City Council - Nov 09, 2023

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Copley Gerdes, District 2, and Council Chair Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5, and Council Vice Chair Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad. And District 8, Ritchie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. We will call to order the November 9th, 2023 City Council Meeting, beginning with a roll call. Montenari. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Vic Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Muhammad. Here. Floyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Gabbard. Here. We will begin our meeting this afternoon with an invocation that will be given by District 2's own Pastor David Harding from St. Petersburg Presbyterian Church, and then following the invocation, please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. Let's pray together. Gracious God, we give you thanks for this beautiful day which you have made and for the privilege of living in such a beautiful place as St. Petersburg. Your word tells us in the prophet Jeremiah that we are to seek the welfare of the city where you have placed us and to pray to you for its blessing. And so we do that now as this council meets to conduct the business of our dear city. We thank you for our mayor and our council members and all those who serve at every level in our city government. They are your servants whom you've raised up for such a time as this to serve in their respective offices. We thank you for their hard work and sacrifice and ask that you give each of them wise and discerning hearts to skillfully lead and govern our community. Give them your wisdom to solve problems justly, to distinguish between right and wrong, and to bring order, stability, and prosperity to our city. Remind them each day of the privilege and honor that it is to serve in this capacity. And we ask that you would remind us all, Father, that whatever our station in life may be, you have placed us there not to be served, but to serve others even as your Son, Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life on the cross as a ransom for many. And we ask all these things in his great and glorious name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you so much, Pastor Harding. Have a wonderful day. God bless. Council members, we have an agenda before us today. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. All right. We have a motion, a second, to approve the agenda. Seeing no request to speak, clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. All right. Okay. And so we are going to move right into our awards and proclamations. And we are joined by our honorable mayor, Kenneth T. Welch, who will take item D1, which is our first one, our Transgender Day, every member of this proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair and City Council, to the members of our St. Pete team and members of the public who are here today. Good afternoon. I want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving and holiday season. Since this is our last meeting before that, we're working on an executive order to make all foods calorie free through the end of the month. We'll let you know how that goes. We have four proclamations. I'll present two, and then our Vice Chair, Fick Sanders, and Council Member Montaneri will present the final two. The first one is a recognition of Transgender Day of Remembrance. Our LGBTQ plus liaison and St. Pete Service Center manager, Jim Nixon, as we all know, works hard to help ensure that we are informed, connected, and impactful across all demographics of our city. Our mantra of We Are St. Pete is inclusive of all of our citizens, including our transgender residents and friends. And while Jim is not able to be with us today, I do want to recognize him for his efforts. And standing in for Jim today is our own St. Pete Police Department, Major Marcus Hughes, who's St. Pete PD's LGBTQ plus liaison. And as I read the proclamation, I also want to invite Major Hughes, Tristan Burns of My Trans Network, Ms. St. Pete Pride, Ciesia Giovanna Crichet, and Mr. St. Pete Pride, Vin Swayson, to join me at the podium. And the proclamation reads, Whereas Transgender Day of Remembrance will be observed on November 20, 2023, to honor the memory of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence, an annual event that began in 1998 with a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed and which now honors all transgender people lost to violence. And whereas a formal vigil honoring those who were lost and the loved ones they left behind will be hosted by the T-Door Vigil Committee on November 20th from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at St. Petersburg City Hall steps. Whereas our entire community is diminished when we lose the talents and contributions of any member of our community prematurely, whether due to direct anti-transgender violence or due to suicide or other health effects resulting from trauma or discrimination. And whereas St. Petersburg honors the bravery and resilience of the thousands of transgender individuals who live, work, or play in our city in their authentic selves, we are proud of the existing protections we have in place for transgender individuals to pursue their lives in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County. And we reaffirm a commitment to ongoing efforts to promote the full inclusion of transgender individuals in the city. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim November 20th, 2023 as Transgender Day of Remembrance in St. Petersburg. And I encourage all citizens to treat each other with dignity and respect without exception. Hi, my name is Tristan Burns. I'm one of the organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil. First, I want to thank Mayor Welch and the City Council. And I want to thank most of St. Petersburg, actually, for being kind of what I feel like is a little safe haven in this political state of Florida. I wanted to talk a little bit about the vigil. The vigil will be in November 20th at 630. It starts with a candlelight processional from the Sunshine Senior Center, so that couple blocks. Keep it short but profound. And then, of course, we'll meet at the St. Pete City Hall steps to give name to, to honor those that have passed away or been murdered just for trying to be themselves and be their identity. So, I invite anybody who wants to, who wants to join us for this somber yet important event. So, thank you, everybody. My name is Rovin J. Leschinski. Some of you know me as RJ or my personal favorite, and as I stand before you today, Mr. Vince Wajian. As RJ, I am a compassionate, humble, trustworthy man of faith. I'm a holistic canine coach owning my own private in-home canine coaching experience serving Pasco Pinellas in Hillsborough County. And I wash dishes after fellowship after every Sunday service. As Mr. V, I'm an international music recording artist and entertainer, a founding board member of PFLAG Safety Harbor Chapter, the engagement director for the Emerge New Worship Community, and your reigning Mr. St. Pete Pride of 2023. Thank you. And thank you for letting me be. Thank you. Thank you. 1.4% of youth between the ages of 13 and 17 identify as trans. That's approximately 300,000. Clearly, the official poverty rate in 2022 was 11.5%, with 37.9 million people in poverty. Clearly, there are much bigger problems than the existence of us. The Human Rights Campaign is currently opposing more than 520 anti-LGBTQ proposals, with more than 220 of those bills unambiguously targeting the restriction of rights of transgender people. There are more than 125 bills that would stop trans youth from being able to access age-appropriate, medically necessary, best-practice health care. This year, 13 of these bills have become laws in 13 states. More than 30 bathroom ban bills, more than 100 curriculum censorship bills, and more than 45 anti-drag performance bills have been filed. This is the highest number of bills affecting trans people to this date. Here in the state of Florida, attacks based on gender identity have gone up by 32.9% from 2022. 13.8% is based on sexual orientation, and the hate crimes remain most prominent in the race and ethnicity category. We can talk about the bills all day, but I'm going to specify ones that affect me the most. House Bill 1521 is the anti-trans bathroom bill. This is a bill created out of fears stemmed from the actions of misogynistic, selfish, cisgender men criminalizing transgender people from using the restroom, matching their gender identity, which would mean me going to a woman's bathroom. Sorry, ladies, I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. Senate Bill 1320, the Don't Say LGBTQ Expansion Bill, mutes the ability for educators to provide knowledge on sexual orientation or gender identity from pre-K to 8th grade. This, in turn, means that Mr. Joe, the 6th grade teacher, would not be able to place a picture frame of his desk to share his husband and family's joys healthily, if his students so ask. And Ms. Jane, the 2nd grade teacher, would have to hush their students when they talk about having two same-sex parents. This also puts our trans parents at risk of false ideologies, thus forcing families to be in the closet. Last but not least, the Senate Bill 266, MAGA takeover of higher education, allows the state of Board of Governors to give direction to universities in removing major and minor subjects such as critical race theory and gender studies, and would prohibit funding for such related programs. This literally prevents the state of Florida from being able to educate our future leaders in equality. I find it monumental that TDOR also happens to land in the month of November, also commonly known as Suicide Awareness Month. Our dangers lie beyond the paperwork of bills and laws. We as a community are psychologically suffering due to these acts of ignorance. According to the Trevor Project, 41% of LGBTQ young people seriously consider attempting suicide in the past year, and young people who are transgender, non-binary, and are people of color reported higher rates than their peers. In 2019, a Tampa Latin trans woman and drag artist by the name of Beja King graced us on this earth. She brought joys to her days as a caretaker in a senior's facility, and at night with her many shows and venues, she was incredibly respected and loved by her community and a genuine asset to non-profit service, and yet she chose to take her own life out of the loss of hope for change. She was a beautiful friend of mine who taught me patience, faith, humor, and grace. The act of acknowledging Trans Day of Remembrance is a stand. The city of St. Petersburg and the courage of Mayor Ken Welch sets an example for the cities around us, and in both major and minor cities. We are exemplifying humanity in its loving form, and I'm truly honored to be a part of it. My invite is this, to stay kind, stay loving, and stay open to the possibilities of excellence around you. Trust in self-care and ask for help when you truly need it, because we are here for you. We, as a community, get to be an example of the reality of excellence that is equality, representation, and inclusiveness, and I'm grateful to be a living testimony. Thank you for your time. Well, I'm not sure how to actually come behind all of that. So I just want to go ahead and explain and introduce myself to you all. So my name is Rashida Johnson, my pronouns are she, her, and what Mayor Walsh said, my stage name is Tiaja Giovanni Crochet, and I am a proud black trans woman living in this world. As we sit here and we actually acknowledge T-Door for the month of November, I just want you all to be willing to open your hearts and your minds when it comes down to actually understanding who we are as a people. We sit here and, I'm trying not to get emotional. We sit here and we choose to be, and we want to be visible. We want you to see us. As you all sit up here and you make these proclamations and these laws and put these things into perspective for your people, also keep in mind that you have a 70-year-old trans grandmother, a 70-year-old trans grandfather, uncles, mothers, aunties, whoever. I just want you all to continue to give us your hearts, and we're going to give you ours. And so, like I said, I'm not going to do all of that, okay? I'm just not going to do all of that. So I love you all, and I appreciate you all for everything that you have done. Mayor Walsh, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Y'all have a wonderful day. Thank you, Mayor Walsh, and thank you all. Thank you for being here. All right, we will move to item D2. Thank you, Madam Chair, and that sound you heard was a bull stampede. We are joined by student government representatives and campus leadership today for USF St. Pete Student Government Day. The group has spent the day of activities planned to include a panel discussion and a tour of City Hall. They're here to learn more about city government and to share their ideas with us. I'll ask our government affairs director, David Thompson, of course, a former bull and president of the student body, campus governor, Abdul Kwajah, and USF St. Pete Chancellor Christine Hart agree to join me for the reading of the proclamation. Christian, I'm sorry. And the proclamation reads, whereas the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus is a close-knit campus offering an intimate educational experience with the benefits of attending a large institution. And whereas USF St. Petersburg students are actively involved in research, job shadowing, and internship programs that enhance their academic experience and enrich the surrounding community. And whereas the student government of USF St. Petersburg is a model of professionalism and excellence that strives to provide effective student representation before the university, the student body, the student body, and the greater St. Petersburg community. And whereas the student government of USF St. Petersburg provides students with the highest caliber of enriching and educational activities and service and holds itself to the highest standards while demonstrating integrity, integrity, commitment, accountability, passion, unity, and respect. And whereas the student government of USF St. Petersburg develops alumni who strive to become remarkable leaders who will serve their communities locally, nationally, and globally. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 9th, 2023, as the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg Student Government Day in St. Petersburg and encourage all citizens to join me in celebrating future leaders in our community and city and now is when we say, Go Bulls. All right. First of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. Mayor Welch, thank you so much for recognizing USF Student Government Day. This is amazing. I know we're all so proud of our Bulls, and this really is about the students. And I didn't know if maybe we could get our students to perhaps just stand where they're at, just so that you get a chance to see our heard. I also, you know, on the heels of the previous proclamation, I just want to say that USF St. Pete is the place where our students, our community, our staff, our faculty are seen and valued and heard. And I love that. And since this is about the students, I'm going to step away from the microphone. You know how much I love a microphone, but we're going to have our student governor say a few words, if you would please. Thank you, Chancellor Hardegree. My name is Abdul-Makeet Khwaja, and I have the privilege to serve as the campus governor for USF St. Petersburg campus. Firstly, of course, thank you for having us over here. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy and hectic schedules. Because I believe this is an embodiment and representation of what the city stands for to their commitment towards serving not only the citizens, but most importantly the student community. And providing them a platform to spearhead missions that contribute to the educational background in our city. And I want to put it out there that events like these don't go unnoticed among our student community. In fact, they show what the city stands for and they allow them to be more involved in the city's involvement. Just for today, we had the opportunity to not only meet with the panelists from different areas of the city, but also have a reception with Mayor Ken Welch and learn about what his vision is for the future of the city of St. Pete. And what you're looking at over here is the future of the city of St. Petersburg. And having that relevance and having that familiarity really helps us to learn that we're in the perfect breeding ground to grow. And this is where we want to stay after we graduate and this is where we want to serve the community around us or the people around us. And so that is to say that we look forward to more of these events to come forth, which allow our students to be engaged in and allow our students to realize that the city is there for us. Because at the end of the day, our goal is to break the barriers between the admin and the students, because we are St. Pete and we want to serve the students of St. Pete. Thank you. Madam Chair, with your patience, can we grab a photo now? Yeah. We were not able to do that one earlier. I'm going to let Maria tell us how we're going to do this. All right. Because we've got a ton of students. Okay. Okay. We moved the chairs. Yeah, we'll push the chairs. Hey, are you going down here in the middle? Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Of course. Of course. Come on down. Oh, you want me to stand here? With the council? Nice to meet you. Oh, no. This is all day. Hi. How are you? Nice to meet you. Come on. Hi. Nice to meet you. I'll dress way better now. I'm going to stand there, so let's go. All right. Fill on in. Come on down. Come on down. Come on down. Come on down. Fill on in. Fill on in. Fill on in. Oh, there's a good one. What are you doing here? Yeah? Probably, uh... Huh? Y'all going to have to act like y'all love each other. Everybody in. Okay. Fill on in. Okay. I'm so sorry. Throwing elbows back here. Like a whole thing. Bye! Bye! Bye. Bye! Bye! Bye! Bye! Thanks for calling me. Yeah, right. I'm so sorry. I were throwing elbows back here like a whole thing. See? Bye! Oh. Exactly Get a little closer I really like it Yeah Me too There we go I don't want to open my mouth Alright everybody we're trying to do this real quickly Sorry We'll wait for you guys to sit sorry Sorry Thank you Alright everybody Right here Everyone right here One two three One two three One two three Let me check those I think that's good Thank you Thank you The easiest business we have to do all day Good luck for us to be here Great Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you That's probably it I was about to sit down Yeah Absolutely Alright if everyone could take their seats so that we can get moving with our meeting Never fix Anderson That's all the fun Hi Christian Hi I went to UCF But of course We'll give it just a second for chambers to clear Alright a hush fell over the room so I guess we can get back to our business Next we're going to move to item D3 and this will be given by Council Vice Chair Fig Sanders Good afternoon everyone Good afternoon This gives me great honor to present this proclamation to Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Month is Ms. Karen Davis Pritchett who is the Vice President of Hospice and her team if you would please join me at the podium And for someone who has benefited from the services of hospice and understanding just how vital their role in our community really really is You would think that the end of life would bring sadness to so many people But I am a witness You brought comfort You brought joy You brought peace And the proclamation reads Whereas Annually November is recognized as National Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Month And whereas Nationally and locally organizations highlight contributions made by volunteers and staff that support patients in hospice and palliative care And whereas Thanks to the dedicated healthcare professionals who specialize in hospice and palliative care Our communities can be better prepared for how to manage their healthcare and personal affairs in days of uncertainty And whereas Having access to those critical services provides much needed support And peace of mind to patients and their families to help ensure they may transition with dignity and peace And whereas During National Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Month We stand in support of patients and their families Medical professionals Staff And volunteers Who care and hard work gives hope to those preparing for the end of life journey And Whereas The theme of this year's National Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Month Is courageous conversations To encourage patients and their families to have meaningful conversations To plan for the days ahead Now therefore I Vice Chair Deborah Fix Sanders on behalf of Kenneth Welch Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg Do hereby proclaim November 2023 As Hospice and Palliative Care Awareness Month Throughout this city and I urge all residents to educate themselves And raise awareness about hospice and palliative care I'm going to now ask Ms. Davis Pritchett if she would like to say a few words Good afternoon Thank you Mayor Welch, Vice Chair Deborah Fix Sanders and City Council Thank you for the acknowledgement and the recognition of the care that we provide at Suncoast Hospice We have been providing care in the community for the residents of St. Petersburg for 46 years Whether that is at our care center, at Bayfront Health, or wherever our patients call home This is a very important time for us to have those courageous conversations And want you to know that we, along with our CEO, Jonathan Fleece And all of the colleagues of Suncoast Hospice We are committed to empathetic, compassionate, and extraordinary end of life care Thank you for everything that you do for our city And thank you for being a partner with Suncoast Hospice At this time, I would like to ask my colleagues to introduce themselves and their role in our organization Hi, my name is Dena Williamson I'm the Senior Vice President of Business Development My role is to educate the physicians You would think they would know, but there's a lot of education still necessary for them to provide end of life care Our hospitals, our communities, our facilities, and patients in general So thank you so much for this proclamation We appreciate it Good afternoon My name is Pauline Maley And I'm the Chief Clinical Officer at Suncoast Hospice So I too just want to say thank you And in about approximately 30 seconds I'm going to be chasing that student body of USF To see if any of them are interested in opportunities in healthcare So thank you so much for the proclamation and all that you do Thank you And my name is Danielle Wieter-Zapiri I am the Vice President of Care Navigation So I support access and intake into our continuum of Empath Health Services We focus on initiatives dedicated to DEI and equitable care And so we really have a strong focus as far as mobile outreach and things of that nature To meet not only the citizens of St. Petersburg, but Pinellas County And all of our 16 counties that we serve through Empath Health So thank you very much for having us here today and for the proclamation Thank you, good to see you Karen All right, and next we will go to item D4 And Councilmember Montaneri is going to provide this proclamation before he makes his way down I was told Mayor Welch had invited several employees to join us today who are veterans So if you are here with us today and you are a veteran, please stand and be recognized Thank you all so much for being here with us Not only your service to our city, but also your service to our country Thank you all And then real quick before I turn it over to you Councilmember Montaneri I have a note here to make sure that I announce that on Saturday at 9 a.m. at the World War Heroes Memorial in Williams Park We do have our Veterans Day celebration So hopefully everyone will be able to come out and enjoy that festivity with us as well Councilmember Montaneri Thank you Madam Chair, Mayor Welch, City Council, fellow veterans Good to see so many veterans here in council chambers It's an honor to present this proclamation I did want to just talk just a little bit about the meaning of Veterans Day Veterans Day started as Armistice Day At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month The guns went silent and that ended World War I And a lot of times around Veterans Day You see some in the United States, but you see it a lot in Europe You'll see people wearing poppies because of the poppy fields And the lives that were lost on that day It's been a tradition in our country at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November For two minutes of silence A lot of people have forgotten that tradition But I challenge everybody that's here in the chambers and who's listening on TV To pause at 11 o'clock on Saturday and think about the veterans As an Air Force veteran myself, I lost a lot of friends in the Air Force And I