City Council - Nov 21, 2024

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Hopley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 4, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. We will call the order the November 21st, 2024 City Council Meeting, beginning with a roll call. Hanowitz. Here. Nick Sanders. Here. Griscoll. Here. Muhammad. Here. Lloyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. And Gabbard. Here. Thank you. As we get started, I'm going to ask Pastor Dr. Carolyn Brubaker, who is the pastor of Positive Impact, to please come forward, and we're going to have the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Can you please stand with me? First of all, I want to say it is my honor. It is my honor to stand before our city council and all the great men and women of our city to pray today. Father, I thank you that you are El Shaddai, the God that is more than enough. I thank you, God, that you open doors that no man can open. You make a way where there seems to be none. So, Father, I ask that you go before each one of us, God. Lead us, guide us, and direct us. And, Father, anoint our city council to make the decision that you would have for them to make. May we follow your prayer. Father, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Brubaker, for that. You actually had some participation in that prayer, which is what we need right now is collaboration and unity and prayer. So, thank you so much for that. Council members, I have an agenda before us with the addition of F6, a resolution acknowledging the 2024 general election results. New changes. I'll entertain a motion. Move approval. Second. Having it being properly motioned and seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us. Do we have any cards or public comment on the consent? No cards, Madam Chair, on consent. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion for approval of a consent. Move approval. Second. Seeing that it's been motioned and properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to open form. Mr. 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 form sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open form 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 form 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 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and ask to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute 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 speakers. I'm going to call them two at a time, Madam Chair. Robert Greenling and Will Conroy, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. My name is Bob Greenling. I live at 126 15th Avenue, Northeast and St. Pete. I'm here today to urge you to delay the vote on the bonds at the very least. Number one, is this any way to start a relationship? I mean, the team went radio silent after the storm, didn't tell us what their plans were, and then said, we're going to go to Tampa. I can assure you people in St. Pete aren't going to drive over the bridge at rush hour to see them. They really turned their back on this community. And then they sent threatening letters to the county, and now they want to back out of the commitment because of costs. I think one of the key questions that I would ask the council to tell citizens is if the bonds are not approved and the stadium is not built, do the Rays still get the land and the development? As you well know, that's been a question over the last few days, and there was an article today about it. I think that question has to be answered. It would be a cry in shame if they don't build a stadium, and then they have the right to get all this land at a bargain price. The deal has not been a good one from the very beginning, and the Rays apparently have given you a way out, and I suggest you take it. One question is if you're obliged to repair the stadium, are the Rays obliged to play in it? I assume they are, but there are a lot of unanswered questions. Given the hurricane damage, is this really the best use of taxpayer money? I mean, are you really going to go to your constituents who can't flush their toilets after a storm, that can't drink the water, that lose a lot of their belongings or even lose their homes, and you're going to tell them, it's all right, we need to have a stadium? A stadium that is not a tourist attraction. They play ball in the middle of the summer. Tourists aren't here in the middle of the summer. And all the studies that have been done over the last 10, 15 years that show that this is not a good return for taxpayer money, and in fact, what usually happens is if there's an increase in attendance, it's only for a couple of years, and then it goes back to where it was. So you're not going to get any more than the handful of attendees that are there now. 10,000 people at a game is about average. So I ask you, please, delay the vote at the very least, and if the Rays are giving you a chance to reconsider, reconsider. Will Conroy, 250 Mirror Lake Drive. Good afternoon, and thanks for the chance to speak with you all today. I'm here to encourage you to oppose the Mirror Lake Historic District that is up for first reading today. My objections to this district are about process and policy and not about people. First, I would like to ask you all why a change in zoning is being initiated by a small group of citizens and not by city staff or you all as our duly elected public officials. The process being employed today is called third-party designation. That allows one property owner to attempt to designate another property's owner's property as historic. Think about that for a second. My neighbor, who may be in favor of historic designation, can tell me, who is not in favor of historic designation, that my property should be included in a historic overlay district. This is not voluntary, it is not optional, and it is not a scenario where my consent is a requirement before my property is deemed historic. I find this ridiculous, but it is what our city code currently allows. When this issue was last considered in front of this very body in 2021, ultimately failing, there were several of you who raised objections to this element of the city's third-party designation process. I encourage you to rekindle those objections and vote this district down. Secondly, I urge you to consider taking your time on this vote in consideration. This matter was heard at last week's CPPC meeting. It was then rushed via the add-delete tool for this week's City Council meeting. Why was this done? Don't you guys have enough big issues to consider right now? And for a full and robust consideration of the implications of a downzoning to an entire district of property, I would encourage you to delay consideration of this agenda item until you can fully consider a zoning change. You all rightfully took years in the proper consideration of the Warehouse Arts IMIC zoning changes. A downzone of Mirror Lake deserves more than a few weeks. Finally, there are some gross inequities in the way that the city's LDRs allow for votes to be cast in the imposition of this district. I have a memorandum that I previously shared with all of you back in September, and I would draw your attention to page 5 and 6 of that memorandum. In short, unit owners who control less than 10% of the land area in the proposed district have enough votes to bring this matter in front of all of you here today. So the 10% can tell the 90% what they can and can't do with their property. The consent of a property owner should always be required before we designate their property as historic. As a developer, I have repeatedly saved historic buildings. I see value in historic preservation. I see value in the work that Preserve the Burg is doing, and I certainly appreciate and respect the opinions of my neighbors on Mirror Lake. However, I think it is inappropriate and bad public policy for our city code to allow for third-party designation. Please vote this district down. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Peter Kent and Jeremy Tolberg. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon. Peter Kent, 8 Academy Way, retired city engineer, and commissioner of Public Works. Four reasons to reject or postpone the resolution in F-3 approving stadium bonds for $287 million, $42 million of infrastructure bonds. One, in their November 19th letter, the Rays said to the county commissioners, we have suspended work on the entire project, and despite the contract requiring the Rays to pay all of the cost overruns, they stated a $2,029 ballpark delivery will result in significantly higher costs, which we are not able to absorb alone. Given these statements, how can the council approve these bond resolutions? Two, how can the city council possibly approve a $42 million bond resolution paying for the developer's new infrastructure when Administrator Gerdes said, we do have a concern about the team leaving and the redevelopment remaining in their hands. Three, the county commissioners appear to, as if they're going to reject the matching fund of $335 million. Four, the mayor has implied that these bonds would be paid by downtown TIFS funds, yet the majority of the bond repayment will come from the non-ad valorem tax increases on city services. Four, reasons for objecting or postponing the passing of Resolution F-5, approving the renovation of the existing stadium. One, the resolution authorizes $57 million based on a visual estimate of construction costs, not a set of hard facts, drawings, and specifications, the way all normal public goods are written, and the final costs are unknown. Two, the replacement of the outer fabric without an inner liner, which might cost an additional $30 million. This requires a prior review and written approval from the Major League Baseball and the Rays. Three, the specifications have not been reviewed or approved by the insurer or FEMA to determine the extent, if any, of a reimbursement will be received by the city. Four, no one has considered what it would take to modify the existing stadium during these renovations to make it acceptable as a stadium for another 30 years. Thank you. My name is Jeremy Tolberg. I live at 417 Lido Way in St. Petersburg. I'm here today to applaud, actually, the members of a different commission, the county commission, for what they exhibited on Tuesday. That was a lot of bravery and leadership on Tuesday night. Those storms that hit our area are going to take a lot of money, willpower, and tough decisions to recover from. But they also have had the fringe benefit of showing us what local government should look like once it stops enriching wealthy donors and starts protecting the best interests of the public, not groveling to satisfy a billion-dollar private corporation. In contrast, how has the owner of that corporation treated the public? As we're assessing the enormous damage and repair costs, he donates a miserly $1 million. Then, he announces the team will be playing in Tampa. Then, he begins firing off threatening letters to Pinellas County residents and officials. Threatening. Yikes. This is not a trusted community partner. That is the behavior of a villain in a Disney movie. Maybe next, he's going to bulldoze an orphanage or make a suit out of puppies. No one should be surprised. Threats, insults, and demands are the only means of communication this team has made to the area for over 10 years. There's endless facts and data showing publicly financed stadiums only really benefit the teams and their owners, who get to use them for free and then collect all the profits from games within them. Fine. But there's no good jobs that will be added to the workforce, there's no economic boost to local businesses, and there's certainly no appreciable impact on tourism. Not when you're pumping sewage into the bay and your toilets don't work. Giving away billions and billions of dollars to somebody who's already beyond wealthy, while citizens, some of them are here today, I'm talking to one before the meeting, they're facing financial ruin and their neighborhoods remain seriously devastated. It's an absolute injustice, and it betrays every value this governing body is supposed to stand for. The county commission took an incredibly brave stand against continuing down a path of financial irresponsibility. They're finally prioritizing the people who call this city and this area home over an empty stadium and a Wall Street billionaire. Those commissioners showed that neither their ethics or their votes are for sale, and it's time for everyone on this council to show the same kind of courage. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Matt Widener and Ron Diner. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Okay. Can someone speak, please? Thank you. Council members, my name is Matt Widener. I'm homeless. I'm homeless because we're in the middle of a disaster, a catastrophe. But you wouldn't know it from looking at an agenda. I do have a home at 1201 Eden Isle. I see this agenda, but I don't see anything that speaks to the anger and the catastrophe and the problems that the 260,000 people in this community are suffering from. What I see from the press over there, what I see is this raised stuff. What I see is all this time that's being gobbled up to talk about a stadium. What about the permit office? Council member, you sat there for six hours to get a permit. Nobody's got good answers to how those permits are to be issued or how inspections are to be occurred. Are we providing additional funds to inspectors to go out there and inspect these houses? No. Are we talking about providing black and white answers to citizens so that we can get permits pulled correctly? No, we're not doing any of that. We're talking about the stadium. I'm here in opposition to the Muir Lake Historic District. I can't believe that this is on the agenda at all. As Mr. Conroy indicated, it's a revise. It's a revised 1115, so I make a procedural objection. It shouldn't even be on this agenda. The second thing is the ordinance is incorrect. There is no legal description on that. I've been raising this objection over and over again, and city legal just ignores it. We've asked for a sit-down meeting. They won't provide a sit-down meeting. We've detailed that in detailed correspondence. A couple weeks ago, as I'm phoning you, I talked about the Florida Gulf Coast litigation. Remember that? And I said we were going to be writing a six-figure check to a law firm in Tampa. An agenda item does prove that. You're writing a check to a law firm in Tampa because you engaged in unconstitutional conduct. The very same thing that's going to be found when Judge Ramsberger across the street hears my lawsuit in a summary judgment hearing December 16th. Because what you are doing with this historic designation is unconstitutional. It's been preempted by state law. And yet legal won't talk to me. Legal won't talk to my attorneys. They're just going to wait and dump it in your lap at the end of this whole mess that they have created for you. At the end product of this Muir Lake Historic District is not going to be the one lawsuit I filed, but the second one right here, which is the taking action. Twenty-three acres in downtown St. Petersburg that they want to take off the tax rolls so that we can't fund things that we desperately need. Councilmember Driscoll, we sat here when we did this previously. The governor's office said they're not putting that courthouse there if they do this historic designation madness. You remember it sitting right over there. And yet here we are again. They're cramming this down your throat on this agenda item so that you don't pay attention to the very serious legal issues that exist. Why can't you just wait? One thing I know every one of you agree on, and that's this. You are forced to make these decisions under too much pressure, not enough information. It's crammed down your throat. Then we don't like the outcome, and people are yelling at you, and you go, gee whiz, I wish we had more time to think about it. You can. Delay the vote. Thank you for your service. Good afternoon. Apologize for the hat. I'm Ron Diner. I live on Brightwaters Boulevard in St. Petersburg. I've talked to you before as part of No Home Run and Home Runs Matter. I started and ran for 30 years Raymond James Affordable Housing, which has given me thousands of experiences doing multimillion-dollar transactions. And I'm also a lunch pail at Lakewood Elementary School with a little fourth grader in a program that I co-founded also with Pinellas County Schools. My only axe to grind when it comes to this topic of the stadium is what matters to make life better for everybody. You've all received an e-mail this morning from me describing what I was going to talk about at a press conference, which I also had on City Hall steps just a few minutes ago. And I only have two things to talk about. One is I don't see how you can possibly vote to approve a sale of bonds. Yes, two days ago the Rays wrote a letter saying that they won't and can't meet the guarantee in the contract to cover the cost of the overruns. You need confirmation because if this is true, we don't have a deal. So how can you borrow money without a deal? You know, I'm thinking about if we were going to go out and borrow money, we sign a contract with a contractor on a fixed price, and we go out and sign the – we're about to sign the documents to borrow the money, and suddenly he comes back and he says, you know, I can't build it for the price. Are we going to sign the contract and borrow the money, or are we going to step back and say we've got to reconsider this deal altogether? The second item, and the only other item I have, is I sure hope that we don't – if we don't have a stadium deal, that we did not write a contract that still gives the Rays Hines all that developable land for $0.10 on the dollar. Mr. Gerdes and others have all said that the reason we provided these discounts was because of the guarantees that the team provided. And the biggest guarantee that the team provided was to pay for the cost of overruns from the stadium. