all condemned in 1925 to no longer have burials. They had started in the 1880s. So you had lynching victims buried there, Civil War veterans. The city of St. Petersburg then began to pay undertakers in funeral homes to move people who were moved en masse from the downtown cemetery. Some were left behind, but the majority of them were moved to a mass unmarked grave that currently exists at Lincoln Cemetery. And so that's where Lincoln Cemetery is now. So let's go, and let's go to 1967. You had a council member who was on this council. Benenfield was his name. He was a doctor. He had 16 acres of land he wanted to develop in the city that was in the city of St. Pete, but he moved for that to be annexed, excuse me, de-annexed out of St. Pete with it was done through an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg and to annex it into Gulfport. Gulfport, and then it was going to be developed. It was adjacent to Lincoln Cemetery. So then I recently pulled. Now this is Gulfport, which is a historically documented city of, historically documented Sundowner community. And a council member in Gulfport in 1937, Bruno Beckhart, oh my gosh, he's in the Times, stating that Negroes of St. Petersburg knew not to go into the city of Gulfport at Sundown. A descendant I met from Lincoln Cemetery shared with me that there are photographs that are tucked far away that have African-American communities, excuse me, African-Americans who hung from trees in Gulfport. So, into 1967, we have Ben and Field, who has it annexed out. Thank you. Thank you. We do have one Zoom speaker. Do we have one Zoom speaker? Okay. Go ahead. Corey Givens, I'm going to enter into the meeting space. Please unmute yourself. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Corey Givens, Jr., 2418, 45th Street South. Thanks to Councilmember Driscoll and Councilmember Muhammad for their advocacy on this agenda item, Lincoln Cemetery is adjacent to what most of us know as the Pinellas Trail. But what you may not know is that trail used to be a railroad. Lincoln Cemetery was founded in 1926 at a time when segregation was legal and Jim Crow was alive and well. Lincoln was created in response to thousands of bodies that needed to be re-interned from historic Oak Lawn, Moffitt, and Evergreen cemeteries, which are now present-day Tropicana Field. This was at a time when Black and white people couldn't live next to each other or be buried alongside one another. Today, there are more than 5,500 souls buried in Lincoln Cemetery. Lincoln is more than just a cemetery to me. It's a home away from home. It's a place where I go to be amongst the ancestors and to reconnect with my family's roots. My greatest fear is that Lincoln Cemetery won't stand against the test of times, and I fear that Lincoln will be bulldozed and built over. If we designate Lincoln and Greenwood as historic cemeteries, we preserve their legacies and the life stories of the souls buried there in perpetuity. My family has a plot at Lincoln with over 10 family members that are buried there, so this is personal for me. Historic designation for Lincoln Cemetery and Greenwood play a key role in ensuring the protection and preservation of historically significant buildings and sites. It provides benefits for our community at large by recognizing the importance of the cultural heritage of these cemeteries. Black history matters. Black graves matter. Council, I ask that you take the steps necessary to seek historic designation status for Lincoln and Greenwood cemeteries. Thank you. I did. Council Member Driscoll. Second. Second by Council Member Mohammed. Vice Chair, here it is. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to quickly thank Council Member Driscoll for bringing this item. It was just a few weeks ago. I had a couple of Zoom calls about Lincoln Cemetery as it is adjacent to my district, and so very, very thankful you brought this item and excited to have this conversation. You beat me to it, but I'm glad you did. So thank you very much for bringing it forward. We're looking forward to the conversation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, and before I ask for the vote, I also want to thank Council Member Driscoll for this because, as you know, Reverend Williams is a very strong advocate with maintaining the Lincoln Cemetery, and I think he has a lot of support, which is why it was one of my budget priorities to ensure that Lincoln Cemetery stays with us, and I'm glad you also ended additional added Greenwood as well. So since this has been properly motioned and seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Council Member, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce your vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on from G2, Council Member Hannavis. Thank you, Chair. Respectfully request a referral to the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee to discuss potential code changes addressing condo-hotel hybrid uses, and with that, I move. Seconded. Now that we have a motion, it's been properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for G2? Please cast your vote. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G2 passes unanimously, with Council Member Gerdes being absent. Thank you. Moving on to G3, Council Member Gabbert. Respectfully requesting a referral to HLUT to provide a Residential Land Development Regulation update to be scheduled on August 8th, 2024 or later, and this is a staff request, which I so move. Seconded. Now that we've properly been motioned and seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for G3? Now that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G3 passes unanimously, with Council Member Gerdes being absent. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert, G4. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm respectfully requesting a referral to Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee or other relevant committee for a discussion on the 49th Street Safe Streets Pinellas Study currently underway for the section of 49th Street from 1st Avenue North to 25th Avenue South and I'll move approval. Second. Second. Thank you. Now that we have a motion and second for E5, can you please open the machine for voting? Now that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G5 passes unanimously. Council Member Gabbert. Madam Chair, for the sake of time, I am not going to read this entire referral item. I'm sure you've all gone through it. But this is a request to revise a prior item of which you all approved to move to a committee of a whole conversation regarding our resiliency planning. So previously, there were some other items here. I've worked closely with staff on revising this and coming up with a more specific list as to what we would like to discuss at that particular committee of the whole. We've also discussed timing. Previously, we had asked that this be brought before the end of the first quarter. That was not possible. So therefore, we are asking that this be brought at the next immediate cow following any of the raised stadium or historic gas plant redevelopment cows for the sake of timing and bandwidth of staff. So I so move. Second. Council Member Monterey. Thank you. And I wanted to ask Council Member Gabbert. There's two other issues that are related. And you've got it. And thank you for bringing this comprehensive list forward. But the FEMA flood mitigation assistance program and then the NFIP, the risk rating 2.0, that came up at the listening session that we had for resiliency and flooding a little over a month ago. I'd like, you know, because you have so many things in here, but these two issues are related. I'd like to ask you if we can have add that flood mitigation assistance program and just a short discussion on risk rating 2.0, because we had some, we had, I remember one resident from Shore Acres came forward that raised their, their home using their, their own funds. And they, they, their flood insurance premiums went up substantially because of risk rating 2.0. So I see those two things as being related. And I'd like to add that to your, to the list of this committee, the whole meeting. Certainly. I mean, both of those are parts of the conversation that we would intend on having, specifically as it pertains to the current FEMA application and acceptance procedures for mitigation and those grants of which you discussed. And then also when we get into, and hello, Liz, hi, she'll be the one presenting on these things. So her and Hannah. So I'm glad you're both here. So also regarding the risk rating 2.0, that would go into the topic regarding community rating systems. So I think it's certainly appropriate that we can add those to those particular topics. I might, what we'll probably try to do is bring in someone from FEMA or someone from the outside to talk about the risk rating 2.0, because that really is not kind of our area of expertise, but we'll see if we can't bring somebody in to supplement staff on that particular issue. Yeah. And so I have made a note of that. And I do also just want to point out that, you know, we have a few speakers listed here that we intend on, but I did on purpose add the subject matter experts as needed, because I know as we continue to develop this agenda, we'll probably come up with other people that need to speak. So I hope that that addresses both of your concerns. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Thank you. That was good. So I do believe we have a motion and a second. Yes, we do. So would you please cast your votes? As amended. It doesn't, I'm sorry, they're asking a question. Can I just chime in quickly? Yes. It doesn't need to be as amended. Based on Council Member Gabbard's, the way her new business item is worded, it includes topics, but is it limited, so I think it was just Council Member Montaneri making the request for staff to be prepared for those items. Now that all present, Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce it? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G6 passes unanimously with Council Member Floyd being absent. Thank you very much. Colleagues, I do know that we have public hearing that was scheduled to talk at, began at 5.01, but I'm going to recess for a 15-minute break. Thank you, thank you. Ma'am, proposed ordinance 1165-V, an ordinance approving a vacation of two street corner easements generally located at 1000 First Avenue North, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing an effective date, and we do have one card for this item. Move approval. Second. Do you have a card? Yes. Katie Cole, please go to either podium. Stay tuned. She stepped out. She was here earlier. Okay, well, joining us is Deputy Zoning of Pichos. She was for it. She was for it? Okay, thank you. Was that Council Member Gersling Driscoll? Oh, okay, because I was just introducing you, waiting on you to go ahead and move it, but it looks like you might be released from duty. Or to. So we have a motion and a second. Do you all still want the presentation? I'm good. No. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mohler. Welcome. I do appreciate your availability. Oh. Thank you so much for that. There's a motion, and it's been properly... She's here if she'd like to speak. Can I hit the Coastal High Hazard area to another client? I don't need to say anything if you all don't want me to ask you. Not that we don't want you to. Not that we don't want you to. So we've had the motion. It's been properly seconded, and the machine is open for voting. Council members, please place your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J-1 passes unanimously. Now, next we'll move to item J-2, which has an A and a B, and presenting that is construction services and permitting floodplain manager, Ms. Anna Revholz. And these can we take them up together? I'm asking, can we take those two together? Oh, no. You know what? You can present together, but they will each need a separate... Separate five. I'm going to read both titles. Thank you. Proposed Ordinance No. 574-H, in Ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending its land development regulations, amending Section 16.40.050.3.1, to update the person officially designated to perform the duties set forth in the floodplain management ordinance, amending Section 16.40.050.9.4, to update the definition of market value, amending Section 16.40.050.13.4, to update general elevation requirements for manufactured homes in the coastal high hazard area, providing for applicability and providing for severability and providing an effective date, and we do not have any cards for this item. Proposed Ordinance No. 573-H, in Ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending Chapter 8 of the City Code, amending Section 8-36C3, to make a local technical amendment to the Florida Building Code, FBC, to rescind previous amendments to the FBC related to flood proofing, providing for applicability, providing for severability, and providing an effective date, and we do not have any cards for this item as well. Do you want the presentation? I move approval of A. We have to do these separately? Yes, ma'am. Move approval of A. Second. Now, we've had a problem. Do you want the presentation? No, we're good. Yeah, I want the presentation. Yeah. I would prefer, yes. I'm sorry. I know, you're too. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll get moving. Good evening. Hannah Rappel is the floodplain manager for the City of St. Pete. Let's get this going so we can get out of here. In June of 2021, the floodplain management ordinance was updated to comply with the National Flood Insurance Program based on the Florida Department of Emergency Management's model ordinance to incorporate plan review requirements and to promote consistency throughout the state. This application includes three additional text amendments to provide additional clarity and promote consistency with the FEMA and Pinellas County. Changing the person officially designated will better reflect the floodplain management's program structure and its current positions. Altering the general elevation requirements provides more information on the design flood elevation for mobile homes specifically, not only provides consistency with the county, but also to clarify any confusion as to where the measurement is taken. Excuse me. The updated market value definition provides consistency with Pinellas County and other jurisdictions across the state. The city participates in the local mitigation strategy with Pinellas County. So it's particularly, particularly important that both city and county ordinances are consistent in their definitions and their reviews. Reverting to the ASCE 24 original language for flood proofing within a coastal A zone will further promote consistency with Pinellas County, ASCE 24, and the Florida Building Code, and allow more room for growth within existing businesses in the coastal A zone. There are several objectives in our comprehensive plan that support these ordinances. There they are. And on February 7, 2024, the DRC held a public hearing regarding this matter and voted six to zero, making a finding of consistency with the comprehensive plan and recommending to city council approval of the amendment to chapter 16. Our recommendation is for you to conduct the second reading and public hearing of the proposed ordinances and approve them. That concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any of your questions. Yes, Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Hannah, I just wanted to thank you for your work on this. Also want to thank the residents of Americana Cove way back in 2021. Liz and I, as some of you might remember, had a very interesting dialogue back and forth with them for several months before those changes were brought forward. And so I just want to thank them for all of their cooperation and support, being that they are the largest mobile home community in the coastal high hazard zone within our city. They really played a big role in this coming forward ultimately again today. So also I completely support the consistency of the language. I think that's very, very important. So thank you both for all your hard work and very happy to support this today. Thank you. Seeing that there are no further requests to speak and we do have a motion and been properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for six to eight? Council members, please place your votes. Seeing that all council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J2A passes unanimously. Move approval of J2B. Second. It's been properly motioned and seconded. J2B, can you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your vote. Now that all council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J2B passes unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rathana. Now we will have J3 and presenting is our housing program special projects manager, Mr. Mark Vanloo. Welcome. I'm going to read the title, Madam Chair. I'm going to read the title for us. Thank you. This is for the first reading, first public hearing. Proposed ordinance number 57H. 575H, I'm sorry. In ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending chapter 28 of the city code related to housing, amending section 28-1 to update the definitions of new construction and special circumstances, providing for servability and providing an effective date. The second reading and second public hearing for this item is on April 4th, 2024. Move approval. Second. Would you like the presentation? I like the presentation. No. Council Member Floyd. No, I'm shaking my head now. You can't hear me. At the committee meeting. I was on the committee, yes. Sounds good. Do we have a motion? We do have a motion. Yes, we do. We have a motion and it's properly seconded for J3. Can you please open the machine for voting? I'll second. No. There you go. Thank you. Now that our council members have cast their votes, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J3. He passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Van Loo. So now that we have open forum, do we have any cards? We have speakers, but I don't have a Mary in here. Okay. Well, since we don't have open forum, we're going to go ahead and move on to announcements. Vice Chair Gerst. Thank you, Madam Chair. A little bird told me Council Member Muhammad has a birthday coming up. He turns 26. No, 48. That's my claim. I was close to going 50%. I'm trying to keep having them. Yeah. What a boy. What a boy. So we'll sing happy birthday to Council Member Muhammad. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Brother John. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Brother John. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Anyone have any announcements? Yeah, we had a great day today. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Swish. You know, I do appreciate you eating every day. So now we will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.