City Council - Nov 06, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair Liseth Kanowitz, District 5, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Cory Gibbons, Jr. and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the November 6, 2025 City Council Meeting. Could we do a roll call, please? Harding. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Big Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Gibbons. Here. Floyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. And Gabbard. Here. Thank you. Okay. We will now have our invocation given today by Pastor Kevin Loughran from Grace Lutheran Church. Then please remain standing for a moment of silence to all honor our fallen first responders and the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me in standing. Pastor, welcome. Thank you so much. And I do bring greetings from Grace Lutheran Church and School, particularly our eighth graders who I was just teaching prior to coming here. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Dear God, our Father in heaven, we give thanks and praise to you for this day, for the body gathered here, for living in a country where we have so many great freedoms. Lord, these freedoms give us the opportunity to thrive, to grow together, to gain a sense of community with people who are different and yet wonderful and glorious in the ways in which they knit a fabric. Lord, I pray that you would be with this assembly today in the decisions that they have to make. I pray that you would keep safe our firefighters, our police officers, our first responders, that you would be with the families of those who are fallen as well when we commemorate to them. Lord, bless the work done here today and always in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen. Please join me in a moment of silence for Officer Gene 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. Thank you. Please be seated. Pastor, thank you for joining us and thank you for that beautiful invocation. I second. Thank you. Thank you. Back at you. Okay. Council members, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the agenda. Seeing as no council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Council members, we have a consent agenda. Clerk, do we have any cards? Cards, Mr. Chair. Okay. We have a consent agenda, council members. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda. Seeing as no council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Okay. We're going to move into open forum. Clerk, could you please read the rules? If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Excuse me. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the city of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the items come 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 it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and ask to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute 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, Mr. Chair, we do have speakers. Okay. Let's call two at a time, please. First two speakers, Dr. Perry Washington and Brad McCoy. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Mike, are you okay? Mike. Why do we need that? Both of them? Just up, wait. Oh, wait. Tessie. Go ahead, Dr. Washington. You said my name. I live in St. Petersburg. I'm here to address Corey Gibbons, Jr. Dr. Washington, please give us your cross streets. Fifth Street North and Second Avenue. Thank you. Will not give you my living address. Never. Corey Gibbons. I've been here every month that you've been in an office. You've not called me and addressed the OPP problem I have with the city police. You never called me. You never sent me a letter. But I've been here. You took my money and you bought new suits. You get rid of that scary curl in your hair. All that gillers ain't gold. Open your mouth. We'll see. It's shine. Silver. Obamacare took care of that for you. You have never addressed the problem with the city police. When are you all going to do something? First, you need to search for information. But I brought it to you. You need to translate it. Then articulate it. You're sitting in the building. I designed this building. But not named, but not on it. But no one knows what I know about this building but me. I was put in jail 12 hours before my 67th birthday. I stood. Seven and a half months later, I told three attorneys. Tell them to drop it. Guess what they did at the final hour? They dropped it. But you never called me. How are you doing, Mike? That's the only man that spoke to me on his own. Thank you, Dr. Washington. Go ahead. Good afternoon. Brad McCoy, 1856, Elmeria Way South. I stood here last year warning this council that the city's public records practices were out of compliance with Florida law. I have read your employee handbook, administrative policies, Florida statutes, attorney general opinions, and relevant case law. I've also filed hundreds of public records requests and documented the failures firsthand. Since last year, the situation has become dramatically worse. Requests now sit open for months and even over a year. Records marked complete or missing documents. I'm routinely told records don't exist, and only after I push back, cite state law, or point out contradictions, the city suddenly discovers records and then tries to charge me extraordinary fees to retrieve them. Council member Deborah Fick-Sanders states certain text messages about official business do not exist. That is a flat-out lie. After I challenged that denial, the city clerk stated that the records do exist and informed me that I would have to pay for them. That is not a misunderstanding. That is a violation of transparency and a violation of Chapter 119. Just this morning, the city clerk sent me a payment request for redaction without knowing exactly how many exemptions exist. How can anyone calculate redaction time without knowing how many exemptions exist? It's illogical and it's unlawful. These repeated violations are not clerical errors. They are systemic and deliberate, and they raise serious questions. Why is the city working so hard to avoid transparency? What exactly is being hidden? Even the mayor refuses to provide the simplest of records, his schedule, his emails, his communications, and even basic expense details. The refusals are constant. The delays appear intentional. The fees are being used as a deterrent to keep the public from understanding what is happening in City Hall. Now we have a senior staff departure, Brian Caper. While the city has no functioning archiving policy for text messages and other digital communications, I have already requested his text of official business. Based on the city's pattern of behavior, I expect that request will be ignored or denied as well because you don't properly archive them. Let me remind you, knowingly violating Florida's public record laws carry penalties, civil, financial, criminal. Falsely denying the existence of a record is a violation. Charging excessive fees is a violation. Failing to preserve public records is a violation, including text messages. It's all a violation. And the absence of archiving policy for these communications is another violation. Last week I filed what will be the first or may be the first of many lawsuits. The case addresses only one of many violations I've documented over the past 18 months. I will take every action necessary to compel compliance with this behavior. You can choose to fix this now or continue towards more lawsuits, more public embarrassment, and more erosion of trust. I am demanding this council take action immediately. By reviewing all city policies against state law to identify contradictions and gaps, create an archival system that allows easy retrieval of records, analyzing all denials and all requests marked no records exist, establishing a clear and lawful standard for when and how fees are assessed, and creating a mandatory archiving policy for all records, including text messages. We deserve more from this government, not hiding, delaying, or deceiving. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Next speaker, Mr. Chair, and final speaker, Peter Belmont. Mr. Belmont, please go to either point. I'll state your name and address for the rest. Good afternoon. Peter Belmont, 103 Wildwood Lane Southeast, and it's nice to see you all again. We know that we're a very pedestrian-oriented city, and I just want to briefly raise an issue that I was surprised at. We've won many tree awards for our city. And as I was walking downtown, I was just somewhat struck and dumbfounded, actually, when I looked across at the big new 400 Central Building and the streetscape. And it's such a stark contrast between across the street and the oak trees next to the Snell Building and the new 400 Building and the palm trees. And so I would just ask, can we do better? I think as, you know, summer rolls around and people have a choice which side of the street they're going to walk down, it's going to be the shady side, not the side with the small palm trees. So thank you, and let's do better. No more speakers, Mr. Chair. Okay, we'll go ahead and close open forum, and we're going to move into I-1, and I'll turn it over to McCall. Sorry, McCall, I was looking for you up here. Yeah, good afternoon, Council. So we're here as part of a procedural process for projects seeking tax-exempt bond financing. So the city has a health facilities authority. We created that authority back in the early 80s. The authority conducted the required TEFRA hearing on October 21st, and they requested that city council approve the attached resolution before you. Section 174F of the Internal Revenue Code requires that tax-exempt private activity bonds require your approval where the facility that the improvements are going to occur is located. So these improvements are going to occur at John Hopkins Hospital Campus at 501 6th Avenue South. We're looking to spend about $70 million. They're going to be doing a pathway expansion for the emergency room department, an expansion of the current surgery platform, the addition of the addition of an impermanent MRI imaging department, and the placement of a steam line running from their central plant to the main hospital. And with that, the authority would, you know, request your approval solely for the purposes of 174F of the Internal Revenue Code, the issuance by the Maryland Health and Higher Education Authority's facility. They will be the issuance of the bonds, the John Hopkins Health Facility System Series 2025, in order to finance and refinance the acquisition, the construction, the expansion, the renovation, and the equipping of the John Hopkins All Children's Campus here in St. Petersburg. Move for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. I wasn't sure which button you were... Go ahead, Vice Chair. I just, for those... McCall, thank you for the explanation. Just to make it clear for those that may not understand what's happening, just, we're not paying any of this money. Correct. This is something that we have to do, and we just have to approve. Correct. That's all I wanted to just put out there in very simple and... 100% correct. And I did want to mention that we have representatives from the hospital and the authorities, bond counsel, Bryant Miller-Olive, we have representatives there, too. Right. That's... That's... No, it's fine. I just wanted to make sure that the public understood that. Thank you. Thank you. Just quickly, very excited for all the Johns Hopkins All-Childrens staff in the room. Very excited for this expansion. I've seen renderings. It's going to be a beautiful addition to the hospital, so thanks for continuing to invest in St. Petersburg and our kids here in the Tampa Bay area. Okay. We have a motion and a second on I-1, seeing as no other council members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please town and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve with your item, I-1, passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, McCall. All right. We're going to go into E-1. Clerk, could you please read the title? Yes, sir. Opposed ordinance number 141HL. In ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, designating the first church of the Nazarene, located at 1225 9th Avenue North, as a local historic landmark, and adding the property to the St. Petersburg register of historic places pursuant to Section 16.30.070, City Code, and providing an effective date. The public hearing for this item is on November 13th, and we do not have any cars, Mr. Chair. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on E-1. Seeing as no council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, a motion to approve of genitum E-1 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to go into E-2. Could you please read the ordinance? Opposed ordinance number 623H, an ordinance in accordance with Section 1.02, subsection C, subsection 3 of the St. Petersburg City Charter, authorizing the grant of a public utility easement to Duke Energy, Florida, LLC. A Florida limited liability company, DBA Duke Energy, within city-owned property located at 1160 62nd Avenue, Northeast, St. Petersburg, Florida, authorizing the mayor or his designee to execute all documents necessary to effectuate this ordinance and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also on November 13th, and we do not have any cars, Mr. Chair. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on E-2. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, a motion to approve of genitum E-2 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to E-3. Could you please read the title? Opposed ordinance number 621H, an ordinance enacting year-end appropriation adjustments for fiscal year 2025 for the operating budget and capital improvement program budget and adjustments to the fiscal year 2026 budget and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is scheduled on November 24th, 2025, and we do not have any cars, Mr. Chair. And council members, we reviewed this today at BF&T, and I told Liz that we did not require a presentation because chances are the numbers will change by the time second reading comes along. So I just wanted to give you that heads up. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on E-3. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, a motion to approve of John E-3. Passes unanimously. Thanks, Liz. Okay. We're going to go into E-4. Please read the title. Ordinance number 1175V, an ordinance approving the vacation of an unimproved isolated 25-by-60-foot dead end right away on the southern side of block 1, lot 1, in the Maximo Woods Unit 1 Platt, generally located at 3010 58th Avenue South, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective in providing for an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is on December 4th, 2025, and we do not have any cards, Mr. Chair. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on E-4. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve adjournment, E-4 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to move into E-5. Could you please read the title? Opposed ordinance number 1176V. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. All right. It's a lot of them. There's no judgment. In a face. In an ordinance approving the vacation of a street corner easement at the southeast corner of lot one, excuse me, in the power central park block, 16 partial replat, generally located at 3601 1st Avenue North, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date, and the public hearing for this item is also scheduled for December 4th, 2025, and we do not have any cards, Mr. Chair. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on E-5. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve of E-5 passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's go on to E-6. Last but not least, could you please read the title? Opposed ordinance number 624H, an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending city code chapter 8 to add a new section 8-38 milestone inspections, providing definitions for milestone inspection, qualified building, and substantial structure deterioration, providing for an inspection schedule, providing for consistency with state law, prescribing timelines and penalties to ensure compliance, amending, excuse me, amending section 12-6 to add milestone inspections, inspection fees, providing for servability and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also scheduled for December 4th, 2025, and we do not have any cars, Mr. Chair. We have a motion and a second on E-6. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Council member Gibbons. My man, I'm sorry. It's all right. Thank you. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve of E-6 passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. All right. Now we're going to move into reports, and this is F1, your neighborhood produce store. This is an item I brought forward, although I will apologize to Council member Gibbons because it is in his district, but I drive by it every day. And so I want to invite Kelly Casto, the founder of your neighborhood produce store, to come and just give us an update on what she's got going on over there and all the cool stuff that's going on. Oh, okay. All right. Can I just talk or do I have to do this? Can I just chat or do I have to follow this along? You can do both. So I'm Kelly Casto. I'm the founder of Saving Our Seniors, which is a local nonprofit. We have given out over 96,000 seniors fresh produce. I don't believe in donated food. I believe everyone should have the basic right to be able to choose what they want. We run free markets around town. After the hurricanes, I started helping local families to get fresh vegetables and different items. And through that process, I really saw that there was a need for affordable fresh produce for people to come and shop at. So I kind of, I don't know, I guess I prayed to God kind of and asked him where I should go. And I landed on 132, 49th Street South. Kind of, I think it's a great area because I have golf board. I have St. Pete. I have various areas. And I have a lot of individuals and families that are struggling to put food on their plates because they just can't afford it. So I did a video the other day that a family of three can come and shop at my produce store and get eight meals for less than $27. I don't know where else you can do that. I know you can't. But if you want to maybe go against that I can't, that it's not true, please send me your information. But I have seen in the last seven months of opening a produce store a lot. And I have learned more things than I ever thought I would learn. My background is in occupational therapy. So you have a stroke, I can make you better. But learning families and issues that they might have, you know, families come in and they're like, I don't even have a working stove. And I'm like, I didn't even think that that was a possibility. So I'm like, well, I can't cook either. So you can eat most of this stuff raw. We started, we would have like an overflow of produce. Even though we're still doing our free markets in the community, I was like, I'm wasting money that I don't have. So I launched a cold press juice line. I took that from literally it was the worst juice I think I've ever tasted to something phenomenal. I sell 250 to 300 juices a week. I just got into Duckweed grocery store. I'm in different gyms across the area. But then I was like, there's still like an overflow of some like zucchini and potatoes and this and that. So what do I do? I asked my friend, Shatchy PT, what can I make out of this? And next week I'm launching a dehydration line of fresh soups, spices, snacks and healthy snacks. So that's what I'm launching next week. And it will be called the healthy pack. I've learned giving out fresh vegetables that are non-donated. I look like the non-traditional food bank. But I think food banks and things serve a vital purpose when you're in a crisis. But I think we lack sustainability in our community. I would love to offer like wellness nights to have families come in and sometimes they don't even know what to do with the food, right? Or they're, it's just overwhelming for them. They're working multiple jobs and they're just not sure what to do. But I will say I worked 115 hours last week and I'm not sick and I feel great because it's what I eat. I drink my juices that don't sell because they should be expired. And I eat my vegetables that should be composted. So I know that our produce store is a new way. It's not the traditional, but I know that we can serve so many people with dignity and choice. And I think no matter where you're at financially, you can come to our store. I'd never hear anyone say, oh my God, I can't afford this. Because they're typically like, are you sure? Like, did you ring it up right, Kelly? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I rang it up. Like, just, you know. So I think we're just a difference, but we are what we should all be doing. There should be a neighborhood produce store in every district because everyone deserves the same access. And I just think that we'll be self-sustainable. I mean, I will say the last six months has been challenging, but we are going to get there because I have the grit and the community drive, and I see the neighbors that I help on a daily basis. A woman, Brenda, that was my mother's name, and I always say you never meet a bad Brenda. And she passed away a few years ago, and this lady came into my store. She runs, she drives the Sunrunner down, and she pops off, and she came into my store, and she only bought like one lemon, and then she walked out, and I was like, well, that was weird, but okay. So then she came back later that day, and then she came back again, and now she's like my best customer. And I, she was actually in my store today, and I said, oh, I'm going to go speak to city council. Like, what should I say? She was like, you gave me hope. She couldn't afford, she made too much money for a food stamp to get EBT, but she didn't make enough to really survive. And she said, like, you make me feel good, and I love the energy. I've, you know, I have homeless individuals that come in, and I would have never known they were homeless, but they were breaking barriers because I'm not going to not help them. Like, if they can't afford the food, I'm still going to give it to them. And that's like through our Wellness Night initiative is to have families come in and get like a $40 voucher and shop at our produce store because I've gotten, like, people have given me food before, and I'm like, I don't even know how to eat that. I'm going to throw it away. I don't even want it. And then, you know, giving them that ability to choose what they want to, like, feed their families is going to make them healthier. It's going to make them happier. You know, I always, families are like, oh, you know, this food makes me feel good. I feed my kids this food. Picky Eaters, we launched a little squeeze line, too. So we have a kids juice line also, and I just think, and we finally got a little corporate sponsor, a little one, for our workforce. We wanted to turn our trailer into a commercial kitchen because I currently pay for one, and I'm like always over the hours. I never knew juicing was so involved. Like, I feel like I'm getting carpal tunnel from pressing so much, but it's okay. It's for the community. Um, but, um, yeah, so we're starting a workforce development program that will be for, like, at-risk youth kids, um, developmentally disabled. Like, after they come age out, like, have something to do, we want to give them certifications. They can either work at, you know, with us, or we, they can go on to, um, something bigger and better. So that's kind of me in a nutshell. I, I recommend coming by and stopping at our store. Um, I did bring, like, a bag, like, this is the, this is, like, the bag of produce that you would get, um, for the $28 for the family of three. But, um, that's kind of me in a nutshell. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Kelly, you've made my day. Oh, good. You've made my day. And I gotta be honest with you, I don't think I'm special. I think, uh, I think you make a lot of people's day. Yeah. Um, first and foremost, will you say your address again? Wait, see. Your address. Oh, my address is 132 49th Street South. And I'm like, I always get confused on East and West. I'm not from here. But I've been here. Okay, perfect. Everything you do is scary. Starting a business is scary. Being an entrepreneur is scary. Having people that work for you is scary. And then, uh, not having a, uh, a giant revenue stream because you're giving it all away is scary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. It's so good to see you again. So, first of all, I wanted you to put the picture at the end where it says thank you. And you could see your store because you had the presentation. And that's her store. It is super cute. And the produce was amazing because I bought produce there. And it was absolutely wonderful. And then you also had some other items that were there. Um, I got some guava, uh, from a 94 year old lady from Bushnell. She makes that. So I support local senior. Like, I know she's not local, but she's 94. Mm-hmm. Her stuff is great. Yeah. So you have some, you have some, some like made, like just freshly made items that I thought were just fantastic. And so I had that. That was great. Um, and your energy that you showed here, that's the energy you get when you visit her store, which is also fantastic. She's wonderful, engaging, you know, the community that comes in and everyone that comes in, you were there helping people. And I thought you're just fantastic. So however we can help, let us know. Thank you. Thank you. God, you made my day. Council member Gabbard. We're not over yet. We're not over. Oh, sorry. We're not in yet. Well, Kelly, thank you so much. Um, it's so great to see you, uh, popped in and saw you back in June. And, um, just, you know, I echo everything that council vice chair Hanowitz said, like your, the product itself, um, is just such high quality and you would never know that you are in a community store, right? Um, your, your produce and all of those other items that you source. Uh, I got some of the pickles. Um, I think they were made by an 80s. They're made from the same lady. Same lady. Okay. Well, her pickles are phenomenal too. Took them home and fed them to my 14 year old and he was very happy. And so I just really want to thank you not only just for, um, what you're doing for the community, but on a personal, uh, level, the education that you gave me that day. Um, you taught me kind of about how you, uh, use the, I think it's the Florida Fresh box and, and you can really take that additional, um, you know, benefit and really help people spread like you saw with how much you can get. I'm with this, I take SNAP, but then I'm also like fresh access. Fresh access. Somebody comes in and they get like a $12 honey. They can get $12 worth of Florida fresh produce. And a lot of families are like, I don't even think about getting honey because it's out of my limit. So it just is great to be able to offer that service. So I just want to thank you, um, for everything you're doing for the community. And I agree, we need a Kelly and a store in every single district in this city. So, um, let's brainstorm. Let's talk about how we can expand, how we can help you. Um, I think you can see you have a lot of support here and, uh, we just want to thank you so much for, for being you. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Gibbons. Thank you, chair. Well, you are in my district, Kelly, very fortunate to have you. And I'm so grateful that our paths have crossed and that you're working so hard. You know, we, we had the conversation and I talked about food banks and food pantries. And, you know, you, you told me, you made it clear. You said, council member, I am the non-traditional food bank model. And I love what you do. Um, people don't realize it, but you're a business on wheels. You know, you're out there delivering groceries to those folks who, you know, in the middle of this federal government shutdown, who do not receive EBT snap assistance, you are making sure they have access to healthy and nutritious food during these uncertain times. So I thank you so much, um, for your labors. They are not in vain. Um, you know, to council member Gabbert's point, um, I'm already thinking outside of the box, you know, and I'm looking back there at my friend, uh, Mr. Lundy, and I'm thinking about how we can get her over there at some of our properties with the St. Petersburg Housing Authority, you know, to be able to teach those families, some of those seniors at the legacy building, how to eat what you grow, you know, in the gardens that they have there. Um, I really see you taking off from here. So through the ups and the downs and all the growing pains, stay there. You got this girl. So I appreciate what you do, Kelly. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Vic Sanders. Thank you. Well, first of all, I just have to say you are a breath of pressure. Um, your whole personality, your whole light. And I find that to be a part of your, your personality and your characteristics of someone that cares, someone that gives back without expecting. And those are my favorite people in the world. And especially those that take others with you. So as you say, you're 94 year old, your local, um, uh, entrepreneurs that you actually support the whole goal, the whole mission that you've set out on, trust me when I tell you, you're going to keep glowing. You know, now that we know who you are and where you are, I'm going to have to come by 132 49th street South and especially when you say honey, like I'm gone. Well, that's okay. You don't, you don't have to worry about that one. You especially got me when you said the honey, cause I, I use honey for everything. So when I think about, um, your, your mission and what you are doing, $28 for that whole bag. Now, mind you, I'm commending you because I appreciate the value. I don't cook. Right. So that's nothing that I do, but I will support you in other ways. I don't support you. I'll buy some, some, some broccoli and whatnot, but, um, I just, I just have to say thank you because it takes a certain person to want to help others as you're helping yourself and not gain anything personally, other than the satisfaction of knowing that you made an impact. So with that, I say congratulations and thank you. I am going to come by and see you and you don't have to worry cause it's dark at six o'clock. So we, I would do that prior to, um, but then you talked about your compost. I do know that they do accept some compost at our St. Pete youth farm. Um, if you don't want to eat everything that you did. Well, now that I have the other program starting, I probably won't have like any waste. Okay. I will have no waste. Cause I don't want you to waste it. Cause we can definitely use it at the youth farm. Um, but other than that, I, I, again, I, I applaud you. I have a cousin out in LA who's doing just what she, they call it the prosperity market. Oh, okay. Um, so she's doing the same thing. So if we have more people like you making a difference like that, just imagine what type of world this would be. So thank you so much and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. Um, thank you for the presentation and for bringing so much sunshine into the council chambers today. It's just, it's wonderful and refreshing. And, um, I'm really grateful for all that you're doing for the community in the presentation under, um, what your current needs are and what you're, um, looking for here. Um, you talk about city partnership and support, and I'm wondering how this can kind of dove tail with the efforts from healthy St. Pete and Kim Lato's work that she has done. Wondering if you've connected with her. Yeah, I was doing some of the, um, like city of employee wellness. I was doing like through our produce pack, but we just really couldn't get it like off the, off the ground. I think, uh, I think a lot of people don't cook. Right. So, um, I think we're trying to like redo our, our pack program kind of more with our cold press juices and our, um, you know, our dehydration line and then like fresh fruits and vegetables in that sense. Um, I wasn't speak with the healthy St. Pete a while back about doing some like pop-up markets. Um, but we just never could, you know, with the hurricanes and everything, we just never got it off. And then I opened my store. So now I'm trying to realign and get back out there. I would love to see more families to be able to come in and shop, you know, at our store somehow being able to get some support, um, through there, because I know like on Fridays we do a senior day. So I allow 25, the first 25, they come in and shop for, it's like a $12 cause they're one person. So they don't need as much, but typically they're like, Oh, I don't, I don't need that. You know? So, um, you can get like a lot at our store for very little. Yeah. It sounds like it. Um, I'm thinking that a healthy St. Pete could be the angle. Um, and maybe a renewed effort from the city to, um, partner in that way. Cause our little squeeze line too, we were trying to get with like the kids that go home on the weekends and they get their snack pack, like offering them like our six pack of cold pressed juice and some healthy, just to give them some healthy, healthy options. I know when I eat better, I feel better. So their tummies would feel better probably too. Yeah. And it's even more important for the children to have what they need. Um, you listed, um, collaboration on site identification and underserved areas and include, um, um, small business and CRA support for neighborhood expansion. And yes, it would be great to have one in every, in every district and in all of the areas that need it. Um, there could be some opportunities there and I'd love for the administration to explore that, um, or just maybe like a mobile, like a mobile me too, you know, popping up on certain days. Yeah. Um, but there are a couple of developments in the city that, um, have, um, struggled to find a grocer that this could be another, this could be another way. I really love that you have, um, that it's actually a place to shop. I think there's real dignity and exchange. Yeah. Like the seniors, like that was kind of my, cause I know that they're my people, right? So we're, we're, we're besties. They text me all the time and I'm like, let's start this new program and see how it goes. And, you know, in the last three weeks, they're like, Oh, this is just amazing. Like no one ever gives me the option to shop. Like at my free markets, like they can shop, but I pick it out for them because, but it's all fresh, but they've never complained, but to giving them the option to choose the onion or the orange is like amazing to them. I'm yeah. So it's just that, that, I don't know, just makes, I guess I want to choose my own stuff too. So, so the big question is how, what can we do to help get more of this going? So let's, um, keep having that conversation. I'm hoping that the administration will follow up and, um, maybe put a plan together to, um, see what your goals are, what you're looking at doing and how we might be able to help. Okay, great. All right. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Vice chair Hanowitz. So I'm sitting here and I get a text from one of the neighborhood presidents basically saying, how do we get one of her produce stores up here? She's amazing. And I had to share that with you. Um, and I, I can't agree anymore. You know, when we're talking about partnerships, I, you know, I see Mr. Lundy from the St. Pete housing authority here and there are other, there are other people out there where I'm sure you can find some great partnerships. And like, I was thinking just of the neighborhood and they were telling me, well, they're going to be doing a market maybe for the holidays and maybe that's a way also you can get the word out, you know? And so I just want to make sure you know that this is going to, I think, open up opportunities for you in different ways. And I'm hoping there are things that you didn't even imagine. So the last thing I'm going to say is for those that are watching and want to reach her in the, in the presentation, it's the produce pack at gmail.com. Is that your email? Yes. Or that, that cell phone number just. Or the cell phone number. I'm better. It's, I'm better at the cell phone. Okay. That's the way that they should text me. Okay. Well, great. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Kelly, um, this is what I was hoping when we invited you here is that. I didn't know what to expect. One, you'd have seven more one-on-ones to have. Um, and also just the brainstorming of opportunities. Um, when I walked in, I was blown away. And so, um, I'm just so thankful to have you here in St. Petersburg, thankful for all the work that you're doing. And, um, I'm just, I'm, I'm thankful to my colleagues too, because I know they're excited. And I think you're going to, my guess is you're going to have a few text messages after this, uh, for some brainstorming. And so just super excited for you. And we're going to continue to support you however we can. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Right. All right. Council members, we're going to move on to F2 and we're going to talk things. Tampa Bay Ferry, Evan Morey. Welcome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So that's a tough one to follow. We're smiling already. I've got jokes, but I was trying to decide whether to put that at the beginning or the end. I wish you would have put it at the end, but okay. Do we start out like that or do we end? That was great. The ability to take a serious matter and make it entertaining is a true skill. So, um, but this is an exciting topic too. I'm Evan Morey, Director of Transportation and Parking Management. With me today are our ongoing partners and hopefully soon to be even better partners. I'm joined by Brad Miller, CEO of PSTA, Chief Planning and Community Affairs Officer, Darden Rice. And then we also have here in the front row, Tara Hubbard. She's the CEO of Hubbard's Ferry. Clicker. So here's a picture. I'm not sure if you all remember, but the Cross Bay Ferry was actually docked at the peer approach for the pilot season. And here's a picture of it. You can see the Vinoy in the background. The initial investment for that trial was $350,000 per local government partner. And there was $300,000 in passenger fares that were collected that also helped pay for the service. Almost 41,000 trips were taken and riders gave the service very high remarks. The pilot demonstrated that there was a good demand for ferry service between St. Pete and Tampa. So what did we learn during the pilot? We learned that most customers were area residents, not tourists. We learned that the ferry was good for local businesses. Specifically, people would spend over $40 when they would visit. And while the ride can be part of the experience, that was only the main reason for one out of five people surveyed to take the trip. Two-thirds of rides were induced trips and one-third were replacement trips for other means of transportation. So that means a third of the time you're reducing car trips. The other two-thirds of the time, you're stimulating the economy. Fair payment data showed that riders came from almost every zip code in both Pinellas and Hillsborough County. So we had widespread usage. And after the pilot's conclusion, St. Petersburg continued being the lead government agency overseeing the ferry from 2018 through 2021. Then Hillsborough County took over as the lead because there were plans for major expansion in Hillsborough County. However, those plans did not come to fruition. And here in this picture, you can see the ferry once it moved over to the temporary dock by Bayshore. Looking at another year that was not too long ago, we had a nine-month-long season two seasons ago. And over three-quarters of a million dollars was collected in passenger fares with a nine-month season, 63,000 trips between the Convention Center and Tampa, which you can see pictured above, and Port St. Pete that you can see pictured below. And here we can see the ferry encountered some rough waters earlier this year. In 2024 and 2025, it was supposed to be our first full year-round service. However, the operator went through bankruptcy restructuring and ownership change and eventually lost control of the vessel. And this resulted in a default of the contract with Hillsborough County and early into the season. Last year, we had some assistance from Fort Pinellas. They commissioned a market demand study. And the results showed that 83% of the statistically valid survey, 83% of the respondents were somewhat or very likely to use waterborne transportation services. And while we know that some people like to use the ferry to attend events such as hockey games or baseball games, the majority of people were using it as a true transportation service between the two cities to conduct all sorts of different activities. Also, through this survey, we learned that the sweet spot or the best rate or fare would be $10, and recently we've been charging $12. So if we lower the fare by a couple dollars, we can expect more ridership. So the exciting part, we have a new approach, a new day for the ferry. And we're proposing that instead of having City of St. Pete or Hillsborough County or any of the local governments from county or city perspectives oversee it, let's have the transit operator oversee it. Let's have the award-winning PSTA oversee the ferry service. And that brings a lot of advantages to the table. First off, they've already been able to acquire an almost $5 million grant to buy a ferry vessel or two. And in coordination with the cities, PSTA recently conducted a competitive RFP process. There were four proposals, and Tampa Bay Sea Taxi, which is part of Hubbard's, was ranked, were scored with the most points. And Hubbard's Marina and Tampa Bay Sea Taxi, but the Hubbard's group, is a local company. They've been in the maritime business for almost 100 years, and they've run thousands and thousands of successful ferry and fishing trips. Another more sustainable and straightforward aspect of this new approach is having only two funding partners, City of Tampa and City of St. Pete. And I'm pleased to say that City of Tampa approved this same local agreement this morning. So we were leading, but they beat us to it by just a few hours. And even though there's only two funding partners, it's still affordable for the cities because of the way that this is set up. In all, we have a four times better financial proposition in front of us today now compared to when the service first started for the pilot. And in addition to having year-round service instead of half a year, we anticipate a 20% to 25% increase in the total trips offered. Also, operating expenses will be offset by new revenue streams. We have 50% of the charter advertising and concession revenues can go to help pay for the service, whereas in the old model, the operator kept all those revenues. So in addition to bringing $5 million in federal funds, we can also look to the PSTA to report trips in. And once those trips are reported to the FDA, they'll send revenue back to PSTA for those trips taken that can be reinvested in maintenance and also capital. So that will help in the long term keeping the subsidy down and the service up. So next steps and current timeline, as mentioned, City of Tampa passed this this morning. If City Council approves the item today, then it will go to the PSTA Board Finance Committee on November 19th and ultimately to PSTA's full board for consideration and approval on December 3rd. Some additional steps required before we can get started. Immediately after approval, they'll get to work on finding out what's the best ferry boat or boats or vessels, I should say, for this area. And a few additional steps are required, including requesting approval from City Council for license agreements, as we've done in the past. We're going to bring those back to you in a coming meeting. And the priority is providing a temporary dock in the North Basin along Bayshore Drive, followed by a permanent dock along the Peer Approach. First, we need to go through the steps necessary to amend the City's comprehensive plan, which currently doesn't allow for further marina development in the North Basin. It's our intention, however, to move through that process efficiently so that we can bring back that change in advance of the new ferry vessels being ready for service. And as a last resort, the interlocal agreement does allow us to use the Port St. Pete, but that's really just the last, that's a backup plan. And finally, I wanted to share with you a short email that was forwarded to us from Hillsborough County when the ferry was in the process of ending early. And, of course, many St. Pete residents or Tampa residents who are currently missing the ferry can just drive their car, pay for an Uber. We also have people like this St. Pete resident who had their mobility negatively affected, and I'm excited for the potential of bringing back the opportunity for people, however, or for whatever reason, they want to ride the ferry. And so today we have that opportunity to right the ship and get it back on course, indeed, an even better course. With that, we'll wrap up, and myself and others are available for questions. I've been so excited to talk things water. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Evan and Brad and Darden. We had a meeting already, kind of a one-on-four, I think it was. So I don't have any questions today. I just continue to remain, you know, fully in support of the ferry. I have, you know, been here, I think, through every reiteration of this now, and a few of us have, and it has certainly been a journey. I love the slide that said lessons learned, because we have certainly learned a lot of lessons, but it took all of that to get to where we are today. You know, I still believe in this vision of being a coastal community, a coastal region that utilizes waterborne transit to efficiently get around as another mode of transit, and I know we're going to get there. I know we are. I just think the difference now is that we have the right partners on board. And so with PSTA being the steward, Hubbard's, I mean, Tara, I never really shared this with you before, but I've been on several fishing charters with my family and your family's establishment, and I just know the kind of business that you run and the high standards and the high, you know, just love that you all have for what you do, that is going to pour into this project as well. And so I just feel like we are finally on that path to that year-round service, the permanent dock. I mean, all of the pieces are finally starting to come together. Anybody who doubted us, it's going to be their loss, right, because we are going to make sure that this happens and that this is successful. We're going to be able to look back on this many, many years from now and say, look what we did, and I'm so glad that we persevered. So, Evan, that is much in part to you. You have persevered, so thank you. I'm very, very excited to support this today, and so with that, I would move approval. Second. Okay. Council Member Fix Sanders. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, first of all, Evan, you know, I'm a true ferry champion, and also as being the chair, for those that don't know, of PSTA, this was not an easy end to obtaining this ferry. Please know it was not. And I have little bullets here of so many reasons why we should. Hopefully I don't have to read them all, but as to why we should have the ferry. But I also want to make sure that everyone knows there was a lot of attention played in getting to where we are with this interlocal agreement. There was a lot of conversations that actually had to be had, and so I'm glad that all of my colleagues had those one-on-ones. But I still want to remind everyone we still have a few more steps to go. We have to look at the comprehensive plan that will be coming back to us. We met the hurdle with the Tampa City Council this morning, but we still have to pass PSTA's finance committee. That's going to be – I'm not on the committee, but I'm going to show up that day – on November 19th, as well as the full board on December 3rd. So I know that in the conversations that we've had at PSTA, there is something that I want to ask my colleagues for, if they will entertain me. I know we already have a motion and a second. But a part of the resolution that we have, I would love to offer an amendment to your motion to add something that's in the interlocal agreement into the resolution asking administration to consider the first choice location for the dock at the North Yacht Basin. That was a part of the major conversation, and I want to ensure that when we take this and present this to PSTA, that that is in our resolution, so we can show a strong intent of partnership. And McCall is here to answer any questions. Did we pass these out, McCall? We did not. Okay. I'd be happy to, quickly. Because I want to ensure that we don't miss any, you know, any opportunities to ensure all of our partners the true intent to make sure that we're going to do right by our colleagues, by our constituents. And so you're getting ready to get the underlined – look at that, Brandi, because you made the motion. Just a piece that's under – and it's already in the interlocal agreement. It's already in the interlocal agreement, but I want to be able to do it. Oh, you're just adding it to the resolution. Yeah, I'm just adding it to the resolution. I'm just adding it to the resolution. I'm just going to add a where as clause council. So it's on the second page. It's underlined just to kind of take the language from the interlocal that says the city's going to prioritize providing the vendor use of a docking location in the North Yacht Basin by first providing a temporary dock until a permanent ferry dock near the pier can be considered. So we're just taking the language from page four in the interlocal and adding it to the resolution? Yes, we are. And the intent would be – I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Council Member Big Sanders, is just copying that over to highlight that in the resolution itself rather than it just being in the interlocal. So when we present this to PSTA, we have a little stronger, you know, leg to stand on. Yes, I would accept your amendment, and I will also just add to that. I did have a note here to remind myself that I know there was some conflict maybe with some Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council stuff from way back in the 80s. And as the representative to that board, if there is anything that needs to go before them at any point in time, I would be happy to do so. So just wanted to kind of clear that up as well. So, yes, I accept that amendment. Second. Thank you. Thank you. That's it here. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I'm so glad we're finally at this point. It's been quite a road we've been on with this. But it is a way forward that really sets this ferry service up for greater success than we've ever seen. And it was quite successful before. I cannot wait to see how this performs, how the experience is elevated, and how it grows under the stewardship of PSCA and the Hubbard's folks. We've got the right team in place. We've got a vessel that I'm sure will be on the way soon. And we have an interlocal agreement with our friends from the city of Tampa that we can rely on. I think that it is in the best hands now with just the cities involved. It just makes for better relations between the two cities and removes some of the bureaucracy that's involved when you do have changes. So I'm thrilled about that. I'm very happy. Thank you, Council Member Fix Sanders, for bringing up the North Basin. That really does have to be a priority. And I'm so glad that we're, you know, making it, really making it, making sure it's emphasized in the resolution that we have. The setup there will have two parts to it. And, of course, our next item will be talking about the next steps in the permanent ferry dock that will be in the North Basin at the base of the pier. But in the meantime, we've got a temporary dock that's in the works. And can you please give us a quick update on that process? Sure. So we have our Army Corps permit for the temporary dock along Bayshore. And we are just needing to make the same plan to change to the comprehensive plan that we need for the permanent dock in order to put it in. And we also want to pretty soon we're going to know a little bit more about what vessel or vessels we're going to bring. We just want to make sure that final design accommodates the vessels. You know, there's side loading vessels, there's front loading vessels, there's 80-foot vessels, there's 100-foot vessels. We're not sure exactly what we're going to get yet. But we've been working, you know, behind the scenes to try to get that as ready as possible. And once that hits the streets, hopefully we can bring that in in a matter of just a few months. That's great. That's great. That part has been, it's the biggest issue, really, that I've heard from people is, you know, why is it at the port? Why can't we, you know, bring it back down to near the Vinoy? So it sounds like we'll be able to meet those expectations. What kind of a timeline are we looking at here? If this, when this passes and when it passes through the two PSTA rounds, what can we expect next? I think I'll ask our partners to come up because they kind of steer the next part of it in terms of the vessel acquisition and launch, if you don't mind, Brad. Good afternoon. Hello, Captain Miller. Hello, Captain Miller. My first mate, Evan. As you said, Evan has been along for this ride and pushing even me along this for a while now. But it's been very great to work with him through all this. And as Councilwoman Figg Center said, it's been a road to get here or, you know, smooth, not totally smooth seas, I would guess. But we're here and we're very grateful to be here. As far as the timeline goes, I mean, I have given out my vision to the Hubbards and to Evan that if this is all going to go perfectly well, Tara and her family is going to go find two awesome vessels, ferry boats, in a very short time. And they're going to be perfect, and they're going to be, you know, maintenance-free, and they're going to cost less than the $4.8 million federal grant that we have. That is the optimal scenario. And then we will obviously have to get those to the Tampa Bay area, and then we can start operating the service. And in parallel, as Evan has just described, we can hopefully work with you on ensuring that we get the approvals to get the docks installed in the Vinoy Basin. So best-case scenario, maybe this spring or late spring, we could maybe, if we can do that. There may be the need to start out with one vessel and then go to two ultimately. We'll just have to see. But hopefully in the next year we'll be up and running again, is my goal at least. Excellent. Yeah. That's great. And I also want to just compliment everyone who's been involved in really finding the facts around who rides this and why, who uses the ferry and why, and has really, I think, eliminated that idea that this is just like a joyride thing for tourists. It is so much more than that. And with this operating year-round, with us having, you know, if we have two vessels and we're able to increase frequency and really build on this the way we have always wanted to, it's going to serve many more people in many different ways. So we already, many of us already knew that this was more than just a tourist attraction. And the way that you have this set up now, it's going to be, become more and more thought of as just a practical way to get across the bay. So thank you for all the, and thank you to Ford Pinellas for all of the work that's been done to, to really establish those truths. So congratulations on a lot of hard work and a fantastic agreement that you're bringing forward. I'm super excited to support it now and also when it gets to PSTA. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Evan. Thank you, Brad. You know, Tara, the entire team for your hard work and your dedication. Just to end on a high note, although it's still early, I definitely appreciate you all literally riding the wave out, enduring the highs and the lows of the tidal waves that's come, and that will come. But I'm certain that, you know, we have the right people really steering the ship. So I appreciate all you guys and your hard work. I look at this as an opportunity for us to really reduce the cars that we have on the road, for us to stimulate the economy. There are a lot of us who aren't tourists, who are residents that rely on the ferry to go back and forth from here to downtown Tampa, Channel Side. And this is a great opportunity for us to really support businesses on both sides of the bridge. And I'm excited to see that happen. And a great opportunity for us to really support a business here in our community that's been around for longer than a century. And I'm excited to see this really take you, Altera, to the next level. I do want to bring up something that we mentioned in our one-on-one, Evan, and it's something that has been a concern of mine and others in the community. Ever since the Clearwater Ferry accident, safety has been a primary concern of a lot of folks who are out there on their boats. So with that, have we considered insurance liability concerns? Can we talk about that a little bit? What extra measures are we taking this go-around just to make sure that the city's eliminated any liability or risk? Sure. Let me first – I think we've mitigated the risk in two main ways. First is myself and other people on the Valuation Committee really looked at the proposals for what's the safety plan, what's the track record. And one thing that Hubbard's brings to the table is a very good safety track record. They've never had a major incident. And I thought to myself, if you look at the risk profile for what Hubbard's does and what we're asking them to do and what they do with taking people on overnight trips 80 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico and bringing all the people back safely year after year after year, right across the bay is nothing compared to that. It'll be, you know, from a risk perspective, they can handle that in their sleep. And then secondly, PSDA really tackled the insurance and indemnity very well. The insurance requirements are high. We had our risk management folks look at it, and they were satisfied, maybe more than satisfied. So I think from a contractual perspective – and thank you to the city attorney's office for that. I mean, if we're going to say thanks for the hard work, we can't forget the city attorney's office and McCall Dyer and other attorneys who've worked really hard on this, we're ready for the September meeting. It took a lot of work. But I think we have everything covered very well, Councilmember. And to your point, that was what I was trying to make, is I think you guys have covered all the bases. I think Hubbard's has a great track record. If you look at risk profile, you all have the experience. And so if there is anyone who is credible and eligible to operate this ferry service, it's Hubbard's. So thank you so much, Evan. Thank you all for your hard work, and I'm excited to ride again. So thank you, Chair. Thank you. Before I make any comments, are there any more water puns? I thought I'd check in. I know, son. We'll put it back to you. Well, Evan, thank you so much for getting us to this point. Thanks to PSTA for being a fantastic partner, and thank you to Hubbard's. And, Evan, thanks for talking about kind of the differences in trips that Hubbard's is used to doing. The only thing I might add is not only do they go 80 to 100 miles out, then they'll stay for 36 hours out there. And so it's a different animal for sure. And so the other thing I wanted to point out really quickly about Hubbard's is, and I don't know if it pops up into my feed or anybody else's, but what I think they do really well here in the Tampa Bay area is market. They have podcasts, they're on the news, they're on the radio, they're talking about all the things they're doing. That is only going to enhance the ridership on this. And so I know I'm echoing everything everybody else has said about having the right partners, but there's so many levels to it, layers to it, that I just wanted to bring that one up as well. So, Evan, thanks so much for all your work on this. And, again, thank you to all of our partners looking forward to getting this through. Okay, we've got a motion and a second on an amended F2. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve the amended item for F2. Pass it unanimously. Thank you so much. All right, we're going to move into F10, which is talking about the dock for the ferry. And this was pulled by Council Member Driscoll, so I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Driscoll before we go to Brzez. Thank you. And thank you, Raj, for coming to talk about this. You know, I have been asking about the ferry dock since 2020 when we're about to open the new pier, and we had to do that without a ferry dock, which was in the original plan. And so I've been asking about it ever since then. Having just passed this interlocal agreement to start the Tampa Bay Ferry again, I think this is great timing. I'm, you know, well, a little late, but, you know, so great timing, to really talk about what this is going to look like and how, like, where you are in the process, what your timeline looks like, because although I'm happy that Evan is moving forward with securing a temporary dock, we really do need a long-term solution, not just for the Tampa Bay Ferry, but for other vessels that we're currently not able to accommodate, like the Tall Ship Links and other educational vessels, things like that. So what I have always been hoping for is a dock, maybe two, that can accommodate not just the ferry, but these other ones. And so Brej and I have had some conversations about what that might look like. I am really happy with where this is going. And so I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of what is moving forward as we look ahead to the future of the Tampa Bay Ferry. And this dockage situation. Good day, Council. Thank you, Council Member. Honestly, a pleasure to be here today, at British Primary Engineering and Capital Improvements Department. And thank you for pulling this item, because it is a tremendous step forward. It's something that is needed operationally to support, as well as for the community. So back in February of 2025, the city completed actually a very important part. Of this work, the sighting report, which identified the location, the most appropriate location. While there were several locations identified, the North Basin along the seawall adjacent to the pier was identified as a prime location for the placement of the dock. Now, this task order that we're bringing today would suffice on checking off a few items for us. One of the key elements in the permitting of the temporary docks for the ferry itself with the Army Corps was the objective that we need to initiate the permanent steps for the ferry, the permanent dock. So with this task order, we'll be checking that off and moving forward. Now, there are other elements related to this. Knowing that we will be also pursuing the possibility for federal funding, at some point I'll be coming back to Council, quite possibly as an amendment to this task order, because with federal funding, we will be required to do a NEPA certification. And we don't want to get too far in the design that we may invalidate things that we should have conducted part of the NEPA evaluation process. So as we talk about the actual dock configuration, those are also items that we will be continuing to work with our partners on to identify because we don't have the exact specifications on those boats yet. We don't know what's the loading height. We don't know exactly how long. Is it loading from front to side? Those are specifics we have to work through. We did place this at the deepest location in the vicinity of where we're placing this dock. It's about 12 feet of depth. Believe it or not, it's actually that deep in certain locations in that north basin. So now, unfortunately, I'm not a boater, so I'll stay away from the boating ponds and the water ponds of anything of that nature. But objectively, looking at the design, while we can't talk about two docks or one dock, it's really what is the operational intent of that asset. What is the maximum amount and what type and lengths of boats are we planning to have there at any given time? That will decide our boat dock configuration, whether it be a longer dock, a longer L-shaped dock, or even possibly a two. But we have to be careful with two docks because we do have to have that navigational access in between. So it's not that we are not there, but as we finalize the criteria, we'll come back with that amendment to move forward to finalized design. But at least we can get started on some key elements right now. The seagrass study is done, and we can start the preliminary improvement conversations as well. And with that, I will take any questions. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about what the dock will look like? The first thing people think about is a skinny pier type or a skinny finger-like dock that goes out. It's quite narrow. But you've got something else in mind, don't you? Yes, we do. Thank you for bringing that up. We're actually looking at a larger, wider platform steel structure floating barge style, which offers more stability and better longevity, especially based on the water and the tidal conditions and the wave impact conditions on that north basin. Now, I have spent some time at some of our marinas doing inspections. And to me, honestly, as I'm walking through, you do feel that sense of narrowing as you're walking through those sections. You have the hoses there. You have the power cables. And ultimately, there will be people with wheelchairs coming to this facility. So having that additional platform with that stable base and ability to load on both directions gives us that additional safety and stability as well. Thank you for that question. Thank you. And if we have the opportunity to bring back the tall ship links, which was so popular before, would that, we know that physically you could have the ferry on one side and the tall ship on the other side, but can they both be operational and accepting guests at the same time? Is it wide enough for that? And is there? It will be wide enough to have operations on both sides. That is the intent. Okay, great. So since our friends from PSCA are still here, I wanted to make sure that they understand, too, like what we have to look forward to. And then planning this one, depending on what kind of vessel the Hubbard's got for the Tampa Bay Ferry, you might be able to accommodate up to three vessels at a time. And it depends on the length of it, too, right? So we'll be working early in this design phase to actually confirm what the criteria is. Are we looking at 260-foot boats on one side and 120-foot boats on the other side? Really defining what is the maximum occupational capacity we need there, and that's what we'll design for. Okay. And then down the road, I mean, I could see looking into the future, maybe we would want to add a second dock as activity grows and good opportunities come in. How can you create infrastructure now, like while you're in there, can you make it sort of ready for another dock? Well. For down the road. You know what I mean? I'm going to take a little time travel first. Ah. So talk about getting ready for another dock. Council was gracious when we were building the pair, and I'll say seven years ago. And one of the amendments that we brought to Council was we, in the pair approach section, we constructed and we put in the fire hydrants on the north side, specifically knowing that in the future we will have docks at this location. We also ran the conduits for the power there as well. So, yes, we always plan for the future in every, as much as we can. You know, what's practical in the future, these are items we knew. So our water supply is there already. We already have two water connections with hydrants already at that location. We may have to cut the sidewalk at those locations to get it to the seawall, but it's there. The conduit runs already there for the power supply. And now looking forward from this point now to what will happen if we do need additional capacity in the future. So that's very important because we started to get into this, I'll say, a narrowing point. We want a wide enough barge for stability, but we also have to take into context we're placing that barge at the deepest part of that basin. So it's tapering up. If we plan for other barges in the future, we will have to know operationally that it will have shallower drafts. So it's not that it can't go in the future. The seawall was designed also for ship impact, so we can add additional docks. But then we get to that point, okay, if we have a 120-foot dock, our ship, on that dock, and then we have to put another dock next to it, there has to be enough room for operational movement within it. So now we're looking at probably 200 feet away to put another dock. So we start to get limitations on our way. So those are things we'll have to take into perspective because we also have to make sure we don't want those ships to go too far off into the shallower sections as well. So as part of the planning process, we'll define, because that will be the defining criteria is what can, and I can't tell you how many times we get asked these questions is, hey, with this dock or with this location or with this bridge, can I drive this type of structure over it, or can I have this type of item even for the port? What if we have this type of barge docked at that? Can the seawall handle it? But in this situation, we'll define that criteria up front. So operationally, they know what they can advertise for. Operationally, they know what they can accept. Okay. But very good questions. Thank you. I'm glad you're already looking out into the future, so thank you for that. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay. We have F10. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on F10. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a unanimous F10 passes unanimously. Thanks, Brej. Thank you. Okay. We're going to move into F3, and we're going to welcome Mark Van Lue. Good afternoon, council members. Council Chair, good to be here this afternoon. I have item F3, which is the city's local government area of opportunity funding. I don't have a presentation for this, but I think everybody's pretty familiar with this process. This is the funding that we can commit to a project seeking 9% tax credit financing. We're only allowed to provide that funding support to one project in each funding cycle. We typically do that through an RFP process that is competitive. We assemble across department committee to review and score and evaluate those proposals and ultimately recommend approval of one. In this case, we're recommending approval of the Archway Partners project called Wimbish Court. It's located at 2025 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue South, Street South, and we would like to recommend approval of this, commitment of this funding to that project for this funding cycle. Okay. Thank you. Approval. Sorry. I'm sorry, Councilmember Gavins. No. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And thank you, Mark, for providing all the back of information. I'm probably going to have to sit with you to kind of go through what the process is because I do have some questions regarding it. And just like some of the things I'll point out, you know, in the application, it says the city may prioritize proposals from applicants who locate the development outside the coastal high hazard area. That's not part of the scoring or anything like that. That is a may, but then there didn't seem to be any kind of evaluation as to whether or not that was the case. Then at the bottom of the evaluation criteria says, in the event of a tie score, the project deemed to offer the best combination of Tina experience, affordability, and likelihood of award will be selected. And I think the way you kind of score this sometimes, those may not be the top things that may move the score. And we can kind of talk about it. So I just, I want to kind of take the time to kind of go through it real quick because I was kind of confused with even some of the comments and stuff from the evaluators. Yeah, I'm happy to sit down and talk, and we're always open to input and feedback on the process. This is the process that's been in use for a while now, but we definitely want to take a look at that each time. And if we can make improvements, we're happy to do so. Yeah, and it's, I really haven't had a chance to kind of look at it, so it's kind of my first reaction when I kind of just looked at it for the first time around, so. Yeah, we value your input. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons, did you have anything? I'm okay now, Chair. Okay. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion and a second on F3. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to a passage and item F3 passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Okay, we're going to go into F4. Mark, second at bat. Hi, again. This item is requesting an extension to the project placed in service date for the St. Vincent DePaul Ability Homes project. This project is well into construction at this point. Construction began last year, and a significant communications cable was located within the site construction area that required the participation of Duke Energy to resolve and to deal with that cable. It all hit right after the storms as to when that work was to be completed. Duke Energy was obviously delayed on a lot of things due to response to the storms, so that was the primary factor that put the construction schedule behind. They are anticipating completion of construction by next summer, and they're requesting a one-year extension on the placed-in-service date to December 31st of 2026, and we are confident that this project has American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds in it. We're confident that they will meet their expenditure deadline so that we can meet our expenditure deadline on those funds. This is going out to the actual placed-in-service and lease update, so that's the request that we're asking today. Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second on F4. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, a motion to approve agenda of F4 passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Okay, we're going to go to F5. Mark's going to stay with us. A third time. So this third item that I have today is two parts. The first part, it involves the St. Pete Housing Authority, Ed White. Project, and the first part of this is really just a clarification. As this project has evolved over the past couple of years, a few years, there have been a couple of changes to the affordability levels and unit count. So I just want to make sure that it's clear and that we're all on the same page. So the project originally was 70 units at 60% or below AMI levels. And through the process of securing their financing for the project outside of the city support, council did approve back in 2023 the move from 70 units to 70 units comprised of 14 units at 80% AMI, 14 units at 60% or below, and 42 units at 30% AMI or below. So that really hasn't changed other than the move was made to go from 70 to 71 units in order to take advantage of some tax programs that are out there for projects over 70 units. And so that just changed the math, and so that just changed the math a little bit in terms of the percentage. So now the final count is 71 total units. Of that, 15 units will be at 80% AMI or below, 13 units at 60% AMI or below, and 43 units at 30% AMI or below. So I just wanted to provide that information and that clarification in case anybody kind of lost track as we've gone through a couple of changes on that. The second part is a funding sources update. So there is no change to the overall total amount. Thank you. Sorry? They got you. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you're good. I forgot I even had a presentation for this one. Listen, I appreciate you getting right into it. Don't get me wrong. Sorry about that. The total funding amount has not changed. It remains at $8,938,315, but we are recommending changes to the funding sources. So currently, as approved, that total amount would have come from Penny for Pinellas at $6,914,040 and HUD Home Program of $2,024,275. We're proposing to revise those funding sources. First of all, because we've gone a bit down the road from when we previously approved the funding sources, we now have additional Penny for Pinellas funds available. This project represents a great opportunity to utilize those Penny for Pinellas funds, which are sometimes hard to be able to get into multifamily projects. So we wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to use those funds for this worthy project. And then the CDBG and Community Housing Development funds, replacing the Home Program funds, also provides us the opportunity to use these funding sources, these new funding sources that we're proposing on a project that aligns really well with the requirements of that funding. It also makes better use of our expenditure deadlines to make sure we get all of this funding that's available to us out before we would lose any of it due to running out of time. So it's really just a matter of better aligning our funding sources, making sure we hit all of our expenditure deadlines as to why we're requesting this change. So I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay. Council members, any questions? Move for approval. Second. So just so that I am clear, you said it was two parts. The first one was just clarification. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something else. No, that was just informational on that first part. Thank you. Mark, just quickly wanted to say, I just think your office's continued flexibility to match funds where best suited in a time where we're trying to be as efficient as possible with funds. I just very much appreciate it. So just thank you for the continued flexibility in trying to make that work and very excited to see this project continue to move. So thank you for that. And Mr. Lundy, thanks for being here. All right. We've got a motion and a second on F5. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve agenda item F5 passes unanimously. Okay. Thanks, Mark. Thank you. All right. We're going to go into F6. No, excuse me, F7. My apologies. And we're joined by Rich Lesniak. I'm sorry. It's not listed. But yeah, absolutely. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I have requested this report on Albert Whitted Airport and the new hangars that have been proposed. We have one group that had submitted a proposal for new hangars in a slightly different configuration. And with this being a revenue source and an important part of the airport's function, I really wanted to find out where we're at with this and give an opportunity for everyone to have an update and find out where we're going from here and how City Council can help move it along a little bit faster. Thank you for being here. Great. Thank you for inviting me. Richard Lesniak, airport manager. So the presentation that we put together, it's kind of in three different sections. First section, I'll just give you some basic background, kind of just Hangar 101. Then I'll talk about some of the future development potentials. And then finally, I'll talk about the three hangars that were destroyed last year in Milton. So just, again, a little basic background. They're all different types of hangars on airports. These are the general types. Bulk community hangars are typically going to be your large hangars. Usually, they'll have multiple tenants, but you might have a single tenant that controls it, whether it's the airport sponsor or usually it's the fixed base operator. Then we have corporate commercial hangars, and these can range in size up to very large to smaller. Again, they can be single box hangars, or they can be subdivided buildings. Typically, this is going to be a single occupant, whether it's a corporate fleet or some type of commercial operator, aircraft maintenance, aircraft charter, that type of thing. And then finally, we have T hangars. Again, these are buildings that are subdivided into individual stalls or units. Typically, this is going to be to accommodate the smaller end of the aircraft fleet, single engine, sometimes small or medium-sized twin engines. And then, of course, shade hangars are technically just a T hangar without walls, if you want to think about it that way. Currently, at Albert Whitted, we have all four types. Hangar demand. Albert Whitted has historically always enjoyed hangar demand. And essentially, I believe this is for two reasons. Certainly, we're next to a vibrant downtown on the waterfront airport. And then, of course, the state of Florida, St. Pete, Tampa is a continuously growing area, growing population, and certainly a certain segment of that population are aircraft owners. And really, it's a mere, Albert Whitted is a mere reflection of what's happening in the larger areas of the state. Hangar demand remains strong in the state of Florida, particularly in the major metropolitan areas. Tampa Bay Area airports remain largely full. Hangar space wait lists. And the wait list at Albert Whitted has about 200 names on it currently. This is kind of the basic inventory of the airport. I'm not going to go through every individual building, but you can just kind of see, again, we have a mix of all the different types of hangars on the airport, with the vast majority of them centered in the southern half of the property. Hangar revenues. Hangar revenues are the single biggest source, or excuse me, hangar rents are the single biggest source of airport revenues. And I think you would find at most airports like Albert Whitted, that would be the case. At specifically at Albert Whitted, the bulk hangars, T hangars, and shade hangars are managed under an agreement with our fixed-base operator, Shelter, and the city retains 70% of those rental revenues, and the FBO keeps 30 as a management fee. Most of our corporate commercial hangars are currently direct leased with the city, and the hangar revenues account for about 60% of our annual operating budget. And the pre-storm value in FY25 was $960,000. Now, there has been plans to look at future expansion. Again, as we saw, there is heavy demand for hangars. And one of the big issues with Albert Whitted is we are pretty landlocked and do not have a lot of elbow room. However, in 2023, this came out of the master plan we just completed, and we were able to identify some areas where future hangars could be developed. The area in dark blue is what we call the Southwest Hangar Redevelopment Project, which I'll talk about in just a second. And then the hangars in green are a little farther down the planning horizon. And really, those are contingent upon one of two things happening, depending on the location, one being the extension shift of runway 725 to the east, which was arguably the biggest recommendation that came out of the master plan. And then the second thing is the redevelopment of the Albert Whitted Wastewater Treatment Plant site, which, when that project's completed, the north third of that property will be retained by the airport. This is the Southwest Hangar Redevelopment Project that we had done just a few years ago. This was a multi-phased project that included both replacing some of our older structure as well as adding capacity with newer hangars. The design phase for all the phases were completed. And in 2021, we did complete construction on Phase 1, 5, and 6. And ironically, Phase 3, which is the area shaded in blue, that was to replace T-Hanger Buildings 5 and 6, which were two of the three buildings that were destroyed during Milton. So it's a good segue. Hurricane Milton, 2024. I'm sure you've seen these pictures or pictures like them. Three of our T-Hanger Buildings, 5, 6, and 9, were destroyed, and it resulted in a loss of 32 individual units. The buildings have been demoed down to the slabs. And as an interim use, they've been converted in the surface aircraft tie-down spots until such time we can reconstruct new hangars on the site. The gross revenue loss from these was about $275,000. And of that, the city's portion was about $192,000, which represents about 20% of our overall hangar revenues. Now, if an airport is looking to construct new hangars, there are a couple avenues that can be pursued, and this is pretty typical in the industry. You have a public option. So in this case, whether it's a municipal county or sometimes it's an airport authority, we'll choose to look to self-fund the construction. It's going to be done with capital loans, bonds. Sometimes grants are involved. The funding is, you know, certainly it would have the highest upfront capital cost, but certainly it's the highest revenue generation potential. On the kind of opposite end scale, you have a private option. Again, a private entity would build a hangar in exchange for a long-term land lease. The funding generally is going to be the lowest upfront capital cost, but usually it's also the lowest revenue generation potential. The characteristics, the land does get locked up under long-term lease, and usually it's the least favorable for compliance, control, and use of space. And then the last one is kind of public-private, or what we kind of call a hybrid, where you might get a private entity that partners with the public entity, and you have a little more flexibility, and it just really depends on the amount of contribution from each party. Some additional factors that do impact hangar construction on the airport. The first one up there, the city charter restricts land leases on airport property to no more than 25 years. Now, I will say 25 years is certainly a decent amount of time, but in the airport world, leases of 30, 40, even 50 years, especially for major capital projects, is not uncommon. The Southwest Hangar Redevelopment Project, again, as I said, the design for all the phases of that project were completed. However, because it's been a little time, those plans would have to be re-evalued and potentially updated for any building code changes that may have occurred since those were completed. FDOT funding outlook. We've been pretty successful in some of our past projects in being able to leverage FDOT grants. In fact, the phase of the Southwest Hangar Redevelopment Project that we did complete was through FDOT grants. However, the state funding environment has changed since then. The availability of grant funds, the pressure and competition for the funds has increased. Certainly construction costs have increased, and the state has kind of started prioritizing projects. And generally speaking, projects like runway safety is high. Projects like hangars are kind of down on the low-priority side of things. In addition, I was recently advised that this year, the aviation program is going to get a $30 million cut, and next year, $50 million, and another $50 million the following year. So it's kind of a bleak outlook right now. And then finally, this is unique, again, to only the three hangars that were destroyed. There are potential storm funding options. Insurance, the city does have an insurance policy on the airport, and we did get a disbursement of some of those funds, although a lot of them have been used up. They were used for the demolition of the buildings. They were used for the repair of a lot of the adjacent buildings around and some other damage and hurricane-related items. And in addition, we do believe that there will be some more insurance funding dispersed. However, we do not believe at this point that it would be enough to cover the cost of new hangars. And the way it was described to me is like, if you have a 1990 car and you get in an accident, insurance company is not going to give you money for a 2025 car. You're getting the value based on the 1990 car. And two of those hangars were built in, like, 1970. So you can probably see the difference there. In addition, obviously, the city has submitted a lot of damage on multiple city properties, including the airport, to FEMA. These hangars were included in that. At the current time, it's my understanding in terms of timing, how much funding and stuff is still kind of a question mark. But we do believe there will be funding at some point that would come for these. So specific to the actual three hangars that were destroyed, we have multiple options we're looking at. We have a couple different design layouts, and there's actually a couple different funding alternatives. This is the layouts. Before I talk to each one, I just want to give you some overarching comments on them. You'll see there's a estimate, dollar estimate, located next to each. This is a rough order magnitude cost. And basically, these came from two sources. Option number one was from Biltmore Construction, which was the company that did the demolition and repair work out at the airport post-storm. The dollar estimates for option two and option three were done by American Infrastructure Development, which is one of our airport AE consultants. And in fact, they were the same firm that did the design plans for the Southwest Hangar Redevelopment Project. These costs largely keep out soft costs, so it's mostly hard construction costs, and it's based on standard construction design materials. I know post-storm sometimes there's discussions about upgrading, hardening buildings and stuff, and certainly that could be done in this case, but certainly these dollar figures would escalate from what they are shown here. Also, hangar, there's, again, three buildings. Hangar number nine, basically the layout of that building essentially stays the same in all three options. So really the variation between the three is what happens on the site where five and six, building five and six were located. Option one, which is the as-is or maybe was-is is maybe more appropriate, generally