think about those friends of mine that can't be called a veteran Because they died on active duty So this is a very special day for me And Mayor Welch, I'm honored to read this proclamation And receiving the proclamation is Helen Rimes, our social service planning manager And the proclamation reads Whereas annually since November 1919 The United States observed Veterans Day First commemorated as Armistice Day by President Woodrow Wilson And whereas Veterans Day is an opportunity for all Americans to reflect on the heroism Of those who sacrificed in the U.S. Armed Forces And share our gratitude with their selfless service And whereas on November 11th All citizens are invited and encouraged to celebrate Veterans Day By honoring our veterans who have given so much to ensure their fellow Americans Are able to live their lives in peace And whereas the city of St. Petersburg is proud to recognize the courage, valor, and contributions of veterans And their families in support of our freedom And whereas the city of St. Petersburg will honor and pay tribute to our local veterans Who have served with honor and distinction with our annual Veterans Day celebration in Williams Park On Saturday, November 11th Now, therefore, I, Ed Montaneri, standing in for Mayor Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of St. Petersburg Do hereby proclaim Saturday, November 11th, 2023 as Veterans Day And encourage all citizens to join in celebrating their strength and courage And support of our community, city, and country Good afternoon, everybody Thank you, Mayor Thank you, City Council For recognizing this day I'm not a veteran So I feel like I'm not the right person to be here My father is a veteran though And so are my uncles And my kids' friends So I would just To our city employees that are here Thank you Thank you for your contribution to our country As well as our citizens every day in our city So I'd just like to tell you thank you Please join us Saturday morning at 9 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial It is a celebration We'll be there recognizing two St. Pete residents who are also veterans And so thank you again Thank you, Helen Thank you, Helen Yeah Yeah Okie dokie Same thing that we do There you Do we want to do Everyone up here? Yeah Do it again I just do what I'm doing Veterans Oh, I don't know Veterans All veterans Veterans Veterans Join us, please Yeah See you, Major McCoy Hey Good How are you doing? Hey Good How are you doing? Hi Hello, hello Hi Welcome Come on in Yes I love you, Pete Thank you You want to stand right between us? My right Yeah, you're so bright and colorful I love it Hello, hello Please join us Welcome Good to see you There you go Yeah, get comfortable here You should be down there And then we leave And you guys Come on down Come on down Good to see you, sir How have you been? I know Well, that means everything's good Exactly Exactly I don't want to block you I don't want to block you No Y'all come on It's like y'all love each other Come on down Good If you were invited Come on up Okay, there we go If I can see you I'm going to get back here See you Oh Oh, man Who's that out there? Those balls They're already allowed Bulls I know Please Oh, Lord Those aren't sturdy Markman's comp Right Can I hold her? Okay, everybody Eyes right here Great One, two, three One, two, three One, two, three Perfect Yes Everybody Great All right Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you See you on Saturday morning Thank you Thank you Thank you How are you? Janie The palladium Oh No, I haven't Janie's not here Well, Trisha is helping me If he's Anyhow To see you And you know At this point I'm only I'm not sure Yeah Because without Janie, I'm like Yeah Well, Kim Yeah, but no Okay Yeah All right Well, now we will move into open forum Clerk, can you please read the rules? Ma'am 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 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 item comes up on the agenda In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting, and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have one speaker and none in Zoom. Carrie Mueller, or Mueller, Mueller. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Carrie Mueller. I live at 12th and James Avenue, and I'm here today to speak against giving over a billion dollars away to public funds to build a new stadium. The actual cost of the stadium is over $1.2 billion when you take into account the real cost of the stadium. The $400 million in bonds will actually cost $704 million with interest payments. In addition, the earned interest on the bonds of $20 million will be reinvested back into the project to be contributed to the stadium. The 20 acres of land that the stadium sits on will be leased at no cost to the raise, which will be a loss of almost $96.8 million for other uses. And there will be 30 years of lost property taxes by not constructing development that results in a loss of $463 million. And then the county's contribution, once you consider the interest on the bonds, is $593.3 million, which adds up to a real cost of over $1.2 billion. And just to put this in perspective earlier, someone mentioned the population in the United States being $334 million. So that's $3 for every single person in the United States to build a stadium for St. Petersburg. With the raise just paying $700 million, it results in the city paying approximately 77% of the cost of the stadium. If the city will not receive any revenues from the stadium, they won't receive any income from the naming rights of the building, even though they are providing the land and funding a significant amount of the construction cost. I just think that the public needs to be informed of the true cost of the stadium. There would be better investment of tax dollars if the entire area was developed. You'd earn so much more property tax revenue. You could build housing as well as office spaces and provide permanent jobs in offices in that same space. So I just hope you consider that when you make your decision. Thank you. Thank you, Carrie. And that was our final speaker? Yes, ma'am. Okay, we will close open forum and go to our report items. And we will start with item F1, which is our St. Pete Police Department quarterly report. And we are joined by Chief Anthony Holloway. Hello, Chief. Morning, Madam Chair, Councilmembers. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be here today to report the activity of the St. Petersburg Police Department. So for this quarter, remember this is just a snapshot in time. Overall crime is up by 3.8%, but our five-year trend is down by 6.1%. Violent crime is down by 2.2%. Five-year trend down by 5%. Property crime is up by 5.3%. Overall five-year trend is down 4.6%. And we're going to talk about opportunities in property crime because of that 5.3%. 25% of that is still being contributed to by auto thefts. A homicide for the quarter, we had no homicide during this quarter. Our GRIT team, as I told Council before, this team was formed that we can investigate shootings. When they happen, shots, fire, call, the officers or detective will respond to the scene, recover any casing that are left at the scene. And we have a machine at our police department called NIBIN, National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. We are the only agency in Pinellas County to have that piece of equipment. And what that does is we are able to look at the casing, examine the casing, and we can tell you if that casing or if that gun was used anywhere else in the city of St. Petersburg, anywhere in the county, and it goes into a national database. So say if we recover shell casing on Central Street and then later on we recover some shell casing on another street, then we can link those two together. We can tell you what type of gun it is. So we're able to, as you can see, close out cases because we're responding to those scenes. Our stolen gun report for the quarter is 36. And I know Council Member Mohammed had asked for a breakdown. So the breakdown is as following of that 136. 69 of those guns were safekeeping. That means people came to the police department and turned in their guns. 48 were found. 3 were recovered local, stolen elsewhere. 16 were recovered local, stolen locally. Our crime report, again, staying steady. The biggest issue we continue to see is auto theft. The mayor has a meeting planned to discuss with us what are the opportunities we can have in that. We're still having juveniles that are being arrested for stealing cars. You're going to see that in the next slide where they're almost double. So on this slide, you can see compared to last year to where we are now, is we're still having an issue with, again, like I said earlier, juveniles still in cars. Last month, we arrested 25 juveniles in stolen cars. And right now in the queue, we have 20 juveniles that we're looking for right now. Again, our opportunity to see is how we can continue to educate the public to not leave the keys in their cars, not leave the key fobs in their cars. And again, if we were to do that, we could reduce that number. But we're also going to look at what other options we have for these juveniles that we're arresting for stealing cars. Our second chance program is still going quite well, thanks to parks and recs. As you can see, during this quarter, we had 13 kids that went through our second chance program and they succeeded. Our home unit, that's through the sheriff's office. All the agencies in Pinellas County working together, that is still going well also. Our PATH team, as you can see, the numbers doubled and I asked questions about that. This time last year, we had three ulcers working the PATH unit. This year, we have six ulcers working the PATH unit. So that's why some of the numbers would double. And I think city council member asked the last time on this is, so it also may make contact with someone on Monday. That's a contact. Then they can make contact with the same person again on Wednesday. So that's two contact, but it could be the same person because we keep trying to give that person that's homeless or unhoused the services that they need. Our heat unit is still continuing to work on our human trafficking cases. Nuisance abatements. We only had one pursuit during this month, which was justified. Use of force. As you can see for this quarter, we had no citizen complaint, but we did have six internal complaints that we're investigating. Our tips are staying about average. Park walk and talk, definitely staying about average. As you can see, as council asked, we're spreading them out more throughout the district so we can make sure. Again, the ulcers are instructed to get out of their vehicles, to introduce themselves to the people because only 1% of the calls we go into are negative contact, people going through crisis. But we want officers to get out and introduce themselves to the other 99, or let me rephrase it, 98% of the people in the community. Because those are the people we need to know and need to meet. Our response time, we're still staying under our average. Our traffic stats, as you can see, they're continuing to go up. Last year, this time of the year, we had 30 traffic fatalities. As of today, we only have 20 traffic fatalities. As you can see, we're still meeting the requirements. Just to let council know also, we have 88 people in the queue trying to get hired here, so we're doing quite well with that. Off-duty assignments, we're still operating in the black. Over time, we're doing quite well. And again, our call program is exceeding our expectations, so I want to thank the mayor and council, because every time I go somewhere, people keep asking us about our call program. I can tell you we reached a milestone. The call program has gone over 10,000 calls for service with no incidents. With that, I'll open it up. I'm sorry, let me also make council aware. This is going to be our busiest time of the year. So the thing that we're going to be looking at is Black Friday. We have an operation already in place for that. We have Shop with a Cop. We have funding for that. So we'll be taking our youth out to shop for Christmas presents. We already have our bicycle giveaway set for December 4th, where we're going to be giving out more than 200 bikes this year. And then we also have funding from a donor to do Christmas cards and food for families that are in need. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Chief. You're welcome, ma'am. I appreciate you and the presentation. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chief, for the wonderful presentation. I just, maybe you can touch a little bit upon Gandy and the traffic enforcement. The other day I went to Tampa. I don't think I've ever seen that many police officers from St. Pete all the way to Tampa. It was from 530. I think we left. We came back at 9. They were still out there. It was impressive. So I want to give us all the credit. That's all the agencies in the Tampa Bay area because we know Gandy is a problem. So that was Tampa, Florida Highway Patrol, Sheriff's Office, Pinellas Park, because we're trying to tell people no more. And as you saw in the paper, we wrote over 200 citations. So if you want to use Gandy as a speedway, well, we'll be there waiting for you. Well, good job. I know a lot of people noticed that the full force was out there. And so hopefully it continues and the issue down there gets taken care of. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair and Chief. It's always good to see you. We had a meeting after the fatality that we had with a person hitting a pedestrian on a scooter downtown here. And I just wanted to follow up a little bit and see, are we seeing any, are we seeing more people operating scooters in an unsafe manner? And are we seeing more citations issued to people doing operating scooters against the law? Well, we had a talk after our conversation, sir, with Major Hughes and Lieutenant Miller. And they're saying that they are still doing enforcement. Some people just don't realize, I guess they don't follow instructions. So when the officer does tell them to get back onto the roadway, they do. I have not seen more reckless driving, so to speak, on the scooters. I haven't seen an increase in citations. But the officers are still giving people warning, advising them that they should not have those scooters on the sidewalk. They're giving a warning, and if they go back up on the sidewalk after they're told to get off the sidewalk, then they are issued citations. But we're seeing over 90% compliance with that. Okay. And can I ask legal if there's been, how many claims are we dealing with? Do you have any numbers? I don't have that information, but can get it for you. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure that, and just by being downtown, I'm seeing just a lot more activity, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. And just the combination of a lot of things, I just want to make sure that we're staying on top of, we want to make sure that people can have a good time. But we also want to make sure everybody's safe, so I just want to stay on top of this issue. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. With the slide, with the update on the call program, of the contacts that you had for July through September, the 867, approximately, I want to just dive deeper into where the calls are coming from and what they're about. Can you give us an idea of about how many of those contacts are regarding people who are unhoused? I would have to get that breakdown for you, Councilmember. I don't have it on me right now, but I could have it within the next couple of days to you. Okay, and are you seeing that the calls that they respond to, are they originating mostly from residents in the same household, or the same family, or is it from a neighbor, or is it a business? You know, who's making the calls that result in, or is it the person themselves? Again, I would have to get those numbers, Councilmember, because again, it's originated through the 911 call, or they could call directly. After the person calls the police department, refer them to call, then call could do a follow-up with that person. But if you want that type of documentation, I can see if they're doing a breakdown like that, and I can get that to you. Yeah, that would be great. I'd like to see a little bit more about that. And then with the 78% of the responses are due to mental health and suicide concerns. Is that number pretty consistent? It is. I didn't go and look at the last one, the last time you did a report, so. It is consistent. Okay. With that high of a number related to that topic, and we know that that's something, you know, everybody wants to see how we can make a difference, you know, in mental health in our city, and everywhere for that matter. I see an opportunity to look at ways that we can better address those. And so I wonder if there is conversation, even if it's coming from the call team and from that organization, if they're looking at how can we address this problem that has gotten so bad. Well, I think the counselors do a great job when they go to these calls, they make sure that they can refer the clients to other services. But the best thing about call is when they're not responding to a call, they have a call, then they go back and they make contact with that person. So they're just checking where police used to do it every day where a guy or a woman would call every day and they also respond to it. And I'll call, if they get a call on Monday and they have nothing on Tuesday, they may pick up the phone and call the person back again and say, hey, how are you doing? Are you getting the service that you need? So there is a continuing follow up with a person that's going through a mental health care crisis. And that's what really that they need to make sure that someone is helping guide them through the process. Because sometimes when you're just sitting at home and no one contacts you, it starts to just, you feel like you're alone when you know that you may, you know that next day someone is still going to check up on you. Thank you. And I do see one of the benefits of the call team is that they're a resource. So they're actually part of the solution and not just not just responding. But that follow up, I think, is very important. And shifting gears now, how are things going since the shooting incident that occurred downtown a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago, where multiple people were injured? Thankfully, there was, it could have been worse, but we certainly weren't happy. I applaud you for having so many officers who were there at the time. But in light of that, and then what happened more recently in Ybor, has there been any change in the way that you anticipate and proactively plan for these potential situations that occur in tandem with our nightlife? Sure, so after speaking to the mayor, I want to say our staff is always a great staff, so I have to give credit where credit is due. Assistant Chief Gilliam, Major Hughes, and Lieutenant Miller got on this right away after October 6th. So the first thing they did was add additional officers to the downtown area on Friday night so we can have more presence. We already have a lot of officers down there, but we just want to make sure that people are not afraid to come to our downtown area. Then Major Hughes did something that I would say thinking outside the box. He actually met with the business owners downtown, and some of them are already starting. After midnight, you know, there's a lot of people that are outside, but the bars are not serving the people on the outside. And I don't have the name of the bars right now, but I can give them to you. What they've decided to do is bring the tables in and bring the chairs in. So there's no more people hanging outside their establishment that people like either in the bars drinking or they're not there. So from what we've heard, all the other owners on Central are thinking about doing that same model. So that'll free up the sidewalk so we can move traffic along there. Last week, we actually did an underage operation where we went into every bar to see which bars were serving underage. Three bars were cited. So we'll continue to do things like that. We want people to come to our downtown area. We want them to feel safe, but at the same time, we're going to make sure that we're enforcing the law, that we're working with our bar owners, which are, and how can we continue to make that safe? Thank you. And it's good to see that the businesses are looking at ways that they can take action and be part of the solution too. So I do appreciate all that you and Major Hughes and Chief Gilliam have been doing on this issue, because I agree. We need to make sure that the reputation of downtown is one where people feel that it's a safe place to go to have fun. Lastly, there was an incident last night where you had two officers who were dragged by a car during a stop. Yes, ma'am. Are they doing okay? They're both fine, minor bruises of the traffic stop, and the person decided to, the officer, I believe, reached inside the car, and they were trying to take him in custody, and the person drove off, and the officer was, again, thank God he was hurt, but he wasn't hurt seriously. Yeah. The media reported there were two officers. Was it just one that was? Yes, ma'am. There was an officer that was in training and his training officer. Oh, okay. All right. Well, thank you. And please, please give them our best. I will. Thank you. Thank you for asking. All right. Thank you, Chair. So, Chief, I am always interested in your slide where the guns are stolen because that has been a continuous issue, especially in my district, for a very long time. I'm very encouraged that those numbers are better for this quarter report, but the fact that most of them are still stolen out of cars, I just have to continue to say that so that residents hear it understand that gun ownership has great responsibility, and part of that is making sure that we keep them out of the hands of kids. And so thank you for continuing to share that heat map and kind of keeping us abreast of what's going on so we can continue to share that with our residents. Um, because I think that's just such a responsibility of our community to make sure that we keep those guns safe. Um, so thank you for sharing that. And then, um, to Councilmember Hanowitz's point about Gandy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, on behalf of my residents, uh, the people that work in that area, the people that go through that area. Um, it's been, you know, dangerous for a long time, and, uh, I have noticed, um, that it has gotten better. And I think that's because people are seeing y'all out there and they know that, um, we're not going to be kind of putting up with it anymore. So thank you for that. Um, also thank you guys for the work that you do. I saw major McCoy here earlier. Thank you for the work that you're doing on the racing. Um, that seems to be dramatically changed. I mean, it's been, it's never going to be perfect and it kind of comes and goes. And I think it's kind of seasonal, but it definitely seems like it has gotten much better. So on behalf of the residents of District 2, just thank you so much for everything that you do there. Um, I wanted to ask you because you mentioned that there are, um, how many in the hiring queue? How many did you say? 88. 88. What does that mean to be in the hiring queue? So that means that they're going through the process now, uh, trying to get hired here by the police department. So they're getting their background check done. So hopefully we can get them through the process and we can get them on here. Right now we have 25 vacancies that we're trying to fill, but we also have to look down the road, retirement. But right now we have 25 openings and we still have officers coming and I know you attend all the time, are swearing in. We still have officers coming from all over the nation trying to get hired here at this police department. Yeah. When you have, you know, a pool that large, I don't know if we've had one that large before, that sounds, 88 sounds like a lot. About what percentage typically make it through to the next phase? So this is, uh, we've hired more people. So we usually rack around 120, 130. So we're getting more people through. Uh, usually out of that group, we're hoping about 60% that will make it through. Uh, because with backgrounds and other things, uh, and some people may be in the military and are waiting for another year, so to speak. Uh, but we're hoping, uh, that at least 60% of those will make it through. And then in our field training program, uh, we could lose one or two, uh, in there. And sometimes we'll lose maybe one in the academy. Okay. Yeah. Coincidentally, we just got the, uh, sworn report that came through while we've been sitting here. And it's looking really good. Um, you know, 572 sworn, 16 cadets, uh, pending. And then if we can get some more of these people, I think we're, we're incrementally getting there, right? To our full sworn of 602. So great work. Thank you so much. Um, you talked about shop with the cop. I don't know if they're going to do that at the, uh, gateway target again this year, but if so, please make sure Yolanda knows to let me know. Um, because last year I just had the happy coincidence of shopping there myself that day and they happened to be there and I got to witness it and experience it and it was beautiful. So please, uh, make sure that she lets us know whenever you guys are doing those events so we can come out and support. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, chief. We appreciate you. Stay safe. Thank you. All right. So we will now move on to our next report item, which is F two, the palladium theater. And I'm going to turn over to council member Hanowitz. Thank you chair. And thank you. Um, Paul Wilborn is here. First of all, I have to apologize. He did not get the memo that the meeting time had changed because Jamie's not around this week. So it kind of fell through the cracks. So I'm sorry. Cause you were thinking of three o'clock meeting and you made it just in time. I'm here. And we have one, uh, at three o'clock, a lot of really cute people are going to walk. So for those who don't know Paul, he's the executive director of the palladium theater, our community based performing arts center. That's part of St. Pete college. And he's going to discuss, uh, some exciting happenings at the palladium theater with the launch of their capital campaign and improvement plan. So Paul, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. Everybody. Thank you for your time. I'm so glad I showed up a little early. This is, uh, so I'm Paul Wilborn. I'm executive director of the palladium theater at St. Petersburg college. And we're celebrating 25 years as an affordable community performing arts venue. I apologize. I'm going to read from some notes because it's an official meeting. So, uh, I'm willing to ad lib and, and take questions, but I am going to read from a few notes here. As we're, uh, here today, a dream team of architects and designers and acousticians are actually hard at work on a project to transform our theater, uh, from a church with a stage, which is essentially what we are right now into a state of the arts venue, uh, here in Pinellas County and here in downtown. We think that's going to cost about $10 million, which I wish it was half of that, but that's what the world is. Um, I'll tell you more about that. But first I want to share a little of our history, which not everybody knows. We've met with a lot of you all. And I think people are always surprised at the history of, of this theater. Uh, after we built Ruth Eckert Hall and redid the Mahaffey and built the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, the community quickly realized that none of them could afford to do a show in those venues. They're wonderful venues, but they're designed for Broadway road shows and for rock shows. And, you know, thousands of people with union work. It's great. It's not what the community can afford. So in 1998, uh, it's really starting in 95, but the theater opened in 1998 and it was built and purchased and totally funded by a cadre of really visionary philanthropists in St. Petersburg. The Huff family, the Stavros family, uh, folks from the times, just a lot of people coming together who said, we need this in our community. And they put up the money and bought an old church, uh, that had been a Christian science church at fifth and third and invested in it, built a stage, did some other things. And the best thing about that building was it had theater seats. They didn't have to convert pews. So the Palladium was born. Uh, today, 25 years later, we are the performance home for a majority of the organizations who get grants from the city. The St. Petersburg Opera, Al Downing Jazz Association, the St. Pete Ballet Arts, the Florida Orchestra, American Stage, Carter Woodson Museum, Emit, and many more on that list. We're home to community events. Uh, the mayor debates are there. The Times Festival of Reading is this weekend. Uh, when oil started gushing in the Gulf, the community came to the Palladium, uh, for the sold out community forum on that issue. Uh, in January, we're honoring the 90th birthday of a St. Pete jazz legend, John Lamb, uh, with a special concert and award ceremony. That's just a smattering of what we do. We've built our business around local talent in jazz, dance, blues, chamber music, any genre that was out there and wasn't being served, uh, by the larger community. Uh, when you come to see our Nutcracker this December, the kids on stage are all from St. Petersburg. When you come to almost any weekend in May, and I really encourage you, it's my favorite times. Every dance studio in the Tampa Bay area comes there and it's little dancers in their outfits, the moms and the grandparents and the parents in the audience. It's just a beautiful time. That's who we're serving. Um, turning page and unlike venues, when you, you know, we celebrate these things. Oh my gosh, Taylor Swift was here. I'm a Taylor Swift fan. We have these big shows and the sucking sound that you hear is the money leaving our community that night. You know, about 10% stays here with the venue, but most of it leaves, uh, for the, the coastline somewhere. Uh, that's not true at the Palladium. Uh, we have a $2.5 million budget. And of that more than that happens, but 1 million we have tracked goes directly into the pockets of arts organizations, performers, and people in related fields who live in our community. Uh, you really can't call yourself an arts town, which St. Pete deservedly calls itself. If your performers and your artists can't afford to live here, work here and make a living based here in our community. Uh, our performers live here. They buy homes here. They pay taxes here and they consider us their home venue. You know, the great thing about the Palladium is when you're performing there, I never have to tell an artist, oh, by the way, you're in St. Petersburg. We're their home venue. They know where they are. They, they know exactly where they are and they're happy to be here. In 2020, when we had to close the doors, a lot of our artists were dependent on shows. They did at the Palladium and elsewhere. Uh, we started a creative fellowship program that puts money directly into the pockets. Of, of these artists to create shows. $30,000 was our investment. Uh, the first time. And that was in direct $2,500 support. Then when those shows were produced, we paid them to do the shows and we supported them with about $5,000 in marketing, ticketing, staff support. These are almost $10,000 gifts and we're in our third year. We had 42 applications this year that we're mulling through and this is not state money or city money. This is Palladium dollars that we've earned or raised. So it's a great program and it's much needed and it helps keep people here. Um, it's also interesting for this program, we don't have to set any diversity guidelines. We don't, we just ask for applications and when we finished going through the applications and you go through the most talented people in our area, it's the most diverse list you can see. It's just everything. And we're really proud of that. And those people are, are the face of the Palladium. We also train, uh, students at SPC as part of the music industry and recording arts program. And hundreds of those students go through and they go on to real jobs in the industry. Uh, those kids not only take classes at the Palladium, but they intern, uh, 1800 hours a year of internships at the Palladium alongside professional sound and light people. We just had that happen this weekend on two major shows where they sat with the touring sound and light guy and watch this guy work. Normally they work with our folks who are pros, but they really get to see the national, uh, business and all of them go off to get great jobs either in the industry or believe it or not, where all the money's being spent in, uh, the music industry right now in churches, helping churches get their work, all the expensive equipment that they bought. They don't know how to run it. So our kids go out and work it for them. The interesting thing is that we have stuck with the mission. When I talk to, uh, nonprofits and you know, what, how do you do what you do? If you're a nonprofit stick with your mission and you'll be successful. We have been incredibly successful. Uh, we've grown our budget from under 500,000 when I started to, uh, to almost 2.5 million. And that's between 2007 and today. And we had the world's worst, uh, modern recession in the middle there. Um, we're part of St. Petersburg college that happened in 2007 when the founders handed it over with no mortgage, but the college, I don't pay rent. I don't pay an electric bill, but the college provides no direct support for our budget. Everything we earn in that 2.5 million we earn through donations, through ticket sales, through all the stuff that we do. And, uh, at the end of the year, all the college president asked us, please don't cost me any money. And so far we've done that very successfully. Uh, we've operated in the black since 2012. So I'm on my last page. I apologize. This is reading, but, uh, why are we renovating this, uh, historic building? Uh, we've accomplished so much in a building that really is essentially a church with a stage. I want to stress none of this will have any impact on the historic nature of this building. We're on the local register. We're on the national register. This is all interior acoustic stuff. We're working on acoustics, sight lines, and seating. Our stage is too low. You can't see a person. We had people doing wonderful dance movements on the stage, kind of on the ground. The first few people could see them in the first row or maybe the first row of the balcony. That was it. The seats are old. They're too small. Uh, and after about three hours, they're not fun. Um, if my tall wife sits in front of you, you are not going to see the show. I can just guarantee you that. Uh, amplified music bounces off the hall. The music bounces off the hard surfaces of our building. Uh, the noise from fifth avenue traffic seeps into our windows. Our backstage area is created by a metal pole and a black curtain that we hang there. That's, that's what we do. Uh, but it's worked up to this point, but we're really falling behind. Uh, the world is changing. People are investing lots of money and would love to see some of our business come their way. Uh, and we need to keep up and we also need to keep training. Uh, kids and we just need to be a real venue for this community. Um, so how are we going to get there? I'm proud to tell you that we just signed an agreement with a private donor for $5 million toward our project. Uh, part of that money is a challenge grant. So any dollars that are headed our way from state, county, uh, city, private donors will be matched dollar for dollar through this grant. And we're only trying to get to 10. So I I'm feeling good about where we are. The state also granted us $850,000 in this year's budget. Uh, that hired our design team and our architects. They're doing a full study of not only the main stage, but our nightclub downstairs and our parking lots. So we can improve the look of the building outside. Uh, and that's that contract signed. They are hard at work and they expect to be done by April. We should have some beautiful drawings in January. I think. Um, we're also back in front of the state. Uh, Senator Roussan is helping us, uh, seek another $850,000 directly for construction. And we're optimistic. We'll get that. So I'm here just saying we'd love to have to city participate one time only, uh, with a special appropriation. Uh, we're also seeking funds from the county and the TDC. And I am here to promise you that if we do get this, or if we don't, I won't be back. This is a one time ask. We are not seeking ongoing support from the city. We like everybody else will take our arts grant or 15, $16,000. We're darn happy to get it, but we're not here seeking your support after this. We are, we're doing great and we continue to do great. And, uh, we just need a little help getting this big project underway. As I want to quote Hazel Huff, the late Hazel Huff, who I just loved. Uh, she was among the founders. She was one of the first one who peeked in the windows of that Christian Science Church at fifth and said, Oh my gosh, that looks great. That lobby is beautiful. And she came in and saw theater seats and they said, that's it. She said, and they supported everything. She said of all the things we've supported, the palladium is closest to our heart. And you've made it into the place we always dreamed it would be. So our goal with this project is to keep Hazel Huff's dream alive and my dream alive and all these. We've got some wonderful performers and folks who stopped in here too. So thank you. Some creative fellows and, uh, and some promoters and some staff. Anyway, there's more coming, I swear. Uh, so we're trying to keep that alive for the next 25 years. Uh, so I thank you so much for your support and I welcome any questions. Thank you so much, Paul. So good to see you. And, uh, I got my private tour sometime back and it was very enjoyable. You taught me quite a bit about a, uh, place where I have always loved to come and, uh, just wanted to kind of learn more and I got to see that in the backstage and everything. And it's just, I mean, anybody who thinks that that does not need to be upgraded to its full potential isn't paying attention. So, uh, thank you for your commitment to, uh, the facility and for everything that you do. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, I just wanted to say thank you. I, I also toured, uh, my wife and I have been to a couple of, uh, shows this year. We went to the Nutcracker last year. It's just an amazing space. And, um, I'm very excited for this campaign and for the Palladium to, to really get to where it's, to where it should be. Um, the, is, is Tom security? Is that? Yeah. Um, so. He's, he's, uh, wanted by. He'd be good at it. He's in my district. I know. Uh, so, uh, but I'm just, I just wanted to say thank you for me. I, I'm, I'm really excited. Um, I, I'll get to work on this twice, both here and at the TDC. And so, um, just very thankful for the Palladium and everything that all the performers and everybody that's a part of the theater and, uh, just a big thank you. Thanks. Council. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you. And I, I planned it perfectly cause Tom Green is here. He loves hearing that thing operating in the black. From 2012 it's operated in the black. Enterprise systems. I mean, this is, this is exactly where you want it. So I, I think first of all, I love every time I drive by and see the Palladium, it's just such a beautiful location. And one of the wonderful things about it is our, is our downtown has grown to know that you have, it's just hugging the Palladium pretty much. And you have all these new hotels and, and tourists and people coming down and they can go see shows and support local acts, um, which I think is critical for a city of arts. Um, so I think, you know, I think what you all, the work you do is wonderful. So I am very supportive and, um, we'll work to see what we can do here and I thank you for everything that you do and I encourage every city council member to go do a tour and see what's happening at the Palladium. Uh, because this is really our community center here. Yeah, please be our guest center. And I'm serious that the, uh, you know, I believe we do great arts, but we also have to do commerce. I mean, we've got to balance that out. Uh, you can't keep going year after year if your numbers don't add up. So we walked this fine line of trying to do really interesting, uh, you know, things. I just met with some artists the other day. I said, your show is great. Nobody came out. Let's figure out how next year we're going to get a big crowd there. That's what we do. And these are three local guys who we will pay. And it, it's just, that's what we do. We take these artists and also try to make them take them to the next stage of their career. So it's a lot of fun and we're doing it successfully. And, uh, we really appreciate your support. Any other questions before I sit down? So member Floyd. Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to say thanks for, uh, coming and talking with us today and thanks for reaching out to all of us and, and teaching us more about the, uh, the theater. Um, but really I put myself on here to say that I hope that you are back regardless of what happens here. So, yeah, I, I hope to, uh, you know, hear about how things are going, um, as often as, as you feel comfortable. So, uh, thank you so much again and looking forward to the campaign. Actually, let me get one clarification. You said, uh, the whole thing's $10 million. Is that actually what you're going for? Yeah. And we're, that was a guesstimate by a study we did. Uh, it was actually a little bit lower, but we know what's happened to construction costs. Uh, so we're in the process. We will know in the next few months, uh, cost analysis are going to take these plans and say, here's what it's really going to cost. And, but we think 10 is a very real number and the, and our team seems to think that's a good number as well. And it, it lets us, and with the St. Petersburg College, they're not going to give me the money. I have to show them that I have the money for them to start. We're, we're not, they will maintain the building. They're going to fix the roof. They've given us new bathrooms. They do a lot of stuff to the building to keep it, uh, alive. But this is all theatrical stuff. So we have to raise this money and we think that's the number. We'll know better in a month or two. Okay, great. Thanks. I just wanted to make sure I was on the right page. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the, the update and for all you do to keep the Palladium front and center in our arts community. With the, the match, the, um, the challenge grant that you mentioned, um, how much of the 5 million is that? Well, uh, the gift, it was written in an interesting way. It's, it's 3 million directly to the campaign and then 2 million is matching. I mean, so the, and that matches if we get more from the state, that's counted toward that match. If we get city money, that's counted toward that match. Uh, we're talking to lots of private donors. We're setting appointments and taking that. We just kicked off this campaign about a week ago. So we're just in that phase. And once we get pictures and we can go and say, here's the pretty thing. Cause I've seen some preliminaries and it's going to be very exciting. Uh, that I really think the community is already stepping up. We've sold, uh, several naming things. Our main donors who were the Huff Family Foundation, uh, asked that we stay the name, the Palladium. They wanted to buy a name and not put a name on it. They liked the Palladium. They're going to keep Huff Hall. And, but we have other naming opportunities and people are already stepping up naming bathrooms and somebody just named our workspace. Uh, cause they said, well, I have a tool. I have a workspace. I'd like to name your workspace. So, uh, we're deep in that campaign, but every dollar will be matched up to 2 million. Uh, so. And is there a deadline for that? Is there what? Is there a deadline for the challenge? Our timetable, um, we're, we're hoping to continue this for about a year and a half in fundraising and planning. The architecture will be done next spring. We're going to have to close, uh, our building and we're finding places for other folks to go. So we don't think it's going to, we hope to start this in 25 and celebrate, uh, the 100th anniversary of the church itself by reopening in 26. So we've got about a year and a half, uh, to raise this money or at least show that we've, we've got pledges for it. Mm hmm. So it's, I think it's a reasonable timeframe, but does keep me up at night. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I was trying to compare it to the funding that we did for the St. Petersburg Museum of History, um, to help with their renovations. And it's been a, it's been a minute since we did that, Tom, but I think we broke it down into two or three years worth of, um, appropriations. Excuse me. That's my recollection. I think we did it over three fiscal periods. Um, and I don't recall the exact amounts of each of those, but that is certainly a concept that we could explore. Yeah. And that absolutely works for us. Uh, the, the college, we have said you have a legitimate pledge from like the Huff Foundation, the city that, that counts as dollars. That's real money to them. So the pledge could be spread over, over some time. Um, yeah. Okay. Um, I wonder if council member Hanowitz is planning to, um, work on some type of a funding proposal. I don't want to duplicate efforts, but I would suggest looking at the St. Pete Museum of History model. Um, and then comparing that with their timeline and seeing if we can, um, make a, a meaningful contribution. I love a good match. I love the challenge part of it. It's exciting. Yeah. And the, you know, while we're, we are part of St. Petersburg college, there's this, we, the college has agreed to run this in perpetuity. So as long as there is a St. Petersburg college, the palladium will be here that we're not going to take an investment and then not be here, uh, in 10 years or 15 years or 25 years. We are here. The president, uh, Dr. Williams is very supportive. Uh, she's taking me to Tallahassee to lobby up there, uh, this year. And so, you know, it's a very safe investment, uh, even though the city doesn't own our building. Uh, we are owned by a major, we're owned by Xavier for college. We are not going anywhere. I may quit at some point and go crazy and run off, but, but the place will be here and, uh, we'll continue to thrive. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I spend a lot of time, uh, talking about the performing arts as one of the, um, you know, important and, and. Parts of our, our arts community, uh, that doesn't always get as much of the attention as our visual arts. Um, we love them all, but part of supporting the performing arts is making sure that they have. Great venues to perform at. And you're right. They it's, it's the big ones are great, but we need those smaller ones too. Um, that's why I talk a lot about the Williams park bandshell and that renovation project. Um, the arts exchange has a wonderful new stage and they need some help with that. Um, we have just great opportunities to, um, lift up what we already have. And this is definitely one of those projects. And I look forward to, to hearing more about this, hearing your proposal and, um, seeing how the city is up for the challenge. Uh, to, and to your point, uh, we're one spot. I really talk about the arts, uh, and places like the palladium and, and the bandshell and those were part of an arts ecosystem. You have to have all of these things. And so that way our performers are able to live and work. And, you know, the gigs are, when things are good, our performers are doing well, but they come to us and we are able to say, do you want to bring these guys in from New York? We're going to bring in two players. You'll do a big show. We'll support it. And that's not something that happens in every community. It's very rare that a performer can go to a venue and have them, how much money do you need? Let us help you make this happen. Now, when I say that, we sell enough tickets to make that work. I mean, the idea has got to be, it sort of has to work, but that's who we are. And we're just one piece of that ecosystem, but I think we're a pretty important piece. I agree. Thank you. Also vice chair, Vic Sanders. Thank you. And hello again. How are you? So good to see you. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. I wanted to concur with everything that my colleagues have said. Thank you so much for the tour. I've spent much time at the Palladium over the years attending the shows. And I had one task and one task only. I was told the next time I saw you by Sean Brown to make sure I said hello. So now it's recorded. I followed you on my task. I've done as I was charged to do. So he said hello. But thank you so much for doing what it is that you're doing. And I hope you continue to come back. And I think you have a lot of support on this dais in regards to helping you with what it is that you're trying to do at the Palladium. Thank you. And thank you so much. Sean is a great example of that. He gives me credit for somehow launching his career. Because years ago, I said, you need to hire this guy. I told somebody with money they need to hire him. So, of course, I said, John, you're the most talented, good-looking, charismatic guy that I know. You would have done this anyway. But so I'm happy to have his love and accolades. And he's a dear friend. So thank you. And I'll tell him I love him. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you. It's always great to see you, Paul. How are you, sir? Good to see you. Doing good. And I enjoyed my tour with you and John. And not only do I love the Palladium, but I love the history. And the way that you all kind of explain what the needs are out there, you can just see the vision that you've laid before us. And I'm a big supporter of the Palladium, and I want to see it thrive. And the Huff family has just been an amazing family to support the arts here in St. Petersburg. And you touched upon our city and how we're a city of the arts. And we do have a very diverse city of the arts. We've been just blessed by the way that the arts have grown and thrived here in the city. And it's just one of the things that's part of our ecosystem here in St. Petersburg. So I just wanted to chime in in support of what you're doing in helping the Palladium out. And I, too, want to keep Hazel Huff's dream alive. Me, too. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you so much again for the presentation. Good to see you all today. And I don't know if I've smiled this much in a while, Paul. So thank you. You're always a joy and a delight. So thank you so much. Thanks to our folks who came out. But Tom Griffin did a show there last time. He produced a show there last night. And he's awake and here. So I'm grateful. Thank you guys so much. Thank you all. Good to see you. All right. City Council, we will now go to our new ordinances and take up item E1. And we are joined by our budget director, Liz Makovsky, budget manager Jim Chisholm. And I would ask the clerk to read the title, please. In ordinance enacting year end appropriation adjustments, excuse me, proposed ordinance number 562H. In ordinance enacting year end appropriation adjustments for fiscal year 2023 for the operating budget and capital improvement program budget and adjustments to the fiscal year 2024 budget and providing an effective date, the public hearing for this item is scheduled for November 27th. Move approval. Second. Motion and a second. And I think that means there is no need for a presentation today, council. As far as I am. Yeah. All right. Very good. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, enter your votes. Seeing all council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item E1 passes unanimously. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. See you on the 26th, I believe you said? 27. 27. All right. Item E2. Clerk, please read the title. And this is two ordinances. Can we take them together? Yes. Okay, great. First ordinance, Madam Chair, proposed ordinance 756L. An ordinance amending the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. By changing the future land use map designation for a 0.41 acre parcel located at 266th Street North. They're both advertising 66. 66. 66. Okay. Okay. It's wrong somewhere else. That's fine if that's what you have in front of you. At 266th Street North, from residential slash office general R slash OG to planned redevelopment mixed use PR-MU, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective. Move approval. Move approval. One more to read. Proposed ordinance number 788Z. An ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. By changing the zoning of a 0.41 acre parcel located at 266th Street North. From corridor residential suburban one CRS one to corridor residential traditional one CRT one. Providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective date and a public hearing for both ordinances is on December 7th, 2023. Move approval. Second. For both. All right. We have a motion and a second. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to request a one on one before the public hearing. If we could. I don't need a presentation today, but I'd like a one on one before. Okay. Yes. This is quasi judicial, so I can't give a presentation today. Mm-hmm. Oh, I forgot it's quasi. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Very good. Seeing no request to speak. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Members, enter your votes. Councilmember Driscoll. Oh, sorry. Seeing all present, Councilmembers have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, a motion to approve agenda item E2 passes unanimously with Councilmember Driscoll being absent. All right, we will now recess the City Council and convene as the CRA and take up item CRA2. We are joined by Housing Programs Special Projects Manager, Mark Vanloo. Mr. Vanloo, your title is a mouthful. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, City Council, Administration. We have before you today a resolution by the St. Pete Community Redevelopment Agency recommending approval of an agreement between the city and Fairfield Avenue apartments to provide $9.7 million in tax increment financing through the South St. Pete Redevelopment Area for the apartment project proposed. I do have a presentation, and we'll go through that quickly. It's a brief presentation today. Let's see. Here we go. On that side. Oh, this one here. So you're familiar with this project. You've seen it before back in August of 2022, you approved a lesser amount of funding for this project. As a reminder, this project sits between 31st Street South and 34th Street South, bordered on the north by Fairfield Avenue South and on the south by the Pennells Trail. This is a rendering of the completed project provided by the developer. The project's utilizing HB 1339 for residential on industrial zone land. It's 264 units, 100% affordable in workforce housing, and the unit breakdown is there, providing some units at 50% of area median income, some at 80, and some at 120% as listed. The total cost per unit based on the total project cost at this time is $332,576, which is below the average of recent similar projects, which comes in at about 343,000 per unit. So the project cost and unit cost is in alignment with some of the current and most recent projects we're doing that are similar to this one. The per unit subsidy request at 9.7 million would equal a per unit subsidy of 36,742, which is lower than other recent 100% affordable projects coming in at approximately 46,288. Pinellas County did approve funding for this in an amount of $12,400,000 in their meeting on October 31st of 2023. Also note that the CRA Citizens Advisory Committee did review this item this past Tuesday evening and they voted to recommend approval of the funding and the agreement for this development. A portion of the county funds is for land acquisition, so that means the project will be permanently affordable, although our funding carries a 30 year affordability restriction. By default, the project will be permanently affordable and the land that the project is built on will be placed in the land trust. Pending City of St. Petersburg funding approval, construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2024. They have about a 20 month construction timeline resulting in a completed project in late 2025. So this is a significantly shovel ready project. And that completes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. I also have representatives from the developer here if there are any questions. Okay, I see we have public comments, so let's take our cards. We have one card, Madam Chair, Brian Ungst. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you, Madam Chair, Council Members. Brian Ungst, 625 Court Street here on behalf of the applicant Fairfield Avenue Apartments. Council is very familiar with this project. This is a historic project, as you know. The city of St. Petersburg was the first jurisdiction in the state of Florida to codify HB 1339, which was the precursor to SB 962, which was the precursor ultimately to live local. This is the first tool that the legislature has empowered local jurisdictions with to provide housing affordability. And again, this will be the first project, to my knowledge, in the state of Florida that has been built since any of those legislative enactments were made. And that's because the city of St. Petersburg has been at the cutting edge of housing affordability. And I'm so proud to have a project like this that's 100% affordable in perpetuity. Because it's subject to the land use restriction agreement, the Lura with Pinellas County and the land, the land will be restricted in perpetuity. We have 264 units 20% approximately are at 50% AMI or below 26% approximately are at 80% AMI or below and the remaining 54% are at 120% AMI or below. We have an ideal location adjacent to the Pinellas Trail and also adjacent to Gibbs High School. This is a market-oriented development. It's of high-quality construction material. It does not differ from what a market-oriented development would be in terms of construction material, architectural excellence, aesthetics, amenities are even being provided. And I think the Citizens Advisory Committee was extremely impressed by that at their meeting on Tuesday night. As you know, construction costs have significantly increased, as the Palladium just mentioned, that's not news. I believe when this project was initially approved, it was somewhere around $60 million and now it's $87 million. But we are at the very, very final stage for the HUD funding, that's about $56 million. Pinellas County just increased their share to $12.4 million and we're respectfully requesting the city to increase its share by about $7.4 million over what was previously approved to accommodate and account for the market-oriented issues that we need to get over to get this thing built. Construction contracts are almost finalized and construction, God willing, could begin as early as January. I don't want to oversell and under-deliver, but Mr. Capelli has told me that I can say that and he's here to answer those questions if you do want to ask him more details about that. I'm also joined by Fred Hemmer from the Development Group and we're happy to answer any questions that you have. I appreciate, again, your consideration and your support for this project and very much looking forward to the grand opening in 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. That was our only card on this item? Yes. All right, Councilmember Mohammed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question about the funding agreement around the community and other benefits. It talks about the orientation sessions for job fairs, which is good, and then the other piece around local and small business enterprise participation. I didn't see a report or a target, so do we have targets for what the participation will be? The original agreement that contains those items was negotiated before my time, but my understanding is we don't have specific targets in this case, but it is a requirement that they do make every good faith effort to include those types of businesses. Okay, thank you. And then in the reporting requirements, I didn't see a requirement to report on that. Is there a way that we can have a reporting requirement so that we can see how we're doing towards those efforts? Yeah, I think we can add that into the final negotiations of the agreement to establish what those reporting requirements would be on the success of those efforts. Brad? Mr. Tenant? Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, Councilmember Floyd? Thanks. I love to hear Attorney Tenant say things with such certainty. Don't get used to it. No, I'm not used to it. Okay, I want to ask first about, this is coming from CRA funds. How does this impact the CRA budget? This is a pretty significant piece of change, I guess, to say the least. Good afternoon, George Smith, economic development officer. We do have adequate funds. We have uncommitted and unencumbered funds from 2023 that are available to be used for this initiative. And we will be coming forward to you in the next couple of weeks requesting approval for our budget for FY 2024. So funding is not an issue. We have adequate funds. It's funding that was earmarked for affordable housing projects, I'm assuming? It is affordable housing projects, but we did not have any projects to use those funds, so it was available for it. Okay. Okay, thanks. And then my only other thing is, you all know I get frustrated when we have deals that we get in front of us and we approve, and then people come back and ask for more money. And I understand the economics of it, but it's like we're literally getting our hands tied up here with, like, sunken costs. And so I just wonder, you know, because it seems like it's not going to stop happening. If there's any way we can have, like, a more thorough discussion about each individual case, like, why is this come, and maybe I'm mistaken, but this has come straight to council. Like, is there any chance we could have some sort of committee meeting or something about this beforehand and talk about the contours of the deal? That way I'm not just, like, stuck up here with a yes or no choice right away and we have a little bit more opportunity to hash things out? Thank you, council member, and, you know, from the administration's perspective, we're doing everything we can to try and get more affordable units built in the city and trying to be as aggressive as we can in that regard. And city council has been a wonderful partner in that effort. But ultimately, you know, this is your vote. We work as hard as we can to get things done, and we bring them in front of you, and we lay it before you for your vote. If council would prefer that these types of things go to committee first for a discussion, we would be happy to do that. Okay. You know, we're at your mercy. We're working as hard as we can to try and get units built, and we're proud to put them before you when we can. Okay, thank you for that. I don't know if that's always the right answer, but, you know, today we have someone asking for something new to go into the deal, and it seems reasonable. And it's just, it's difficult whenever we get this information, we have one go at it, and like I've said, it's frustrating when we have people coming back and asking for more money. And I don't fault them or anything, but it, like, clearly I'm sure you could see where the frustration comes from. So I don't know what that conversation looks like going forward, but I will, knowing that the administration's open to doing it however council's comfortable, I'll continue to give that some thought, and we'll see what comes forward in the future. Thanks. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for the presentation and information. You know, kind of piggybacking on Council Member Floyd's comments. It's funny, some of my notes were related to, you know, like, for instance, delays in HUD's processing of this loan. What are the underlying reasons? What kind of contributed to this? Because I see the city and the county doing, and I would love somebody to say something, I see the city and county doing something to fix the issue, but their amount, I think, stays the same. So I was just wondering what contributed to that. I think if someone from the developer would like to come, Angela. Sure. Yeah, so the HUD delay is partially based on what's happened with interest rates. So part of the increase, you've heard everybody talk about construction costs being an issue, but the reality is probably 75% of the new increase is based on construction costs, and 25% of the issues are based on the increased cost to borrow money. So while these are very good terms that are left under this HUD 221 D4 program, the rate currently is around 6.2%. And when we first looked at this project three years ago, you know, the rates were at 4%. Right. So that's an increase of debt service by 50%. Yes. And so that's why their number really can't fluctuate, because at the end of the day, they can only underwrite a certain percentage of what the controlled rents allow. So in effect, everybody else has to put in a little more, the county, the city, and in this case, the developer is also putting in eight and a half million dollars as well, which was substantially more than originally contemplated. No, and I appreciate that, you know, it's very frustrating, you know, the environment that we're in, and we all want to get these housing units out there as soon as possible. And, you know, to have factors like that cause a 225% increase in funding for us, you know, is a huge change in for the CRA budget. So this is not just your project. We've dealt with this many projects. And so it just seems like it's par for the course lately. But thank you so much for that explanation. Council member, if I may add, I think we've gone through a couple of extraordinary years. I've been in construction my entire career, and I've never seen the kinds of cost increases and increases on virtually every front from construction materials and labor to the interest rates that are, you know, cost to borrow the money and even insurance costs to insure these projects. So I think what we're seeing lately in these several projects that have come in and needed more funding is the result of all that. Now, word on the street and when you talk to some of the bigger developers is some things are starting to level out a bit and even in some cases come back down. So I think we've probably seen the worst of it. And as things settle out, you know, every developer will build in contingencies and other things, escalation into their projects so that they don't have to do this. But it's just been a historically unseen era in the last couple of years. So hopefully to both of your points, this will simmer down and we won't be seeing so much of this as we go forward. Yeah, I wish some of those contingencies will return money, not just the other way around. If we can get to an era where there's an overestimate. It's like, oh, it was less. But, okay, thank you so much. Vice Chair Fitzsanders. Thank you. First of all, I remember when we began having the conversation about this project. And I just want to say thank you because in my experience with what we've tried to do and what administration has tried to do in regards to affordable housing, everything was 120% AMI. And I do remember having the conversation about the additional 50% AMI and the 80% AMI. And when the dollar started going up, you could have walked away from this, but you didn't. And for us to want to continue to provide affordable housing as an opportunity for our residents, there are just some things that are going to happen. As the young would say, life just lifing. You know, things happen, and I think we need to be amenable to addressing some of those, especially when it comes to affordable housing. I understand getting information and not really being as educated or informed as to why you come back for additional dollars. But just like everything else, everything is going on. You've been spending $11 for eggs at one time, right? So I still want to thank you all for initiating the conversation several years ago with this project. I still want to thank you wholeheartedly for wanting to stay in the game, knowing affordable housing is not a huge moneymaker like market rate apartments are. But you're hung in there, you stayed there, and I do appreciate all that you've done, especially on this particular project. Because I passed that Cox Lumbergund School, I am a gladiator. So I know exactly where it is and how convenient it is going to be for those homeowners that don't have transportation, that need access to and from to live in that particular area. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Well, you know, I understand kind of the concern over, you know, continuing to come back, continuing to come and ask for something to be changed. But I look at that a little bit differently because, I mean, yes, it's a big dollar, but we have the money. And we have the money allocated for this need. And no one else has come forward for the money. And so I think it is beholden on us as stewards of that money to spend the money where we have allocated to spend it. And this project is ready for us to spend it there. And the thing I get frustrated with developers is when they come back and the promises that they made aren't what we end up getting. And they want to amend and do less units and that sort of stuff. And I get increasingly frustrated with that. That is not where we are. We are in a situation where the economics have really changed the game for most developers, especially in the affordable housing space. I sit on the AHAC, and because of that, I work with AHAC members that are also elected all over the state. And I hear the stories that they talk about. And a lot of projects are stalled. They're completely stalled out. And their cities don't have CRAs with funds that they can inject into these. They don't have counties that are willing to also make those matches. So I think we're really fortunate with this project. And that's why the money doesn't give me the heartburn that it would if we were being asked for different kinds of changes. The economics are the economics. And being in real estate, I know how tough that is and how much people have pulled back, especially in the commercial space. And so I just am so proud that we're moving this forward. At least I'm voting yes for it today. I'm hoping this is moving forward. I brag about this project because when I talk with other AHAC members across the state and they ask, what projects do you guys have going? And it's like crickets because, like I said, a lot of stuff is stalled. I can continue to talk about this project. And it hits all of those kind of buzzwords, you know, 100% affordability. It's got the mixed AMIs, the per unit subsidy being under what every other development has been. That is phenomenal. The permanently affordable, the use of land trusts. I mean, it kind of takes, like, all those affordable housing tools that we've been building in this toolbox for the last five, six years. And it utilizes so many of them. And so the only thing I can say is I want more projects like this. I want to have the problem where we don't have enough money to fund all of these projects. But right now we do. I'm all in. I'm ready to get this groundbreaking going in January. I'm going to hold you to that. So I look forward to standing on that ground in January and throwing some dirt. So thank you very much. I appreciate you guys hanging in there. And I appreciate administration for all the work that you've done. Move approval. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Oh, wait. Councilmember Muhammad. Sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question. To have that added, do we need to, is there something that I need to do in order to have the language around the reporting for the good faith effort? Is it? For the reporting? Just for the reporting? For the reporting and monitoring on the SBE and? I mean, considering what appears to be the consensus of the parties, a motion would not be required. We can just take care of that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Muhammad. All right. So we have a motion and a second. Seeing no further request to speak, Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, enter your votes. Seeing all Councilmembers have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes unanimously. All right, and we will now adjourn as the CRA and reconvene as City Council and take up item F3. Move approval. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no request to speak, Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, enter your votes. Seeing all Councilmembers have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously. Very good. All right, thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, staff. All right, so now we will take up our new business item. Councilmember Driscoll, item G1. Thank you. This is for, this is actually a staff request. Respectfully requesting a referral to the Health Energy Resilience and Sustainability Committee to discuss an update on Healthy St. Pete and the St. Pete Healthy Food Action Plan. I'll move approval. Second. All right, seeing no request to speak on this item, we have a motion and a second. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, enter your votes. Seeing all Councilmembers have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously. All right, very good. We will go to our last open forum. No speakers. Go to announcements. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tomorrow, at the Memorial Park Cemetery, there will be a homecoming for Second Lieutenant Gilbert Myers, who was killed in action in World War II and his remains were recently discovered. He's a St. Petersburg native, and he'll be buried with full military honors tomorrow at 11 o'clock at Memorial Park Cemetery, and I'll be there. Just wanted to honor it. Thank you for mentioning that, Councilmember Montaneri. I hadn't heard of that, so thank you so much, and thank you for representing us there. All right, Council Vice Chair Vic Sanders. And thank you for that, Councilmember Montaneri, and I know we read the proclamation to all the veterans that were here in the room today, but of course we have to say happy Veterans Day to all our veterans. Me being the granddaughter, niece, daughter, wife, mother, the whole nine of veterans. With you, without you, we would not be where we are, and so I just want to formally acknowledge all the veterans out there, especially those that are watching, but more importantly, the ones in my family. Please know that I do appreciate you, and happy Veterans Day, everyone. Well, this is our last Council meeting before Thanksgiving, so it has been a pleasure. I'm thankful for serving with all of you and hope that you all have a wonderful time with your family and your friends. God bless you all. All right. Thank you. Meeting adjourned. We'll see you all again next time. See you next time. Hey buddy.