City Council - Nov 02, 2023

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials, District 2 and Council Chair, Brandi Gabbard. District 3, Ed Montenari. District 4, Lisette Hanowitz. District 5 and Council Vice Chair, Deborah Figg Sanders. District 6, Gina Driscoll. District 7, John Muhammad. And District 8, Richie Floyd. Good morning, everyone. We will call to order the November 2nd, 2023 City Council Meeting, beginning with a roll call, please. Montenari. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Dick Sanders. Driscoll. Here. Muhammad. Here. Floyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Gabbard. Here. This morning we will begin our meeting with an invocation that will be delivered by Reverend Mike Alford, curate at the Cathedral Church of St. Pete. This will be followed by a moment of silence to honor first responders, so please remain standing, or please join me in standing, and remain standing afterwards for the play. Let us pray. Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth, justice, mercy, and peace proceed, kindle, we pray, in the hearts of each one of us, the true love of peace, justice, and mercy. Comfort the afflicted, those who mourn, and those who find themselves in the midst of war, violence, and terrorism. Give our leaders, we pray, the courage to listen and the wisdom to act, to seek the path of reconciliation and the wisdom to act, to seek the path of reconciliation, and to respect the dignity of every human being. Help us also to see the image of God in each other, especially those with whom we disagree. May we one day sit down together to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Bless, we pray, the work of this assembly. May we be the voice of the voiceless, the disenfranchised, and those living on the margins. May we always strive to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, O Lord. All this we ask in the name of God, our creator, sustainer, and redeemer. Amen. Please join me in a moment of silence as we honor fallen first responder, Officer Jean A. Bissette, end of watch, November 10th, 1961. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you, Reverend, for joining us this morning. The council, we have an agenda before us today with the request to add item CB20, and with that change, I will entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. Seeing no request to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Okay, and now we have our consent agenda. Clerk, do we have any cards on the consent agenda? No, ma'am, we do not. Okay, with that, I'll entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda. Move approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no request to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. All right, so we will take up, actually, first our new good news item, which is item F3, which was pulled by council member Muhammad. So, council member Muhammad, would you like to introduce this item? I would. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Waiting on the, there you go. So, just want to say congratulations on receiving the grant, and it is great news. I wanted to express my gratitude to the staff and enthusiastic residents of the neighborhood who have played in the success of this particular initiative, or who will play, I should say. I believe the initiative will not only bring more greenery to our community, but also deliver tangible improvements in various aspects of our community efforts to improve air quality in the area. We welcome the anticipated reduction in particulate matter, the decrease in the heat index, as well as the measurable impacts of the project that we expect to benefit the community. And so, looking forward to it. Also excited about the youth environmental education sessions that are included in there. because they will probably sit under those trees and spend more time in that shade than we will. So, looking ahead to the accomplishments, and just, again, want to reiterate our dedication and commitment to improving air quality in the area. And I think this is a great announcement and a step in the right direction. Thank you, council member Muhammad. And if I may just give a quick shout out. I'm very honored to report out on this good news story. And council member Muhammad incredibly impressed at the mastery of knowledge over the many environmental and community benefits that planting a tree brings, not only to the Child's Park neighborhood, but to our overarching 30% tree canopy goal. So, I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank our senior urban forestry specialist who's with me today, Dean Hay. Dean, if you would. Oh, you are standing. Awesome. Thank you. And thank you to city administration, Rob Gerdes, and public works administrator, Claude Tankersley, for their support and leadership. I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any, but thank you for this acknowledgement. Second. So, council member Driscoll. Thank you. This is a really just incredible project and I'm so excited to see it coming forward. This is one of two tree good news items that we've had out there for the community lately. Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to join Dean and multiple organizations led by a group called Take Mar, who, which is a very small nonprofit that has raised the funding to plant trees along the Pinellas Trail. Last Saturday, the groups planted 100 trees between 22nd and 24th streets. And before that, they had done, I believe, 140 trees between 24th and 28th streets. So, seeing people out in the community taking matters into their own hands to raise the money. The money was, came from private donors, but I was given a heads up that they're actually receiving a grant to do even more trees. Just really amazing. But with, with both of these projects, it made me think back to a committee meeting that we had not too long ago, where we were given. Just a moment, council member Driscoll. If everyone could just silence their phones while they're in the chambers. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. So, there was quite a bit of money that we're talking about allocating to do a tree mapping study to determine where trees should go. And I believe it was $850,000. That's correct. That the, the city is looking to spend on just mapping it out. But I don't believe any maps were used to determine where the trees are going to go in Child's Park or the trees that are going along the Pinellas Trail. So, what I want to know is why, why is that not necessary for this? But we need to spend almost a million dollars just to look at trees when that money could be going towards more trees. That's an excellent point. And I want to share with the council that we are exploring alternatives for that 850,000 BP settlement fund following the Hearst committee meeting. To answer your question directly, we know that the Pinellas Trail is a priority area. We know that Child's Park is a priority area for tree plantings. You can tell just by standing out there. And thanks to your leadership in the Pinellas Trail plan team, to get street lights out there, to get us started, we, it's very visible. That being said, we will do some desk analysis and mapping so that we know where trees will be planted in Child's Park. We work really closely with our colleagues in engineering and GIS to make sure, as well as transportation planning, that where we're planting is not impeding with any underground utilities, overhead utilities, visibility triangles, as well as plant sidewalks. So, there will be some map, you know, some maps created, but our office of sustainability and resilience hears that point. We took that point following the Hearst committee meeting, and right now we do not have, we have not gone out to bid. We have not engaged procurement on that tree mapping as we're looking for more cost effective ways to get even more trees in the ground. Okay, great, thank you. Thank you so much. I just see so much good that's being done without the need for mapping that I wonder if we could reconsider how we go about that in the future. Absolutely. So, I appreciate that, and I look forward to an update on that. If you, when you are ready, if you could please request from like a staff update. I can put in the new business item to get that on a future Hearst committee meeting, or you can bring it right here to the dais. That sounds great. Thank you so much. All right, thank you. Thank you. I, I, this, this is a very good news item. Uh, and over the past years, uh, when we do, when we start our budget process with our budget priorities, one of my budget priorities is always to try to plant a thousand trees a year in, in the city of St. Petersburg. We had, uh, BP funds to go towards that, uh, uh, project this year. So I was very glad to hear what, what, what you just, uh, stated. And, uh, cause I was thinking about putting in a new business item too, to like revisit this, this issue, but, uh, it sounds like we're on the, on the right path. And my goal is to get trees in the ground and enhance our tree canopy. And, uh, and I, I, I should share council member Montanari. We have a goal that we plan to meet or exceed this, this calendar year. I think this was brought before the Hearst committee to plant 600 trees and a thousand a year matching that goal that you've stated. Very good. Very good. Well, wonderful news. Uh, glad to hear about the news on the Pinellas trail where we have both. Uh, the public sector and volunteers in the private sector doing the thing, uh, same thing to try to enhance our tree canopy. That makes our city, uh, an even better place to live. So thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you chair. And thank you so much. As you know, the whole city council supports the planning of trees. I think we've talked in various meetings about this, but I was curious about looking at the grant itself. I know that there it's a matching grant program. So they give 49 and change 49,000 and change. And then we match it. Um, and when we do matching neighborhood grants, um, volunteer hours are used for that, not just dollars. And I saw that the grant itself allows for volunteer hours to be used towards that grant as opposed to money. Uh, are we using those volunteer hours that people are using? Because that builds community spirit. You get people's buy-in. We've done this in the community for many projects. And I think it's extremely important to do that. So I was just wondering if you're applying volunteer hours and keep tracking those to apply it to the grant as opposed to cash that could go to other trees. Absolutely. To free up funds for other things. Yes. That is something that, uh, Dean Hay, that we have planned and envisioned doing. Um, if you were out on the Pinellas trail and saw the hunt, I think it was over 100, 150 volunteers. Um, that is the way to do it. It's the, the partnership and the volunteer hours that make this possible. We are a small team. So that is how we do it. Did you track their hours or? So we have not started yet the, we've had a ceremonial tree planting in child's park, but we are bringing this award for acceptance from city council before we start planting in child's park. Okay. So we will be. Yes. And so I look forward to bringing a report out how many hours, how many volunteers, um, as metrics towards the success of this. Because I know even planning the program and from the beginning you could track all those hours and it'll go towards that. Yes. So, well, thank you very much. We're very happy with all the tree planting. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Yes. Seeing no further request to speak. Yes. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda. Item F3 passes unanimously. Thank you, Allison. Thank you, Dean. Okay. We will now move into open forum. Clerk, will you please read the rules for open forum? Yes, ma'am. If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearings or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the city of St. Petersburg government. If you wish to speak to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute time limit. You will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have some speakers, Madam Chair. How many speakers do we have? We have 12 signed up on open forum, but we have zero in Zoom. Okay. Just wanted to let everyone know we do have our public hearings this morning. And so our policy and procedure states that our first open forum can be limited to 30 minutes. And because we have that right behind and we have to start our public hearings quickly, we will be exercising that 30-minute rule. So if anyone is speaking to a specific item on the agenda, they will be given an opportunity to speak to that item when that item comes up. So I just wanted to let everyone know that when we stop at the 30 minutes, that is because we have public hearing afterwards. Please call the speakers two at a time. I'll call them two at a time, Madam Chair. First two speakers, George Cassidy and Sean Gretschiff. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of Council, George Cassidy. I reside at 3130 10th Street, North St. Petersburg, which is the Magnolia Heights subdivision. And I'm here this morning to raise awareness for all of you on really chronic and persistent street flooding that we've had for a long time. I've lived at my address now for a little over 10 years. My family moved there, and we made a conscious decision to move to Magnolia Heights. It was a friendly neighborhood, it was a walkable neighborhood, and most importantly, believe it or not, it's at the top of the hill. It's at 44 feet above sea level. Who would imagine that the city of St. Petersburg has a mountain that's 44 feet above sea level, and we found it. And I'm blessed and happy that we did find a high spot on the hill. Why is that important to me? I grew up in St. Petersburg. I've had, as we all have had, those moments in time where we had to evacuate because of storms. And I made a conscious decision when I moved my family to this neighborhood that we didn't want to evacuate. We wanted to stay in our home during a storm event. So at 44 feet, you know, if you think about a magnitude 5 hurricane and 28 feet of storm surge, we're an island surrounded by water. And I wanted to be on that island. Unfortunately, in our neighborhood, which is probably about 80 to 90 years old in some of its construction, you might guess that the storm drain system in the neighborhood is equally 80 to 90 years old. And it's woefully inadequate to move water, especially in these heavy rain events that we see happening from time to time. I will tell you that a little bit of water in the street is okay. I mean, I don't mind six inches of water in the curb and driving down that. That doesn't pose a problem. What I've got a problem with is two feet of water on the street that goes into my house, into my garage, into my pool, over everything that I own on my property. That's an issue. For the 10 years that I've been there, I've contacted the stormwater group. They've come out wonderfully to try and clean the drains. That hasn't fixed anything. I've contacted the engineering department. They have really acknowledged that the system is inadequate and the conveyance needs to be improved. Now, conveyance is a fancy engineering term for pipes are too small. Pipes are too small. And we've known that for a long time. I'm here today to ask for help. We're not asking to arrest sea level rise for shore acres. We're not asking to turn the tides back. What we're asking for is a small project to improve the pipeline system within a couple of streets of our neighborhood to keep our homes from flooding. I don't think it's right. And I think I would like you to put this on your priority list for funding in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Next speaker. My name is Sean Gurch. I live at 921 32nd Avenue North in St. Petersburg. Good morning, council members. I'm here for the same issue. We recently moved into the house at 921 32nd Avenue a little over two years ago. During the great flood of July 16th, as I call it, of 2022, we were gone at a wedding for less than three hours. We get home. There was over three inches of water in my garage. Like Mr. George says, we're over 47 feet at sea level. So, I'd like to know who is responsible for overseeing storm drainage and plans on replacing old infrastructure. Part 3 of Land Development Code Chapter 154, Article 2, Drainage Requirements Section 15450, Purpose and Intent. It is the purpose and intent of this article to plan for, to address, and to maintain drainage to protect the general health, safety, and welfare of the people of Pinellas County. Additionally, it is the purpose and intent to guard against flooding, protect hydrology, and ensure water safety. You also have Section 154.51 of the general requirements. It states a complete drainage system shall be provided all areas within the proposed developments, including lots, streets, and other areas, and must be adequately drained. Article 2, Drainage Requirements Section 154.57, the Drainage Plan. Every application for new construction or substantial improvements, including single-family homes, subdivided lands, and must include drainage plans. We just had two lots, two houses on 10th Street, near the corner of 30th. Now there's four homes there by canopy. I'd like to see their drainage plan and when the city approved that. There was also a church on 30th and Lake 12th Street, and they put up eight monstrosity houses that was just a church. So I'd like to see what that drainage plan consists of. I'm doing this because I did a FOIA request when I first submitted this claim that I had some property damage because we're doing reconstruction on the house and most of our items were in the garage. As I mentioned, we took over three inches of water in the garage. Christopher Allen, the SPTO supervisor, responded that if the pipes are clean, they're just overwhelmed due to the size of the pipes but getting overwhelmed. So document two that I have attached, I wanted to follow up because they said they would send me a master plan request, which I was never copied on. Also, when they responded about cleaning out the vectors, they just said the pipes were being overwhelmed and that they're smaller. Well, if they'd known that, why aren't we replacing them? Why are we doing other stuff for the infrastructure, not doing the real infrastructure needs where our houses are flooding on 47th? Thank you, sir. Next two speakers. Next two speakers, Madam Chair. Marley Price and Muriel Sektik, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good morning, Council. Marley Price, 32nd Ave North. I just wanted to voice my support for allowing a public vote on the stadium deal. I think that since this is one of the largest developments the city will be taking place with and the amount of funds, public funds that are going towards it, it just makes sense to let public input go with that. And since it's not going to be like a binding vote, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't happen. Additionally, since there's no reason to push it through quickly because the current stadium, there's nothing structurally wrong with it. It just seems like what would make the most sense. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning. My name is Mirella Sektik, and I live at 4200 25th Ave North. And I'm here to comment on the October 12th resolution to support Israel in the current conflict in Gaza. And before I begin, I want to say thank you to Council Member Floyd for voting no on that resolution. And I also want to address the rest of the council. I'm going to read because I'm nervous and I may get emotional, so forgive me. I also forgot to bring tissue. So as a genocide and a war survivor myself, I was very saddened, disappointed, and frightened by the aggressive tone and lack of compassion toward people of Palestine expressed in the resolution passed by the council on October 12th. It had a chilling effect on me and most likely many other people who live in St. Pete. I would like to ask you to take the next step and pass another resolution to show support for people of Palestine and local residents of Palestinian descent and to advocate for peace. It's the just thing to do given that the city voted to pass the October 12th resolution. Something needs to be done to correct for the oversight in the October 12th resolution unless that resolution is repealed. As I write this message, or as I read this, at least 8,800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7th, which includes 3,600 children. More than 21,000 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli attacks and bombings in Gaza since October 7th. They and their loved ones deserve compassion and empathy. St. Pete residents of Palestinian descent also deserve compassion and empathy. I appreciate your time and I truly hope that you take my message into consideration. I also hope that you share my message with the rest of the, well, I actually also emailed this. And so I really hope that you take this into consideration. And I really believe that this can be a teaching moment for our city. And in closing, I would like to say that Palestinian people are people just like all of us. And they deserve your and our compassion and empathy. And they need our compassion and empathy. And chances are that maybe even their lives depend on it. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers. Next two speakers, Madam Chair. John Stewart and William Kilgore. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. And you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good morning. John Stewart, 2130 Burlington Avenue North. I'm here this morning to speak to H1, the raised stadium referendum. I'm urging you to pass it. First of all, you need to hear our voices because every study ever conducted shows that giving money to sports stadium has never benefited the community that gave the money. Never. When a city council member cited that fact, David Abrams and consultant with Inner Circle Sports said the studies contain outdated information. This is a survey of studies of the impact of money for sports stadiums. It contains the outdated information of 30 years and 130 studies. Their recent analysis finds a decade old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams is accurate. The large subsidies they concluded are not justified. And there is overwhelming evidence of the subsidies economic impotence. Economic impotence. We need a voice. Second, you need to hear our voices because there is no indication that a new sports stadium will even benefit. The Tampa Bay Rays. A recent Rays playoff game had the lowest attendance since the Cincinnati Reds playoff game in 1919. For context, here are some figures. Attendance at the 1919 Reds playoff game, 13,924 people. Population of Cincinnati in 1920, 401,247 people. Attendance at the 2023 Rays playoff game, 19,704. Population of Tampa Bay area in 2021, 3.22 million. And we have online ticket sales. The Rays history has shown that even if you build it, they will not come. Finally, why are we able to find money for a $1.2 billion company but we can't find the money for the city? Money to keep that supermarket at 18th Avenue South and 22nd Street South open. Money for affordable housing. Why are we giving the Rays the whole loaf and then begging for crumbs for Lazarus? Please, give us a bigger percentage of affordable housing. Why aren't we spending the money directly? This is from the presentation that the Rays team made. Tampa Bay Rays responsibilities and rights, responsibilities, 30-year agreement, maintenance, insurance, all the things you need to run a business, rights, revenue, and naming and sponsorship rights. In other words, they want to run a business, they want our money, and they want to just take the money or take the profits. If it's such a good deal for the city of St. Petersburg, it's a good deal for the Rays. They should pay for it, and you need to hear our voice. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi, everybody. Thanks, Chair. William Kilgore with the St. Pete Tenants Union and reside in the Ponce de Leon neighborhood. Good to see everybody this morning. Just wanted to speak in support of agenda item H1 and the straw poll coming up. I just want to thank Council Member Floyd for bringing this forward. This is really important. You know, looking at something like a straw poll, it's non-binding. You know, but it's important that the, you know, community is heard. I know there's been a lot of things that the administration's put on, you know, some of these town halls and things like that. Those are great. I don't knock that at all, you know, as a way of getting people involved. I think that's amazing. You know, but it's important, you know, that the vote, that you get a good gauge on what's happening, because there's a lot of opposition to this stadium agreement. I mean, it's beyond, it's across the political spectrum, you know, all across the city, different people, different walks of life who are questioning, you know, spending money on a huge for-profit baseball team and to build this stadium when there's other priorities in this city and things we need. You know, I saw some of the arguments in one of the article about, you know, against it, you know, it's, you know, you can't put everything to a vote. We elect, you know, we elect our officials to, you know, make decisions and things like that. You know, and I agree, I mean, there's certain things, every ordinance, if we had to, you know, have a direct vote on it, you know, it doesn't make sense. You know, but this is something that's like once in a generation, you know, and it's really important that, you know, people are able to be heard. You know, this is being fast-tracked through. I think there's this, get this vibe of this high-paced sales pitch, you know, happening right now. You know, and as people are learning about the details, you know, looking at housing, obviously, you know, I want to speak on that. You know, you look at that original plan had the units at 60% AMI. There were like 603 units planned. It was the majority of the 859 units. They've cut that down to 300 units at 60% AMI. So, you know, they're reducing some of these lower income units. They're, you know, bumping up the workforce, which I like to call market-rate housing. You know, because it is, it's market-rate housing. You know, I mean, I wouldn't, I don't qualify for workforce housing. You know, so those kind of things, and then saying we've increased the number of affordable units. And, you know, there's just a lot of issues, a lot of these details. And when you're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, all that being tied up in the TIF, you know, that's this juicy pocket of tax revenue that's being locked away and put back into the downtown when that could be going to the general fund and being, you know, dispersed throughout the city for other things. So, put it to a vote, let the people, you know, have a say, and it's non-binding. There you go. I think it's no skin off the city's nose. So, thank you. Next two speakers. Peter Kent and Andy Oliver. Please go to either podium, state your name and address. You have three minutes to address city council. Good morning, Peter Kent. I want to speak in favor of voting for H-1, which calls for a citywide straw vote on the proposed stadium deal. My name is Peter Kent, 8th Academy Way. My comments draw from three career experiences. First, as a lead design engineer on a 6,000-acre new city. Second, as a commissioner of public works for 78-person staff. And third, an MBA, which is given where I've given a number of talks at Eckerd College on the stadium economics. The proposed stadium comes with a hefty $1.3 billion cost to taxpayers broken into four items. $704 million bond repayment. $25 million of earned interest on those bonds. Least free land of 20 acres worth $92 million. A loss of $505 million in property taxes if instead of the stadium, mixed-use housing were built on this site. When we break down the $1.3 billion cost, it amounts to a half-million-dollar subsidy to the raise for each home game over the next 30 years. Half a million dollars. Or you can look at it as $35.60 subsidy to each attendee each game for 30 years. Supporting local colleges and initiatives to employers would have a more positive impact on St. Petersburg than the stadium. Furthermore, contrary to the claim, a study published last year on 130 private stadium partnerships by three prominent economists showed that it's a little spin-off from these stadium deals. When half of the increased property taxes from all new construction in both the gas plant site and in the existing downtown district will be legally committed to the repayment of the $704 million of bonds rather than for other city services. On the other 62 acres, the developer is being given a quarter of a billion dollar present value discount from the appraised land value and plus $130 million of city-funded finances, of city-funded infrastructure, which still leaves the developer with a $90 million profit on that portion of the deal. It is the city taxpayer, not the developer, who is subsidizing these affordable housing. If the developer fails to meet his commitments, the agreement limits his maximum penalty of $30 million. I believe the city taxpayer is being taken. Check it out on nostadiumsubsidy.com. Please request a stadium agreement vote. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Oliver. Good morning. Andy Oliver, St. Pete resident, 3803 Haynes Road North. I'm here to speak in favor of the straw poll today, and I have to say there are some people out there that did not want me to speak today. Someone actually called one of my supervisors to tell them I needed to back off because I was, quote, harassing the mayor. Also, if you read the Times or social media, you'll know that someone has been taking very personal shots at me. So I'm here today not because I believe I can change any of your minds. I truly believe each of you, even when we sometimes or often disagree, you want what's very best for the city. So I didn't come here to change any of you. I came here so that those who wish to hear me silence don't change me. I'm asking you to vote for this non-binding straw poll so that you get just one more data point before your final decision. I went back and I read all the council minutes, very exciting, of the last time we were considering handing over something this big to a private company, 2021, the marina. Some of you back then were very insistent on hearing from the people in a vote. This feels bigger. If we have a straw poll, it doesn't slow down our timeline. It's not going backwards. It's not starting over. It's merely one more data point from which you get to help represent the people, and it puts you on the side of the people. Maybe we'll learn overwhelmingly that the city approves, and that will give you more cover from fringe people like me. Maybe the vote will be close or slightly against, and that's also a gift to you. It gives you a higher point of leverage for negotiating to make this deal even better. Your job isn't to carry the administration's water. We elected you to negotiate on behalf of us so that we can have the very best for the whole city. For example, currently the proposed penalty for not building a unit of affordable housing is only $25,000. We all know that that would just be the cost of doing business for building a luxury condo. The people's voice in this straw poll gives you the leverage to make that amendment so that we all win. I can count votes. I know in the end this deal is going to go through. After all is said and done and a final vote on this deal in the future, I know some votes are going to disappoint me. But even if I disagree, I know that each of you voted for what you believe is in the best interest of the city. But for this vote, a vote not about starting over or going backward, but a vote about listening to the people, I don't think I will be able to understand a no for this vote today for something that would create leverage for you to make this deal even better. And it will help you with the most important decision for our city in over a generation. I really wasn't planning to come today, but I couldn't let those trying to silence me change me. So with your vote today, don't err on the side of silencing. Err on the side of a much greater tool for moving this deal forward. Listening. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers. I have two speakers, Madam Chair. Kerry, Mueller, Mueller, and James Tremarco. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Please, sir. Hi, and good morning. My name is James Tremarco. I live at 809 18th Avenue North by Crescent Lake. I'm pleased to be with all of you today. I'm just here, like some previous speakers, to urge that you vote yes on the straw poll, and that we take an accurate gauge of the whole city's opinion on the Hines-Rays development plan. I attended the community hearings back months ago, and I remember that conversation in detail. I was seated with like a table full of St. Pete residents. Nobody said what we want is 5,000 luxury condos in a publicly funded stadium. People talked about like spaces where employment opportunities can be offered, affordable housing, green spaces. That's what folks asked for, and it feels like the city risks the impression that we want to pursue a deal with the Rays at any cost, and that we dip in and listen to people every now and then, and then we go and negotiate with the Rays regardless of what people said. And I really don't want that to be the impression that people get about this process. When I think about the future of this town, there's been a trend over the past couple of decades that you can see in the census data with the city becoming increasingly wealthy and white. It doesn't look like the way it was when I grew up here and the incredible communities that have been created over the generations and those bonds that like put us together and make us a real town. They are at risk of being torn apart. And because we have this vast downtown area that we can decide what to do with, we get one but only one chance to build something that really works for the people of St. Petersburg. Only one chance. It's big. You know, like a lot of towns in Florida that are facing gentrification will never have 86 downtown acres to play with. And we have that chance. And I don't want to see us rush. I want to see us listen to the residents of St. Petersburg on this question. So please support the straw poll. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, good morning. My name is Carrie Mueller. 12th Street South and James Avenue. And I'm here today to voice my support for the straw poll for the Tropicana redevelopment. Based on reviewing the meeting that was held last week, the committee of the whole meeting that discussed some of the terms of the deal for the development. I'm for the development of that project and I think that it should be for the highest and best use in addition to the community benefits of the facilities that will be located there. Obviously, I worked at the city of Miami before I moved to St. Petersburg doing plan review and worked in public works. Did a lot of plan review for Midtown Development who is doing quite a substantial number of construction projects in Miami. They're a quality developer and now we've moved away from Midtown toward the stadium proposal. And what I want to talk about today are the terms of the development that were proposed by Heinz Rays. In addition to a deeply discounted purchase price, they're asking for substantial amount of concessions including $132 million for infrastructure. And James Corbett said that the roads are already in place when a developer shows up on site. And I really question that developers are supposed to fund infrastructure improvements, not the city. The city is also looking at giving them $50 million for green space that's not built on. It's an unusual concession and also demolition cost of $8 million. They're looking at, I think it's $25 million for affordable housing construction in addition to the funds they would receive from ship and home. There's just a lot of concessions, even paying documentary stamp tax fees by the city for the private developer's purchase costs. It's like a real estate agent when you're looking at someone who wants to buy your home and they're making you a lowball offer and they're asking for all kinds of concessions. And it's up to the owner and the owner's agent to negotiate a good deal that's fair and it's the best purchase price and offer that you can receive. And Michael Harrison at one point said that when he received the previous RFP that didn't include the raised stadium, that he threw it in the trash. He didn't say he looked at it. It didn't work. They tried to make it work, didn't work. He said, we just threw it in the garbage. And it makes me concerned that that person really wants to do business in the city of St. Petersburg. And James Corbett said that the developer is about maximizing profit. And I think that that's very clear. And I just, I'm concerned about the partnership with the city. If the person really has interest in working with the city and our best interest, because it seems like it's one sided. So I would like the opportunity for the city to have some input and whether or not this deal continues. Thank you. Thank you. Clerk, do we have two more? No, we need to fill out cards. Oh, okay. Very good. So was that the final speaker? All right, everybody. Well, we made it two minutes before. So great. We will start our public hearings now. We will go ahead and take up items E1 through E3, which is our preliminary assessments. And we're joined by Coates Compliance Assistant Director, Joe Waugh. Move approval. All right. We have a motion and a second on items E1 through E3. And seeing no request to speak, do we have any cards on this item? All right. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your vote. Seeing all council members voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agendas items E1 through E3 passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Waugh. All right. Next, we will go to Item E4. This is an ordinance to create Chapter 28 and provide tax abatement for certain affordable housing. Clerk, will you please read the title? Yes, ma'am. Proposed Ordinance 561H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, amending the City Code to create a new Chapter 28, Housing, creating Chapter 28, Article 1, in general, providing definitions, creating Chapter 28, Article 2, affordable housing tax relief, providing authority, providing applicability, providing a process for use, providing penalties, and providing an effective date. And we do not have any cards for this item. All right. And we are joined this morning by Housing and Neighborhood Services Administrator, Amy Foster. Good morning. Good morning. We do have a short presentation if you'd like it. Yeah. I would like it, actually. Okay. Perfect. So this item was heard before Budget, Finance, and Taxation Committee on August 24th. Like we're working? Oh, okay. There you go. All right. If you remember, the Live Local Act gave us the opportunity. There are three opportunities for tax abatement. Now, if the sticker would work. All of our tech isn't awake yet this morning. So there were three options provided for in the Live Local Act for tax abatement. One is a local option for affordable housing property tax exemption. Another one provides an exemption for nonprofit land with a 99-year ground lease. And the third option is for a missing middle property tax exemption. We did go over all three of those and how they work in the Budget, Finance, and Taxation Committee. Today, we'll only be discussing the local options since that is the ordinance that you will be passing today. This is the parameters for how the local incentive must work. This is codified in state law, so we don't have a lot of flexibility in how this works. So there will be 50 or more units in a development. It will apply if at least 20% of the units are affordable at a 60% AMI or lower. The tax exemptions can only apply to affordable units. We can apply it to new and existing developments. And you'll see there's a tiered system based on the number of units or percent of units that are affordable. Here are some other parameters that are required by state law. Maximum rents must be based on HUD's multifamily tax subsidy, project income limits, or 90% of fair market value, whichever is less. Exemption only applies to the taxes levied by the unit of government granting the exemption. So for us, that means the City of St. Pete can abate our taxes. We can't abate taxes for the Juvenile Welfare Board, PSTA, the county, or others. We hope that you will be a leader today. No one else has yet taken up advantage of this incentive. I think Jacksonville is one of the only municipalities in the state that has done this so far, so we would be the first in our county. We must post exemptions on our website. It would expire in 2026, and there would be penalties for noncompliance. This is just a little bit by the numbers of how many actual developments this would apply to, and you can see how much tax relief would be provided. So it's not a huge hit to the general fund as of today. This is really a future cost for us, but we think it's important in order to develop more units. Here are a few of the things that we talked about at the committee level that you provided input on. Our AHAC committee also provided input on this, so we made some tweaks based on the discussion and direction you provided at budget, finance, and taxation. So it will apply to all new developments. For existing developments who already received subsidies from the city in order to get built, they need to meet two of the three following criteria for a 50% relief option. They need to extend their period of affordability, provide for substantial renovation, or prove that their insurance increases have increased more than 50% over the last three years. We believe, based on conversations with developers, that many will meet two of these three criteria, but it allows us to get something in return. So extended affordability, units that are of a higher quality, or they're receiving some kind of, or experiencing some kind of hardship based on the insurance issues that we have here in the state of Florida. Again, it will be tiered based on the number of affordable units. We'll have a local application process with monitoring. One of the discussion points we talked about was code enforcement issues. This is outlined in state law, but we used our definitions to just make it more clear that it would be three or more citations in a 24 month period that had not yet been remedied, and that there was no outstanding debt to the city. If someone did not agree with an administrative decision on this, it would be appealable to city council. Staff recommends approval, and I'm here for any questions you may have. Move approval. Second. All right. Well, thank you, and just real quick, I'll take a moment of privilege to say a personal thank you. This was my new business item that I brought forward to BF&T, and just wanted to thank staff, thank administration for jumping on this opportunity so quickly once the legislation was signed. I do have the privilege of sitting on not only our local AHAC, but also because of that, I then get to have conversations with AHAC members that are other elected officials across the state. And last week, I was on the Region 5 AHAC committee, and I wanted to echo what you said. No one else is taking the lead on this. Jacksonville has implemented an ordinance, but in my opinion, it is not as robust as what ours is. And from what I've been hearing, they are having some challenges navigating through that because it was not built the way that this particular ordinance is. So I wanted to really give a big thank you to you, Amy, in particular, because you took the lead on this. You saw the need for it and the work that you're doing with the development community to help them understand it even before we pass it. So thank you so much for that. I did just want to share with my colleagues one of the biggest concerns really is the fact that it has this sunset portion that I believe was something that the legislature didn't really think through properly. And so when developers are trying to utilize this as part of their performa, a lot of financing entities are saying, like, that isn't stable. It's only four years. It's going to sunset. So myself and I did appeal to others who were on that call for cities around the state who are looking to utilize this to press the legislature for a glitch bill, either this session or next, so that it can be extended. So that will be something that I would like to work on with you. Maybe St. Pete, once again, being a leader, could actually get one of our representatives to push the bill. And I don't know how much bandwidth there would be for it this year, but I think as that sunset gets closer, more people will start to see the need for that. We did meet with Representative Cross's aide on this issue and ask for the sunset to be addressed. Certainly it would be helpful if council made that a part of their layer agenda. Absolutely. But the sunset provision that you're mentioning is really important that that get addressed. And I also just want to mention, Chair, that Mr. Green and Amanda did a lot of work on getting all of the units figured out and which properties are affordable, whether Schimberg recognizes them or not, what our records look at, what the state looks at. And so I didn't do this work alone and just wanted to mention them as well. Well, thank you to Mr. Green and his team. As always, crunching those numbers for us. So thank you all so much. All right. Seeing no further requests to speak, do we have any cards on this item? No? All right. Motion and a second. So please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item E4 passes unanimously. All right. Great. That concludes our public hearings for today. We will now go back to reports and take up item F2. And Administrator Foster, I have you as well. And we are also joined by Real Estate and Property Management Director, Erin Fish. Hello, Mr. Fish. How are you today? Good morning, Council Chair. Good, thank you. And good morning, Council. Yes, the item before you today is the acquisition of property by the city from St. Petersburg College. The property in question is a property that in 2022, the college reviewed their properties and they declared certain properties surplus. And one of the properties in which they declared surplus was at 7045 Burlington Avenue North. And subsequently, after declaring the property surplus, they made it available for sale. The property includes 5.23 acres of land with approximately 20,000 square feet of improvements with a current zoning designation of neighborhood traditional single family. This property is bounded on the north by 4th Avenue North, on the south by Burlington Avenue North, on the east by 70th Street North, and on the west by 71st Street North. And just adjacent to 71st Street North to the west is the Pinellas Trail. The adjacent properties to this, to the north and to the south, have neighborhood suburban multifamily zoning. This zoning could support up to 168 units on site. Also within the vicinity is industrial traditional zone property. And the Pinellas Trail to the east supports multimodal options. Also within the vicinity of the property, approximately 750 feet to the north is the St. Pete College campus. And to the west of the property, approximately 1,100 feet west is commercial mixed-use property. In December of 2022, the city submitted a letter of intent to the college offering to purchase the property for the construction of affordable housing. Through subsequent negotiations, the city and the college negotiated a contract for purchase. That purchase price is $4.2 million. The city will have 90 days of due diligence to perform inspections and studies. The college is to deliver to the city a title commitment within 45 days. 180 days are provided for the city to commence the rezoning process for the property. And the closing is to occur within 60 days after the rezoning process. The city is to pay for inspections, title policy, closing, and recording fees. The intent is to rezone the property from its current NT2 neighborhood traditional single-family zoning to the NSM1 neighborhood suburban multifamily zoning. After the conclusion of the process, the city would close and issue an RFP to solicit proposals from developers for the development of the property, which would include approximately 105 townhomes for sale at or below 120% AMI. In conjunction with entering into the purchase contract, the city would also enter into an agreement with the college, which would provide 30% of those townhomes to be available to college employees and students on a first right of refusal basis. The college did provide two appraisals for the property to the city. As of April of 2023, the market value was estimated at $4,600,000 as determined by Entrican and Associates. And by McCormick, Seaman, and Toronto, the value is estimated at $5,040,000. With that, I open it up for questions. Thank you. Do we have any cards on this item? No, Madam Chair. All right. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Aaron, thanks for the presentation. I only have one question and then a couple of quick comments. On the 30% of townhomes available to SBC employees and students, are those to buy those units or to rent them? These are for sale units. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that the SBC employees and students were a part of that. Yes. Okay. So they're all for sale. Okay. I just, to administration, a big thank you. You know, this is in my backyard, literally and figuratively. And I don't know that it's that long, but was this campus being used when you were at St. Pete College? It's been a while. It was. It was being used. Yeah. Not to date you, but it's been a long time. And so this has been sitting dormant and, you know, there used to be a track. There were some basketball courts and none of it is being used now. So I was very happy to see St. Pete College and their willingness to dispose of this property. And thank you to administration for jumping on this. I've been working, I've been, they've been keeping me abreast of all of this. And it's been very exciting, especially for, to be selling homes. And so just very thankful. Thank you for all the diligence and, and very excited to support this. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Aaron, for your presentation. It appears to be a win-win for us in the St. Pete College. As to the contract price of $4.2 million, explain how that value was calculated on the 30% of homes that are going to be available to SPC employees and students in reduction of the purchase price, which is, you know, below market value. Sure. Well, initially the, the, the initial purchase price was offered based on market values of properties in the surrounding area. We collected some data, data for land sales. That's where that initial purchase price came from. Oh, the 4.2 million came from land sales. I was looking at the appraisals of the property that came in the higher, and I thought that the difference was based on the fact that there is affordable housing going to SPC. Okay. Yeah, and I think I can address that a little bit, Council Member. I was, I was involved in the original letter of intent in the offer. And I worked with the planning department on the rezoning potential and the number of units that could possibly be there. And came to my recollection is around 100, 105 units. Then I looked at a per door price in the marketplace, what was happening land value wise on a per door basis, and determined the $4.2 million offer. Now, at the time, we did not have time to do appraisals before we made the offer. So we made, we made the offer based on our own conclusions. The appraisals did come in at a higher price, but the college lived up to the offer that we made them originally, the 4.2. We didn't discount the, the price based on the St. Pete college employees or students being able to buy the townhomes because they would buy them at the same price that anybody else would. They would just have access to them. Okay. No, that's, that's a better explanation. And I understand. Thank you so much. Council member Floyd. Thank you. I just got a couple of things first. Can you talk about the purchase price a little bit, or is that speculative since we're still a ways out? The purchase price of 4.2 million is agreed to. I'm sorry, the purchase price of each individual townhome. That's sorry about that. Yeah. So as Mr. Fish stated, we intend to do an RFP. That's something that we've talked about in other committees is, you know, a preference towards RFPs and trying to lay out what we're looking for to give some certainty. And we'll include some, some direction in the RFP and we'll see what we get back from the development community. So that's a to be determined. And of course that will come back to city council and would have to be approved eventually. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not being clear. The end user, like purchasing the townhome, not like us, like what the purchase price at 120% of AMI is. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. I think, um, Mr. Curtis, his answer still stands. We won't know until we know what it costs to develop the property and then would have to determine purchase price and what the subsidy the city would put in in order to develop that property. So that, that is yet to be determined and would have to come back to council. Okay. Okay. So there's not like a limit to what I know when it comes out, like we get the chart for AMI and rents. There's like, this is how much you charge at 120% of AMI. There's that, that chart is used for rentals. Yeah. Certainly there are guidelines about what you can, um, charge for down payment assistance when it comes to shipping home and other things. But we're, we're pretty far off from that. Our first step is to rezone the property. Um, and then we would go from there. Okay. All right. It's been a while council members since I've talked to housing, but, uh, the last time I think, uh, around 350, 375 people were qualifying at 120% of AMI. It's much higher than that now. It's almost $500,000 I think. Um, but again, those are things that we would have to determine at a later date once we know what it costs to develop the townhomes. Okay. That is a lot of money. Um, I'll move on from that and ask, um, just about administration's confidence and, you know, getting the deal done. I know you wouldn't be bringing it to us if you weren't, but we've had a couple of issues with townhome developments recently come back and asking for more money. I know that there's, I don't know the details, but I know we're having some issues with, uh, the deuces project. So I just want to hear about y'all's confidence and getting this deal done. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great question. We talked about this a little bit before. I mean, I think we're super excited to see the Namaste development coming to a close and getting CEOs on MLK. And that's really the first townhome development, uh, that we've had, uh, that will be completed. We're excited about the deals that city council has approved with habitat for humanity. Uh, we're hopeful that those will move forward. Uh, but we're still on a wait and see basis. Um, deduces rising townhomes. We're actually meeting with the mayor tomorrow. We'll be, uh, briefing city council pretty soon on those. That is a little bit different because we're acting as the developer. Uh, that would not be the intention here. And I think through the RFP process, uh, we can lay out, uh, what we're looking for. And I would hope that we'd get some really strong proposals on this property. This is a fantastic property. It's a significant size. It's right by the Pinellas trail. Uh, I think it'll work really well. Yeah, I totally agree with that. This is an excellent property, the right place to be doing something like this. Uh, we're getting a good price on it. So I totally support this today. I just wanted to get some of that stuff cleared up. I look forward to, uh, us continuing to discuss this in the future. Thanks. All right. Council vice chair, fix Sanders. Thank you chair. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I am also excited about this, but I will, um, have to publicly state. I want us to please consider. Um, and I was so glad to hear you mentioned habitat for humanity. Um, yay. I'm a big fan of the process and their business model. But as we move forward continuously, and I think, you know, you've heard me say this several times. I love 120%, I guess. But I want us to try to get away from that as a benchmark when we're starting to build affordable housing. Because 120% really isn't affordable housing for a lot of our residents. Um, so I'm wanting us to, I know that may be a starting point. But as we're going to look forward and moving forward with the housing concept, that 120 is not always what our target is. You know, I really want us to get to the 80, the 60% and lower on a lot of these projects that we're actually looking on. And I do thank you, Mr. Gerdes, for clarifying, we are not the developers on this. So we don't know what the price, um, it will be to actually construct these. But can we please keep that AMI percentage in mind as we're moving forward with the dollars and trying to create some of these units? Yeah, absolutely. I'd just, I'd just like to add to that. And I don't want to put, uh, Administrator Foster on the spot. I totally understand what you're saying. I just want to, for the, for the record, say, if you look at our 10 year plan, and you look at our multifamily units, and you look at the percentage of those units at 60% and AMI and below, it's significant. So that, that is accurate. Yeah, I think, I think one thing that's important to understand here, Councilmember Fick Sanders, is that, um, you know, certainly administration shares your goal. That, um, for rental units, we would go as low as possible, right? 60%, um, or lower. When it comes to home ownership, um, even Habitat for Humanity would tell you that, um, 80% AMI is hard for somebody to sustain a home. Um, and so we really have struggled in some of the other projects of bringing that number down with the current, um, building environment. I think 120 AMI and lower still allows us to try and hit some of those lower AMIs. Um, but I would tell you that the, the sustainability issue for a family with our insurance increases and other, um, strains on our economy makes it really hard for, um, for home ownership to go much lower than that. Okay. And thank you for helping me understand that. Um, and thank you for entertaining my. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. Um, I, I appreciate that you're making an effort to provide, um, housing opportunities for those who are, um, at 80% and lower. Um, but, um, I think, you know, at 120, I understand that that's, um, that has a different meaning for home ownership. So I get that. Um, I also understand that there is, um, there's a challenge sometimes with building one for 120, um, when it comes to certain types of funding. Is that, is that true? Uh, I, I think it depends on what funding sources you're using. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, so the city is not going to be the developer in this case. Is there a plan? Will the RFP be for, will that include some kind of conveyance at some point? Or will the city, it does the city plan to maintain ownership of the property in perpetuity? I think all of those things are things that we can discuss moving forward. Um, you know, certainly we have to get the land first and do the rezoning. We've heard from you loud and clear that you have a preference for home ownership. You have a preference for us taking control and not just allowing unsolicited offers to come our way. So certainly before we work through all the details in that RFP, we can have some further conversation with you. Thanks and it might be a good idea to sort of not make that too narrow of a request in the RFP so that we can look at some different options. Um, this is a great get and I'm really excited and I think all of you who worked hard to make this happen. Thank you. Well, I echo the sentiments of all of my colleagues on what a fantastic opportunity that this is. Um, I'm very excited that this is an ownership opportunity. Um, because we do a lot of great work in the rental space, but the homeownership piece of it is sometimes a harder metric to be able to achieve. So I'm very glad that we are going down that path with this property. Townhomes are also, um, a really fantastic addition to our affordable housing needs as we're seeing with what's happening with habitat and their, um, kind of delve into the townhome world. I can just speak as a real estate professional that townhomes oftentimes are much more affordable overall. Um, the maintenance is much more affordable. The insurance cost is more affordable and back to, you know, talking about this idea of, you know, can we maintain ownership of the land? Can we put the land in a land lease so that then that piece of it is more affordable? That might give us some more flexibility with those AMIs if we consider that to be part of the equation. Um, so I think because it's townhomes, I think that gives us a little bit more opportunity to really delve into what benefits of affordability could make maybe some availability for 80%. I'm not saying all of those, but I think if we kind of really do those numbers and crunch, we might be able to get there with some of those units and provide that more mixed income target. But that's a benefit that what I hear some of my colleagues saying. Um, so when it comes to the RFP, I just want to put this out there now. Um, certainly going to be looking, you know, for the, um, affordability period, what that looks like, or if, um, you know, we can do the land lease. Definitely want us to have those conversations. And then this had come up, I believe in the habitat development around the ongoing maintenance costs, because that's a piece of the affordability, right? It's a benefit to have those things all wrapped into monthly maintenance. But if the monthly maintenance gets out of control over time, then people start to lose the affordability. So I don't know what can be built in to really address what we're looking for with ongoing maintenance, um, and whatever association is developed. But I will be looking to see some language in there about how we can potentially control that. And that's probably more of a legal conversation than anything. Um, but I just wanted to mention that now. And then the last thing that I wanted to mention, and this is, it's not by any means a criticism of this deal. This deal is what it is. And this is what you negotiated. And you obviously got a great price on this property for today's market conditions. But this is now the second time that this has popped up in front of my eyes, where the city is to pay for inspections, title policies, closings, and recording fees. So my question is, why are we negotiating that way? Because in a lot of transactions, the seller pays for things like the title fees, because they're conveying the property. So they pay for that chain of title, um, doc stamps on the deed. It's customary that that is something that the seller typically pays. And that can be quite substantial depending on the development. So why are we negotiating that way for us to absorb all of those costs? Sure, sure. So as far as, um, due diligence related costs, um, of course the city would typically pay those. As far as the, um, doc stamps on deed transfer. With this, uh, both parties are tax exempt. We're not expecting, uh, any transfer taxes for this. The other points are really just a matter of negotiation. Yeah. Matter of negotiation. I think in this case with a below market, uh, purchase price, um, there was a little wiggle room there. Um, and this is where we landed. Okay, so this was not something that we offered up front when we did the LOI. You were talking about the letter of intent. Was all of these fees included in the original letter of intent? Or was it then through the negotiation process once you had an executed LOI? I don't recall this being in the LOI. It wasn't. Okay. Chair Gabbard, um, I'll just remind everybody this was a competitive process. So there were other bidders who were interested in the property who offered more. Um, we went before the board. They shared our goal of creating affordable housing. And we were successful with our below market bid in comparison to other developers who offered more. Um, so this was a negotiation point. This was not something that was included in the LOI. Okay. All right. I just wanted to bring it up just for, you know, conversation just because it's something that I've kind of started to notice here and there. And, um, as somebody who in my other world negotiates for a living, um, everything's negotiable, right? And every kind of, you know, win that can keep a little bit more money in our coffers so that we can use them for other developments and other resources, I think, um, is worth having a conversation about. So, um, not to disparage this particular, uh, deal whatsoever because we're getting a fantastic deal on this property and I'm very excited about the future of it. And, uh, I look forward to voting yes today and then seeing an RFP very quickly in the future, I hope. So, thank you. All right. So, did we have a motion and a second? Move approval. All right. Now we do. All right. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve. Agenda item F2 passes unanimously. All right. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Fish. Thank you, Ms. Foster. All right. Let's move to item F1 and I'm going to turn this over to Council Member Floyd for Advantage Pinellas Housing Action Plan. Thank you so much, Chair. Um, so I have a resolution here, uh, endorsing the Advantage Pinellas Housing Action Plan. It is a part of the Advantage Pinellas Housing Compact that we've, uh, previously joined into. It's with, um, Ford Pinellas, Pinellas County, and five local governments makes us part of a team in this, uh, action plan. Um, so I will read the resolution because it's brief and then I'll go over some of its, uh, main points. So it's a resolution of the City of St. Petersburg City Council, endorsing the Advantage Pinellas Housing Action Plan, instructing the city, uh, clerk to transmit this resolution to certain persons and entities and providing an effective date. Uh, whereas on August 5th, 2021, City Council approved resolution, uh, 2021-357 authorizing the mayor to sign the countywide Housing Compact, an agreement among local governments across Pinellas County to work together to address the critical need for housing affordability, coordinated with jobs and transportation. And whereas the Pinellas County, Ford Pinellas, and five other local governments have also signed on to the Housing Compact. And whereas the Housing Compact provides for implementation of its goals through the Housing Action Plan, which will serve as a long-term policy framework to guide countywide and local government decision-making. And whereas on April 11th, 2023, Ford Pinellas and the Board of the County Commissioners acting in its capacity as a countywide planning authority, uh, both executed joint resolution 23-25 designating Ford Pinellas as the forum to guide implementation of the Housing Action Plan. And whereas the Housing Action Plan was drafted by Pinellas County staff with input from Ford Pinellas and other Housing Compact partners and was introduced at the homes for Pinellas Summit on April 28, 2023. And whereas the Housing Action Plan and Joint Resolution 23-25 need to be formally endorsed by each Housing Compact Partner and City Council desires to make such an endorsement through this resolution. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, by the City Council of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, that the City Council hereby endorses the Housing Action Plan and Joint Resolution 23-25 and be it further resolved that the City Council hereby instructs the City Clerk to transmit a copy of this resolution. That's the resolution to Ford Pinellas. That's the resolution I have here, the Top 10 Housing Action Plan steps, and I'll go over them very quickly. One is to welcome diverse new housing options by updating codes, two is simplifying regulations, three is maximize housing near transportation, jobs, education, and other amenities. Four is solidify new development funding sources, five, incentivize permanent affordability, six, empower struggling homeowners to protect and improve their homes, seven, set targets, eight, transform surplus government land into homes, nine, reduce homelessness, ten, build a coalition of public, private, and nonprofit partners. So, it's been endorsed by Ford Pinellas, and it makes us part of a countywide team of people trying to tackle the housing issues that we have. So, with that, I'll move approval. I'll second. Do we have any other, oh, Councilor, is that handled? Yes, thank you. And I just, one small scrivener as ever, Brad, on the second whereas, there was an extra the before Pinellas County. I saw it when I was reading it. Oh, did you notice? I didn't. I missed it. I didn't say anything. I was like, okay. No. So, yeah, just, yeah. You see, whereas the Pinellas County, just small. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Now that we've had a motion, it has been properly seconded. Clerk, would you please open the machine for voting? Council members, would you please cast your vote? Now that all council members have cast their vote, Mr. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. We will approve agenda item F1 passes unanimously with Councilmember Garrett being absent. Thank you, council members. Now we're going to move on to F4 that was pulled from CB6 to report the resolution approving the plat of the YMCA, Riviera for construction services for the Vinoy Golf Club Canal Dredging and Maintenance Projects. Hi, we have Liz with us this morning. There's Abernathy. Good morning. Elizabeth Abernathy, Director of Planning and Development Services. This item was pulled for consent and I will give you an overview of the action before you as well as a status update on the project. So the action before you this morning is the final step for the new Spear YMCA Mangrove Middle School on 62nd Avenue North. This is an aerial of the site that is being replatted and you are taking action on the final plat, which is again the last step in the process for this project that comes before you. The plat shows the plat shows the new plat and configuration of the site with easements and a budding right of way. The plat required as a condition of approval vacation of segments of Davenport Avenue Northeast and Pine Street Northeast highlighted in yellow on this aerial. A little bit of background, we had multiple public hearings and approvals needed for this project and on May 12th of 2022 City Council approved a special exception and site plan to allow the YMCA and middle school in order to address concerns of the adjacent neighborhood regarding access and traffic into the neighborhood. City Council also approved a resolution initiating the street closure of a portion of Pershing Street Northeast on June 16th Council approved an ordinance vacating the rights of way shown on the previous slide. And the applicant also requested vacating multiple easements throughout the property and reviewed by city departments and private utility providers with their comments addressed in this final plat with associated utility easements. The site plan that came before you in May of 2022 showed the proposed project, the modification of that access on 62nd Avenue North to close Pershing Street to prevent cut through traffic into the neighborhood. I went out last weekend, took some pictures. If you've been by 62nd Avenue North, you'll see that these new buildings are substantially constructed. And they did not get permits from the city of St. Pete. They went through a state process for public schools. So our involvement from a permitting standpoint was through our engineering team in the right of way and permitting process. As indicated on their webpage, Pinellas County Schools and YMCA teamed to build this new middle school in YMCA. They had a commitment to the district's goals of 100% student success. This new Y connects a public middle school to the Y and it's the first innovative and unique collaboration and opportunity in Tampa Bay. This shared campus simultaneously addresses the larger needs of the students, their families and surrounding communities. By teaming up, Pinellas County Schools and the Y can eliminate barriers to access and bring low income and high income families together while promoting health, education and social equity. The Mangrove Bay Middle School will be a health and wellness leadership magnet for 600 students. The school's vision is focusing on developing dynamic, confident leaders through healthy living and service learning. The magnet theme and elective offerings will be aligned with the YMCA's areas of impact. Students will attend the school during the day. This photo to the right of the school or to the right of the building is the main middle school. The YMCA is to the left. Students attend during the day and they'll have access to the SPEAR YMCA for before and after school care, youth sports, leadership and volunteer opportunities and fitness and wellness activities on the same campus. The joint campus will include over 111,000 square feet in this two story building, nearly half of which is shared between the school and the Y, including the media center, dining hall, gymnasium, culinary center, pool, sports field, track and garden. These are photos of the T turnaround that was created at Pershing Street and the new entrance from 62nd Avenue North. They still do need to install