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Chris Steinaucher and Terry Hamrick. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and City Council. So I apologize for my report, but it's a positive report. What I really want to make sure is, as the Chamber of Commerce, we understand that our economy in St. – Where is that? 100 – 2nd Avenue North, I apologize. What I want everybody to understand is our economy is still continuing on. We have been battered by hurricanes. But please let me tell you that our Chamber of Commerce still sees a community that's moving forward. In fact, thank you to your funding of our greenhouse. We just graduated 20 more graduates of our Entrepreneur Academy this week, and every one of them saw a community moving forward. And I just want to thank you for your funding for allowing us to open 20 more businesses. Since – and because of ribbon cuttings, I'll mention we've already done over 60 of them this year. But just since the last hurricane, we've done 10 ribbon cuttings. So businesses are still moving forward. I just want to make sure everyone understands we still see an economy that needs to be taken care of, and our businesses need to be taken care of. We had an event where over 600 businesses showed up, and we gave out over 100 awards to first responders and other businesses that kept their doors open and supported our community. Our economy is still purring. It's important to say that because our national – these other topic items that I am not speaking on at this moment have national attention. And what we need to make sure is people understand our economy is working. Ninety percent of our hotel rooms are up and going. We've only lost one percent of our tax revenue from our bed tax in an economy where last year we had our highest record year. So please know that when we're making decisions, I see an economy that has not – it took a clip, but it's continuing to grow. We ask you to support that by coming out to our pitch night on December 10th, where you will hear five other businesses requesting resources to continue their support. And through Regions Bank and our other funders, we're going to be giving those resources. So we still see investing in businesses is really important and making sure we send messages that our economy is still working. Those employees are hurt and their homes are battered, and we're working on that. But a business community and an economy must continue to drive and keep forward, and I just wanted to provide you that positive report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi. My name is Terry Hamrick. I'm at 175 First Street South. I've been searching for the financials in the business case for the gas plant redevelopment, and I can't find it. So if someone would publish a link to how you get to that so you can actually see the proposal for how you pay for bonds and how the revenue that we think the city is going to garner from such a project is going to come about. Is there an easy way to get to it? I'm sorry, sir. I was having a hard time hearing you. If you're looking for reports, if you want to come over, I'll give you my card. We can email you the reports that we have. So I'd like to see the spreadsheets, the cost analysis, the revenue projections. When you're done speaking, just walk over, and I'll give you my card. I will do that. But that's the main thing. I think approving a bond or expenditures of any sorts on a stadium where you don't have a solid deal is a bad idea. Thank you. Thank you. And as a reminder, I would like to share that speakers must be residents, property owners, business owners within the city of St. Petersburg, or their employees. Next two speakers, please. Okay. I was just told to leave Jeanette Blanco off. Mr. Rask, you live in unincorporated Seminole, so you can't speak during this portion. Next two speakers, Susan Evans and Esther Matthews. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Hello. I'll start. My name is Susan Evans. I was born and raised here and grew up at Reddington Beach, and I've got to tell you that I'm very sorry about what's happening in my county. What? Oh, yeah, sorry. 420 4th Street South, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701. At any rate, I am from Reddington, and I was a beach girl, and now I'm an old girl, so here I am. But I'm very sad. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry or nothing, but I can't believe what's happening in my county. Going to build this giant rectangular bit of little bit of property to make another stadium and then all this other junk. Little businesses with little businesses with little rooms, and then now we had these hurricanes. The beach is ruined. Tropicana Stadium is ruined, and you all still want to build this stadium, and whoever put that together, I'm an art teacher. Whoever put that together, you want to build a stadium that looks like that? Anyway, I am sad that you are just going to build that rectangular area where Tropicana is instead of maybe rebuilding Tropicana and adding on, on this side, another stretch of building that could be for your retail and all the other stuff you want to put in there. And as far as this pertaining to a horrible incident that happened before Tropicana got there, and they took the land from people, that's extremely sorry and sad. It happens in all cities in the whole world throughout time. You need to work on our stadium, not build this catastrophe of a rectangle on between 16th and 13th Street, and that's all I have to say, and I'm still an old person. Thank you. You don't look a day over 21, ma'am. Esther Matthews, president of the St. Petersburg NAACP. For the sake of this conversation, my address is 1601 16th Street South. In the aftermath of this disaster, the city of St. Petersburg faces the challenge of addressing widespread recovery needs while maintaining its commitments to key community assets. Among those is Tropicana Field, which sustained significant damage. Tropicana Field will eventually be replaced as part of the gas plant redevelopment project. However, this does not absolve the city of its responsibility as the landlord of this critical facility. Let me remind you guys that the city is still contractually obligated to maintain the stadium. And right now, the Tampa Bay Rays, the tenants, are without a functional home. As the current home of the Rays and a centerpiece of our local economy, Tropicana Field is essential. It serves thousands of residents and businesses, and its repair will help preserve the economic vitality and job opportunities that it provides. This is especially critical for communities of color that have historically benefited from the activity the stadium generates. Allowing this facility to remain in disrepair while plans to redevelop are underway would undermine the city's recovery and economic stability. We also urge the city to approach these repairs with an equity lens, prioritizing minority-owned businesses, contractors, and workers in the repair process. This will provide much-needed economic opportunities to communities disproportionately affected by both the hurricane and systemic inequities. By voting yes to allocate FEMA and insurance funding for these repairs, you, city stewards, the city council, will fulfill its responsibility to protect public assets and promote economic recovery for all residents. This is a chance to honor your commitment to equity and resilience for the entire St. Petersburg community. The St. Petersburg NAACP stands firmly behind this effort, but we also want to add an additional note. We have an equity department, and we are looking for our chief equity officer to follow this and be intentional as we look at our equity lens. We urge you to do the right thing for our city, its residents, and its future. This is about responsibility. We are landlords. They are tenants. Fix it so that we can move forward. Final speaker, Madam Chair, Carrie Mueller. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Carrie? She's not here. No more speakers. None on Zoom. All right. Well, now we will close open forum, and we will now move into our new audiences, taking up item E1, which is a quadrijudicial first reading. Clerk, can you please read the title? Opposed ordinance number 135 HL, an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, designating the Mirror Lake Local Historic District, which generally includes Mirror Lake Park, the parcels within 200 feet of Mirror Lake Park, with frontages along Mirror Lake Drive North, Burlington Avenue North, Grove Street North, 4th Avenue North, and 5th Street North, as a local historic district, and adding the district to the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places, pursuant to section 16.30.070, city code, and providing an effective date. And we do have one card that we're going to take. We have one card on the item, Madam Chair. Yeah. Yes. Since it's first reading, the public comment is permitted. City council can't discuss the matter until the positive judicial hearing itself. Okay. William Herman, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Herman. I live at 134th Avenue North, and I speak on behalf of Preserve the Bird this afternoon. You've heard from two people who are against the Mirror Lake Historic District. Clearly, that's their right. But unfortunately, this is not a public hearing yet, so there's been no cross-examination, because if there was, we can get into the fact that this is not a third-party taking. You know, what I'd like to do, respectfully request at this point, folks, is let's move this to a proper public hearing. Let's have a proper discussion about the merits of the Mirror Lake Historic District, people who have questions against it. Let's have an opportunity, a proper opportunity for them to show their case, and for us to have cross-examination that you can make an informed decision based upon the facts. So I'm respectfully requesting that you approve this matter and move it forward. Thank you. And Madam Chair, members of council, the public hearing for this item is on December 12th, 2024. Thank you. So joining us is our urban design. Nope. Nope. Nope. No presentation. No presentation. Okay. I will move approval. I will scratch this. All right. Thank you. Been motioned. Do we have a second for E1? Second. It has been motioned and properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? As the council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? From the chair, the motion to approve agenda item E1 passes 4-3, with council members Driscoll, Vic Sanders, Florida, and Muhammad voting yes. Council members Gabbard, Gerdes, and Hanowitz voting no. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our legal items. And joining us is our assistant city attorney, Ken McCollum, with item 1-2. Aye, 2. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, everybody. Ken McCollum with the city attorney's office here. This is a settlement. This particular matter involves a case that's been in front of this body before. This is the Florida Gulf Coast Trade Association Builders and Contractors. It involves a number of ordinances that the city had that have been litigated for a number of years related to disadvantaged workers and that whole structure of ordinances that ultimately the court found to be unconstitutional and preempted. It kicked in an attorney fee provision. The lawyers on the other side were entitled to fees. We had a fee hearing, or we do have a fee hearing scheduled in December. They presented over $250,000 in attorney's fees, and then there's a kicker for interest on bills already paid. We went to a mediation. We were able to get a reduction in what they were seeking, and I got the number down to $215,000 even, which I think is a pretty good result considering the nature of this and what we anticipated it could have been. And we're seeking approval from Council to pay these fees and costs and be rid of this case. Move approval. Second. Thank you. Council Member Hedowitz. Thank you. I just want to, just for the record to make it clear, when did the litigation begin? Oh, golly. Back in, I think, 2019. The 2019, and you thought that the fees were going to be much higher, right? Yeah, it could have been double what I was estimating, yeah. Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. It's been motioned and properly seconded for I-1. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council Members. Please cast your votes. Now that our present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item I-1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Joining us now is our Assistant City Attorney, Mr. Joe Patner, with Item I-2, a resolution approving the settlement of the lawsuit Walter Reed v. City of St. Petersburg and Robin Ann Coroner. How are you? Thank you, Madam Chair. As indicated, I'm here to seek settlement of or approval of the settlement of Walter Reed v. City of St. Pete. This is an individual who was on a bicycle and injured himself, hitting a pothole. There have been previous complaints about the pothole, neck and back injuries. The bills, the unpaid bills were $77,000. We can resolve it for $46,000, which seemed like a good deal to me. So, anyway. Move approval. Second. Now that it's been motioned and properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item I-2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. Now we're going to go into our report items, and we're going to start with Item F-4, which was an item pulled from CA-2 as a good news item by Council Member Hanowitz, and we're going to go ahead and let you introduce that, as well as joining us is our Arts, Culture, and Tourism Coordinator, Ms. Tracy Canard. Did I say that correctly? Yes. Tracy? Okay. Yes. Thank you so much, Chair, and I am very lucky to serve on the Arts Advisory Committee. It's been my first year. It's a total of nine members, and one of the lucky City Council Members gets to serve there, and this year it was me. I have to say that I'm very thankful for all the work that the committee members do, Tracy for the work you do. Celeste Davis, our Arts, Culture, and Tourism Director, is not here, but not only do these individuals add a lot to our community by the work they already do in arts, they actually volunteer their time on this committee. They went through 38 applications. I am, and it was a lot of work. Our Chair, Erica Sutherland, is here. We have George Fidel. He's hiding over there. He's our co-Share, and I'm going to let them speak, but I just am very thankful. We should all be very thankful for everything they do, because they keep our city special, and the Arts keeps our city special. So thank you all. So Tracy, I'll leave it to you. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for bringing this up as a good news item. We surely could use some these days, and thank you all of City Council for supporting the arts in our city. As Councilmember Hanowitz mentioned, we had an arts advisory committee go through 38 applications, and we funded 37 organizations, which is the most organizations that we've ever funded in a fiscal year, so that's quite an accomplishment. In addition, those organizations' goals and objectives primarily support the mayor's pillars of equitable development, arts and business opportunities, and education and youth opportunities. And as you just mentioned, there are nine experienced art professionals on the arts advisory committee that served as the panel and meticulously reviewed scoring each application. And as she just mentioned, we have Jorge Vidal and Erica Sutherland, and I'm going to let them go ahead and speak their mind as well. We're going to let Jorge go first. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon, City Councilmember members. My name is Jorge Vidal, and I'm the CEO of Florida Craft Art, your neighbor from right just down the street. I'm a proud member of the Arts Advisory Committee. I volunteered to serve on this committee because I deeply believe in the transformative power of public funding for the arts. As a native of St. Petersburg, I've had the privilege of witnessing our city's incredible cultural evolution over the years. It fills me with pride to see how the arts have become a cornerstone of our community's identity and vitality. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank Councilmember Gina Driscoll for the leadership and spearheading the supplemental grants that came out this year to support our organizations, as well as the rest of the City Council for being supportive of that initiative in response to the urgent needs created by the veto in Tallahassee. Your commitment to our cultural institutions helps fill a critical gap, ensuring that the arts remain a thriving part of our city's fabric. On a personal note, I'd like to share how city funding for the arts has had a profound impact on my own journey. As someone who has built a career in the arts here in my hometown, I've experienced firsthand how this support attracts and retains creative talent, fostering an environment where arts and artists and organizations can flourish. Thank you for the continued dedication to making St. Petersburg a city where the arts thrive and where the next generation of artists and creative professionals can build their futures. Good afternoon, City Council and the community. My name is Erica Sutherland. I am the Artistic Executive Director for the Studio at 620, and I also chair the Arts Advisory Committee at Delighted to. Thank you. I'm going to make it brief. I feel like you have a lot of words today. So I really wanted just to stand before you and say thank you for the commitment to the arts in this community. It is highly important. One of the things that I want to point out, and I'm pretty sure Tracy said it, and I would like to say it again, is that this year we were able to fund over $500,000 to our arts organizations. We have four new organizations apply for the grant. So that tells me that we are going in the right direction as we continue to grow and expand our arts in our community and at the city level, that we are holding true to being of our moniker we are the city of the arts, or we are arts. And one of the most important things that I really want to walk away with in saying is thank you for understanding the need for operational support in our grants. It is the operations that allow the programs to happen. So without that operational support, as much as we love to stand behind the programs, they cannot exist. So as we continue to move forward and develop more programs for the art and continue to support our arts and culture grants, I'd just like to say thank you and let's continue to grow in supporting those operational dollars. You all have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. And seeing no request to speak, item F4, can we open? We'll approve approval. We'll have a motion. We'll approve approval. And we have a second. Okay. Now that we have a motion to properly second it, can we please open the machine for F4? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F4 passes unanimously. Thank you and congratulations again. And now we're going to move to F1, Tampa Bay Water update, and joining us is Chuck Cardin, Tampa Bay Water General Manager. And if I can have a minute. Oh, yeah. You're not, yeah, go ahead. Thank you. So I didn't plan this. This just happened to be on the same meeting, but I'm also on the board of directors of Tampa Bay Water. I am the vice chair this year. I am very happy to work in Tampa Bay Water. I will tell you, it has been a joy to work with Chuck Cardin. We had a very tough year in terms of water. I don't know if everyone remembers, we had a drought. It's hard to remember there was a drought after all the hurricanes, but there was a drought. And there was a point within the year that we thought, oh, my goodness, we had our reservoir, which was at, I can't remember, was probably at one of the lowest levels ever. Yeah, I'll talk to you about it. And you're going to, and you're going to, I don't want to, I don't want to ruin it. But Chuck Cardin and his team worked so hard to make sure they continued to do everything they could to keep us in place, do the things we needed to do to provide the water to all the communities in the region. It's three different counties. And through the hurricanes, I have to commend you, Chuck, you did a fantastic job with the communication with city staff, making sure that we needed, we had all the things from you that we needed. There were some tough times there. We had a lot of breaks in our system. And Tampa Bay Water worked with us. And we have to thank them for that. So I am very lucky to have you, and we're very lucky to have you guide Tampa Bay Water through these historic rains and droughts that we have had in this year. And I'm going to leave you to tell more about Tampa Bay Water to everyone. Well, thank you. And good afternoon, board. I didn't want to leave that. Council Member Hanowitz does an excellent job representing the city. The job is not always easy. She represents regional water solutions, but she also has to balance that with the needs of her city here, and she does an excellent job. I did want to introduce myself to some of you. I don't know if I met all of you, but I would like to give you a quick update on some of our events. I like to come here every year and tell you what things we're doing at the agency. We were created in 1998 to solve the region's decades-old water wars. And we also reduced groundwater pumping that was affecting our environment. And the creation of the agency created an alliance between six-member governments, being Hillsborough County, Pasco County, Pinellas County, the cities of Newport-Ritchie, the city of St. Petersburg, and the city of Tampa. We are a special district of the state of Florida, and we provide clean, safe drinking water to more than two and a half million people through the six-member governments. And as far as I know, we're the only utility in the United States that blends treated water from three different sources, that being groundwater, surface water, and seawater. We have 163 employees, and we charge each of our members a uniform rate of $2.62 per thousand gallons, which is just a little bit more than a quarter of a penny per gallon. St. Petersburg, we have you budgeted this fiscal year to purchase about 28 million gallons a year or a day, and that is about 14% of our total system demand. Since my last update to you last year, we have been working hard to address new water quality parameters, meeting the short-term water needs, and also planning for longer-term growth. And of course, as you all are aware, the region had some very tough weather lately, and I'm happy to say that the regional drinking water system was able to continue providing water to the members throughout both storms. And I also know that your staff worked extremely hard as well. We coordinated very well and communicated with your staff throughout both events. This graph represents the total amount of water we delivered to the region, to our members, the years 2023 and the years 2024 that just ended September 30th. And one could question that it's just about the same amount, and actually it's a little less than 2024, and you can say, how can that be? We had a tremendous drought, and we also have tremendous growth. Well, the district, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, issued a one-day-a-week watering last November, and I know you're aware of that, and it had a tremendous help to us in keeping the demands down. And that reduction in demands allowed us to reduce the usage of our 15.5 billion-gallon reservoir. You can see that picture on the right. That is full, and that was not the case in July. As of July 14th, we had taken it. It had to go down all the way to 2.28 billion gallons. And the goal every year is to fill it to max capacity by September 30th as we enter the dry season. So we're sitting there in mid-July, and we only had about 2 billion gallons in it. And with the storms, we have good news that we filled it to the top. And so that's some good news in that whole mess with the storms. We did get to fill the water savings account. That's what we refer to it. We filled it back up, and so we're in good shape. We also had the desal plant went down for some repairs last October, and that is within the next two weeks we'll be producing water out of the desal plant. So we are in good shape operationally going into the dry season. I did want to talk to you a little bit about the PFAS, as you know, Forever Chemicals. They're actually called per- and polyfluoroalkaline substances. So you've seen that in the news. We began testing, as all the other utilities in the country last year, for it to see if it was out there and at what quantities. The EPA, in the early spring, summer, they changed the regulation for the substances. It's four parts per trillion is now the new regulation. And they are in effect, and compliance must be established within five years. So the year 2029, everyone has to be within the limits in their systems. Our data showed that we had at the Brandon Wells, it was over in the southern Hillsborough County, you can see the red dot. There it showed up in two or three wells, just a little bit over the four parts. And at our surface water treatment plant, it's just below it, but it's right there at four parts. We've hired a consultant to analyze the data and to look at some treatment options. And we expect a report and some recommendations early next year, and we'll be presenting that to our board of directors. We also are continuing to monitor our settlement of a PFAS lawsuit. So we've joined a lawsuit, and it's in the settlement phase. We do not have any reports to tell you how much we might be getting. I ask that very often, and so we're still waiting to see what funding of the settlement we will receive. Beyond water quality, we're also focusing on increasing the quantity. We have two major projects that will help us work to meet these demands by the year 2028. So we are expanding our surface water treatment plant between 10 to 12 million gallons a day. And the expansion is currently in the design phase, and we are going to start construction next July. And it should be available. We're going to expand the plant by another 20 million gallons, which will yield us up to 12 million gallons. At the same time, we're also designing a new South Hillsborough pipeline. The pipeline is 26 miles long, and it will carry additional water to one of the fastest-growing areas in South Hillsborough County. And this pipeline is also scheduled to be completed by the year 2028. But the growing demands means we also need to secure new water supplies for the time period between the years 2033 and 2043. So our projections show that we will need another 10 to 15 million gallons a day by the year 2033, and an additional 25 million gallons by the year 2043. So last November, the board approved seven projects for us to go look at into a feasibility studies. So they're ordered on the slide here from the north to the south. They include additional groundwater, brackish water groundwater, surface water, and also looking at additional seawater desalination. We started the studies, and the ones that prove to be technically feasible, environmentally sound, and also economical will be presented to the board probably in late 2027. And they will be choosing one or a combination of these new supplies to produce water by the year 2033 for the region. We also are analyzing our system hydraulics in our emergency scenario, especially in light of the recent storm hurricane activity. The goals of this is to address potential capacity issues with our facilities and also our pipelines, but also to enhance our reliability and our resiliency. We kicked off the project this year, and we have already presented to the utility staffs of our members, and we will be meeting with them one-on-one over the next year. And by the early next year, we should hopefully be bringing back something for the board to look at, probably in late summer. So this was just a brief overview, but you can see we're very busy. Council Member Hanowitz described a little bit of last year. It's been a roller coaster. We can't find any water, and we're having to save water and water restrictions, and then the next thing you know, we can't stop the water from coming. So it's an up and down, but right now we're in a good position as we start the new fiscal year. Great. Happy to take any questions. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, and I just want to say one of the things that wasn't covered, and everyone knows the growth that we've had in the city of St. Petersburg, and you see all the needs for new water supplies. But, you know, Chuck, it's interesting, the city of St. Petersburg, with as much growth as it has had, its needs have been pretty constant throughout the period. Could you just tell us a little bit about that? Yes, St. Petersburg is generally, I told you earlier, they're taking a budget of 28 million gallons a day, and it's basically staying pretty level over all these years. And that's a testament to the conservation efforts in this city and your reclaimed water system. As the other areas are going a little bit, like, straight up the mountain, St. Pete's been straight and steady with the way they conserve their water, and you do an excellent job. We invested in our reclaimed water system many years ago. It was the right path to take. You see a lot of communities that are growing. They don't have reclaimed water systems. They're extremely expensive to start up, and that makes a huge difference. So when you see a lot of the projects that we're looking at at Tampa Bay Water, they're in South Hillsboro, and that's where a lot of the growth is, and that's where a lot of the challenges are, whereas our system is in place. What we do have, obviously, is if you look at where all the wells are, there are none in here in Pinellas. They're up there up north, so the water comes down through pipes here, and it's something that a lot of people don't understand. We have to maintain those pipes. But it does come down here, but we've done a good job at managing it, and you've done a good job, and the Tampa Bay Water team has done a great job at finding different sources, being innovative, having a desalination plant at TECO. And so I hope that we continue that innovation, and thank you for all the work that you do. I thank you, Lowell. Thank you. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chuck, thank you very much for the presentation. I think after everything that we've been through in 2024, it was appropriate to get an update, and I know we had gotten one, I think, right at the beginning of the summer. It seems like yesterday because two months have essentially been deleted from my memory. But I just – the difference between where we were and where we are and all the work that you're doing, I'm just very appreciative. And I just wanted to say keep it up. And then I just wanted to say thank you to Council Member Hanowitz for being a great representation on Tampa Bay Water. Janie, I guess, like, picked the ace with Darden being on Tampa Bay Water for so long, and then you. So Janie probably has, like, a master's in water. She does. She does. She does. But just thank you for your representation on that board. I know you really enjoy it, and thank you for representing us well there. And I'm glad you mentioned Janie, and Janie, with her new position, she may not be able to handle Tampa Bay Water now. So I don't know. There's going to be a lot of sad people and staff because my legislative aide has done a really good job at putting the history together, keeping it together, and keeping everybody up to date as to what's going on. I think that's why she got a bigger office is because she needed a shelf just for Tampa Bay Water. That's exactly right. So I would like to thank her. Jane is our attorney on Tampa Bay Water Matters, and she does a fantastic job. I think John is here and staff is here, so I want to recognize them for the city of St. Petersburg. John, you stand up just quickly. They're the ones that work really hard to get us the water, so thank you so much for everything that you do. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Carden, for your report. Thank you so much. Now we're going to move on to item F6, which is a resolution acknowledging the 2024 general election results, and that will be presented by our city clerk director, Chance Srinivasa. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of city council. I apologize for getting this resolution to you last minute. However, we just got the certified results back on November 15th. With that being said, we want to give up before your resolution acknowledging the results from our 2024 general election for City Council Districts 3, 5, and 7. And City Council District 1 did not have any opposing candidates, so we want to acknowledge that race as well. So for District 3, we had Pete Bowlin and Mike Harding on that particular ballot, and Mike Harding won that particular contest. For District 5, we had Deborah Fick Sanders and Tori Jashuan, and Deborah Fick Sanders won that contest. And for District 7, we had Corey Gibbons, Jr., and Wingate Newton, and Corey Gibbons, Jr. won that contest. And again, for District 1, there was no opposition, and Copley Gerdes retains his seat in that district. And for that, I will ask your approval. Mover Pervon Beckett. There's been motion and properly seconded for F6, and you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for that. Next, we're going to move on to item F2, which is a report of our Tropicana field damage and store-related costs. And joining us is our City Architect Manager, Mr. Raul Quintana. How are you? Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Council, Raul Quintana City Engineering Capital Improvements Department. I have Beth Herondine and Blaise Mazzola here as well, who have been instrumental in assisting me on developing this report. As everybody knows, on the morning of October 10th, we all woke up to a stadium that had the roof destroyed. Immediately, our team became engaged and started to develop a series of plans to try to figure out exactly the condition of this facility, what needs to be done to protect it, what needs to be done to possibly consider putting the roof back on. With that, a number of firms were brought in. First, EFI Global was brought in to develop and perform moisture mapping for the entire facility. Also, we brought in a firm called Global Rope Access to help us identify the remnants of the roof that were hanging on the structure and remove those through a series of really kind of dangerous rope climbing exercises and removing that material. And also, we brought on the team of Hennessy Construction and AECOM Hunt. This team was put together by Hennessy Construction with folks who have specific knowledge with this facility. The Hunt team actually was involved in constructing Tropicana Field. And the structural engineer that they brought on board, Geiger Engineering, was the engineer of record on the design of this roof structure. So, the team of AECOM Hunt and Hennessy put together a number of other consultants and specialists to assist them in developing this assessment. That included Crown Corps, who looked at all of the paneling, the panels that are on the walls of the facility. APG Electric, who looked at all of the electrical systems. Prime air conditioning, who helped us with all the mechanical and plumbing. And then the fire protection. So, with that, we had Hennessy provide us this. I'm going to go through this. There's a lot here. I don't intend to just read all of this. But, effectively, we needed to know what is the condition of the structure. And could this be a viable baseball stadium following repairs? So, Geiger Engineering started to analyze the structure itself. The roof support system. They had a good bit of experience with this, with having developed the model, determined that the structural integrity of the building is still there. They determined that it appears that there could be repairs that could be done to bring this roof back to the line. There were building material systems that were minimally affected throughout the main electrical systems. And there were finishes that were affected throughout the facility. Obviously, those areas that were open to the inside of the stadium were directly affected. The concession levels, the suites, the press box, vertical transportation throughout the facility remained operational. And the exterior of the building was mostly intact, except for, like I mentioned, the portions of some of the metal panel systems. Those glazing doors minimally affected, and the areas behind the stadium, in terms of the office areas, those were affected due to water damage that came in through the roof. And then, the electrical systems on the catwalk, we spent a lot of time trying to assess those. Most of them were seriously affected. A lot of those electrical systems were not designed to be in the water. So, again, there's a whole list of those elements that are in the report. So, the building enclosure system, Geiger, again, who's the original engineer for this project and has a significant experience with these types of roof systems, had their inspection. There were areas that they couldn't see physically, so drones were flown and photographs were taken. We also had the benefit of the global rope access team that was there, and they were able to access areas that we couldn't see and take photos as well. And the conclusion is that the cable dome, which is the structure and all the cables that attach to it, is serviceable and could support a replacement of a tension membrane fabric roof system, which is the recommendation that we're making. So, this would involve installation of a new fabric system. It would involve bringing that design to a number of elements that need to happen in order to make sure that that design is going to work. One is reviewing it with our building official and making sure that it's designed to today's codes. There's also significant input from MLB and the Rays on this subject, and we will work closely with them as well to make sure that that meets the MLB standards for lighting, illumination, and acoustics. And during the report following this, I'll get into a little bit more detail about the roof. So, the enclosures, the building enclosure systems, the metal cladding, there were some damages to those. Do not appear to be anything structurally major to those. Those can be reattached. This company was involved in significant other installations such as this, so we feel pretty confident that the metal panel system would be able to be repaired and fixed and back in place. Electrical, the main electrical system of the facility was assessed. They've done a complete walkthrough of the entire system. This APG is a fairly large firm here in Tampa Bay area, significant work experience, also knowledge of this facility. They went through and they assessed and had a detailed checklist of all of the electrical components in the building, went through it, and the report, if you went through it, you see there was a number of individual panels and services and gears that they were checked and made sure that if there was water intrusion at all that was tested and made sure that that was all made safe. And, again, the areas in the catwalk, those are the ones that have the greatest concern. Those areas, those systems, those low-voltage systems and all the audiovisual systems in the press box and the audio system suspended from the catwalk, all of that got exposed, and it wasn't designed to be exposed. And so those are damaged and will need to be reassessed and replaced. So the main electrical system remains intact. The mechanical details, Prime Air, again, a company that has significant experience with the TROP. They have full knowledge of the facility. They inspected the mechanical system, and with the exception of a couple of areas where there was some water intrusion, they recommend some limited prevention but really no issues with the mechanical system at this time. It looks like it's all in sound working condition. Fire protection, similarly, there was no observed damages on the fire protection. They did identify some areas that will need to be addressed as we move forward, but really no issues related to the storm. And then the architectural issues, primarily these areas behind the bowl itself, areas where water did get into, and having EFI Global provide their review early on and give us their report on where there was water damage and mold remediation allowed us to bring in another firm, BMS Cat, who has been remediating all of this material, making sure that all of the damaged areas were removed, allowing us to identify those areas that need to be put back. So we now have a sense of what in the report speaks to kind of the ballpark outside of the stadium roof itself, areas that need to be addressed. So with the assistance of BMS Cat, we're now walking in and identifying those areas that need further protection, because obviously we still need to protect those areas until we get a roof back on the facility and be able to make sure there's no further damages. I want to spend a little bit of time, just a moment here, on kind of the essence of the report in terms of the cost. This proposed estimate, you know, it's taken a good deal of effort to arrive at a number, and this number was based on the information that was available to us, the areas where this team spent three weeks physically walking through the entire facility, getting into areas that are normally not accessible to any of us, and really seeing what the damages are and trying to put a value to those numbers. In most cases, they brought in the trades that were providing this information to Hennessy and Hunt. They were able to secure some price quotes on some of this, and working from kind of left to right, the left column is the total column. The very next column is work authorized to date. That $6.6 million is work we've already contracted for. It includes the Global Rope Access Team that was out there removing the roof, shredded roof material. It includes Hennessy services to perform this report. It includes the protective work that Hennessy is doing currently that started about a week or two ago and is currently underway with Horace Construction, and that's the waterproofing work and trying to secure kind of the bowl area and keep water from going beyond that and creating a system of drainage to funnel that water out. And it also includes the BMS cat work that requires the remediation that's currently underway. The next column is some of the remaining protective areas that we identified that we may need to look at, and those included some areas along the interior perforated panels that we're still looking at trying to see and a method to protect that, and potentially we may have a solution with BMS cat that could avoid some of these dollars. So none of those dollars have been authorized or expended in any way, but it's just a projection of where we may be looking at some additional work that needs to be done. There is one thing that we're identified with the work that Global Rope Access did, removing the shredded panels. They identified some metal panels that were still on some of the beams that need to come off, and those haven't been performed yet, but that number is included in that second column to the right. The third column to the right is the ballpark. Those are all of the areas that were identified by EFI that have been removed, the areas that had damage and that were removed, the broken metal panels, all those things outside of the roof itself that are architectural finishes and other areas within the body of the stadium that still needs to be performed, and that's an estimate that Hennessey obtained through a number of their contractors. A lot of this is of the electrical areas that need to be corrected, and it is our intent to, as we move forward, we're going to bring in a design team to help us develop plans to determine exactly what those improvements need to be. We're going to need to submit permits. We're going to need to do all those things to get this work done and obtain another construction manager, actually get, quote, get bids. The intent is to work with our Office of Buyer Diversity to make sure we have SBE and MBE components to this work as well. So that work is still left to be done. The fourth column to the right, the roof, that's an item that I'm going to be speaking to under the next report item. This was an estimate to put the roof back based on the work that Geiger Engineering provided us, and it is intended to put back the PTFE fiberglass-coated roof fabric that was currently there, and there's significant steps to that, and I'll be speaking to that shortly as well, and that number was included in this report. So we are moving forward with an item here today to provide some more input on that. And the last row, the last column is content damage, and that one we're going to need to work really closely with the RAISE team and look at the, a lot of it is low-voltage electrical equipment. It's a lot of the, you know, the technology that's in the facility, the screens, the displays, and some of the components that we really need to work closely with them to identify and determine exactly how it's going to be done and when and so forth. And then the schedule, this is kind of hard to read, and to be honest, I'll go through this a little bit more with the roof report because the whole intent is to have this work completed during 2025 and by the end of 2025, early 2026, be able to turn the facility back over to the RAISE to fit out. That would be the intent. Again, there's a lot of moving parts to this, and when we start the work associated with putting back the roof, that really begins the process, and it's really the most critical piece of all. So with that, this is just something that, you know, I think, I believe everybody here understands the nature of this and what is within our current use agreement in terms of our responsibility within a period of a specific period of time that we need to assess and determine and bring on for purposes of our property insurance to determine whether we're going to repair or rebuild. And so that's kind of where we are. We're within that 90-day window. I believe there's another set of slides that we wanted to show real quickly before I turn it over to questions. And I think, Beth, I don't know if you want to step through the photos. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, City Council members. Thank you so much. I'll be very quick, but I did want to update you on the progress on our mediation and protection since you approved those contracts in the last October meeting. So I'll go very quickly. So as you can see, where we started on October 11th and where we were as of Monday, Global Rope Access did remove all of the damaged pieces of roof, so it's looking much better. And then also we had someone come in with the state and remove all of the cots and the remaining fabric that's in the stands, in the picture on the right. You can see in that upper level, you can see sort of some white fabric or white, that's plastic covering the vomitories there that's been put up. Hennessy and Horace have erected containment, basically, so that water won't get through into that upper level. Again, here's just another October 11th versus November 18th shot. And as of this moment, we've actually got most or all of the field out. That was happening this week as well. In this, you can also see a picture on the right, the lower left, those lower bowl seats have also been covered, again, with protective material. It's a drywall, wood, plastic system that they've built. So that's moving forward. And here is the other side of those lower. These are the aluminum seats in the outfield, left and right field. This is the other side of that. So you can see on the 11th we had some water intrusion, but now with those separations in place, hopefully that will keep that intact. So just this is the suite level. So, again, just one example of how this is a BMS CAT installation. Two purposes here with the plastic, and those are kind of zipper areas there. One is to keep the water out, and then two is to separate the conditioned space from the non-conditioned space. So that was an issue we were dealing with early on. The air conditioning was running, which was wonderful, but was meeting the unconditioned space and was causing a condensation issue. So now all of those vomitoris are closed, and the conditioned space in the suite area is not causing any more condensation or much, much less condensation. We did have some damage in a few of the suites, but those doors had been rolled down. So that was fairly isolated and is being addressed by BMS CAT as well. And then this is the club level. So as you get the idea, if you've been in any of those club levels, you can see that, again, the space is intact, but we were having the issue with the moisture through the conditioned versus non-conditioned space and the rain. So basically these are the systems that have been put in place throughout the stadium. Lots of pictures, but these are just a few. This is a very, a little bit difficult to see, but as we mentioned in our last presentation regarding remediation, this is the office space, and the issue that we were having is that perforated metal panel. The water was coming through and then into the office space. So on the right, you'll see it's a little hard. In the center, you can see the technician there. They are putting vinyl tarps behind that perforated metal panel to keep the water from coming through, but because they know that is not a 100% effective solution. Also in the office areas and in some of the isolated suite areas and such, they have these catchment systems where they're catching the water, and if you look very closely, you can see a tube running into that trash can. They are catching the water and monitoring all of those areas. So I would like to say, I mean, we had a small test of that yesterday with a small amount of rain, and I'm very happy it was a small amount of rain, but they are monitoring and adjusting things as needed, but we did not have a significant amount of water intrusion with that test yesterday. So happy to say that. This is, again, the office area. So you can see this is just sort of an EFI Global where they identified drywall or carpet or ceiling tiles that were affected and needed to be removed. That work has been completed, and this is just one example where some drywall was removed to higher levels, some is two feet. Some of you who have had issues in your home are familiar with this. Basically, EFI Global identified the spots that needed to be removed, and that's all been done. The carpeting's been covered and such. So that's complete. And then this is just one example of mechanical and electrical systems being covered, and the RAISE team has been wonderful working with us, their engineers, their electricians, to get access to all of those and then make sure that we're covering those in a manner that's safe and consistent with best practices to have those keep running. So that's just a really quick run-through of the work that's been done on the remediation, and if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the report. And so, Madam Chair, I wanted to ask because my questions, I have a few specifically about some of the details, but a lot of my questions are also about F-5. So how do you want me to proceed? Well, you can ask here, and you can always speak again in F-5. They're very interwoven, right? So it's hard to kind of differentiate. So would you prefer me to hold until after the F-5 report then? Would you like me to proceed with F-5? Okay, let's do that. The actual repairs, A and B, this is a report. F-5 has two parts, which is approval of two resolutions. Yeah. So if you want to go ahead and just move to F-5, if the other colleagues concur or the majority of your questions. Okay, so why don't we just go ahead and move to F-5? And we have some cards on F-5 as well. You have cards on F-5? Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're going to go ahead and move into F-5, if you don't mind, sir, resolution. We have to do public comment. A verbal presentation. Okay. All right. So we'll go ahead and do F-5. F-5 is, there's two resolutions on F-5. One is approving four Interfund loans within the city, and Liz Abernathy is here. She can go into specific details of that. And this, sorry, Liz McCoskey, confused Liz Abernathy with Liz. I do that all the time. Sorry, Liz. And B is the execution of a design-build agreement with the city and Hennessey to perform both the pre-construction and the construction phase of replacing the roof. So upon approval, upon completion of the Geiger report and presenting that to administration and finding that the primary structure was serviceable and it could support a tensile membrane fabric roof system, we were immediately asked to proceed with obtaining the pricing and bringing this item to you for reinstalling or installing a fabric that's very similar to the original design. Again, it's a PTFE-coated fiberglass. It's a type of roof system that's used throughout all sorts of sporting venues because of its properties. It's non-combustible. It's water-resistant. It's highly versatile. And its strength in tensile is extremely strong. It's lightweight and highly reflective, so it's used for these large-span-type roofs, the ability for it to transmit light. So for all these factors and the fact that this is the same product, even though it's, you know, 35 years ago, almost 40 years ago, was installed on the stadium, there's going to be a number of steps to this. The first step was obtaining the pricing from those three vendors that Hennessey Hunt team went out and solicited quotes from. Of those three vendors, two of them were very competitive. One was quite a bit higher. The two that were competitive, they're still vetting out. So those two prices are very much in line, and the price that they submitted is the price that's submitted to us in terms of this design bid proposal. Also, they're going to have to complete the vetting process with that vendor. We don't anticipate the number to change, but just make sure that we all understand what's in their bid, how did that bid come about, their scheduling. So once we have that, so first of all, you know, assuming this gets approved, that would be the very first step, is to complete that during the pre-construction phase of this design-build agreement. So with that, that requires a number of reports and submissions to a number of different agencies. First off, there's going to be detailed engineering, a complete engineering of that system by Geiger. So the responsibility for the design and engineering is going to be part of that subcontractor, and they're going to retain Geiger as the engineer of record to perform that work. They have all the models. They understand the system. They're the ones who designed the initial roof. And then that engineering is going to have to be submitted to our building official to make sure that it meets today's codes. So it will be designed to Florida building code that is active today with all the wind requirements and such. So that has to happen. And secondly, as importantly, we're going to need to obtain MLB Baseball's approval of the use of that roof system, and we're going to need to collaborate very closely with the Rays on that. So the Rays are who we're going to go through to obtain that MLB approval. We understand it's for two elements. One, the lighting, which is going to require a lighting expert, a consultant, a lighting engineer who has detailed knowledge of baseball stadiums. Secondly, there's going to be an acoustical engineer that's going to be brought in with the same level of experience and knowledge on Major League Baseball, and those two are going to have to work with us once we have an engineered product and an engineered system that we know is going to meet the requirements of the roof. And through that process, we're going to get through that process first before anything is even ordered. So we need to understand that that's going to be approved, and then we will have the order released. This material is not local. It's out of the country. They would have to procure the material. They'll have to fabricate it, and they'll have to deliver it to the country. And then the supplier, the vendor is going to have to assemble it here in this country and then deliver it and then install it. All of that process is going to take time. We have an initial schedule that shows it's about a nine-month process, nine-to-ten-month process. So depending on when we start, we believe that given a proper amount of work up front on the engineering and the approvals with Major League Baseball, there's a series of time invested in that. And once we have that approval, release the product for fabrication, we believe that sometime if all that aligns with the schedules they're giving us, that there could be installation of the roof in June or July and getting us through October, November, around that period to complete it. And while that work is being done over the roof, there really can't be anything else happening under that roof in the bowl. But there could be concurrent work outside. There could be the concurrent work of the building improvements, which is not part of what we're submitting today. This is purely just a roof. But we're going to continue to work on the other elements to make sure that we get the design and then the bidding, the procuring, and make sure that we have that in hand. So this item, this is $23,726,000 for a design-build agreement. So it will include all of the engineering, the permitting, the process of obtaining those approvals through MLB, the ordering, the delivery, and the installation with the intent to have it done sometime towards the end of this year. Following that, then the field could come back. And then all of the areas behind the field or behind the bowl can begin to start to come back together. Again, this is a lot of work that has to happen. A lot of things have to go right. A lot of steps involved in this process. And I'm happy to entertain any questions. Okay, so we have an A and B, and the presentation that Raul just presented was in regards to the general capital improvement fund of the $23 million. Did you have a presentation for B as well? So that was A and B. That was A and B, but the dollar amount that you just quoted was from A. The dollar amount, $23,726,000 is B. That's the authorization of the design-build agreement with Tennessee Construction. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. So we're going to go ahead and entertain the questions and conversations. But from my understanding, Jackie, we have to vote on these separately, correct? That's really up to city council. You could take A and B at the same time. Okay, sounds good. Okay, we're going to go into questions. Council Member Gabbert. Do we not want to do public comment first? Well, they said we didn't have to, but we can. No, I thought we had... For the prison team. For the prison team. Okay, okay. Then go ahead and go public comment. The first two speakers, Chris Steinaucher and William Kilgore. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have to administer to that city council. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, city council. I'm Chris Steinaucher, president and CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce at 100 2nd Avenue North in St. Petersburg, Florida. Our Chamber of Commerce asks you all to honor our obligations and rebuild the Rays Stadium. We do need a place for our community to continue to gather, and we need a place for our community to continue to see our progress. If we leave ourselves in a place where we do not touch that stadium, that stadium is going to look like that for quite a while. And that, again, will be part of how the community feels. If the community does not see you and city council moving forward on these kind of projects, they just don't feel like our community is moving forward. So we really do believe with FEMA money and insurance money, this is the best deal that we can have for three to five more years of having a facility in our community that hosts our beautiful Rays, but also hosts our high schools, our enchanted evenings for holidays and other efforts. We don't have another venue that we can do this for. While we certainly understand people saying it's an expensive price, we do believe in FEMA and the insurance, and we do believe that this is the best investment we can make, but also honoring the commitments to ensure that the county, the city, the Rays, and everybody else understands that we are going to continue to move with the deal that everybody approved just a few months ago. Thank you. Hi, everybody. William Kilgore, 2550 28th Avenue North, and I organize with the St. Pete Tenants Union. I'm speaking out against this, the repairs today. I was kind of like trying to look it over. There's some things I don't really know a whole lot about in it. I was wondering with that three-month time frame to begin repairing or rebuilding, there was a, in that use agreement, there's a sentence that follows this, once the city contracts with an architect or engineer to draw plans for the repair or rebuilding of the dome, the city shall be deemed to have begun the repair or rebuilding. And so, you know, we've already put $6 million, and they've already started doing work and that remediation work. You know, does that suffice? Are you on, like, a time frame, you know, a three-month time frame here to approve this? Because really, if anything, you know, this should be stopped and looked at and delayed, the reason being, we don't know what we're going to get from FEMA or the insurance. We don't know how much is going to come out of the city's pocket. And that's a big problem, you know, and especially just in light of everything that's happened, you know, and, you know, repairing, doing these tens of millions of dollars and these renovations on this facility, and it's going to get torn down in three years. You know, there, it just, something doesn't seem right, or it just needs to, there's just, I hope the discussion will clear some stuff up. I'm sure it will. But, you know, there really needs to be an ongoing discussion. I think they can pump the brakes on this a little bit, at least, and put it off for a minute. Everything is always high pressure. It's like, we have to do this right now. We have to do it right now. You know, and it's where you all get into trouble and it trips things up and then other things happen, you know, as seen it time and again. So I urge you to vote no, but at least hold off a little bit. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next two speakers, Pete Bolin and Carrie Mueller. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, everybody. Pete Bolin, 4670, Chancellor Street Northeast. I speak here on behalf of not only the chamber, my local businesses, the 57,000 people that came out to support me this past November 5th, and also as a board member for the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association. I speak on behalf of the business community as one of the biggest challenges we face is uncertainty in our world, and we are in very uncertain times. When we look at things like repairing this stadium and honoring our obligations, this seems to be like the tough, difficult, correct choice to move forward. We need to focus on doing what is right, not worrying about who is right. We shouldn't be hand-wringing and going over old things or finger-pointing or being curious as to how we got to this point. We've got to move forward with our obligations. The uncertainty that faces our business community now from all over Pinellas County, there's board members for our association that say their hotels get filled up from events from Tropicana Field all over Pinellas County and far away. We need to move forward with this. The FEMA reimbursement sounds like a good idea. The deductible is high, but we're getting the return. We can't go back over these things. We need to move forward so we can honor our obligations. I sleep very good at night knowing that I try to do the right thing. Please do what is right and worry less about who is right. Thank you. Hi, my name is Carrie Mueller, and I live at 1147 James Avenue South in Campbell Park within a mile of the Tropicana Stadium, and I have worked tirelessly for over a year as a volunteer to advocate for a better deal on the Rays Stadium and the subsidies that we continue to approve to pay for now the stadium repairs. We've already obligated $6.5 million just to protect the stadium, to try to protect our insurance policy on this stadium itself, but following two devastating hurricanes, it is more important than ever that the city of St. Petersburg prioritizes infrastructure for the residents themselves first. During the hurricane, our residents suffered immense destruction and were struggling more than ever. Some of us are facing homelessness. How long are families supposed to live in hotels while the city instead has to focus resources on making sure that the Tropicana is repaired first? Why doesn't the city apply the 49% rule to the stadium, which requires nearly half the original cost in repairs when it originally cost $138 million? And currently we're looking at another 55.7 million on top of the 6.5, that's $61 million in repairs. Almost certainly the cost of repairing the stadium will continue to increase with change orders. The Rays continue to ask for more and more and more, and they get everything that they want. They recently released a letter. They tried to scapegoat the county commissioners for delaying the project, and it sounds like they're teeing up to ask for even more money. It's not true that the county commissioners delayed the project because the bond process for validation is extensive and it hasn't even begun yet. They have to start with a court date that was canceled because of the first hurricane, and they have until March to complete that process. So the Rays are just trying to do their usual threat to leave the city to try to tee up to ask for more money. The Rays didn't even have time to talk to the Pinellas County commissioners, but they had plenty of time to strike a deal with Hillsborough County to play in Tampa, and we'll pay them $15 million a year for their stadium use while they only pay us $1 million a year. And it seems like now we're going to have an opportunity to test the theory that our local economy will collapse with no games at the Tropicana, but spoiler alert, it will not. The hotel and sales taxes that they're supposedly bringing to the county will now be received by Hillsborough, and we're still paying for everything. Taxpayers have spoken. We have elected commissioners who are skeptical of the deal. We have elected city council members that are skeptical of the deal and will continue to do so as elections come up. Please vote. No, things have changed. The hurricanes caused major devastation. Stop allowing the Rays to extort the taxpayers. We're being neglected with all the time, energy, and focus on the Rays at every meeting. Thank you. Thank you. No more speakers, correct? Okay. Now, Council Member Gavrid, you're on. Thank you. All right, Raul. I'm going to start with a couple of questions specifically from the storm-related report. So let's talk about the electrical systems in the catwalk, and those have not been powered on yet, and so I kind of want to talk about that and what our exposure could potentially be on that. Do we have any ideas whatsoever? We really don't. We really don't have anything in detail. Okay. Do you know when that will start to kind of come to fruition? We haven't really launched that part yet. It would be part of the next phase of kind of the, you know, analyzing the building contents and the components that are part of the contents. So we have not begun that process. All we have is the report at this time. Okay. And you mentioned the word content, so that was another question that I had. So all of those type of items are what is included in content. That's correct. The low voltage, the electrical, the kind of the production side, the cameras, all of that would be assessed. And we really do need to be sitting down with the rays to help us understand some of