is going to be the cheapest, simplest to reconstruct. The one thing, though, it's really only going to accommodate the smaller aircraft fleet mix like it was prior to the storms. Option two, again, this came out of the Southwest Hangar Redevelopment. The design plans were completed for this. It does involve transitioning the buildings into three buildings facing north and south. It does allow for the combination of a slightly larger diverse fleet mix. However, there is a few less individual units than you would have in option one. And then finally, we have the corporate layout option. And this was one that came through one of the proposals from one of the proposals were received. And essentially, you can see it's a pretty big footprint, really fully utilizing the five and six site. It definitely accommodates the largest fleet mix and really, really expands the storage capacity. But certainly there's a much bigger cost difference there. So this is the last slide. So these are the three options or kind of three funding options we have kind of received. Again, just some overarching comments before I go through each, down each column. Both the private and the public-private options are based on loose conceptual proposals. So it's fairly preliminary. Also, you'll notice we did try to do some potential revenue projections. And we chose to look at it out to a 25-year window since the maximum lease term on airport property is 25 years. And then, of course, when we look at 25 years, we did apply an annual escalator to those estimates, like a CPI kind of 3% fixed escalator. So the first option, the public option, again, this would be a City of St. Pete self-funded option. Really, the layout, the city could really pursue any of the three layouts. The proposed funding would be good municipal financing, so bonds, loans, with augmentation from any insurance and or FEMA funding. It does say grant opportunities, but as I just noted, that seems to be kind of a bleak environment right now for state grants. Certainly, there would be no lease term for it since it's self-funded. The potential revenues, the primary revenue source to the city would be the hangar rents. And you can see, because all three options are on the table, you can see there's different revenue projections based on which option would be pursued. And the assumption was also made that we would stay with the current arrangement with the FBO. And you can see the gross revenues is the first number, with the number in parentheses being the city's portion of that. And we basically, and those revenues are based on current rates on the airport, and we did escalate at 5% since these would be brand new buildings. So, second option, this was the proposal that we received, conceptual proposal we received. And it's basically multiple individuals, aircraft owners, tenants, and they're currently being represented through the Friends for Albert Whitted Airport. The basic proposal is the construction of a hangar in exchange for a long-term land lease. They were, again, the original proposer of the option number three layout. So, in this case, the funding would be pooled together by the involved individuals. They'd be looking for a 25-year term, and they did ask about possibly of an additional 25-year option. The revenue sources, this would be basically land rental. And this is a pretty simple calculation. Basically, it's just the current land rental rate at the airport projected out 25 years based on the footprint of the proposed buildings. The last one, arguably the most complex and has the most variables. And if you change one variable, it changes some of the other variables. So, this is what we call kind of the public-private option. And this was based on a conceptual proposal with Shelter Air, a little about Shelter Air. They are our fixed-base operator at the airport. Currently, they have about 20 FBO locations, most in the state of Florida, but I think they have some in Georgia and Texas and elsewhere. But half of what Shelter Air does is hangar development, and they've done hangar development projects all over the state of Florida. Here locally, they've done them at Tampa International, St. Pete Clearwater, Sarasota. So, this is definitely a sandbox they play in quite regularly. Their proposal basically would be to reconstruct the hangars for an extended term and higher portions of the revenues generated for all the new buildings until construction payback is completed. And, again, I think if all things being equal, I think they would prefer option three just because of the fleet mix and because of the large aircraft that could be accommodated. But from a feasibility standard, cost of construction, 25-year lease term from a feasibility equation, option one is really the most, the one they thought was really feasible. They would basically provide either all or a portion of the funding for the construction. So, if the city provided some part of the construction funds, they would fill the gap or they would finance the whole thing. There would be an 8.5% finance fee, and the term is really contingent on how much funding the city contributes. So, what's up there is kind of what I guess I would call a worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario being Shelter fronts all the construction funds. And they retain all the revenue that's generated off the new hangars for construction payback. And it would equate to about 17 years. Now, if the city does contribute money, you can see that for every, say, million dollars the city contributes, it reduces about five years off that term. And then, of course, when the construction payback is done, the hangars revert back to the management fee structure where the city retains the 70% and the FBO keeps the 30%. The primary revenue sources for the city is going to be hangar and both land rents. Regardless of whether the shelter would retain all the revenues on the hangar, it would still be expected that they would pay a land rent for the buildings. Now, there is an option there that if the city wanted to retain a portion of the new revenues generated, that would be possible. However, the term would have to be extended. So, instead of a payback at 17 years, it might be 20 or 25 years, depending on how much percentage of the revenue the city would want to receive during the payback term. So, again, you can see the assumptions. Again, it's worst-case scenario where you'd only be getting land rent. All revenues generated from the hangars is going to payback. And then year 18 to 25, it reverts back to the 70-30 split. But one additional variable on this, too, is that if the city were to receive funding at a later date, say, three years from now, we get money, and that money is given to Shelter. At that point in time, the term and the payback would be recalculated based on the reduced construction amount. So, with that, sorry, I know it was kind of a long-winded last one. Okay. Thank you. Let's go to public comment. Walt Driggers, approach either podium. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Walt Driggers, One Beach Drive, Southeast, St. Petersburg, Florida. Here today with friends of Albert Whitted Airport. This is the first I've seen the entire choices. We came to the city with an opportunity to have what I called a public-private partnership where the group that approached us, they would put up the building, and the city would put up the land. To me, that's public-private partnership because they're going to pay for the building. And the building they proposed to put up is a pre-stressed concrete hurricane-proof hangars, not replacing T hangars that were there, which is part of the other proposals there. It seems to me to make perfect sense that there's no cost, no money out of the city's pocket. We had hoped to have this done. We looked. We started talking about this in August, and we had hoped to have the buildings built and airplanes in there by the end of the year. I was kind of naive, and now we'd kind of like to see it happen by spring. We could have airplanes there. We've had multiple businesses have to move their airplanes off the airport over to St. Pete Clearwater Airport because they have multimillion-dollar airplanes, and they don't want them sitting in the sun. This would take care of that. It would bring those businesses back. It would bring their airplanes back. It would bring the fuel revenues back. It was not addressed by any of that with the funds, with the buildings that would be built by this group. They hold more airplanes. They hold larger airplanes. They use more fuel, and it's a win, win, win for everybody. It's a win for Shelter because they get more fuel sales. It's a win for the city because they get hurricane-proof hangars and don't have to spend anything for it. So it seems to make sense to me. So that would be the option that I would recommend that you would support. Thank you. Tom Sassoon, Joe Giles, please approach either podium, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. I'm Tom Sansone. I live on Beach Drive. I had one of the hangars, one of the aircraft that was in a hangar was destroyed. Most of the other people that are sponsors that have come forward are in the same spot. We've got aircraft that are out. Actually, my aircraft's back at the factory in California getting rebuilt. The idea of these tin hangars just doesn't make sense. We've come up with a design. We've got a design that's done. We've quoted Skanska, the same people that built the pier, that built the new federal appellate courthouse, using the same pre-stressed concrete. That hangar will be there for 100 years. It'll laugh at 175-mile-an-hour hurricanes. That's where I'd like to have my airplane stored. We found individuals that will come forward, put up 100% cash for the lease, for the 25-year lease term up front. We'll be able to use that to pay for things in advance. We'll also be able to finance for some of the people that are not in a position to be able to pay for it cash up front. We'll put together bank loans for them to be able to finance their lease interest. There's nobody taking a profit skim on top of it. There's no cost to the city. What the city gets out of it is a bulletproof hangar, satisfying it. And because we consolidated the sites, we increased a lot more hangar space, too. From a financing standpoint, I will tell you that we've got hard quotes on this from Skanska. It's not a preliminary design. We've got a few details that we would customize for individuals. But hard quotes sitting there right now, financing, we've got people that have raised their hands. I will personally back this up that anybody who doesn't step up, I'll stand for it. So let's help us get our airplanes back. Thank you. I'm Joel Giles. I live at 626 17th Avenue Northeast here in St. Petersburg. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I especially appreciate Council Member Driscoll making the arrangements for the report and this opportunity to speak. I'd like to emphasize three things about the proposal that we've made. First, it's coming to you from a newly created 501c3 that has its tax exemption. We created that structure because our interest is not so much in providing a product for rent, but in improving the airport. I mean, you know about the work that Friends of Albert Whitted has done, the tremendous success that it's had with its documentary. We created this entity to try to put on the ground some of the improvements that the work that Friends of Albert Whitted Airport has done suggests need to be put on the ground. We want to work as a partner with the city, not as a business coming in to make money off of the activities that we would undertake to improve the airport. Second, the product that we're proposing to provide will be a premium product. The hangers that were destroyed were metal hangers. The precast concrete hangers that we're proposing to put up will be far stronger, will survive a Cat 5. Not only is the construction precast concrete much stronger, but they'll have commensurate doors that will survive Cat 5 winds. But besides the quality of construction, each of the hangers will be highly individualized to suit the aircraft owners that will be coming in. They're going to be expecting a much higher degree of fit and finish, so to speak, than is currently available. And we want to provide that because we think that will attract to Albert Whitted Airport a quality of aircraft and a quality of aircraft owner that we do not currently have. It will change the fleet mix for the better. That will benefit our business community. That will benefit our FBO, Shelter Air, and that they'll be able to sell more fuel and perhaps provide more services. Lastly, as for the rent, we're proposing ground lease at firm market value with no sharing with the FBO. So the city would get every penny of the ground rent that would be there. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time and attention. No more speakers, Mr. Chair. Okay. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. Rich, thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to get some clarification. You presented us with a few different options. Are you all currently, I guess, evaluating those options? Like where are you at in a process with those options? Yeah. So, again, I would say it's still preliminary higher level. I don't know that we've dug deep like we prefer this option or this is the option we want. We're still kind of more in general. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Just was trying to get the status. And then I don't know, and since it's preliminary, I could be digging in too much. But on that slide that had maybe the last slide, I don't know if you want to pull it up, the three things side by side, some data from before as well. You know, it shows that basically the, you know, private option, public private option, there's an opportunity for them to fund the creation of the hangers and use the revenue that it generates to pay for the creation of the hangers. But my impression from the public option is that you put the cost to fund the hangers in a previous slide and then projected revenue here, and it doesn't look like that would actually, the projected revenue would pay for the creation of the hangers. Well, so if you're talking option two, yeah, they're not asking for a payback. That's just strictly they would front the money in exchange for a long-term lease. And that's just, but we would get land rent during the term. So that's just a lot. I see that in option two. Yeah, I don't, you know. But in option three, they are, it seems pretty explicit in both of those options that they're saying they're going to use the rents collected from the hangers to pay off the cost of construction. I'm just wondering, like, if it's that, maybe profitable is not the right word, but if there's that much return in it, why are the projections, why is there such a discrepancy in the projections of what the public option would be? Like, it looks like we would not return an equal amount of money over 25 years as to what we would expend based off of what you have projected right here. Or it would be close, and it wouldn't cover debt service. Does that make sense? You mean option one versus option two? Yeah, sorry. No, option one, two, and three. Sorry. I see now that we're getting confused about the option one, two. There's an option one, two, and three. He's talking about layout option one, two, and three. And the cost of those in comparison to the revenue generated doesn't match is what I think Councilmember. That's my impression. I could be mistaken, but that's my rough math. And I just wondered if you could speak to that a little bit. So, yeah. So, I guess if I think I understand what you're asking about is do you generate enough revenues to pay the construction costs back? Is that? Yeah. I mean, would the city if we were to do option one, two, or three? With the city options. So, it really depends on kind of the option. I mean, option three over 25 years, $15.7 million. I'm not sure that would cover the cost of the projected cost anyways of the hanger of option three. Option one, option two. So, yeah. Those are – you can see the – and I do have to note that these revenue projections are pretty conservative. Like, we're getting ready to do a market rates and studies charge. And that's part of what I was – the point in asking the question was because my back of napkin math wasn't – it just wasn't adding up. And I wasn't sure if this was a realistic projection. Why would anyone want to make an investment like this? So, you telling me that it's conservative and that – and also me knowing that this is all very preliminary is helpful. I just wanted to get my head wrapped around that. That's all. I don't ask that question with any other agenda other than making sure I understand. So, okay. All right. I appreciate it. Really, that's all. I would look for much deeper analysis before I was to make a decision. And I think that's where you all are at, too. So, I'll leave it there. If I could just add a point to that. And, Mr. Lesney, please correct me if I'm wrong. But I think in the cost of the public option with the city doing the construction, we've also had the ability potentially for an 87% return on our investment from FEMA reimbursement. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you take that into consideration with the cost of construction versus the revenues? Mm-hmm. Just something else to keep in mind. I did have that in the back of my mind. But I appreciate you bringing it up again because it had gotten shoved further and further to the back as the conversation went on since that was only the beginning. But thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for the presentation. I had to pull it up here because, for some reason, I didn't have it in my binder just to kind of follow through all of the, I guess, kind of confusion with the numbers. I agree. Councilmember Driscoll, first of all, thank you for bringing this report item because I did have a meeting with the Friends of Albert Whitted quite some time ago about, you know, kind of their proposal. And I find that proposal to be very intriguing. I don't know. I mean, you're our subject matter expert, so I will lean on you. A proposal like what they've brought forward, the private option is how you've laid it out here. Is that something that is done in other municipal airports? It is. Okay, so it is not an uncommon option. Okay. I think, for me, our resources are just becoming so depleted. We have so many needs. And I just kind of wonder, like, where that breaking point is for the city to continue to perform all of these major projects by themselves. And if we have an entity here who loves the airport, utilizes the airport, is an expert in the airport, works very closely with you, I guess I don't understand, like, why we would not be actively pursuing to move forward with more exploration on that particular option. Can Rob or James, can you kind of speak to that? Absolutely. Good afternoon, James Corbett, City Development Administrator. So when I met with Mr. Driggers in the middle of August, about three months ago, a little less than three months ago, and they provided the proposal, and I think one of the distinctions that I want to be clear and also make it just to state that city council, and we've kind of tasked enterprise facilities to try to operate our facilities at a reduced or no deficit. So we're looking at return on investment and just how we operate our facilities. That's one of the factors that we consider. So when we met with Friends of Albert Whitted, what I asked them to do, because I agree, I was concerned about our ability, the funding. They were proposing something that didn't cost us any money at all, but we do have an existing relationship with the fixed space operator. So one of the things that I wanted to explore before deciding what was the preferred path to move forward is to speak to Shelter and understand what they would propose or how they would be able to respond to replacing the hangars. And candidly, three months in city time is probably not that long, but candidly, they took longer than I would have liked to get back to give us a response. We recently got this information regarding Shelter's proposal. One of the things with the Friends of Albert Whitted proposal is that while they are paying rent, they're not asking for any money for the construction, our revenue would be limited to the rental of the land exclusively. And so while the longer it goes on, the bigger the gaps shows. So Rich showed you 25 years out, it was stated that the hangars, which I agree they are, they have a much higher standard, could be around for 100 years. After you get past that initial 25 year, whatever the payback period is on the public, private, or even the city option, the difference becomes exponentially higher because at that point, we are collecting revenue from the actual rental versus with their proposal, it's only land and it would only escalate by the cost of land going forward. So I felt like, you know, in three months, I needed to evaluate the three options further. One of the other things I think Council Member Floyd pointed out is we really need to look at these numbers because option three is more expensive. I think that the revenue estimate is too low, like we need to look at what we would actually receive on an on a higher quality, larger hanger. I think we would actually receive more revenue. So the short of it is the the option with Friends of Albert Whitted yields the lowest return. That's basically what it comes down to. It yields the lowest return while there is no upfront cost to us. It's the lowest return and we do not participate at all in the hangar revenue in the beginning or at any point in the future. So I felt that it was prudent for us to make sure that we're looking at all of these and and also evaluating, as Mr. Gerdes stated, exploring the options for FEMA. So if we were to go forward with the option two, there is no opportunity for FEMA reimbursement because we're not doing the construction. The only opportunity that we can get any reimbursement is if the city participates in the reconstruction. So we would we would be able to get up to eighty seven and a half percent if we were to do it and potentially some if there were a partnership where let's say we fund half the construction and shelter or someone else funds half, we could potentially get reimbursement for the half that we fund in the Friends of Albert Whitted proposal that the FEMA reimbursement option goes away. So when you take in the fact that we could get FEMA reimbursement that once we pay back the hangars from, let's say it takes 15 years, 16 years from that point into the future, we would we would benefit the we would get the benefit of a higher revenue going forward. Those those that doesn't exist in that middle option. And and that's why I haven't jumped on it and say, yes, we want to do this. We're still considering it. I think it's a it's a viable option. But to me, it's not so clear that that's the option that we should proceed on, that we would move forward with that right now. And so just to be clear on the FEMA reimbursement, that FEMA reimbursement is still not guaranteed. Absolutely. It's similar to Tropicana Field. It's not guaranteed. It's not guaranteed and it is to replace what is already there, not to upgrade to new. I just want to be clear on that. I maybe I don't understand. We do have the opportunity to to build back better and we can get up to double the amount. OK, maybe if if it's reimbursed. Again, it's all it's all contingent on the if. But there is a possibility if we do it, there is zero possibility if someone else does it. So legal question, I guess, kind of about where we are right now, because it sounds to me like we have a proposal that has come to administration. That's an unsolicited proposal. What is the process when it comes to the airport for that sort of proposal with notice? All of that. What is that process? Yeah, I think right now, Council Member, they're in the process of determining if there is anything that they would want to move forward with. OK. So really, there's nothing else to do at this point. There may be some other procedural steps that would need to be taken depending on what the decision is. But there's nothing specific at this moment. OK, so we're not required to do anything. Not not at this time. OK. Well, I think I see a committee meeting in our future. This is more, I think, than we're going to be able to really dive into today. I'm very grateful for the initial conversation. I am still just kind of fundamentally leaning towards more of a private or public private option, just because I'm just I consider to be increasingly concerned about our bandwidth, both on our resources, staff wise, people wise and our resources financially. That just continues to be a concern for me across the board. It's going to continue to be a concern for me. We have a lot going on right now. And this has been a project now that has lingered for over a year. And so that's kind of where I stand on it. I hope this comes to a committee meeting. So I will leave that to you since it's your item today. But certainly want to continue to have that conversation, but have that conversation sooner rather than later so that, like we heard, people can get their planes back. People can get their businesses back. The airport is a huge economic driver. I just had some great conversations with some individuals the other day that really want to be at our airport. So I think that this is something we need to move on, but we need to do so from a very prudent position fiscally. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation and for spelling out so clearly what the different options are that you're looking at right now. It's so helpful. I worry about just doing the same thing that we did before, the option one there, and it looks like that's what shelters are saying that they want to do. With a wait list of 200, I think you said, that's a lot. And so I want us to be able to accommodate more. I really like option three. I know it's a lot more money, but look at what we get for that. It's about modernizing the airport and right-sizing it for what the needs and demand are today, and we can build back better by modernizing it that way. I like the fact that the proposal from Friends of Albert Whitted Airport are using Skanska. They're tried and true with city projects, and the fact that they are fully funded. Now, if there is a concern about the revenue from that and that we would only get the land rent, I would say, you know, negotiate. Maybe this is a different kind of public-private partnership that will go into option three and benefit everyone. And it sounds like when you talk with Shelter, and they were slow to respond, the message that that sends to me, it means that they're not motivated, they're complacent, they want to build back the same thing, because that's the easiest thing to do. Meanwhile, you have a group that has passion, energy, ambition, and funding. I know who I'd want to talk to you. I think it's time, this is an opportunity to not only hit the reset button with these hangers, but hit the refresh button on how Albert Whitted Airport is handled by creating a partnership like this. I know that the land rent wouldn't be the only thing. If you have more hangers, you have more planes, that means more fuel. Tell me how the fuel revenue works. How much do we get? Generally, it's about 2% of our annual budget. So the way it works is the city gets a fuel flowage fee. It's $0.08 per gallon, and it's on a scale, when you reach a certain level, it drops to 6, then to 4. Historically, we do maybe 400,000 to 500,000 gallons of fuel a year. And so, yeah, the city's revenue from that is about $30,000 a year. So it's not a lot. So, I mean, certainly, I definitely agree. I mean, if you build any of the hangers back, you will get more fuel. But certainly, option three yields potentially would yield the most when it comes to fuel generation. But how much it is, it depends on what kind of airplanes, how frequently they fly. There's a lot of factors there. It's kind of hard to say. And, again, I think to us, certainly to Shell Air, maybe there's a bigger upside. But to us, the city, it's probably going to be fairly small because it's just not a huge revenue source. Hangar rents is really where we get our revenue, drive our revenues from on the airport. So, okay. Well, right now, I mean, now it's been a year. Nothing has been done. We've been missing these hangars. You're telling us that the grants are going to be more challenging. We know that FEMA is not guaranteed. And who knows when that might happen. Meanwhile, we have a group that's ready to go. So I hope that you all will take our feedback and give this some thought. I do want this to go to committee. I really hope that some conversations will be had and maybe looking at a way to negotiate with this proposal that's in front of us to get something actually moving forward. I need to find out which committee Albert Woodard Airport stuff is sitting in right now. I don't know if it's PS&I or I believe it is. I don't think that it's an economic and workforce development. I have none of that in front of me right now. So I will come back with a motion. But I would like to move it to committee. Just waiting on a response to see which one. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Horry. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the work you guys did on this. And I've followed your logic. And I think if we're a for-profit company, it makes perfect sense to me. We're not. And to your point, actually to Councilperson Gabbard's point, it has dragged on. We do lack bandwidth. We are going to look for money for the port, for the area that is the deli, for keep going on and on and on. And we have a tremendous amount of experience sitting over here that are ready to go. I would like us to look at and consider working with friends of Albert Whitted. And I'd like to see what happens with this in committee. And I absolutely understand. And I appreciate the work you guys have done. But that's where I'll be for now. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Go ahead. If I may, just real quick, I do want to say, and I agree, that we want to get this done as quickly as possible. And it's been a year since the storms have passed. But it hasn't been a year that we've been with this proposal. Again, my first meeting was in August. So it's been three months since we've had the proposal. And I thought it made sense to do the due diligence and look at the various scenarios. And, James, I almost understand. I'm not referring to the efforts of either of you. You guys are absolutely awesome. I just meant we've, in this one particular case, with these 77 balls that we juggle, we have an option. Let's look at it harder. And we are looking at it. And I agree. Friends of Albert Whitted is a proven entity. We, and, you know, the capacity, all of the things that council has brought up are things that we're considering as well. It's just that we, the three months since the time that I've received the proposal, we wanted to just look at all the factors before proceeding into some long-term decision. And that's kind of where we've been. That's fair. Thank you for that. Thank you. Vice Chair Hamas. Thank you. And thank you all for the information. I'll just start off with, I do agree this has to go to committee. This is a lot of information. And we still need more information and due diligence. I will say that, you know, looking at where Albert Whitted is located and the risk with a storm and where you see it right now after a storm last year and waiting for FEMA reimbursements. And we're still waiting for FEMA reimbursements, not just for the storms from last year. I think there are many other years. I can't remember which are the ones. We've had a list of them. So the idea that we are not taking this opportunity right now to really think about how can we harden this to the point, when I see the cheapest and simplest to reconstruct, I just don't want to see that. Because I don't, every, it's six months a year that we have hurricanes. And so to me, the options are making sure that whatever you can construct and however those options may lay out is something that can withstand storms better. And because it's not just the hangers, it's what's in the hangers. And then those are livelihoods and however that evolves. I mean, people lose what they have in there. And so I just think that we can't forget about that in terms of what the risk is. I mean, there's dollar amounts, but then you're talking about all these other things, and I think they're just as important. So I just wanted to throw that out there. I really do appreciate the options that we have, and I do want more clarity as to, you know, what those numbers really do look like. And apples to apples type of thing in terms of the type of construction that's going to withstand, you know, a storm. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. The Albert Woodard Airport master plan sits on the referral list for PS&I, and so EWD just has advanced air mobility. Well, not just that. It's a great thing, but it sounds to me like PS&I is a better fit, and so I will make a motion to refer this item to the PS&I committee for further discussion. Second. Okay. I just have a couple of quick questions. James, you mentioned, and I know we'll get into this in committee, but can you just double-click on the FEMA reimbursement? I'm hesitant to use Build Back Better, but you talked about the FEMA reimbursement and the opportunity to get double. Can you just spend one or two minutes talking about that? You kind of flew through that. I need the assist to make sure I say this correctly. So we can get reimbursement up to 87.5% of the cost for reimbursement, and that amount can be doubled if we build back in a more resilient manner. Is that accurate? Yes, we can get reimbursement up to 87.5% of what we spent to build back to the original condition. We can also work with FEMA and the states so that we can get some mitigation money, and that would increase the funding. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. And then, if I could add, just to be clear, I mean, and I don't know if we gave anybody the wrong impression, but if the city went forward on its own, you know, because this is an enterprise facility that generates revenue, it's fairly straightforward to borrow for a project like this. So we wouldn't be waiting for FEMA funds up front if we gave anybody the impression. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then when we're going to vote on whether it goes to PS&I, I'm assuming it's going to PS&I. When this comes back to committee, one of the things I'd like to see are some of the other financial factors when it comes to – because it's not just the revenue versus the expense of the building. So what were we spending on maintenance of the hangers? Is the insurance cost change? So just some of those other financial factors, if you would include those, because I think that part is important. If I had to guess, we get to – they have to hold the insurance. They are going to have to do the maintenance. I want to see what that is in comparison. And, again, I'm not – listen, I have talked for years about ROI on our enterprise. My only issue – and we won't go down the rabbit hole today. My only issue is we hold some enterprise facilities differently than others when it comes to ROI. And that's where I'm struggling on that because – and, again, it's been pounced on a couple of times. We have partners that want to do it and want to be a part of it. And so that's where it's like – and it's making money. It's just not as much. And so that's all I'll say for now. But I really – James, thanks for coming out because some of the clarification you gave on your original explanation was super helpful. So thank you for that. And I'm looking forward to having this conversation. And just thanks in advance for including some of those other financial factors. Yeah, go ahead. So your point, Cher, some of the things you're asking about were the things that we are evaluating. So that's why it wasn't just like, yeah, let's do it. But you're absolutely right. There is other things to consider. While there's more revenue, there's more responsibility on our side with this proposal, we're basically just – we're a tenant. I mean, we're a landlord for land, and that's it. So those are absolutely factors that we will make sure we include in our discussion at PS&I, assuming it goes to that. Thank you so much. Okay. We've got a motion and a second on a referral to PS&I. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve the referral for PS&I for continued discussion of Albert Wood Airport. Pass this unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to move into F8. This was pulled by Council Member Gabbard, so I'm going to turn it over to her. Thank you, Chair. So, Brejesh, I think he's – Yeah, Brej. There he is. He's back. He's back. He's back for two in a row, so. Yeah, back-to-back. All right. Well, I don't think this will be a very long one. I really just pulled this one because I had some questions about the selection process, specifically the scoring. You know, I'm sure that, you know, maybe my colleagues feel the same, but, you know, we have very few pool, it seems, of, you know, professionals that actually respond whenever these RFQs and RFPs go out for consulting services. Seems like we see the same names over and over again. Probably, Brejesh can speak a little bit to that, but on this one, it really kind of jumped out at me a little bit because the original scoring, when the evaluations came in, were very different than what the evaluations were whenever the presentations were made, and ultimately ended up with, you know, the selection here that didn't reflect what that original scoring was. And so, I just really wanted to kind of understand that. If we're going to continue to only see the same people responding over and over again, I think it's important, as part of our due diligence as City Council, to understand how that scoring really works, maybe why those changes happen, and then why, ultimately, that is the one that is brought to us. So, that was my reasoning for pulling this item. So, with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Brejesh. Thank you, Council Member. So, what I'll kind of go on to high-level discussion on is really, this was a qualification-based selection through the CCNA process. It's guided through Florida statutes. Now, once we publicly advertise it, the firms that get these notifications, they register with the procurement department for what we call different NGIP codes. And we strongly encourage, and we've limited the codes that we select, because the NGIP codes is literally like the old-school telephone directory. It's that thick. So, what we've done is we've gone in and narrowed it down to a short list of codes, and that's what we recommend to all the firms, whether you're a contractor, a consultant, you've reached out to the city. We always give them that one page and say, if you're going to register, make sure you register only for these codes, because you don't want to register for that entire telephone directory, because you're going to get every single thing. And keep in mind, you know, this starts to look like mail junk. So, that's how we encourage firms up front. Now, we know our procurement department also does outreach and notifying contractors. Now, once the advertisement is posted, these firms will get notified, and they will log in and see if the scope of services is of interest to them. If it is, then they will go ahead, submit their proposal, one statement of qualifications, because, again, this is a qualification-based selection. Once the qualifications come in, the selection committee, and keep in mind, once it's advertised, the selection committee is under a corner silence, just like city council. We can't talk between ourselves, and we can't talk to the firms either. So, we receive those proposals through the procurement department, through, I believe it's OpenGov. And once it comes in through that OpenGov process, we all review it independently. There's a scoring criteria that we all review based on that. We have to enter our scores, and given in some context, you know, there are going to be times that you're reviewing the statement of qualifications, you're going to have questions. This is the first submission in that project. So, when we go into, now, the selection committee meeting, which is the first publicly advertised meeting, that's when we can all talk as group. And we have open conversations about what we saw, the strengths, the weaknesses of the submittals. Once we have that discussion, we independently, behind our own laptops, may update our own scores and submit it to the procurement analyst, who then tallies those scores. So, again, nothing is handed in, nobody knows each other's scores, only the procurement analyst receives all of it, and then summarize it to see who's first, second, third. Now, we're required to, you know, statutory-wise to shortlist at least a minimum of three. There are times, I would say, randomly, and it's happening less frequently now than we did in the past. There was a period in time that we would receive two, three, four submissions. I think in the water-wastewater one that we recently executed contracts, we received 34 submissions. So, I think we're getting a longer turnover, a quicker turnover, sorry, a larger variety of firms. I didn't, I can probably take a look at the list quickly, but I know we have quite a few new firms in that group. We try to select firms as the most qualified based on the different categories of work as well. There are firms that are larger that have what we call the full spectrum of services, and then there are smaller firms who are really specialized. I'll use an example. If there is a large firm who can do bridges, road, under the category of work of roadways or bridges, actually, let's say transportation, simplest one. There may be a firm that can do bridges, roadway, sidewalk, traffic signalization, and mass time design, full spectrum. But then there may be smaller firms that all they know to is the niche, meaning they can do programming, synchronization. So, we score those firms based on the individual qualifications. Now, the firms are then tallied by the scores are tallied, gives us a number. We go ahead, as a committee, have open discussion. We'll decide to move forward or not based on, okay, these are the most qualified firms. We'll shortlist a certain amount of them. Objectively, this specific one, we needed to ultimately end up with one firm. So, we did move forward with the two firms for interviews. But during that open discussion, we may realize, hey, I want qualification. I want more clarification on this item or this item. You know, I need to see more detail. This wasn't fully explained in the SOQ. So, we will, through the procurement analysts, we will provide questions. We don't reach out to them directly, the firms. We provide the questions to the procurement analysts individually, not as a group, not in a group email, but individually. And the procurement analysts will prepare that questionnaire, those list of questions provided to each of the firms. Once the firms receive it, they have to provide that response. We request it at least seven days ahead of the interviews. Now, that gives us the ability now to go through now and actually say, okay, yeah, they did have this. They did have these qualifications. This wasn't as strong. Now, we go into the interviews. The interviews is closed from public. It's a one-on-one. And at that point, we get to dive into, okay, what's your project approach on this? Give me an understanding of this. You mentioned this. And we can go into deeper discussion. That interview, once we're done, we move to the next interview. No conversation in between, no discussion about what occurred in the previous interview. And that's how we'll continue on going through each of the interviews independently with that specific firm only. They get out the room, break, bathroom break, come back in for the next firm. Now, as we go through, we finish all the interviews, we break, no conversation between the committee. We come back for reconvene, which is a publicly advertised meeting. At that point, we have open discussion. And we can discuss, okay, you know, based on everything I've seen, everything that was presented, we've gotten clarification on this. This is actually a stronger item. We can update our scores. Once we update our scores, this then tallies out. I have seen these sort of situations on multiple RFUs. I would tell you that it's typical to see firms flip in order going from the shortlisting meeting to the final presentation. I've seen firms come from number seven to number two as an example. But I would say definitely this was an older RFQ. It's a very specialized category of work we were looking for. It required a larger resource allocation. That's why it had two of the larger firms. And two of them really specialized firms in those categories. But at the end of the day, I will tell you that we are seeing a larger pool of consultants applying to contracts now. I mean, it was not easy going from, trust me, the last one, 35, to I think we end up selecting 14 or 15 on the water-waste water. Sorry for the long-winded explanation. Chair, I'll hold a question until after. Sure. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And Council Member Gabbard, thank you for pulling this. I was going to pull it actually for a separate reason. I did see that, but I did have a conversation with Rajesh. She kind of explained how they got to selecting the group. And they're kind of close. But so I want to talk a little bit about the project itself because that's what caught my attention about it. So this project, and this is, it's described as the scope includes identifying requirements for future asset management solution, auditing the city's GIS database within the assessment area, and performing field inspections using zoom camera technology to document infrastructure conditions, and then identify segments needing maintenance. This is our stormwater sewage pipes, right? Stormwater confiances. Okay. And the reason I want to just point this out is because I get questions like this all the time from residents. I get questions in Meadowlon because, you know, they have all the canals and all that. And we've, I've had SPTO go and Marshall's team, you know, going to perform field inspections. And I look at this and I think for $750,000, why are we just starting now? This is something that should be happening. I'm just wondering because it seems like a no-brainer to me for the amount of money. I know that they are busy, like really, really busy doing the work in the field and all that. So I just want to understand why, I mean, why is it, I, when residents ask, like, I want to ensure that the pipes are, and I had a bunch of residents doing this in Meadowlon and asking me this. Why hadn't we been doing this? I mean, I know that we did this with other pipes, at least with the, right? Right. So I wonder, I would say this is really an attempt towards a multifaceted approach. First of all, operations, and I want to draw to something specific. Our NPDES permit requires us to have, over the 10-year cycle, have inspected 100% of your system. Not your maintenance inspection, but proactive inspection. Two different things. So there may be a lot, there's a lot of operational work that is done routinely by our SBTO department. But on each cycle, we have to show, or we should be, you know, you run the math on it, at least produce, at least do a 10% net difference. And not just net difference. Let's say that 10% you inspected in year four can't be the same 10% that was covered any time in any of the previous years. So even though our operations are continuously, we'll be doing their maintenance, operational inspections, to be fully in compliance of our NPDES, which is such a good timing. The fact that our NPDES permit is going to be, and right now we are, interestingly enough, on cycle five, year seven, which is unusual, meaning the FDEP gave us, has not issued renewals yet. So they've been given an extension. So our two-year extension ends in the end of June, 2026. Our new permit will be in effect, which will be our new cycle, which will be cycle six in July 1st, 2026, which I would like us to be on that proactive approach, as you were hitting that nail, really. It's like we need to have that forward-thinking planning, but really that proactive approach of making sure that not just our maintenance, but our 10% net average is continuously done. Yeah. I mean, I agree. I just, I need to ensure, like, this data, for instance, we're going to be doing this. We're going to be able to see the conditions of the pipes, the interior of the pipes. Right. And that way we know whether or not there are blockages or not, right, because stuff goes through the catch basins, right? I assume there's stuff that accumulates, and we hear residents like, this must be blocked. Water is not moving in this area. I mean, I get that constantly in different areas, and having a system, to me, in place like this, and having data, especially collected by, you know, a consultant who does, you know, you're not taking away from staff here and all that, because there's so much work. I think it's fantastic, and I just, for the money, I've just, I'm surprised that this isn't something that I haven't seen. So, to be completely upfront and honest as well, there are a lot, we have 550. Now, over five, over five, let's say over, yeah, let's say over 500 miles of assets across the city. This is going to start the process. We will, we're procuring the contracts, additional contracts to support our operations on ongoing cleaning, because there will be operational cleaning, but we would like to do, okay, as we're identifying, there's what we call light, medium, and heavy cleaning. Every single pipe, regardless, will have to be cleaned to be inspected, which is really good, meaning, you know, we have to make sure that that camera gets a clean view of that system. So, those contracts will be supporting. I would say we'll also be coming back each year to supplement, because, to be honest, it's not fiscally responsible for me to commit a large amount of money into this, if it's bond money, and I can't spend that in that year. So, I want to start now with a small amount, effectively see what my burn rate is, and then come back to council with any adjustments on the funding that I may need to go through the system. Well, I'm very interested, just because of kind of the feedback I get from residents and the questions I get, and this seems like the type of project and the type of data that would be helpful. Yes, absolutely. So, that's what I wanted to say, and I'm glad that Council Member Gabbard pulled this, because it's one of the things that just has been increasingly coming up in my conversations with residents. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Just two more questions on this, Brajesh. Can you speak to why this process started in January of 2024, but we're just now seeing it now? And please don't say hurricanes. January of 2024, right? No. So, to be honest, as well, just for right, we went out, we selected a consultant. We were doing a lot of scope changes on this. You know, we had conversations with our operations team as far as, you know, are we going to have them clean the pipes to support them, or should we have the contract separate for the cleaning? So, there were a lot of details we were trying to work through on this. Also, we were starting to get into that summer, as far as when we were negotiating the contract, and we started to realize, okay, wait a minute, we need to, this is an assessment. We would like to have two things, and this is where I'm going to strategically, is, you know, one of the times we knew our NPDES permit was coming up for a new year. We didn't know what the compliance requirements are. We still don't know what it is yet. So, we were hoping to get that permit a little bit closer. That's why, you know, it's not one or two-year extension. We still don't have the permit. We have to move forward with this at some point. So, that's one element. But the other element is the fact of, you know, we were starting to get storms. We were starting to get heavy inundation rain events. So, we decided, look, this is an assessment. Let's see what projects we could actually move instead, and pull off on this for a little while, and actually start to do some other projects that can relieve some burden on the system while we continue on, you know, again, wait to get the permit if we get it in time. Then we can really have a clean, what can I say, scope come into council. And then my last question is about, I guess, this prioritization, I'll call it, of the assessment that's going to happen. We talked about this a little bit this morning, talking about the bonds, you know, making sure that, you know, we are kind of strategically prioritizing where projects are happening. Right. But if projects are going to be informed by these assessments, what is the strategy for where these assessments happen? Yes. So, the beautiful thing about this is because we're administering the project, we're going to overlay that data into our GIS project coordination data set. So, as we identify pipes, we'll have contractors already lined up, which is currently in the procurement process, and hopefully it's already advertised in OpenGov. So, by the time these contractors have already been, by the time this firm is already authorized and start doing the inspections, they'll have a list of assets that either need to be cleaned, lined, repaired, identified already. Now, we are going to compare that GIS, because we'll get that information back as a GIS overlay. That will be compared with our master plan projects, as well as other projects that are being planned in different corridors. Based on the criticality, we'll say, okay, we need to move on this. This is a dig and replace. Okay, this is a lining. So, that sequential will be managed there as well within that operational, essentially this overall program, if I may say. Now, that also feeds into the bigger picture as far as, okay, this section of pipe, it's not in good condition, but structurally it's fine, but we can advance a stormwater master plan. So, you see how that now starts to line up. Sequencing of it all? Yeah, I think one of the perfect examples of that is 62nd Avenue North, where we've kind of combined the stormwater with the wastewater, as well as the roadway project. Very good. Well, thank you for the very thorough explanation, and with that, I will move approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second for F8. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please dial in and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a gen item of F8 passes unanimously, with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Okay, we're going to go into F9. This was also pulled by Council Member Gabbard. Turn it over to her. Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, this one was simply pulled because of the enormity of the project and the dollar amount, so I thought it was worthy of a conversation. So, with that, I'll turn it over to you. Good day, Council. So, it is a pleasure, as always, and this is actually a fantastic project bringing forward for our operational team. Southwest operations building, some major improvements, actually replacement of that facility, but I'm going to hand it over to the chief here, city architect, Raul Quintana. Thank you, chief engineer. Yes, thank you, Council. We have a quick little presentation to share with you, but this is, and you recognize this, a very interesting project. It's one of three, actually. Obviously, we have three wastewater reclamation facilities. The Department of Water Resources identified this as the highest priority, decided to do it first. First, just step real quickly through the project. This is in front of you is the award of a GMP proposal to Ajax. Construction, an amount of $18.3 million. $8.8 million of this is funded through a Resilient Florida Program grant, and so we have achieved that grant award for this first project. We're proceeding to apply for those grants for the next project, which would be Northeast. So it's a new three-story facility, and I thought I'd just – this is kind of zeroing in on the site. It's a much larger site than this, but it's right off of 54th Avenue. To the left would be Eckerd College. To the south, to the bottom, would be Greek. And this is showing where the existing operations building is. It's a separate building that's a maintenance building. So we're combining two buildings into one. We're building a new, much larger, three-story facility that is going to replace what effectively are 50-year-old buildings on this site. Those buildings are no longer operationally functional. They don't meet the emergency criteria, daily situations that come up, and also emergency issues that come up. The plant operations need to continue during these events, and the existing building is not rated for any kind of hurricane wind strength and obviously not rated for a storm surge. So I thought it would be helpful to kind of just give you a comparison and explain how we arrived at this facility. It's designed to basically meet Cat 5 flood stage. The new facility will have three levels. The first level is primarily maintenance. It's got a mudroom and a welding shop, and that's going to be flood-proofed. The second level are where the technical staff offices are, the restrooms, lockers, conference area. And the third level is where the SCADA, which is the supervisory control and data acquisition system, the guts and the brains of the whole facility, is going to be located in the top level, along with the operations staff, resources for conference areas, the break room. They'll be able to operate out of here during a storm, but would not have to evacuate. So there's capacity for bunking, feeding, and all of that in this facility. And so just to kind of give you an example, the existing building is at a finished floor elevation of 8.5 NAVD, and that is grade, basically. If we were to build this, basically, to building code, the FEMA requires this at base flood elevation would have been 10 NAVD, and the building code with the free board and the additional foot of elevation would have been at 13 NAVD. The grant required that we meet the 500-year storm surge. So per the grant, the elevation of the first habitable level would have been 28 NAVD. In order to be able to make that space usable, functional for the work that's going to be done in it, we elevated it to 30 NAVD. So that's kind of where the whole elevations came from. And, again, it was driven by the grant to make this a highly resilient facility, and that's kind of where we are. So the building, this is a view from the east looking towards just kind of right off the entrance, a bird's-eye view. The building that is not shown here would have been on kind of the west side. This is another view of, shows you where the chillers are elevated as well. Kind of just gives you a surround look at the facility. So we're ready to start moving forward. Again, we've got grant applications in for the other site. We've got the same team that's designing all three, the same team that was selected to construct all three. And the facilities as we go forward are going to be very similar, so we're not going to be redoing the design. The site's different, but the building itself is going to be the same. So with that, happy to answer any questions. Okay. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you very much, Chair. I just want to thank you so much, Raul, for this hard work that has gone into this project. This is a resilient project, and I think any time we have resiliency projects like this happening in St. Petersburg, we want to celebrate and highlight that. So just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your hard work here, and I'm excited to see this one get started. So thank you, Chair. Thank you. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on F9. Seeing as no other council members are wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve. Agenda F9 passes unanimously with Councilmember Driscoll being absent. Okay. We are going to recess as city council and convene as the CRA. We're going to go to CRA2. I think we have Andrea joining us. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of city council, Andrea Falvey, Economic and Workforce Development. Thank you for the opportunity to bring forward today the proposed fiscal year 26 budget plan for the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area, or CRA. In the FY26 operating budget, $20,921,991 in tax increment revenue was appropriated for use in the South St. Petersburg CRA. City administration is requesting that the Community Redevelopment Agency recommends and city council approves allocating that appropriation into the following categories to support the operational pillars of the CRA. Approximately $7.6 million into the housing and neighborhood revitalization category, approximately $9.5 million into the business and commercial development category, $1.6 million into workforce development and education, and $2.2 million into operations and personnel. You will also note the percentages of the overall budget corresponding to these dollar amounts listed on the slide. City administration based this proposed budget on existing and projected commitments, as well as our planned introduction of new initiatives. This next slide details the estimated tax increment financing or TIF revenue for the South St. Pete CRA, which includes $12.2 million in city TIF revenue, $7.8 million in county revenue, and approximately $127,000 in interest earned, bringing us to that total of approximately $20.9 million. As we all know, the CRA has experienced tremendous growth since it was established in 2016. During that initial year, the annual revenue was $468,000, and you can see how it has grown exponentially every year since. The city revenue is represented by the darker green, with the Pinellas County revenue marked by the lighter color on top. In support of our housing and neighborhood revitalization pillar, approximately $4.5 million will be allocated to the Affordable Housing Redevelopment Loan Program, which will provide multifamily developer incentives, debt service for future incentives, as well as support for accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, construction. Approximately $3.1 million will be used to support other affordable single-family residential housing programs, which are listed on the slide. The majority of this allocation will be utilized in our Housing Department's Down Payment Assistance Program, as they have identified this as one of the areas of greatest need for our residents. We want to thank Administrator Foster, Dr. Slyker, and the entire housing team for their partnership, as it allows us to more thoughtfully and efficiently deploy these CRA resources into our community. Funding for Neighborhood Services Neighborhood Planning Program can also be found under this category. Four Neighborhood Plans are in progress, and we have allocated $500,000 for Campbell Park Neighborhood Plan Implementation, and we have another $500,000 earmarked for Neighborhood Traffic Plan Implementation. In support of our business and commercial development pillar, $2 million will be allocated towards the Commercial Corridor Planning Program, which will provide funding for improvements along 22nd Street South and 49th Street South. Approximately $3.5 million will be allocated towards the CRA Property Acquisition Program, which will provide resources to acquire properties and prepare development sites to promote housing, economic development, and revitalization of the CRA. $4 million will be allocated for the Economic Development Incentive Program, which is the program that will be utilized to provide resources for construction or renovations of city-run facilities that align with the economic development objectives of the CRA. In support of our workforce development and education pillar, we are proposing $1.6 million to be allocated allocated to our Adult Workforce Development Program. The St. Pete Works Program came to a close at the end of last month after five successful years. The contract for the new Adult Workforce Development Program is nearing the end of the city's procurement process, and we look forward to bringing that contract forward for your review and approval before the end of the year. We continue to be so proud to support the St. Pete Youth Farm, and we're thrilled to see their new processing facility open this year. The funding allocation for the Youth Farm will be provided using existing or rollover budget. The $2.2 million allotted in the Operations and Personnel category include the positions the CRA supports in the Economic and Workforce Development and Housing Departments, as well as the N Team in our Code's Compliance Department. This allotment also supports our many communication and community engagement activities throughout the CRA. This chart details the total budget for fiscal year 26 of approximately $51 million, including the proposed rollover amount of approximately $30 million. The proposed budget plan for the amount contemplated as rollover will be brought to City Council for review and approval later this month. This proposed budget plan was reviewed and unanimously recommended by the South St. Petersburg CRA's Citizens Advisory Committee on August 5th. In closing, I wanted to reiterate the request that the Community Redevelopment Agency recommends and City Council approve, allocating the approximately $20.9 million increment appropriation into the four operational pillars of the CRA as presented on the screen. Thank you again for the opportunity to bring this forward, and we await any comments or questions you might have. Okay, thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. I know that they, and I kind of had this discussion on the one-on-ones, there are so many different programs in there, and like, is, are you all working on making it simpler to kind of track what the different grant programs are, you know, the names and all that? Because it's so easy to get them confused. It is, it is, and there are so many programs or projects that kind of nest up under the overarching program name. Right, right. So we understand that. So, yes, we do, you know, both internally, we keep a robust tracking sheet of all the projects that are happening, and then we do, of course, you know, endeavor to explain it in our communication engagement, make sure that our citizens and our businesses know that, you know, what program they are actually eligible for. Like, they know that they need to fix their home or they need something for their business, and we make sure that they can understand what program they can go after. James, I don't know if you have any, I see you, I don't know if you have anything to add, because you were at the one-on-one. Absolutely, so to answer your question, Councilmember Hanowitz, Vice Chair Hanowitz, we actually plan to go through a process to rename these programs to make them more easily to identify, and by the name you would know exactly what they do, and there are some names that are very close, so it is our plan to go through a process to change the names and make it clear what the program is simply by the name. So that is something that we will be embarking on very shortly. Yeah, and that's the only thing I just wanted to make sure, because I think it makes it simpler for us and for those that are applying and everyone that's dealing with it to know exactly what the program is about. We agree. The names are confusing to us as well. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Givens. Thank you very much, Vice Chair, and thank you so much for your presentation, Andrea. I just was wondering, did we have an update on the hiring of our new CRA program manager? Well, what I can, we did have a gentleman that was poised to start with us, and right at the end of that process, he did decide to take another position, so I'll let Administrator Corbett talk a little bit about what our next steps are. Yeah, so just recently, the individual that we had selected for that position, they actually reported to work for the first two days and informed us that they had got another position in another part of the area. So we are looking to fill that position. We're going to go back to the existing pool there, or was another candidate that we identified that we believe is viable, so we will explore that and try to bring that forward as quickly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Corbett. I appreciate that. I just want to make sure we do try to get that position filled with someone who's going to stay as soon as possible, sooner rather than later, because I think that position is vital to the viability of the CRA programs and projects. As you said, Andrea, it's a lot to manage and to try to mitigate, you know, and I think when we talk about residents not knowing which programs are there, that position is imperative to make sure that there isn't a gap in communication, to make sure that we do have those boots on the ground, outreach, engagement. So I would like to stay updated there. I do have some ideas, so hopefully I can speak with you, Mr. Corbett, regarding where we can look there. Also, I just wanted to talk for a moment about the workforce portion of this CRA grant. So, excuse me, the CRA TIF. So one of the things I was hoping that we could do is perhaps either work with the youth farm or the end team to see if there was some sort of internship opportunity there, specifically for college students, high school seniors, and juniors. I don't know if this is something that you all have already discussed, but I would love for the conversation to be expanded to see if we could utilize funds like this from the CRA to help those high school seniors and residents and even college students in the area who may be looking for employment opportunity within city government. So just wanted to bring that idea up. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on CRA2. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a jam. CRA2 passes unanimously. Okay, thank you. We're going to adjourn as the CRA and reconvene as city council, and now we've got F6. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on F6. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a jam. F6 passes unanimously. Thanks so much, Andrea. Thanks, everybody. Okay, we're going to go into new business for the afternoon. G1, Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. This item is respectfully requesting a referral to Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee or other relevant committee for a discussion on potential changes to the city code related to historic preservation and designation. Conversation would include, but not be limited to, elimination of third-party designation for individual buildings or structures, the elimination of the potentially eligible property list, and a review of the current voting threshold for historic district designation, and I so move. Thank you. Council Member. Oh, excuse me. We have public comment. Let's go to public comment first. Peter Belmont, please approach either podium. State your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon again. Peter Belmont, 103 Wildwood Lane, Southeast. I'm speaking on behalf of Preserve the Berg today, and Mr. Lito, our executive director, was unable to attend. I know he was just on the chamber trip to Charleston, had an opportunity to speak to Brandy regarding the matter, but I guess the message I want to leave is that I think we feel it, even though this is a referral item, it may be a bit premature. And I think the first issue, and I think the first issue, I'm not sure where anybody is at on what is referred to, Senate Bill 180, it is basically, at least what I consider our crazy legislative act to kind of prohibit LDR amendments by any local government. And what is prohibited is any proposal or adoption of a more restrictive or burdensome ordinance, and I would suggest to you that any change that reduces your current options or adds new standards is subject to challenge. And, of course, just to make sure that the legislature wanted to make their point, they basically changed what we call legal standing, who can challenge something, and said anybody can challenge a city action if they move forward in contravention of that. And if they prevail, you're going to pay their attorney's fees. So it's pretty chilling for local government. So I think that's the first thing why it's maybe a little premature. I would also note that it wasn't that many years ago. I think it was five years ago. You kind of did a pretty solid look at the third-party issue, decided not to do away with it, made substantial changes to the procedure, and I don't believe you've had a third-party application since. So I think a little bit is, you know, in that regard to at least a solution looking for a problem. Are there changes that should be made to the ordinance? Sure. But I think it would help to have a little more maybe public outreach and input from the CPPC even before you make the subcommittee referral. And then the last, you know, piece I would just add is, I mean, I know there's been an internal push by the chamber to kind of push forward some of these changes. And, again, I think it would help to have some more stakeholder participation and input, public input now, perhaps through the CPPC before you go forward with the subcommittee. So thank you for your attention, and I know we'll continue having discussions. Absolutely. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. Yeah, I think that there are probably changes that could be made to our historic preservation rules, but the ones contemplated in this new business item, I just don't support. I am strongly in support of our historic preservation work here. I am frustrated by something that I saw last time when we went through Mirror Lake. It seemed like then the people who were upset about Mirror Lake pivoted to attacking third-party designation, which wasn't what Mirror Lake was. And so I just – I will happily have this conversation, but I won't be supportive of it today. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. I kind of came here to say the same thing. While I may not be supportive of the examples of changes that were given in the new business item, I do think that we should have a healthy discussion about other potential changes. And, you know, if nothing else, approach these subjects with an open mind. We have time before the committee meeting to get input from the community and be able to have a healthy discussion about it. So I'll be supportive of this, and I look forward to what outcomes might lie ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fix Sanders. Thank you. I'm in the same position as Council Member Driscoll. But I do always consider that – and I know when I first became a Council Member, we will, as Council Member Driscoll said, keep an open mind and is valid enough to have a conversation. Whether you support it or not, I may learn something, right? So I'm in the same place as being willing to at least talk about it. Now, if it's something that we already know need to move forward, then, of course, I'm not going to support it. But this is worth the conversation, so that's why I gladly second this so we can talk about it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanwitz. Thank you, Chair. So I just want to touch a little bit on the Senate Bill 180 and see if legal has an opinion on what was said about Senate Bill 180. I know there is language about whether you consider something that is much more burdensome or restrictive. I don't know if this falls within. I just want to see if legal has an opinion on what was said. We would have to take a look at it. Okay. But in terms of having the conversation in the committee, we're fine with that right now. I mean, I know that I have a few items that are in committee that are affected by Senate Bill 180, and it's kind of delayed having the conversation because it's kind of pointless, especially ones that are really on point. So I'd just be interested to hear what legal says. In terms of having – I have no problem having a conversation. You know, the Chamber came and reached out. So I wasn't supportive about it then, but I'm not going to say no to having a conversation about it. I think that's fine to have a conversation. I did have the same questions in terms of didn't we just consider some of this stuff a few years ago, and didn't we go down this road? But I'm not just going to not have the conversation because of it, but I just wanted to put that out there. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Regarding legal and, you know, kind of conversations with them, I have started those preliminary conversations. We, you know, this is an initiative that was kind of started by the Chamber. I think that's very clear. And there were some redline versions that they had gone back and forth with several times. And instead of attaching that to this new business item, that is more appropriate for committee. That has already been given to legal for their review. So all of that will be contemplated, including any implications with Senate Bill 180, long before we would ever make it to a committee. So thank you. Thank you. Just quickly, I'll just comment spending three years on CPPC and then now finishing up four years on council. I totally agree, at the very least, that we need to have a conversation about third-party designations. I'm not a fan. And so I just, with everybody sharing a little bit of their opinion, I thought I would do the same. So we have a motion and a second on G1. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a gen item G1 passes 7-1 with Council Member Floyd voting no. Council Members Driscoll, Fick Sanders, Gavrett, Gerdes, Givens, Hanowitz, and Harding voting yes. Thank you so much. Okay, we're going to go into G2. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. This one is, this new business item is respectfully requesting a referral to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee for discussion on a referendum during the 2026 general election to allow for a longer lease term for expansion of the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub as part of the Hub 2 plan. Currently, the current Hub is leased to the Innovation District, and so we'll talk about, we'll have an opportunity to talk about what the plans are, what the Hub is doing right now, what the future looks, could look like, and why it's important to our economic development. With that, I'll move approval. Second. Okay, we'll go to public comment. Allison Barlow, Jason Mathis, please approach either podium, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon, Council Members. Allison Barlow, 450 8th Avenue Southeast, St. Petersburg. I would like to support this idea of taking this conversation into committee. I think it's an important discussion for all of us to have. The Maritime and Defense Tech Hub, as you guys all helped create, has been around now four years, if you can imagine that. It's been a tremendous success. It was a unique opportunity when it was created to activate the port of St. Petersburg and to repurpose a city asset that was vacant. Since its launch, the Hub has incubated over 25 organizations, most tech small businesses, several of which were already here in our region, and some that came because of the facility. All needed our assistance and our resources to grow. Many of these companies you have read about and seen in the news, and you know as well as I do, had the tremendous work that they're doing. At the beginning of 2025, the Hub was home to 82 full-time employees and 102 employees who considered that a secondary work location. Some of them may be often traveling or also work from home, so that's how we classify that. We also have provided water access for testing and demonstration purposes with our government partners, which has really pivoted a lot of the work in the maritime and defense tech areas and brought it to the forefront of St. Petersburg's economic development. Through all of this, we've hosted community members through events like our tech exchanges and also frequent tours with youth so they can get an idea and an example of future careers. But we're in a really great position right now. It's exactly what we hoped for. Our tenants are thriving. They're creating jobs and developing technology that really make a difference. The challenge is we've outgrown our space already, and we're having not only current tenants who hope to expand, but there's a waiting list of organizations that would like to join. Much of this momentum is coming from the maritime technology sector, from coastal resiliency research to advanced hurricane monitoring, things that we care about in our community, and the potential is growing. Expanding the Hub now would allow us to meet the future needs of the tenants while welcoming these new partners into our innovation community. Longer leases mean the deeper investment in equipment, collaboration, and the impact. The expansion isn't just about the space. It's a bold signal to our shared commitment for St. Pete's future. So I appreciate your consideration on this. Thank you. Good afternoon. Jason Mathis. I'm the CEO of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, which is located at 244 2nd Ave North, and a board member of the St. Petersburg Innovation District. I'm here to just really second everything that Allison said. We have a real opportunity to expand this facility on a very underutilized surface parking lot that's adjacent to the Hub. Allison and I have spent a lot of time working with city staff to look at ways that we could grow this space and build a new facility, not using city money, using city land, but not using city money. But we've identified federal, state, and county funds that could go to help build this new facility. The working name for it is the Center for Coastal Resiliency, and I think that that's something probably our entire community can get behind, the idea of trying to find ways where non-profit, for-profit, academic, and government research can happen to help our community and other coastal communities thrive. So I encourage you to move forward with this, and we hope to have an additional conversation about some of our plans and what we're contemplating. Thanks very much. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I'm very supportive of this conversation happening, and I want to thank the speakers because they addressed my one concern that I had, which is I personally am not going to support much that gives any special treatment towards the defense industry. I think it's good for us to have these jobs here, but I don't support us giving any special treatment towards them. But they mentioned, you know, I was in the defense industry for a long time before I was here, and I recognize the problems both locally and politically with them. But I support them. I just don't want to give any special treatment to them. But what I'm hearing from them is that that's not the focus of this anyway. So I just wanted to thank you for coming and letting us know that. And not to say I've gone out and seen the work that's going on there and some of the defense companies, and they're doing great work. It's just that's not what I'm here for. So I appreciate the speakers coming in and giving us that information. I appreciate the new business item. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll, thanks for your explanation at the beginning. My concern was that the conversation was going to be solely around the referendum, but glad to hear it's going to be a much more robust conversation. So thank you for clarifying that. I'm sorry, do we have a motion and a second? Okay, we have a motion and a second on G2. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve with gen item G2. Passes unanimous. Okay, thank you. All right, we're going to move into Council Committee Reports. We have H1. Council Member Gabbard. Sorry, I had to pull my page here. I'm respectfully requesting City Council approval of a resolution confirming the 2026 City of St. Petersburg State Legislative Agenda, and I so move. Second. We have a motion and a second on H1. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a gen item of H1. Passes unanimous. Thank you. All right, we're going to go to H2. This is my item. I am respectfully requesting the administration to move forward with developing a scope of work in preparation for a request for proposal for the Downtown Improvement District's clean team. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I'm supportive of this, but I just wanted to say that we've asked for a number of RFPs, and I will be paying attention to the order in which they come back. I wanted to say that out loud for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on H2. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Chair, motion to approve a gen item of H2. Passes unanimously. Okay. Council Members, we've come to pause time. You get all of a six-minute recess, and we're going to come back at 5.01. Council is in recess. We will call City Council back to order, and we're going to move into public hearings, and we're going to start with J.1. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on J.1. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a gen item of J.1. Passes unanimously. Okay. Thanks, Joe. Good seeing you, Joe. All right. We're going to move into J.2. Proposed Ordinance No. 622H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, amending Chapter 12 of the City Code to allow the building official to waive certain fees for post-disaster emergency permits, providing for servability, and providing an effective date. And we do not have any cards, Mr. Chair. Okay. About the presentation? Move approval. Second. We're going to save you some time, I think, Don. That sounds good to me. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve a gen item J.2. Passes unanimously. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Heather. Okay. We are going to move into open forum. One speaker, Mr. Chair, Jonathan Hackworth. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address City Council. Welcome. Hello, sir. I'm here to speak on F2 and F10. I guess I already missed it. They said it wasn't public. My name is Jonathan Hackworth. I live at 2510 Central Avenue. I just wanted to say I really support. I don't care if we have to raise taxes. Please make this ferry happen. I really enjoy it. We use the Clearwater Ferry. I ride the buses every single day. I mean, I have a car. The PSD is a really big help to my community. I mean, pretty much it. Awesome. Thanks for coming in. Yes, sir. Okay. We're going to close open forum and move into announcements. Council Members, any announcements? Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Not so much an announcement. I just wanted to ask Rob if you could do an announcement of your own. Tell us what's the latest on the Science Center deal. Thank you for asking, Council Member. I didn't mean to catch you off guard. No, no. That's fine. So we provided the agreement to Mr. Hamilton. He had a couple comments he sent back. We're addressing those, and we've been in contact with him verbally, making very good progress. Shouldn't be much longer to come to final agreement on the agreement itself. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you very much, Chair. Just a couple announcements. I'll try to be brief. This Saturday, there's a lot of events happening in the community. We have the Community Picnic Land. That's going to be going on at Albert Whittet Park, starting at 2 o'clock until 5 o'clock. Also over, your West St. Pete partner over there, Mr. Chair, Park. They're going to be having their 56th annual Evening of Purpose This Is Us Black Tie Gala. That's going to be at the St. Pete Coliseum. And then also at McCabe United Methodist Church at 3 o'clock on Saturday, the Bethune-Cookman Gospel Choir will be performing to help raise money for the church's 120th anniversary. So thank you. Thank you. Just quickly, Council Member Gabbard, the mayor, and myself were all in Charleston in the last few days. It really was a very good trip to see kind of what they've got going on, how they're doing, some of the things they're doing in comparison to some of the things that we're doing. Quickly, I'll just comment I'm very proud of the work St. Petersburg does. You know, that city is like 400 years old. No, not 400, 200 years older than us. And I think we're doing pretty good when you look at what they've got going on and some of the things they're dealing with and with us. But we also learned a lot, too. Quickly, I also just wanted to say thank you to all the community stakeholders that went on that trip, investing their time, their energy into the city of St. Petersburg, trying to make it a better place. I'm just very appreciative of everybody that attended, and I'm very appreciative of Council Member Gabbard and the mayor for going as well. Last but not least, I just wanted to say a big thank you to all the veterans out there. Tuesday is Veterans Day, and so I just wanted to make sure I bring that up. I am the grandson of two veterans, and so just very appreciative, and thank you for the service. For everybody that's listening and might listen to this in the future, just know we are indebted to you, and I'm very thankful for you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you very much, Sharon. I'm sorry since you brought it up. I just wanted to extend the invitation to our Council Members. If you all are available Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to 1130 a.m., we will be at Lincoln Cemetery at 658th Street North, planting flags for veterans. So if you're available, we'll be doing two cemeteries, Lincoln Cemetery and Royal Palm South adjacent to it. So that's about 10 acres that we have to cover, and we'd be happy to have everybody if you're available. Thank you. My wife's grandmother and grandfather are at Royal Palm. Thank you for doing that. Okay. If there's nothing else for the good of the order, Council Members, thanks for a great day. We're adjourned. Thank you, Chair. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. Sorry.