trees per the approved plan. And based on information that the Y has shared, they plan on opening this December and the new school, Mangrove Bay Middle School will open next fall 2024. So staff is recommending approval of the final plat that's before you today, subject to conditions as noted in your cover memo. And I have Scott Bolliard with me today, our deputy zoning official, Tom Whelan from transportation, and I've gotten an update from our engineering team if there's any particular questions about any of the technical aspects of this request. That concludes my presentation and I know we're all excited to have that new YMCA and middle school opening in our community. Thank you. Well, thank you, Liz. And sorry, I was running back in from a quick break when you got called up. So this was actually, I pulled this item, but I know Councilmember Montaneri was also very interested. Um, when we started down this path, this property was in my district. Then we did redistricting and now it's not in my district. Unfortunately, it now belongs to Councilmember Montaneri. However, this is a very, very important project to the residents that I serve. Um, long overdue, uh, district two, for those that don't know, don't, we don't have a rec center. We have one park. Uh, we have very limited, uh, you know, facilities and services for the residents. Um, so this is going to be a very welcome addition to, um, that area. And so I just really wanted to make sure that we, uh, had a good conversation about it today and that we were clear on what's going on there. And, uh, just wanted to let the residents know that things are moving along and hopefully will be open very soon. So, uh, with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Liz, thank you for the, uh, update. Uh, just, uh, seeing. Seeing the progress, uh, and seeing this building come out of the ground. Uh, it's, it's going to be such an asset to the city of St. Petersburg. Uh, I've taken a tour out there. I want to take another tour before it opens up. But, uh, I just can't believe the quality of, uh, work and what it's going to provide, uh, to, uh, our city, both the state of the art middle school and a YMCA co-located next to each other. Uh, it's, uh, it's just amazing. Very supportive. I don't have any questions, but I did want to just get a presentation on, on the replatting just to make sure that, uh, the city and the YMCA and everybody involved was like on the, on the same page. So, thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. You know, looking at the, the background here from the presentation, um, in April of last year, there was something that came to the DRC and they, um, denied the request. It was appealed to city council and from then on the words are granted, approved, recommended, approved. And today let's continue that streak. I'll move approval. Last month, uh, no, actually, well, now it's September, two months ago. I had the opportunity to, um, do a, a hard hat tour of the construction site. And, you know, it's at a point now where you can really see the vision coming to life on this and how both the school and the Y will share some of the resources that really benefits everyone. And then having, having something that will, um, generate so much interest and be such a, so successful for, um, the Y at, at that location is going to create a ripple effect where the success that's generated there is going to provide the organization with the resources to then, um, assist with improvements and make, and make real improvements at, um, additional locations throughout our city. So I see this as no matter, no matter where it's located in our city, it's going to generate just incredible opportunity for everyone. And, um, um, I can't wait to see when it's finished, uh, when they're well, welcoming, um, students and families to the, the facility for the first time. I mean, this is, it's something that's, it's been done before, but not often. And certainly in our area, it's, um, it's quite innovative and I can't, I just can't wait to see it completed. It's, um, something that makes me very proud that the city was able to actually, um, take part in helping to bring it to fruition. So thanks for all the work you've done on this. Council member Curtis. Thank you, madam chair. Yes. Thank you, Liz. Uh, I know, you know, this has been a process and thanks for, uh, I mean, I, this goes all the way back to CPPC of, you know, a few years ago. So I, I, I know all the hard work you and your team have put in. Um, I haven't been able to go on a tour, but I got to see updated pictures yesterday of this and I think they were taken the day before. And it's just such a beautiful project. I mean, um, inside and out when you look at the outside pictures, I mean, inside, it's just as beautiful now. And I totally agree with, uh, council member Driscoll, the opportunities of the school and the YMCA working together, the culinary, the classes, the pool. You know, one of the things is they want every middle schooler when they leave to be able to swim because of the pool right there in the backyard. You know, we've heard Mike Jeffries up here talk about one of his big, hairy, audacious goals of having every middle schooler in the city of St. Petersburg know how to swim when they leave middle school. And this just moves the needle towards that. So this is, I, this project is awesome. I'm very jealous of, uh, what was chair Gabbards and council member Montaneris. Sorry, chair. Um, you got the short end of the stick on that one. Uh, but my residents are not getting any short end of that. That's right. That's right. They're getting a fabulous. That's right. I, it's just an amazing, amazing thing. And I'm just so thankful, uh, to everyone at the city for all the work that they've done. And, and again, Liz, thank you so much for, for all the love you've put into this as well. Thanks, madam chair. All right. So we have a motion. Did I hear a second? Yes. All right. So we have motion in a second. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item F4 passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Abernethy. And just in closing, I continue to be in contact with those adjacent neighbors. And we're communicating as the project closes out to make sure that all of the commitments are, are provided. And, uh, it works well for both the neighbors and the new Y. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. All right. We will now move on to item G1, which is our new ordinance. Clerk, please read the title. I'm sure there's two ordinances associated with this. You want them back. Okay. So, A and B. And legal, can we take them together? All right. All right. Proposed ordinance 565H. An ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending the city's land development regulations, amending section 16.01.040 to preclude applications of land development app regulations to certain affordable housing projects. Approved pursuant to sections 166.041516 or pursuant to 166.041517A, Florida statutes. And providing an effective date, the public hearing for this item is on November 30th. Proposed ordinance number 565H. In ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending chapter 17.5 of the city code related to housing assistance, amending the existing process pursuant to sections 166.041516 and 166.041517A, Florida statutes. Wherein the city may administratively approve the development of housing that is affordable in designated zoning categories subject to procedural and site compatibility requirements. Providing for servability and providing an effective date and the public hearing for this item was also on November 30th. And we do not have any cards. Move approval of A and B. All right, we have a motion and a second. Who made the second? I'm sorry. Council member. Second. Yes. All right. Do we have any cards on this item? All right. And seeing no request to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the vote. Motion to approve agenda item G1 A and B passes unanimously. All right. Very good. Thank you, Ms. Foster. All right, so now we will move on to our new business and we will take up item H1. This is council member Floyd. And council member Floyd, if you would, just wanted to real quick before I, because we do have two referrals to cows, or actually three referrals, I think, to cows in here. So I'm just going to quickly read the policy and procedures regarding referrals to cows, just so we're all on the same page. So referrals to a cow shall require an affirmative vote of a super majority of city council. A super majority shall be six if eight council members are present and voting, and if fewer than eight are present and voting, five affirmative votes. So I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware that that is our policy and procedures for all of these new business items we're getting ready to discuss. So with that, I will turn it over to you. Great. Thank you. So my new business item is respectfully requesting a referral to the committee of the whole, to a committee of the whole meeting to be scheduled on November 9th, 2023, a discussion regarding a potential straw poll on the Tampa Bay Rays stadium agreement to be included on the March 19th, 2024 presidential preference primary election ballots. I have some info here. I have some info here. First thing I want to do is apologize for short notice. I would not usually do this, but when I started to look into this, we've been told over and over again the timeline's very important. And, uh, this was the only way to make it realistic so that this timeline did not impact the process of the deal at all. It, uh, simply, um, it actually lines up really well. So, uh, that's the first thing I want to say, uh, is that, you know, um, city staff said in our Cal last week, uh, we were going for March or I'm sorry, we're going for late quarter one, early quarter two. I think this timeline lines up perfectly with that. Uh, and I've worked with legal to ensure that everything in this is as easy as possible. Uh, we have until, uh, actually have the date right here. Um, July 7th to do our public hearing and adopt the, or I'm sorry, not July, December 7th, uh, to do our, um, public hearing and adoption of the, uh, resolution approving the SOE agreement. So, uh, that's why the timing is what it is. Um, there's already a convenient election scheduled at this time. So our cost is minimal, um, and the straw polls advisory. So we're free to do however we please, uh, no matter what comes out of the straw poll. Um, and I think this, uh, it's important to note that this has been done before and we regularly send items to voters, uh, advisory and otherwise. Uh, it's a very common occurrence and I just figured since this is a once in a generation development. I do think it's reasonable to solicit the broadest possible input and just have a conversation about, uh, about this. And so, um, oh, and one last thing I'd add to this is that, uh, if we were to pass this, um, I'd be happy to cancel HLUT so we have plenty of time next week. Um, okay, and then the last thing I have to say is that, uh, today I'm not asking for support to actually do the straw poll at all. Um, I'm only asking for us to have one committee meeting to discuss the idea, uh, of getting resident feedback, um, and, uh, how we would go about doing that as a body if that's what we were deciding to do. So this is just, uh, a vote on whether or not we are going to have a committee meeting on the topic, that's all. Um, with that I'll move approval. Second. All right, so we have public comment on this item, so we'll go ahead and take cards first. We have three speakers, Madam Chair. Please call two at a time. Reverend Ben Atherton, is it Berman? I can't pronounce. He left? Okay. Dylan Dames and Nick Carey, please go to the item podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address City Council. Mr. Dames, please. Hi Council, my name is Dylan Dames. I live at 12001 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street North. Thank you for allowing us to practice our democracy during this public hearing section. I'm here in support of the straw poll that will collect opinions of residents on the redevelopment of the stadium. I'm concerned with the complete acreage of the redevelopment, of course, but you know a several million dollar offering for the stadium alone is equally concerning. It stresses me out and I think it scares and confuses residents. I recently had a meeting with a gentleman acting as a community liaison between the raised and impacted communities here in St. Pete. And he made it clear that the studies we were bringing in our current musings about the stadium don't take into account that those studies were done on ballparks alone and not entire communities. And how, you know, conversation was had with the Urban League and the Chamber of Latin Americans and all these things. And honestly, my takeaway from that meeting was that I believe that they believe that they're trying their best. And feeling that would surprise me. And I think I bring it up not to demonstrate that I think this is a good deal, but to remind council that corporations responsibilities to themselves and they're really, really good at it. And I think that they're putting their best foot forward and I want to stress that our responsibility is to each other. We raise what residents feel and you guys take that into account. I believe it's fully within both administration and council's means to amend this proposal so that it prioritizes residents. I'm optimistic about some of the conversations I've had and I think it's residents' turn to weigh in. I think the community, it's our turn to take a stab at it and I hope you'll think critically about the results. Should this straw poll actually erect itself? Thanks, council. Hi, Nick Carey, 10th Street North, lead organizer with Faith in Florida. I'm here to speak in support of the straw poll. Just organizationally at Faith in Florida, one of our biggest goals is always accountability with our elected officials. And on this specific deal, we just want to make sure that community receives the maximum benefit out of whatever comes next. Our goal with this specific campaign is around just drawing attention for the public and being able to inform the public and provide a level of transparency, particularly with communities that don't always have that access to information. And so I just want to encourage y'all because I really think a referendum, the straw poll would benefit the city as a whole, giving our residents a chance to speak as well as y'all as our elected representatives. It's just another data point. The mayor and his administration have done a number of community conversations, but the power now rests with council. And so being able to do your own collection of information and form of a conversation with the public, I think is really important. And I think it's especially important because I'll just say for me that this whole process to this point has been kind of frustrating because it's been fairly opaque. It seems like the numbers change every single day and something like this really forces us to bring all the cards to the table, inject some more transparency into the process. And I'll just say again, echoing some of the folks that have already spoken that I applaud the mayor for his 2000 plus community conversations, but I just also want to say we've had hundreds of conversations ourselves. And there seems to be a disconnect between this deal and the conversations that we're having in the community. And again, a straw poll would just give us a chance to have the widest possible, um, opinions be weighed in on this. Um, and then just to, um, as I come to a close here, I just want to reiterate this referendum is only to inform. It's not taking away any of your power as elected representatives. It's just adding more information to help you make an informed decision about a deal has been stated that uses a huge amount of public resources and is going to impact our city for decades to come. I think it only makes sense, uh, for us to hear from the public as council member Floyd shared, there's precedence for this kind of straw poll on this kind of deal, but just also point to, um, other priorities that the city. Holds and, um, for instance, with our public parks on the water, I know that's part of the charter process, but the city has made a commitment that that land in any development or changes to that land, uh, giving the chance for the public to weigh in. And so I think it only makes sense with a deal this large, um, for us to do that. Um, for us to do that. And so, um, I won't pretend to not have a stance on this deal. I've made it clear how I feel about this deal, but let's find out from the general public what they think. So please support this straw poll. Right. And. One zoom speaker. Ben AZ. Once you're into the meeting space, please state your name and address for the record. You will have three minutes to address city council. Ben, you there? Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, this is Reverend Ben Atherton Zeman. I'm sorry. I had to leave the chambers. Um, but that was my card, uh, that you read. Thank you for letting me participate via zoom. Um, my address is three, six, eight, zero 42nd way south. And I joined my colleagues in, uh, appreciation of the city council for considering, uh, H1. I agree, uh, with Carrie Mueller, my own congregants, uh, with the St. Pete tenants union with faith in Florida, uh, with my colleague, Reverend Andy and others that this straw poll, um, is a good example of transparency and leadership. Um, at the, at the worst, it will give you, um, leverage in negotiations. Um, and at best it will have the residents in St. Petersburg, um, who overwhelmingly have, uh, uh, the priority of affordable housing, uh, to, to my opinion. It gives them a say in this very large decision. So I appreciate your leadership and in, uh, and I appreciate your transparency in that leadership. Thank you. Thank you. And that was the final speaker. No more speakers, madam chair. All right. Council member Muhammad. Thank you, madam chair. And I want to thank council member Floyd for bringing this forward. Um, I support the meeting to discuss it, and I also support doing it. Um, as a community organizer, advocate, and current city council member, I've always prioritized community engagement, co-governance, and elevating the voice of the people in the decision making process. And so that's why I'm supporting this proposal for one reason. For me, this also, this discussion is an exercise in co-governance that doesn't subvert our juice or responsibility as elected officials, but it actually complements us in our role as representatives of the people by ensuring that the decision making process is open, inclusive, and accountable. It's opportunities like this that empower our communities to actively participate in shaping their own future, resulting in better and more responsive governance. There is a growing frustration with the illusion of inclusion, where community input is obtained, but that does not always seem to be valued and is becoming more symbolic than substantive. Also, we were at Albert Whitted yesterday, and we talked about the will of the voters. And as Pastor Oliver mentioned, some of us supported letting voters speak on the marina. And so this is an opportunity for us to show some consistency. And not only express our desire to listen to the people when we think what they're going to say is in line with what we want to hear. I also agree with the idea that this will serve not as just another data point, but as a key data point that we can refer to and leverage in multiple ways as we move forward with the negotiations. We hear a lot about the principles of accountable and responsible governance. And I think that this is an opportunity for us to actually practice that and not just preach it. But really demonstrate that we are going to ensure that the people's voices are not only heard, but this is a way that we can quantify what we hear as we move forward with such a critical decision. Conducting this poll, I think, will ensure that every constituent gets a seat at the table and a chance to vote their opinion, ensuring inclusivity and proper representation. I think the approach is innovative and it's a way for us to gauge public opinion and really help us to be more effective and efficient moving forward. I also think that it will ensure equity is included in the decision making process, benefiting the entire community rather than just a few. And as a side note, we're talking about making changes to the charter because we don't want to be responsible as a small group to make huge decisions. And so, as it relates to the appointment process, and so again, this is an opportunity for us to include larger public input and not just the few of us that are up here, even though we indeed have been elected or, in my case, appointed to represent the people. This proposal also aligns with the informed decision making principle by relying on best practices and considering the city's history. And it will allow us, again, to make a well-informed, data-driven choice. Lastly, I think it all comes down to improving the quality of life for the people in the city of St. Petersburg. And as Councilmember Floyd mentioned, we're voting to have a conversation about doing it. And then during that conversation, we can make the case as to why it should or should not move forward. So I think letting the voters have a say ensures that we're doing our due diligence and really covering all bases so that when we talk about representing the people, we can have data that really shows that. So thank you, and I'm happy to support this resolution. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Floyd, for bringing this. I support having a discussion at the Cal schedule for November 9th, considering the public's opinion at the straw poll. This is about using public funding. I'm going to make that very clear. This is about public funding. The most expensive decision to date, by far, for the city of St. Petersburg City Council. Everyone has had a voice. The Rays, Hines, administration, us. But the money being used of over 400 million public dollars, not including other related costs and borrowing costs, is the public and it's not ours. And they should have a voice on this issue through the straw poll. This is the city's largest project again. And I think having it on the ballot requires and forces transparency and informed consideration by everyone. The Miami Marlins Stadium was mentioned at the last Cal meeting, and I want to contrast that to this deal. It should be noted that Miami-Dade County took out the majority of the bonds, approximately $350 million. This is back in 2010. Around the time of the deal, you know what Miami operating budget was? $4.79 billion. And they had a population of 2.5 million people, 10 times our population. Contrast that with our budget of $823 million. We all have asked the voters to vote for us. And I think if we're going to borrow that much money using their tax dollars, then asking the voters their opinion in a non-binding straw poll isn't too much to ask and it's appropriate. So with that, I support it. Council Vice Chair Vic Sanders. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the conversation on this and some of the decisions that we have to make as Council Members, as we've heard over and over and over again. So thank you, Council Member Floyd. Thank you, Council Member Mohammed. Thank you, Council Member Hanowitz, in regards to hearing the public voices, because we are to be held accountable. And that is in a statement that I make each and every time I speak to my constituents about holding Council Members accountable. And I guess I probably should also preface that that accountability does not also come with agreeability. We're not going to agree all of the time. I don't think that I've made it a secret. I'm not a huge fan of straw polls, but I'm an advocate for the community and their voices. When I hear supporting the straw poll puts you on the side of the people, I'm going to be on the side of the people all 365 days in every vote, whether they're all yeses or whether there is some no sprinkled into that. The responses that I have for this is not carrying administrative water. It is coming from a place of being involved in this process for years. Some of us have been in this thing with the trial 10, 15 years, very, very, very long time. And so although we appreciate, no, Deborah, let me speak for Deborah. Although we appreciate and I'm going to support having a conversation. I've never said no to talking about anything. I've never said having a conversation to because I don't profess to be the smartest knife in the drawer or know everything. But I will say I am still hesitant. I still have a pause about a straw poll. I will have that conversation. But for myself, who has who have dealt with this and I'm at a certain point where I think we could be more effective and impactful when we ask administration to do a dig down response to the term sheet, which is which is going to be binding. That's what we're going to have our most power, although, you know, the straw poll would say we don't want this. The straw poll at the end of the day, the term sheet, I'm sorry, at the end of the day is what we're going to have to live with and vote on. So if we're going to spend any time, I think that's where that needs to be as far as, you know, moving forward with that. So I say to the community, we hear you. I hear you. I was out there, too. I understand. I've been working on this project for a very long time. I've only been here for three, but I've been working on this for at least 10, 15 years. And at some point, it's like we need to move. We need to get because when I think about what the alternative is, I would much rather move forward with where we are. And I said it last week, I'm in a good place with this. Do I agree with everything on the term sheet? Absolutely not. I do not. And I don't. But that's where I'm going to have that conversation. That's where my focus is going to be. And unfortunately, we have either yes or no on the dais, whether we agree with it all or not. You have to at some point move forward. So the accountability, I understand. I totally agree with the taxpayer dollars. Absolutely. I understand. But our power is going to be the term sheet and how we finalize that with the proposal on that. So I'll support the discussion, but I'm still not convinced that the straw poll will give me anything that 15 years of experience hasn't already given me. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. We've talked a lot about data and information. Brett, I have a quick question. If this were to go forward through Cal and then this council and we decided to put this straw poll in the ballot, how many words can the? 15 words in the title, 75 in the ballot summary. Yes or no answers. And so I am not sure how and this isn't a question now, but thank you. I'm not sure how in a 15 word title and a 75 word question we are going to inform the public somehow on a what what has already been described a huge deal that that doesn't not to mention. So we're talking about putting it on the ballot, having a conversation, putting it on the ballot, a term sheet that I agree with a lot of what you just said, Council Vice Chair Fick Sanders, but the term sheet is nonbinding. And the development agreement, which would be the binding document we're proposed not to get until either the end of March or early April, which would be after this vote. So the term sheet can continuously change. So we're talking about having a nonbinding vote on a nonbinding agreement that just that just doesn't make sense to me. That doesn't make sense to me. And so with with all of those questions, just on those alone, and I'm happy to I'm happy to live and die on my votes and my responsibility of being elected. But just on those alone, I can't support this. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I'm going to try to stick to the request, which is the referral to committee, because there is a lot that I could say right now about a situation like this. It's really being extremely complicated, as Councilmember Gerdes just pointed out. I mean, to reduce I mean, my like just part of the information that I have is had is a binder that's bigger, more full than what this is right now. Reducing that to 75 words. I don't know how you can do any of that language without bias. It is that would be a challenge. What I want to know is what kind of a timeline are we looking at to get something on the March 19th ballot? So the supervisor has set a deadline of December 19th to place a question on the ballot. So working backward from that date to adopt an ordinance, which would be the process the city ordinarily follows to place a question on the ballot. You'd have a December December 7th public hearing preceded by a November 27th first reading. And on November 15th, the ordinance title would be submitted to the Times. The ordinance title, though, need only notify the public of the nature of the legislative process. So that would be fairly straightforward. So that would be the timeline. All right. So no time to waste. Correct. And I would I would like to know. And this could be a question that Council Member Floyd could answer is if there has been consideration given to referring this to PS and I instead of a committee of the whole, because anyone can be in our committee meetings for discussion. And if that committee moves it forward to council, then we have we have eight people who can vote. It's just another way. And I believe that that would require a simple majority to move forward. So it's a it's a question, but it's actually just a suggestion to consider that today. I think looking back at what has happened in the in the last almost two years during the Welch administration and the almost immediate focus turned toward the historic gas plant redevelopment and starting fresh with a a new discussion with raise seeing how the administration has gone above and beyond to give everyone the opportunity to provide input. I know that I have people bring up the the raise and the redevelopment all the time when I'm out and about, not just in, you know, specific specifically planned meetings, but just walking, you know, walking around downtown. People want to talk about it, and I'm sure I'm not the only council member who has those conversations on a pretty regular basis. I'm listening, and I think everyone has had an opportunity to weigh in on this. It's been multiple ways you didn't even have to go to a meeting, you know, and be there in person. And we were elected as a representative government, and that means that the people have elected us to make decisions for the city, and that includes the hard ones. I don't think there's anything innovative about passing the buck, and that's what I think that this is about. I don't particularly like hearing that this administration has created the illusion of inclusion, is what I wrote down as someone else was speaking. I am grateful for the attention that the administration has given to making sure that everyone feels that they have an opportunity to be heard. But that also includes my colleagues, and I know that this new business item is coming from a place of the, it's coming from the desire to make sure that everyone truly does have a voice. And that can mean different things to different people. I don't know how I would ultimately vote on bringing forward a straw poll. I mean, everyone knows that I hate straws from my past, you know. But that's not up to me today, and I am always very careful, and I rarely turn down another council member's request or a new business item to have a discussion. And if it was me, I wouldn't want that done to me. So I'm not a yes on the whole item. I'm a change my mind right now, but I am a yes on allowing this discussion to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So we have a representative democracy here in the United States. We get elected to represent people to study issues. This issue that we have before us is a very complex issue. These two binders that I put up here, this is just the current baseball and redevelopment paperwork on this issue. To try to take all this information and put it into a 15-word title and 75-word referendum question, even if it's a straw poll. I don't know how you do that. We get elected to represent the people of the city of St. Petersburg. The city of St. Petersburg needs, they elected us to do the homework, to read, study, ask the hard questions, and represent the people that elected us. I know my colleagues on this dais. They have this information. They study the information. If you watched our committee of the whole meeting last week, the five-hour meeting, you could see that we're informed and we ask hard questions. I'm not going to stop, and I will never stop answering the hard questions. I'll never stop doing homework. I also wanted to address some of the talk about listening to the people. I've been in public service for, I've been in elected office for eight years. I was in public service for many years before that. One project I worked on for many years was the pier. The city of St. Petersburg had three committees to study the pier. We had public input on every one of those meetings that we had. The first pier task force had 62 meetings with public input at every one of the meetings. I went, as vice chair of that committee, I went all around the city to neighborhood meetings and made presentations and listened to the people of what they wanted to see with the pier. That's written into our DNA here in the city of St. Petersburg, to listen to the people, to study the issues, and make the right decisions for the people of St. Petersburg. I understand the desire to do a straw poll, but I can't wrap my head around how you explain this in 75 words. So I will not be supporting the motion that's on the floor. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. And before we go to a second round, I'm going to go ahead and say a few things. So first, Councilmember Floyd, I do want to thank you for bringing this forward because I do see who you are in this motion because you do truly believe in the public having a voice. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that in you as a person. But because I've been a part of so many conversations, all of the community conversations that happened, either myself or my legislative aide was at every single one of them. There has been a lot of community input to get us to this point. And like some of my colleagues, I have concern over how we get such a complex issue into 75 words. I just cannot wrap my head around that. I don't know what that looks like. And I don't believe that a committee of the whole is going to solve that issue for me. I think you're going to bring, Brett's going to draft beautifully crafted language. I have full confidence in his ability to do so. But we're kind of sending him on a fool's errand because there's no way you could get all of that in 75 words. I also have a lot of concern with the fact that this is a presidential primary that we're talking about putting this on. And in the presidential primary, we are only going to have a Republican primary. And when I look at the voter record for where we were as of what the supervisor of elections posted for September, 72% of registered voters in the city of St. Petersburg are either Democrats, NPAs, or other. So you're going to have a really challenging time, I think, getting a really broad spectrum of voices at that particular presidential preference primary. If it were, you know, a regular primary, if it were, you know, some sort of general election, maybe I could see that there'd be a broader base that would be coming to that election. I've been told that this could cost, what, $80,000, something like that, for the city to put this on the ballot. Is that correct? The range would be somewhere between 30 to 90, with the increase being, if this necessitates the printing of an additional ballot card, that would be the $60,000 increase. Okay. And I think for that, I worry that it's non-binding, we're not going to get the turnout, we're not going to be able to have something that really conveys what the voters are going to really, really be weighing in on. And at that point, it just feels a little like a disingenuous act for us to throw that out there, and then it not really even mean anything. And I think that's my biggest concern. We have open forum here. We have opportunities for people to speak on public hearing items. We have a lot of vehicles, and I support the ability for residents to speak their mind. I mean, I think I showed that as chair when we had our last meeting and the open forum that happened. I wanted desperately for all of those residents, whether I agree or not with them, for them to be able to speak. That is not what this is about. I feel like this is a disingenuous exercise that is not going to reach the outcome. Now, I heard something said about, you know, this, we've had this conversation, it's coming back again, about changing the charter so that we no longer, you know, have that ability to be able to appoint a council member. I'm looking forward to that continued conversation because representative government is very important, and we are all elected to represent the residents of the city. And when we had that first conversation in PSNI, I heard overwhelmingly from colleagues, we are elected to make the hard votes. Well, here we are. It's time to make a hard vote. We vote on budgets every year, $835 million for the year of 2024. We vote on that. We don't take that to a straw poll. We don't take that out. We hear public input through other means. So if we want to have some sort of open forum or something that maybe we can organize with the administration that looks like maybe our budget town hall, I'm all for that. Let's do that. But we don't take our budget out for a straw poll. We don't take every land use decision. I mean, the state legislature saw how that was happening in St. Pete Beach and, you know, completely killing redevelopment in St. Pete Beach many, many years ago and took hometown democracy off the table across the state because it was stifling communities who needed infusion of redevelopment. We don't take those things out for a reason. So for me, like I said, this is just an exercise in futility, and it really just sends a disingenuous message to the residents that whatever would come out of that straw poll would actually be something clear and beneficial. So, unfortunately, I hate to say that I would vote against us having a discussion on something because that's not something I would typically ever do. To the point of moving it to PSNI, I'm even more of a no on that because let's just talk about we want everybody to have a voice, but now we're going to move it to a committee where only four people have a voice? No, thank you. That sends me even more to the no category. So we've got it looks like another round getting ready to go. We're going to have some committee work on the dais, which we're already doing, so it is what it is. But at this point, I just don't feel like this is the right path forward. I'm sorry. But I would like to explore with administration what potentially having something that replicates a public open house might look like. Maybe we can have that conversation and see if we can bring something forward. Absolutely, Chair. All right. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you. You know, in law school, I didn't realize that representative government didn't include referendums or straw polls because that's part of, like, our government. That literally is part of it. So this idea that this is not part of representative government is beyond me. As a matter of fact, if we were issuing general obligation bonds, would we have to have a referendum? Brett, does somebody know this? I defer to Jackie, but yes. We would. We would. So the way the deal is structured is we don't have to go to referendum because we are using revenue bonds. So if we were using general obligation bonds, we would have to go to referendum. So, Brett, no one has asked you if it was impossible for putting this in 75 words. Is it impossible? Uh, it really depends on the question you want to ask, and I would defer to counsel on what the question would be before I would help shape it. Well, we've done referendums before, right? Yes. Okay. So is it impossible to do something along the lines of, do we want public money to go and pay for a stadium? Do we want to take up bond money? How about, we don't have to do the whole deal. Is that difficult to put in a question, if we want any public funds to go into a stadium? The standard is going to be whether it misleads the voters. And if the question was that simplified, that would potentially be permissible. But I really would need to see counsel's specific question. Okay. So I don't know what is so complicated about this. And as a matter of fact, I don't even know why it's complicated to have a discussion at a cow, except the fact that I think at this point, people have just decided that they don't want to support this. And I just don't understand why when we have referendums of lots of things, and this is $400 million plus that's going of public money to a private entity. The thing about the public and whether or not they know about it or not, every time I talk to everyone, believe it or not, you know what they think because of the PR that had gone out? The deal's done. I thought the deal's done. City council had nothing to do with it. Everyone. As a matter of fact, I've reached out to all neighborhood associations to offer and talk to them about the deal and provide them information. And when I go, they're surprised because they don't know. So you'd be surprised how many people out there do not know the information. And I have offered every neighborhood association to go out and talk at any meeting about the deal and give them the facts and how much we're paying and how much we're going to be indebted. So I think that given what I've at least learned from residents, they don't know the facts, they don't know enough. And having this as a straw poll is going to add more transparency and it's going to make it something where you can have public discourse. And in a democracy, that is important. So that's how I feel. Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. First, I just want to thank everybody, all my colleagues, for a substantive discussion and thoughtful answers, no matter where you come down on it. The only other thing I wanted to say was to the suggestion of PS&I. I know we have a PSI meeting that day, but it's got an important thing on the agenda already. And I did think it was important to send it to a cow, so that's why we ended up here. And I thought about all sorts of committees at that point, but I thought it was important to send it to a cow. And then the other thing that I had was, if you just look at the new business item, it's specifically about the stadium development, not the broader development. The broader development is very complicated, but the stadium development is going to be a separate development agreement. So I just wanted to key everybody in on that, and that one is not quite as complicated. But, again, I appreciate the candid discussion and am grateful for all of you. Thank you. Council Vice Chair Fix Sanders. Thank you. Just to close out, again, thank you so much, Councilmember Floyd, and this has been interesting. And so that I'm clear, I also wanted to make that statement that I would not support it going to PS&I at all because of the four votes. And although Councilmembers, for those that don't understand how our committee process works, only the four Councilmembers on that committee can actually vote. So I want to make sure that something of this size has all of the Councilmembers' feedback and voting power, which is, I've heard that several times today that we've been representing, we were elected to represent, so all eight of us need to carry in on that vote. And, again, the perspectives of everyone sitting on the dais is wonderful. As long as, you know, I want to still make it very, very clear that I'm going to support a conversation. My initial thought was no to the whole thing. But I have been placed in that position here on the dais when I've brought something just as important to the community, and my conversation was shut right down. Wouldn't even talk about it. And so I love when Councilmember Driscoll said, because I know how I would feel, I felt that. I've been there to something that impacts a huge amount of our city and our constituency, not even to have a conversation. So I concur with that agreement. Yes, I will have a conversation. Am I supportive of the straw polls? No. Because my first question was the accuracy of it, and thank you, Councilmember Gabbard, for those numbers in regards to the audience and where it may come from. And that was another one of my responses. And thank you to the elders and the others that I spoke to in regards to this. They were kind of in the same place where I was in regards to a straw poll. But as far as the conversation is concerned, I would have one. But I am definitely not going to be a supporter of moving it to any other committee other than a cow. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Mohamed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let's see how to do this briefly. So people not only want to talk about it, I think they want to be able to see that their voices have been heard. And I believe a straw poll would help to quantify where people are. And again, having the quantifiable data would inform our decision and also, again, allow us to leverage or refer to it as we vote on the other decisions that need to be made around the stadium. We have a lot of smart people, I believe, who can take those books and boil them down into a question that people can understand. And to think that people who would be voting on this would just go and blindly cast a vote, again, speaks to, in some cases, in my opinion, the perception that we have of voters. Is that they're not informed and they're not smart enough to be able to see when something is in their best interest or not. That's the whole reason why I began to vote because I started to realize that voting particularly when you have a very clear idea of what's needed and wanted in your community. And how casting your vote can help you get that or not casting your vote can allow that to miss you by. As an informed voter, that's what I think the obligation of every voter is and not to just go to the polls and blindly cast a vote based on hyperbole and rhetoric. So, this is not a hard question, I think it can be boiled down into a very easy question. We did listen to people on the pier. I was actually a part of lots of focus groups on that, and the pier that the people voted on was not the pier that we got. But you don't see a lot of consternation about that, but there was a process to say we want to vote on the pier. The people said this is what we want, and then the administration decided to do something differently. So, it's not that it will be binding and us being here is not representative of the people. It just was clear that the people wanted something else than what the administration gave in that particular instance. Last thing I'll say, and this is another one of the beautiful things about the democratic process, is that we don't have to agree on everything. And in fact, if we do, I don't think that somebody's being honest. And so, I do appreciate the conversation of my colleagues. And I'm only saying this now, because we don't know which way this vote's going to go, and I may not get an opportunity to continue the conversation about the straw poll itself. But again, I'm definitely in support of having the conversation and moving it forward. And thank you again for bringing this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Do we have a motion and a second? We do. Okay. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item H1 fails, 5-3, with Councilmembers Gabbard, Gerdes, and Montenari voting no. Councilmembers Driscoll, Vic Sanders, Floyd, Hanowitz, and Mohammed voting yes. Thank you, Clerk. All right, we will now move on to our next new business item and turn it over to Council Vice Chair, Vic Sanders. Okay, of course. Item H2. Yes, I'm not ready. That's okay. Do you want me to go with mine first? No, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm requesting a joint community benefit advisory committee and city council meeting at the Committee of the Whole for discussion on the committee benefit program. And with that, I request my approval. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. And I see public comment. We have a card on this item. We do. All right. Ruth Whitney, please approach an open podium. Please state your name and address. And you have three minutes to address city council. Ruth Whitney, 700. Good morning. Good morning. Ruth Whitney, 714th Avenue North, St. Petersburg. I'm not speaking for the community benefits advisory council. I'm speaking for myself. I do want to thank the staff, the city staff, they're not here today, that all the work they did, and it was a lot of work. Although I disagreed strongly with some of it, I still appreciate the amount of work they did. I want to just give facts here today. The purpose of the, and I'll call it now the CBAC, is to give recommendations to you. That's what our purpose is on developments. And I'm saying we should do that also on changes to our procedures, because that will affect our decisions when we make them. And we haven't given you no recommendation. You could call it our failure. However, the CBAC did meet on June 5th, and the city staff provides us with our agenda. They call the meeting, they provide the agenda, and they give us the documents. On June 5th, they gave us no documents. And you all know what that PowerPoint looked like, and they did show it to us that day. But how could we make substantive comments when we had never seen these documents? And whether you noticed it or not, we really needed to see the guidance document that went with the PowerPoint. They never gave us that, and they gave it to you at the very end. But the actual CBAC never saw that document at the June 5th meeting. Sorry, yeah, June 5th or at the August 2nd meeting. And both meetings, they showed us the PowerPoint. You've all seen it. It takes up a vast majority of the meeting. And this time, we did have the documents, and there have already been changes from June 5th to August 2nd. And then we weren't able to have another meeting because of a member being gone. But after he was back, I happened to see him in an event, and I emailed the September 11th to Brian Caper and said, he's back, please, let's have another CBAC meeting. And he said no. So, and by the way, after the August 2nd meeting, I'd also ask verbally for another meeting. So, we were never able to meet and give you any recommendations. And I think that's a real problem. And I think from when I asked for it. Thank you, Ms. Whitney. Thank you. That was the final speaker, only speaker? Yes. All right. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this also, and I'm happy to vote in support of this, but I just want to remind us that this conversation, during the conversation to have this joint committee, some of the comments were that we didn't value the input of those who serve in volunteer capacities on our advisory committees. When we say not valuing the input, not providing someone with the stacks of information that's needed, with enough time to actually review that information and make a decision, again, could be viewed as though it's not real inclusion and not real advice. And so, when I talk about this illusion of inclusion, that's not the first committee that we've heard that happen with. There's the CAC that actually expressed a concern about not getting information that they need to make a decision as advisors from the community on decisions being made by this body. And so, again, I think it's something for us to be mindful of and not take offense to, but just know that as we're talking to people and as I'm out in the community, there is this growing frustration that a lot of these advisory roles are symbolic and not substantive. And we have examples that we can cite. There's also that perception that these community input and feedback sessions that we're having result in great documents, but the data is not showing up in a lot of the cases, not all cases. We don't subscribe to these blanket statements, but that is a real thing in the community that I serve and the people that I represent. And I'd definitely be happy to support this going forward. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, thank you, Council Member Mohamed. And I first want to start by saying thank you to Vice Chair Fick Sanders for bringing this forward. I think that this is very much needed. I look forward to us having this discussion. But I wanted to ask administration, so we've heard it repeatedly that the CBAC does not feel heard. They don't feel as though they've had the opportunity to really convene a meeting. There's some issue around if their voices are being heard in those meetings, if they have the proper information in those meetings. And so for me, what I am more and more concerned about as we talk about having this joint meeting and we're coming up to putting the CBAC in place for the redevelopment of the gas plant is that there needs to be a meeting of the minds between administration and the CBAC members now before any of that happens. I just have real concern that we start to go into bringing ad hoc members in. We start to have a conversation collectively. And it's not going to go as well as we would like it to because there's obviously some miscommunication going on that needs to be resolved first. So my request of administration is before anything else happens with the CBAC, that a meeting be called. And that meeting needs to happen. There needs to be open conversation between the CBAC standing members and administration about process because I think about if I relate it to, to Council Member Muhammad's point, another advisory committee, the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. You know, before, like six years ago, essentially they met like every three years and they came up with their recommendations and that got passed as our housing plan and then we moved on and we never heard from them again. And we worked really hard to bring them together, have a standing committee. Now we have them report quarterly to the HOUT meeting. I mean, it's become a true advisory committee. So I think there's opportunity for us to do better as it pertains to this. And this is just one more of the growing pieces of really perfecting our CBA, which I'm very protective of. And I want to make sure that when we are making these changes, that they're coming with that guidance. Ultimately, we're the body that will decide. We may not take the guidance, but not having it does seem a little short-sighted. And I just talked earlier about being disingenuous. I don't want us to just have the standing committee and not utilize it to its fullest, because for me that is disingenuous. So that's my request. Please, before anything else happens, convene this meeting, let them have their voice, bring forward whatever that report is, if that looks like a report item at some point, to full city council of what that meeting was, just so we can do better to include more voices. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate your suggestion. I know Mr. Corbett is looking into some of these concerns now. And we'll convene internally and get back to city council. Oh, you mentioned his name and he appears. All right, very good. Well, thank you. And thank you, Vice Chair Fix Sanders, for bringing this forward. And I certainly support it wholeheartedly. So thank you. And I'll turn it over to you now. Thank you. And thank you for that question. And thank you. That's a wonderful request. And I concur with that. because I can sit here on this side of the dais and wholeheartedly say I sat on CAC and we met month after month. And one of my requests was, does council fully understand the feedback and the consensus of the committee? I was told yes and would watch the meetings and would be ultimately disappointed that a lot of the true consensus was not surveyed or conveyed to council. So when you say we ultimately makes the decision, that was the most important thing that you could have said because I witnessed. This is lived experience. This isn't something someone told me. And I want to make sure that our constituents that do volunteer their time, although we were reminded constantly that we are advisory, we still need to make sure that the feedback that we're getting from those volunteers are heard and valued. And this is where, and I agree, there needs to be a mending and a coming, you know, meeting of the minds with what we have as far as the CBAC is concerned because what I don't want to happen with that group meeting is for everybody to air out their differences. Hopefully by the time we've gotten to that point, we would have come to clearing up some of those other issues that are outstanding but definitely address those that needed to be addressed because they are important. And our volunteers, like I said, sitting on those committees committees and in volunteering, apathy sets in. And, you know, then you have a hard time getting people there for quorums because the mood is, they don't hear me anyway. You know, they're not going to listen to me anyway. And I think that's the biggest piece that I really, really, really pray that we can resolve quickly, sooner rather than later, and move forward with this because our volunteers have so much to bring to the table. And I just want to make sure that council is fully aware of that importance and that value. So I know that I think I've already moved for the motion and I'll leave it there. So we have a motion and a second? Yes, ma'am. All right, seeing no further requests to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. All right, seeing all council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item H2 passes unanimously. All right, very good. We will move forward now to item F3 and, no, H3, I'm so sorry. And this one is actually mine. So this is respectfully requesting a referral to a committee of the whole no later than the end of the first quarter of 2024 for a discussion on flood mitigation strategies for the coastal high hazard area and repetitive loss areas of our city. Topics to include current permitting process and requirements for infill residential development, current FEMA application and acceptance procedures for mitigation grants, explorations of methods to improve our community rating system, and to reduce the impact of rising flood insurance rates. And finally, a discussion on funding a study examining the fiscal impact of climate-informed zoning, such as a study that has been attached to this that was prepared by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. This conversation is also relevant to a new business item that council approved on July 12th of 2018, which I brought forward, which was to explore options for and provide a presentation on creating a grant or incentive program for homeowner hurricane mitigation efforts in repetitive loss neighborhoods as determined by FEMA. That is currently on the Health, Energy, Resiliency, and Sustainability Committee with the referral list, and I would ask that it be moved to be conjoined with this item. Move approval. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. So through this, we will take the item off the referral list for HERS and move it over. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no further requests to speak, Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council Members, enter your votes. Seeing all Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item H3 passes unanimously. All right, so we will move into our final open forum of the day. We have anybody to speak for open forum, Clerk? I have a speaker. One, okay. Gerald Broadment. That's me. All right. I have a podium, state your name and address for the record. We have three minutes to address Council. Gerald Broadbent, 715, 64th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida. And I want to speak to parks, specifically the Maximo Park. Two years ago, we had a major problem down there with campers. There's no camping allowed. The city put up a lot of signs. We would have over a dozen, and they were bad people. And 30-year-old campers, messes everywhere, black water drained down the boat ramp. You know, it was bad. We got that straightened out. Last year was a good year. It's November. It's that time again. People are coming from everywhere else here. I walk my dog every morning at first light. I see him. I call it in. This year, I'm getting a lot of pushback from the police department. I don't know if this council can address that somehow. Sunday, I put in a call for service. An officer came down. It was around sunrise. He said, rep, it's sunrise. They can be here. In the past, they didn't do that. They would speak to the people, let them know that they're trespassing by being there overnight. And if they're there the next night or that night, they could possibly be cited for trespassing or possibly towed very politely. And, you know, they would spend some time and eventually leave and everything good. Like I say, this year, I had one officer come out Sunday. He said, rep, they could be here. The next day, I called again. Same people. Real rough crowd, too, by the way. Called in to the non-emergency number, and I was told, nah, we're not going to do that. We're not going to come out. They refused my call for service. I wound up going back Monday night just before the park was closed, a half an hour after sunset. I called in. An officer had to come out. He kicked them out. They were gone the next morning. That park has only got lights at the boat ramp. The rest of it's pitch black. I have a concern for officer safety. If you're going to kick somebody out of a park at night and it's pitch black, that's not a good, that's not a very good idea. So I'm just wondering if this council and their wisdom, and I believe, by the way, Mr. Montaneri was very involved two years ago when this first came up. And I just don't want to see us go back to a third-rate trailer park, which is exactly what it looked like. In fact, I brought a ton of pictures here two years ago. So let's not go backwards. Let's be a little proactive if we can. And I would appreciate anything this council can do to pass that along to our city fathers. And I want to continue to be a good citizen. And when I see something, say something. And I'm going to leave it with that and say thank you for your service, too. You guys are like the officers. Thank you for your service. And have a very good day. Thank you, sir. All right. Was that it? That's it, Madam Chair. All right. Very good. So we will now go to announcements. Council. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's Paul Tracy's birthday today in clerk's office. I know we missed a couple of birthdays last, or not last week, but the week before. And I somehow have lost that list. So we're making up for a couple in the past, too. I think Amy Foster was one of them and a few others. But Paul's birthday is today, and so we'll sing happy birthday to Paul. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Paul. Happy birthday to you. And then I don't want to take, because if I had to guess, Councilmember Montaneri is going to talk about a friend of mine, Mel Sembler. He's probably got the bio. You have the bio, don't you? Yeah, of course you do. But I just wanted to send my condolences to, I've known the Sembler family about 15 years now, and I know he was probably a giant in some circles. He was a quiet giant in mine, and so just very sorry for his passing and sending my love and prayers to the Sembler family. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yes, I did want to recognize the passing of just a pillar in our community in Ambassador Mel Sembler. What a kind, generous, honest, and loving man that cared for our country, served our country well as ambassador to Australia and Italy, founded the Sembler Company, founded the Sembler Company, he was an Army veteran, his wife, Betty, that passed away years ago was, a few years ago, was also another pillar in our community. He was appointed to his ambassadorships by President George Herbert Walker Bush, and he survived by his three sons and their families. And it's the passing of an era here in the city of St. Petersburg and around the country and his services this afternoon. God bless the Sembler family. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. On October 28th, I presented Margaret Pruitt in Crescent Heights with a proclamation because she turned 102 years old that day. And she's living at the same house on her own. It was, she looks, I know, and it sounds, she looks like she's 80. And when you're 102 and you look 80, that's, like, really good. So, I asked her for advice on how to live to 102 and look so healthy and look good. And so, she said, first of all, obviously, her parents, good genes, parents, grandparents, faith, family, and friends, daily walking, and she walked around Crescent Lake having some exercise in your life, healthy eating. She cooked at home most of the time, not a lot of processed foods, and not a smoker or a drinker. So, that's Margaret's advice for us if we want to live a long, healthy life. That's awesome. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. All right. Well, I have a couple of things. First thing, just wanted to announce that the City Step Challenge started on November 1st, and we do have a small but mighty city council champions team. So, if anybody is interested in joining the city council team, let Kim Amos know, and she will connect you. We are trying to, you know, get our steps in and make sure that we get ahead of the holiday feast. So, we would love for any of the council members or their staff to participate as well. And then, on a sad note, also wanted to share just a moment of remembrance for a remarkable individual who was a friend of mine, Reverend Robert DePue, if anyone knew him. He passed away on October 13th at 84 years old. He was a member of our Affordable Housing Advisory Committee for many years, and for over 50 years, he was deeply committed to creating housing for those in need. His passions were seniors, persons with special needs, financially challenged families, and those who were unhoused. Under his guidance, over 100 new homes were constructed for first-time homebuyers in Pinellas County. And Bob knew the significance of not just providing housing, but giving people the keys to their future. His life was a testament to the principles of faith, and his actions spoke louder than words ever could. I hope that we can all carry forward his legacy, and I know he is looking down on us and telling us to keep working and to always do better, because that's what he always said to me. So, our thoughts are with his wife, Yvonne, his children, and his extended family, and especially his friends in the housing community. He will be deeply missed. And then the last thing that I had to share, and I wasn't going to say anything about this today, I was going to kind of let it pass, but then it actually came up in our earlier conversation, and a slight mention about the fact that there was a meeting yesterday that took place with the Friends of Albert Whitted. And I had a resident, and I had a resident reach out to me yesterday, and I actually ran into them, and they were concerned about the fact that all of City Council, except me, I was not there, just wanted to let everyone know I was not there, because I had a scheduling conflict, no other reason. I was invited to the meeting, that two council members spoke back-to-back on an issue, and from what it was translated was that there was an apparent agreement between that conversation, and because I was not there and was not able to hear this myself, I'm simply bringing it forward because it was a resident concern. And I was asked, as the chair of City Council, to define what our policies and procedures are to this person regarding Sunshine Law and public meetings. And so I just wanted to read for the record, so that if this resident is listening, they can hear, that our policies and procedures state and give guidance around what it means to have discussions in public meetings. So it says, And so, as the council for action, all of the requirements of the Sunshine Law must be met, including providing notice in advance of the event, which did happen, I want everyone to know that did happen, having the event in an area which is open and accessible to the public, and the event did take place at the Hangar Restaurant, and taking minutes. And because I was given this request, I have requested from friends of Albert Whitted, that minutes be provided, so that I can provide those to the resident who was concerned. So I just wanted to bring that out in the Sunshine, for all of us, to make sure that we have a conversation about, if you so feel the need. If you don't feel the need, I completely understand, but I just thought that it was fair that this resident's concern be voiced in the public, and wanted to let that resident know that I will be following up on the taking of those minutes, and make sure that that was done per our policies and procedures, and per the Florida Sunshine Law. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. It was such an honor to attend the Friends of Albert Whitted Airport annual meeting yesterday, and I was very, very proud that six of my colleagues were in attendance. I can assure everyone that any conversation or speaking that was done was not in any way, shape, or form related to a vote that was coming up. I did make a mention of a vote that had been made in the past, but that is allowed when that is something that is done and over with. So, I can assure everyone that there were no violations. I think we've been doing this long enough where we know what we can and can't do, and again, I am just incredibly proud that we had so many people there to support this nonprofit that is doing some amazing work, excuse me, some amazing work for the young people of our community, and introducing them to the world of aviation. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Montaneri? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, it was a wonderful event, and as somebody that's been involved with Albert Whitted Airport for a long time, I was asked to make some remarks, and I kind of talked about my personal aviation history and how airports like Albert Whitted Airport made a big difference in my life, and I talked a little bit about the past and some of the issues that the airport had been dealing with, but it was a wonderful event and a celebration of everything that the Friends of Albert Whitted Airport has been doing, including the 19 scholarships that they've given out that are making a difference in everybody's life, and as somebody that's been on City Council for eight years, I take Sunshine Law very seriously, and I would never say anything in a public meeting, especially with colleagues there that would jeopardize anything to do with the Sunshine Law, so I appreciate you bringing that up. Thank you. Council Vice Chair Vic Sanders? Thank you. Before you brought that up, so you just, you're adding now to my compliment of you. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. Thank you, Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Council Member Montaneri. Thank you, Council Member Hanowitz. You last. Thank you, Council Member Floyd. Thank you, Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Council Member Driscoll. Because when we sit up here, it's a whole different perspective. It's a whole different world, and we have eight different perspectives, and when we talk about resolutions and proclamations and what it is that we need to do and what we don't need to do, I am so honored to sit among all of this uniqueness. You know, we agree to disagree. We see each other's perspective, and we still yet voice our own opinions without judgment, without taking it outside of these doors, I hope. But I'm more important, I want to thank you, Chair Gabbard, because you take such delicate situations, just like you just, I didn't know that was coming, and you make it very diplomatic, you keep it very objective, and you put it into a place where everybody understands. And that's what it takes in your role as Chair, but more importantly, as your integrity as a Council Member, and for that, you are to be applauded. Yay! So, that was my announcement. I just wanted to thank everybody, because we have some difficult conversations. We have committee meetings right here on the dais. We do. But that's why we're here. And so I know a lot of times, you know, we get stressed, and we take these things home. We take it personal. Let us not. Let us not take it personal. Let us make it that we assure ourselves that that's why we are here, to ask those hard questions and, you know, those hard answers. And we are here as one unified body. I need to do my own resolution now. We need to be a unified body on this dais, because we really do. You know, we have hard work. We have hard work to do. But I just needed us to walk away today knowing that everybody is appreciating. You too, Administrator Gerdes. I like you sometimes. You cool? I feel the same way about myself. We get all set up. And we have the best legal team that you can have in the state of Florida and this nation. We have our clerks. Okay, you guys look sharp today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They are the everyday. But I just want everybody to leave knowing that you are truly valued, and I appreciate all of you. Thank you. All right. Very good. Meeting adjourned. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.