that as well. So it's not something we've launched yet. Okay. And you mentioned as part of the roof work, there's going to be a lighting and acoustical engineer that's going to be brought on as part of all of this. And that also flows into what I anticipate is one layer of MLB approval. Because MLB approval in the use agreement is something that, you know, I think is kind of vague and I'm concerned about like what that looks like down the road. So are there going to be numerous layers of MLB approval that is going to have to happen throughout the entire process? Is this just kind of phase one of that? I can speak to just those two. Okay. It's considered the playability. Okay. It's the ability for the membrane to be evaluated to confirm daytime and nighttime lighting is acceptable for tracking fly balls and occupant comfort. And it must be done by a lighting engineer. And the second part is the roof membrane must accommodate adequate acoustics for MLB standards since acoustics is an issue as far as a single layer membrane. So those are the only two that I can speak to. I don't know if there's anyone else that has an answer to that. Yeah, Council Member, great question. And, you know, I may defer a little bit to the city attorney here. But in the current use agreement, there are some provisions for what a suitable playing field is. And I think that we would be looking at those requirements and felt like if we're within those requirements that we would be meeting Major League Baseball approval in accordance with the agreement since it's an approved playing area now. And how does communication with MLB in this particular scenario work? Is it all through the Rays and then the Rays are the conduit to speak to MLB? Or does administration have conversation with MLB? Does it all happen with attorneys? How – what is the link to actually have those conversations? Are you having a – So my – again, on these playability issues, my intent is to work directly with the Rays who have the context with Major League Baseball, who can provide us that link, and we will bring in – we will bring on the electrical and lighting experts. And based on the standards that we receive, we're going to be working closely with the Rays on this. I mean, there's really no other way around it. We don't have the connections with Major League Baseball. We really need them, and we are going to be completely transparent. We're going to – you know, first we have to engineer the system to know what it is and what the characteristics of that fabric really is. And then once we have that, we can bring in the engineers. But we've already started to identify those experts and trying to reach out to them, make sure they're available, make sure we can, you know, we can use their skill set as far as what we need to do here to have that happen. Okay, and the roof itself, so it's a two-layer system, correct? So currently it's a two-layer system. Currently it has a liner which provides the acoustics that – and this was back even before baseball was on board. So what's in the proposed design-built proposal is only the single system, the PTFE roof membrane. The proposal does not include the liner. So we will need to go through the process of evaluating the acoustics through this process with MLB and determine if there's a need for a liner or if there's some other means to solve the acoustical issues without a liner. A liner would be extremely expensive and would add more time. And at what point will you know that? We expect to know that within, I would hope, you know, the first 90 days. I mean, it would be – first we need to get the engineering done. We need to bring in the engineering of the material itself. And then we'll need to go through that process of evaluation. And that is my initial understanding. However, you know, I do expect to work closely with the Rays and make sure that we're all aligned in that process and have it happen as quickly as it can. Okay. I think my next question is probably for legal. So, you know, we're talking about, you know, actually being able to physically play games in the stadium and what that looks like. But as we see in the pictures, you know, there's significant damage to, like, the staff office areas and all of that. What is our obligation to also repair all of that area? I think based on the way the contract isn't specific with respect to the offices, it's focused on the playing of home games. So, similar to what Administrator Gerdes said, our interpretation of the agreement is that the home games – it has to be suitable for playing home games and that offices, for example, would not be necessary for that. It's not detailed in the agreement, but based on the language that we have before us, that's our interpretation. Okay. And then – Is Blaze here? Yes. Hi. All right. So, can you give us an update on the status of the insurance claim? Sure. Good afternoon, Chair, Council, Blaze Mazzola, Risk Manager. Where we are right now is we've submitted a claim, as we said last time. We have adjusters that are in the field. They're working. They've been at the TROP on and off. We met with them again this week to discuss where we are with things. They are waiting the decision of this because it does factor into their ability to – which way the claim goes. Certainly, if we were not to repair the stadium, it is a different claim. If we are to repair it, it's much different. Once we know more about what this body's choice is at this point, we'll take that back to them. I'm sure they're watching right now. And we'll discuss what the next steps are from there. So, all of this money at this point, so what we've spent thus far or what we've allocated thus far, will go towards our deductible, as will whatever we do at this moment. Okay. And can you define different? Like you said, depending on what we do today, they're going to look at our claim differently. So, replacing or repairing will wind up being a couple different things. So, repairing is replacement costs and actual cash value items. If we were to just not do anything on it, the insurer most likely will want to just offer actual cash value on the entirety because we are not rebuilding, per se. That's typical in insurance. When you're not going to rebuild something, that's how that would be approached. In this situation, if we are to replace and repair, we are looking at replacement costs for the majority of the work. The roof is actual cash value. So, there is a deduction for depreciation on the roof, and that's what I meant by different. Okay. All right. And can you remind us again what our coverage max is? The maximum amount of coverage, so the limit, if you will, is $22,500,000. Okay. I will say, though, what the estimates are right now, at $55,000,000 for the report that Hennessey provided, in that scenario, once you take out actual cash value, we are not, in my opinion, at this point, exceeding that $22,500,000. At this point? At this point. Based on the numbers, what we have at hand, and the information in front of us, we don't know what the depreciation amount will be. That is a factor. And I don't know who wants to answer where we are with kind of like our FEMA process, what that's going to look like. You know, we're talking a lot about kind of assumptive reimbursement, and so I just kind of want to understand what that process looks like and at what point we are able to start filing for reimbursement. Thank you for the question. Good afternoon, counsel. Tom Green, Assistant City Administrator. I want to first start by echoing something some of our citizens mentioned. Having certainty is important, and, you know, I think in this situation, I wish we could add a lot more certainty, but we are in the process of working with FEMA. So, for example, we have created the project within the FEMA system to begin the claims process or the reimbursement process. We provided them with the engineer's report that we've provided to counsel, but it will take some time. I don't know that I can forecast exactly when we will know on the FEMA side what the reimbursements will be, unfortunately. But we are working that and being very aggressive about providing that information as we get it and providing it to our FEMA consultant as well as to FEMA, our project manager. Do we think that there will be the ability to have some sort of answer as we're going through this process? Because, I mean, in one-on-ones, I've been very clear with you all that I am in no way, shape, or form going to just open up a checkbook. Like, we have to walk through this step by step by step. And, I mean, we're going to get to a point, like, we're going to need some level of certainty as to what. I mean, right now we're basically awash with what's before us and the insurance, right? But then the next time you come before us, now we're starting to go out of pocket. And so at what point are you going to be able to give us some certainty? Or is it you spend the money you put in for reimbursement and you hope that you get something back? I don't have a good answer standing here today, but I can report back. As I mentioned, we have been visiting with FEMA and our representative from FEMA weekly. And, you know, so we are, you know, continue to provide information, answer questions that they have, and give them all the information that we've got. But, you know, I'm sorry, but right now I don't have a firm timeline on when we're going to have that. If I could just add to that, Councilmember, some information. Mr. Green, please correct me if I'm wrong. But in those ongoing conversations with FEMA, one thing that's come up that I think may be new to Councilmembers is as part of our project, they did also encourage us to apply for reimbursement even on the deductible. So that was good news and good information that we got recently. Okay. And Thompson Consulting is holding our hand through all of this FEMA reimbursement piece? Yes, ma'am. Correct. So I would just ask, if possible, if this passes today and we continue forward next time that you all come with, I assume it would probably be the architectural piece of it, then at that point if we could maybe have someone from Thompson here to actually talk with us about what reimbursement process looks like, I think that could be helpful. Absolutely. So just ask for that. Madam Chair, I think I'm going to leave it there for right now and listen to my colleagues and see what I have left at that point. Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. So, goodness, I've got a lot here, but I'm going to try to do it in sort of a coherent order and a timely fashion. So I want to start with something that was already brought up briefly, but what exactly are we required to do right now? I don't know that we're required to expend $23 million for the roof to make sure we're meeting our legal obligation. And so I know there was a slide that said in three months we shall begin repair or rebuild, and there's discussion about contracting with an architect. I guess, Jackie, if you could. Sure, sure. So what it specifically says in the agreement right after what you just indicated is once the city contracts with an architect or engineer to draw plans for the repair or rebuilding of the dome, the city shall be deemed to have begun the repair or rebuilding of the dome. So the sentence I just read is what has to occur within that three-month time period. Okay. And so why are we, instead of just doing our legal requirement, why are we looking to expend so much money right away when there is still so much uncertainty? I guess I'd love to hear administration's reasoning. So thank you, Councilmember. I mean, I think there's a couple things here very specifically to your question. We think it's in the best interest of the community to have our team back in Tropicana Field as soon as possible. If we want to get them back there by 2026, opening day, ordering the roof material now is crucial based on the timeline. So that's one main reason why we're here today asking for the roof repair. Of course, as the mayor spoke this morning, it's really important for us to live up to our contractual obligations. I mean, you know, we're a city of inclusivity. We're a city of compassion. We also want to be a city that's responsible in our contractual obligations, and we feel that we do have an obligation to repair it and that we should go forward and do the repairs. We also believe it's the most financially responsible move, considering the information that we have from FEMA and the insurance information. You know, it may be a little counterintuitive, but actually doing the repair is in the best interest of the taxpayers, in our opinion. Okay. Okay, and we'll get into that in just a second, but, you know, I think the reason I ask is because it seems like we can meet our legal obligation without initiating the repair right this second. And all I've heard – and so the main reason I heard from you right then was to get them back in in 2026. But when, you know, Raul was up here explaining how many things we don't know right now, I really find it difficult to believe that this timeline that you put up is going to be accurate when we have so many things unknown. So I don't – you know, we see a lot of infrastructure projects and building projects in front of us, and I guess it's like a trope at this point, like just a cliche, like the government not keeping on time and under schedule. And I don't like to, you know, perpetuate that kind of thing, but, like, I have never been more sure that a project is not going to be on time and on schedule than I have than this one getting put in front of me today. And it's not to criticize or anything. It's to say because there is so much uncertainty. So I struggle with saying, like, yeah, you can have this $23 million when we have so much uncertainty right now because we need to get the stadium open back in 2026, and this is the only way to do it. Same as things that have been talked about at the county or whatever, it's like a three-month delay is not going to be very big in the scheme of things, in my opinion. So I'll leave that there. It would be my preference to, you know, do exactly what our requirements are. I have another direction I want to go in now, though, which is, you know, there's been a lot of talk about we are their landlord. We owe them a place, which is all true. I think in my time as a council member, I spent a lot of time talking about the landlord-tenant relationship. And one thing that you learn in the landlord-tenant relationship is, like, you know, there are points at which something is required of someone. And it doesn't mean you can't negotiate an outcome that's beneficial for everyone. You don't just have to do what's written on the piece of paper. And so I wanted to hear from an administration. Has there been discussion with the Rays about is this the path they want to go down or what they're willing to give and take here to try to work with us on what our obligation is, considering it's only three years left on this agreement? We've had numerous discussions with the Rays about going down an alternative path, an agreement path. I'm not going to get into specific numbers and negotiate in the public. I'm happy to talk to council members one-on-one. But we haven't reached a point where both parties felt satisfied and came to a conclusion on such a settlement. Okay. And I understand your position completely, but I have to tell you mine as well, which is how am I supposed to tell the public that we're going to spend tens of millions of dollars on fixing a building that's going to be torn down and we're not publicly discussing what the alternative is? I know you're doing the best you can, but I am not someone who's going to tell the public, look, just trust me. Like, I don't know better than people on the street. I'm literally doing my best with the information given to me, and I don't think it's right that we wouldn't have that information public because it could be that it is fiscally responsible to do this in our circumstance. Maybe it is. I don't believe that, but without having that negotiation be out in the open, I can't just make decisions like that behind closed doors. So... I could just add, council member, just for consideration by the city council, depending on what happens on going forward with the bonds and what the county does and ultimately what the Rays do in raising more equity if they're in need of more equity. It's not guaranteed that it's going to come down in three years, and it might be beneficial for a much longer period to the community. We don't know that yet. Yeah, I understand that completely. So, yes, it might not be three exact years, but, look, if we're listening to anything anyone's saying to us about their desire to continue to play in that stadium for beyond three years, I doubt it's much more than that. So, okay, and then I think I'll wrap up here soon. I have plenty of things to say that I would like to, but I think I'd like to hear from my colleagues. Let me just look real quick. Oh, okay. You know, I know there's lots of complicated decisions around, points around this. One thing to say and then one thing to ask. On its face, and I've mentioned this already, on its face, it just is like the people that I'm talking to that live in this city cannot understand why we would spend so much money on a building that's set to be knocked down. And I think we need to communicate better that it's because we have legal obligations. I am not interested in doing it personally without expressing publicly what those obligations are. And then that's just a statement I wanted to reiterate. But another thing is this money, it looks like it's coming from a transfer from the General Capital Improvement Fund. So that's $23,730,000 that's not going to be there. Like, what is the impact to the general capital? Like, what projects are not going to be funded now because of this? So right now that's already available balance above those funds, target fund balance. Okay. So right now they don't have an effect on any existing projects. Okay, so we had money set aside that was just not allocated or not specified for anything? So as part of our physical policies, we have target fund balances for all our funds. So these are funds that are above those target balances. So one of the reasons we have these resources is for these types of events where there is a storm or event and that we could go to these different funds to fund some of these repairs, you know, and have that cash flow without affecting regular operations. Okay. But that means over the next five, six, seven, ten years, I don't know what our schedule will be, we'll be replenishing that fund balance, and we'll be replenishing it by taking away from other projects that will need to be done if we didn't do this right now. I think the replenishment would come first from the insurance and the FEMA reimbursement. Well, okay. Insurance and FEMA reimbursements are unknowns right now and will not make us completely whole. So I just wanted to make that clear. And actually, I wanted to make it clear for myself as well. So I appreciate it. I'll stop there and hear from everyone else. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Well, having certainty is important, isn't it? We all thought we had some certainty. I thought people were in their honeymoon phase and not me, by the way. But we were in a honeymoon phase and come a few days ago, there was a letter that was sent out and everything's been thrown, you know, up in the air. And I'm going to make it very clear, A, the county commission may have delayed a vote. So did we. There is nothing that required them to have that vote. And there is no reason to blame someone. And as a former prosecutor, I will tell you, it really disturbed me that there was a county commissioner that was his life was threatened over all this. All the statements that are made out there on this issue. There is no reason for that. I swear, I feel like we're judges and here you are in divorce court or a probate court fighting over things. We're asked to make a decision and we have no clarity from the parties, none whatsoever, on any of these issues. And they're all intermingled. Be clear, all of it. The bonds that we're going to talk about later, this issue, it's all intermingled. And you know what? When those parties go into court, they're fighting about their own money and their own issues and what they may get in probate court. You know what we're doing? This is taxpayer money. This is what, this all involves people's money. And so when we're talking about repairs, I don't know, there must be a pot of gold in the city of St. Petersburg that I don't know about, but it seems like it's somewhere because it's 300 million here, 23 million here, and yet we still don't know, which is a very fair question for every person in this city to have. What is going to happen? Is this the right path? And that is fair. I don't care what people think about where people stand on this. I would like to know, is this a viable solution? So the Rays are here. My understanding is y'all are willing to speak. Are you willing to answer some questions? Okay, come on. Because it's weird. We're having this conversation. You're sitting there, and we're talking about you and what the parties are doing. And I just think it should just be asked, what is your position on us spending money and putting money in a stadium that may be torn down? If I could just take a minute. Yeah, sure. Because you referenced the letter. Yeah. I want to state for everyone that our letter was not intended in any way to be threatening, but I've gotten the feedback. I understood that it came across in a way that we didn't intend, and I'm very sorry for that. I apologize for the tone with which it was received. Our intention was never to threaten. It was to, in a straightforward way, be the bearer of bad news. And I understand that being the bearer of bad news in the wake of two hurricanes is extremely difficult, and I understand receiving the news is difficult, and I promise you it's been as bad for us as for anyone else. It's been nothing short of heartbreaking to inform our staff, our partners, and our fans that our agreement effectively died when the county commission replaced two yes votes with two no votes. You and everyone else deserve to know the truth, however, even when it is awful. And I share that because I fear I am once again going to be the bearer of bad news. My understanding of the situation at Tropicana Field is that it is incredibly uncertain, likely to be far more expensive than most of the estimates that are out there, and could take a lot longer to work its way forward. Our hope was to reach an agreement similar to the one that Richie spoke about. I'm not personally going to divulge those terms in public, but I did feel the need to inform a number of you of what those discussions were about so that you knew what was going on prior to this meeting. It's the same reason that we sent the letter. We did want people to try to understand where we were coming from, and we'd had that conversation with a lot of public officials, and the story out there seemed to continue to be that everything was fine. I'm very sorry. I wish things were fine. When the hurricane took the roof off of Tropicana Field, the only thing we had going for us was that if we could make it through three years, we had our ideal ballpark in our hometown and all the development around it. We could have figured out a way through those three years. When two yes votes turned into two no votes, we could no longer keep asking everyone to relocate to St. Petersburg. We couldn't keep all the contracts, all these needs to buy things far in advance. We just couldn't do it. We were already out, $50 million, as we noted. Couldn't keep doing it. Couldn't keep handling the human costs. And so we effectively hit pause, and we informed our partners. That message didn't seem to get delivered. It didn't even seem to get delivered following John Romano's article, which I know also upset people. I'm very sorry about the way this is coming across, but I think it's crucial that we all deal with the facts on the ground, and I'll do my very best to give that to you today. And I really appreciate that. Trust me, I got, I, I, I was delivered the, I understood what you said. You understood what? Oh, I understood the letter. I understood it. I understood it very well. And the message is very clear to me where we, where this stands, obviously. So we have a current use agreement, and how many times has that been amended? I have no idea. A bunch of times, right? Yeah. And, and to Council Member Floyd's point, the parties could go back, and understand there has been a hurricane, and obviously work at something where we don't have to rush this, and find a solution that works for everyone. Absolutely. That, that, that would be the ideal thing. Whether it is, I don't know if there will be a new stadium. I don't know if maybe you use this as a stadium, and fix it up, and put more money in it, and make it, you know, do something with that, because who knows? You may, may be able to do that. I don't know what the future holds. But I know that there is definitely more than one answer before us than just vote for this. There's lots of answers, and people can get very creative right here, and I would like to have, to give the parties the opportunity to get creative so the public can understand what's going on before we make decisions here on the dais. That affects everybody, and then people are going to be wondering, I cannot believe city council is voting for this. That's all I hear, all of it. I cannot believe this is happening, and we don't know. Are they going to tear this down? I hear, and I will tell you this, I hear, when I hear FEMA money is going to go into this, my mind, I want to explode. I, I couldn't know less about FEMA beyond my personal situation. No, I understand, but, but it's not, no, I'm not, just, you don't need to know anything about FEMA. All you need to know is there are people there that are not getting FEMA money, and we may be putting money into this. That we don't know what the future is, and FEMA is denying other people to put money in their homes. That bothers me. The system is broken. So that's my take on the FEMA money. So I rather, however this works out, whatever it may be, I don't know where I'm going to be, but I think it's very important for everybody to take a step back, realize that all this stuff could be worked out. The parties need to have an answer. We, legal, do we have to do anything today? No, Council Member, based on the information that I relayed to Council Member Floyd about the language in the agreement, you have three months from the date of the event to take this first step of entering into the agreements for the drawing of plans. There you go. So, and we can talk about the bond issue and some of the other things that are raised in the other, because I do want to bring those issues up in terms of, I don't think we have to do it for this item, and I'm happy to bring it up on the bond issue. But I, I, there were things that were said in this letter, and everybody has their duties that they said they were going to uphold. You were going to take on cost overruns. That's part of the deal. I get it. Nobody expected this. So that's why y'all need to talk. So we can figure it out. But at this point, I would move to defer this until we have some clarity as to what's going to happen. Yeah, if I could, Chair, I would just like to let City Council members know, I mean, obviously, I hate to say this publicly, but I'm sure you can understand that if you were to vote yes for this today, it would certainly help the administration in those discussions with the other party. I understand that, but right now we have a motion and a second, and if we can get clear, my, my whole point is we need more, especially when we're voting on something. What comes out to everyone is City Council has just approved this, and we have no clarity. We're just providing our view, please. No, I understand, and I appreciate, and I appreciate, and I understand. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I try to look at this as two different issues, but as Council Member Hainowitz pointed out, there are some ways that it's intertwined. I mean, I, from the beginning when we learned of the damage, and I started without knowing what the options were or what our obligations were, where I thought, I do not want to throw good money after bad. You know, we've already got plans for a new stadium. Now we've got to pay for damages for the other one. This was before we knew how much it would be, and, you know, I would, I would love to see some kind of an agreement worked out where we don't have to put this money into a stadium that's going to be demoed in a few years, but I don't see a way out of it. We have a contract that's in place. We have an agreement that's in place. We're obligated to diligently pursue such repair or rebuilding until completed. We've already kind of started with remediation, right? And I think the city has shown that it is a great partner and does honor its commitments because that was basically one of the first things that city staff jumped on, the administration jumped on, to see what are we looking at here. So I'm proud of the way that we've handled it, even though it is through clenched teeth that I hit that yes button for the 6.5 and now for today, but we're obligated to do it. And if it wasn't for that, I'd be having a, we might be having a different conversation right now. If the Rays came to us and said, look, we're going to figure things out ourselves in this area, somewhere else, let's demo, let's, you know, let's amend the use agreement and, you know, help you save some money, which, of course, we'd end up going to spend on the new stadium. But where we're at right now, I mean, that's not happening today. And today we're being asked to move forward as we are contractually obligated to do. Now, hitting the pause button, if that is an option, I'm not supportive of that because we're already on a really tight timeline, and the delay on this vote will have a ripple effect and delay the completion of the repairs in time for the 2026 season. There are consequences to that. Every year that we don't have a stadium for them to play in, we have another year added to this current use agreement. So it doesn't help us. It really doesn't. And until or unless there was some agreement that was struck with the Rays to amend the current use agreement, I don't see a better option for us. I don't know that there is a legal definition for the phrase diligently pursue. No, there's not. Right. Do we really want to leave that up to a judge to decide, or will we decide today that this is what people long before us agreed to do and show that the Rays are still our partners, that we are still good landlords, and we are going to fix the roof? Now, my question is, it's not just going to be the roof. This is part of it. And I know that that's the part we're voting on today. But I've asked before, and I know this is a work in progress, do we have new information on what other repairs are going to be required in order to meet the definition of, I didn't bring that binder out. But, okay, it's the field that's playable, okay? Suitable. Suitable for play, yes. And that doesn't really have a legal definition here either, does it? It's really because of that fifth point that's in that phrase in the use agreement where it's basically subject to Major League Baseball's discretion, right? Yes and no, council member. I mean, there is a reference in the partial destruction section of the use agreement, which is not the same section that we're talking about now. But there is a reference to suitable for playing home games. Right, suitable. And if MLB has approved such use. So do we know if we have to replace every hot dog stand, I mean, how far does it go, the repairs that we have to make? We see what's in the damage assessment, and that's everything. But I don't think we have to have everything there in order to create. The Rays are responsible for the fan experience, the in-game experience. We are responsible for providing a dome that is deemed suitable for playing home games. Done. We agree with that, and we'll be going through the repairs with a lens looking at it just like that. Because we need to know what the minimum is on this. I mean, we're getting this piecemeal, and before you know it, we're paying for, like, Raymond's costumes, right? There's going to be a line at some point, and the contract doesn't detail that out enough. We need to have those conversations, figure it out, and let us know. Because you gave us the whole price tag. But then there's the you pay part. That's what I need to know. I am supportive of this today, and I'm very supportive of continued conversations to help all of us get through this with as little pain as possible. Because we're all hurting, and we are all in this together. Thank you. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair, and everyone for the presentation, and thank you to my colleagues for some amazing questions. It really handled a lot of what I had, so I'm going to try and be brief and organized. I'd like to, I have a question for Mr. Auld, a couple questions. Good afternoon. Yes, sir. And really trying to be clear and clarify, so in your remarks, you mentioned that your organization and where you are right now is that you're not seeing the county passing this or approving this, basically. That the deal's basically dead, that you all assume that the deal is dead. Personally, I don't know how anyone could have watched the county commission meeting and think we're in good shape. Great. I'm taking meetings, willing to have meetings, trying to do everything we can, but if you take into account the normal increases to a project and delaying it to 2029 versus 2028, and you think about the economic challenges that we face, 25, 26, 27, and now 28, not only do we have more than just that three years to get through, but we have at least four, and we have increased costs to get to the fourth. As the letter states, those are costs that we cannot absorb, correct? I got you. And hearing that those are costs that you can absorb. But sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but I also don't believe those county funds are coming, and I do believe that's pretty clear. Okay. And I appreciate that because that leads me to my next question about there's preconditions that have been outlined that you all have to meet before we actually issue those bonds. Are you confident now with that reality that you're going to be able to meet those preconditions before we issue bonds? I can't say I'm confident about anything, and I'm not a legal expert on even our agreement or what's required for those bonds to be issued. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. That was the only question that I had. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate that. Thank you. Also, I think, again, most of the questions that I had have been answered, and so I'll just say it. The reason that I'm supportive of the deferral is because I would like to publicly discuss the alternative solutions that are available to us before voting, and knowing exactly what it is that we have to do, knowing exactly how much it's really going to cost us, getting a better idea or indication of what FEMA may or may not reimburse. And I know that we are contractually obligated to do something, but we're not obligated to do everything that's being proposed today. And so I would like to know what we are obligated actually to do because it's clear that everything that's being proposed today we're not. And so when we talk about honoring our obligations, this vote is honoring that and some from what I'm gathering. And so I'd like to pare it down and have a better understanding of what it is that we're actually obligated to do, which it doesn't look like you all are prepared to give us today. And then the fact that with Acts of God, the agreement can be suspended or extended. I'd love to see that work of determining what's going to be in the best interest of both parties, particularly what's going to be in the best interest of the city moving forward using that clause. Also with the knowledge and information that, in my opinion, how horribly the original deal was, being able to learn some of those lessons, get some of that feedback, and make a better deal for us as residents. And as it relates to the timeline, whether we vote today or if we voted last week, I have no confidence that that timeline will be met. And so to say that deferring this vote is going to cause the timeline to be missed. March, so we basically, we're saying that the stadium has to be completed. From what I read, it's going to be completed in the month that the season, a month before, or right, like 30 days before the opening day. And I've seen enough of these projects to know that a 30-day grace period is not real. It's not going to happen. That timeline's not going to be met. This $55 million is not going to be $55 million. We don't know what it is. We don't know what FEMA's going to do. But I'm hearing from people who are dealing with FEMA that they're not doing what we think they should be doing. And so for those reasons, I'd like to defer it. And if we don't defer it, I'm not supportive of actually moving forward. So Chair, if I could just be clear for all city council members. Please. What we're asking today is for the roof only. And the roof seems clearly to meet the definition of suitable playing field. So we're not asking you for anything that could be difficult to understand based on that definition. We'll be coming back in the future with the further repairs to meet that definition at a future point. But we brought this forward now because of the timeline of ordering the roof material. So just wanted to be clear about that. Thank you. Thank you for that. This also brings another question. So suitable playing field, does it have to be Tropicana? Where does it go? Yes. Okay. Just so that I'm clear, because it's like they've got a suitable field now. And I'll stop there, Madam Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. I'm just going to try to keep it simple. So, Jackie, I know we've been over it left and right. We're contractually obligated to fix the Tropicana field. Correct. The first step of that is putting a roof on it. In our opinion, that's accurate. That's all we're doing today is talking about putting a roof so anything else that we are obligated to fix inside the stadium could be fixed because there's a roof on it. That's correct, yes, sir. Okay. Council Member Driscoll, I appreciate your comments about just some of your reasoning. Frankly, you stole a lot of my thunder, so I'm a little upset with you right now. But, you know, there's been a lot of talk of, you know, the economic impact and things like that. And there's just one thing that has been missing. And I actually really appreciate, I think Esther brought it up a couple of days ago, and I was like, why aren't people talking about that? I've been personally reached out to by at least nine, I think today makes it ten people that are employed at Tropicana Field that are asking for jobs at Steinbrenner Field for next year. Ten people, I mean, a former employee of ours, Teresa Jones, is one of them. And so this, it's far reaches of impact, and I am not willing to put that at risk and then go to war when it's our obligation to do it. So, last two questions, Jackie, if we were to approve this today, does that in any way hinder a negotiation to amend the current use agreement? No, they can, well, I won't speak from a strategy or negotiation standpoint. It doesn't hinder. From a legal standpoint, the two can coexist. Does it in any way legally hinder to negotiate an amendment to the new use agreement of the historic gas plant? We can proceed with any and all amendments at any point in time. There's nothing that has to be done sequentially from a legal standpoint. I'd offer a substitute motion to approve F-5A and B. Second. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I move the table to next year. There was already a motion. Yeah, there was already a motion. You already had the motion. You already had the motion. We have to, hold on. We had one motion. Can you do a substitute if I do a motion to defer? He can, let's double check. All right, hold on. So, we have two motions on the floor. One to defer, and that's been seconded, and then Vice Chair Gertes' motion to amend. There's a motion to amend. What was your motion? It was a substitute. Substitute. Oh, substitute. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. So, you had the initial motion to defer. Right. A substitute motion to approve. Your procedures say any council member may move to lay the matter under discussion on the table. This motion, this is the motion that temporarily suspends any further discussion without setting a time certain to resume debate. So, to me, this is a different motion, and that you would have to vote on the substitute motion first. Okay. And that's fine. Then I'll withdraw that, then, if that's the case. The substitute motion is on the floor. You done? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. So, I'm going to go ahead and have my two cents in regards before we vote. It may be popular, and it may not. But let me say that everyone's argument or everyone's perspective on this is valid. And I continue to go to the contract of us being obligated to repair the roof, and that's what we're here to do today. But the conversation has been expanded to overall repair of the Italian stadium, which is not why we're here. But then I ask the question, how long are we supposed to allow an asset of ours to sit unmaintained? Because we're going to have rain, April, May, June. We already know that we're dealing with the time frame. And Vice Chair Gerdes clearly made that point very valid. This moment reminds me of the first county commissioner meeting. It puts me, you know, whether they were right or wrong for deferring it or not. Then I watched the second county commissioner meeting. And those commissioners made valid points to why it is important to move forward as we know the deal now. I mean, to everyone's credit, I mean, Council Member Hannah, you all voted no on the deal in the first place. So we weren't going to get a miraculous turnaround in trying to repair the dome, the drop. That wasn't going to happen. We already know that that was a no vote. So in order to move forward with trying to at least repair the roof, and we don't know if the drop is going to be torn down in three years. We don't know that. We didn't know that it wasn't going to be passed in county commissioner the first time, postponed. We didn't know it the second time. If anyone can tell me what's going to happen in the next two hours, I need lotto ticket numbers. I need it. I need them. We don't know what that is. Because at some point, we're going to have to repair it. And from what I understand, and I heard at the last meeting, that we're going to ask for what those dollars amount, and they're going to have to be approved as we move forward. And we may get to a point where we say enough is enough. But again, we don't know what the future holds two or three years from now. If the days decide that they aren't going to be here, guess what? And people have heard me say this. WWE, if that taught us nothing, that we can fill up that location. We can repurpose it. There are other things that could happen on that site. I'm more concerned with the development piece. I'm concerned with the employees that are not there because they do not have jobs. I'm concerned with us because we're trying to prove a point that people are not getting paid. This is where I gain part. We're council members, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to get a paycheck whether we have COVID, whether we are in session or not. We get paid. But I don't feel comfortable justifying other people's losses because we're trying to prove a point. So we've already been told that we have to fix a roof. We've already been obligated contractually to that. That's the only thing that we're asking, being asked to approve today anyway. And I know we said that they're intertwined. I know we say that there are two different cases. But I just need us to move forward. And you're right. That timeline might not be doable because six months ago, we didn't know we would be here in this timeline. We don't know what that's going to be. We don't know what that looks like. And to ask administration or to ask the Rays to give us a definite on dates, I think we're being hypocritical because we cannot confirm a date. Had we, we'd have been done with this six months ago. This would have been over a long time ago. So to put that as the, you know, the, the, the line in the sand, I think that that's not a substantial request for us versus getting the roof fixed. We've already been told that it's going to take nine, at least nine months for it to come in. How much rain are we going to experience with it over the next nine months? And then I'm going to go back to the first county commissioner meeting. It was postponed and the diets look completely, completely different. The second vote, the second meeting, it looked different. You're not going to have the same voices discussing the same object. This is the same topic. It's going to be different council members. So that's another delay. You're right. We won't have the same timeline. You're absolutely correct. Because the same thing is going to happen. So that's my two cents. I'm going to support it because I need us to move forward, regardless of what we think is going to happen six, eight, nine, 10 months from now, or three years from now. As a city, we've started moving forward and we need to go ahead and continue to move forward. If minds don't change, minds don't change. But I do think that being contractually obligated, as we've heard several times, doesn't hinder us from moving forward today or once we get ready to take the next step, that we can have that conversation as well. But if we can just get the materials ordered, I think that would be a great move on behalf of the city of St. Petersburg. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Let me make clear my no vote. My no vote was based on the contract as it was written, on all the obligations, the lack of obligations, the business deal, the lack of legal remedies that, by the way, we are all going to see play out for a while. Trust me when I say that. So my no vote on that was because of that deal. If it would have been different, maybe that wasn't the case. Today, I actually did a motion to defer, so maybe we could get to a yes. Obviously, everyone assumes that I'm just a no on everything, and that's not true. And I don't think everybody's a no on everything. It's just they didn't like the deal as written. And I'm not going to sit here and assume what city council members are going to vote. I have no idea what was going to happen today. Honestly, I didn't know this letter was going to happen, and it did. And none of you all did. So I'm voting based on what I have before me. And before me, I don't have enough information. And when we talk about contracts that we're obligated to perform under, the same ones that have been amended, the same one that legal just said that having a deferral does not affect. And the fact is, to blame us for what has been happening for decades, delays, whatever has been going on through many administrations and many city council meetings, to just blame it on whoever's sitting here because they may not like the deal as written right now is completely unfair. This has taken tons of people. And so that I do find unfair because I have done the work on this. I've read these agreements. And on good faith, I had my vote. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I just want to kind of level set with the motion on the table to move this forward because I would not have been in support of a deferral today. Quite simply because there's a lot of talk here about certainty and I think that continuing to defer and kick things down the road does nothing to add certainty to anyone. And Councilmember Gerdes and Madam Chair, thank you for talking about the employees. I, too, have had people reaching out to me. And Esther, if you're still here, thank you for bringing their voices to light. Because I believe if I have the right numbers here from city staff, current employment at Tropicana Field is 4,000 full-time and part-time employees, correct? 4,000. 4,000 people overnight without jobs, right? So if anybody's wanting certainty, it's them. How many of them have lost their homes as well? So that right there speaks volumes to me about why certainty and time needs to be of the essence. So I just want to ask, so in this section 16.03, talks about within three months of the event of such a total or partial destruction of damage, city shall begin to repair or rebuild the dome using the proceeds from the property insurance for that purpose and shall diligently pursue such repair or rebuilding until completed. Is the action we're taking today, does that fall in line within this clause? Yes. Okay. And then it goes on to read, once the city contracts with an architect or an engineer to draw plans, which we talked about a little bit earlier, is that the next step? I believe Raul can address that. I believe that's part of this step. Part of it is. There's an engineering component of this step, but we're also already beginning bringing in someone who's going to help us define the balance of the improvements, which will satisfy that requirement. That will satisfy the architect. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure of that. So I do just want to say to administration, mayor, thank you for our call the other day. I very much appreciate that what you are bringing to us today is not $55 million. I said earlier, like, I have no interest in just opening up a checkbook today, right? And I know you all know how hard this kind of path is for me to navigate with everything that is going on in the community that I represent. Um, but I also personally am living in a home where I have to have a roof put on before I can repair the inside of my house. I'm literally living in the same scenario that the Tropicana field is dealing. So I understand that there are things that you have to do to bring a product, a product, I call it, a home, a building, whatever it is, you, there's a way that it has to be staged that makes sense to a total fulfillment of an obligation. I'm living it. So like for me, I just feel like we put the roof on or we start that process. The money we are being asked for today matches what our insurance, what we're being told our insurance will cover. We will continue to walk down a path of looking at every single step and what that cost will be. And along the way, I expect that there will still be conversations that may look like something different if we get to a place where this just does not work, where this is not feasible. Conversations and negotiations between the Rays and the city cannot stop because we say yes today. So I want us to continue on that path, but it is prudent at this point to continue here as well. And I don't like it. I don't like spending this money at all. This gives me great heartburn, but I just don't see any other path that is legally responsible for us at this point. So that is why I supported your motion. Vice Chair Gerdes and why I'll be happy to support it today and vote yes. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I'll say this. I respect all of y'all in your decisions, but I completely disagree with what you just said, Council Member Gabbard. I don't know if what I said at the beginning was misheard or what, but I didn't ask for us to not do this at all. I said we can meet our legal obligation by just doing the plans aspect of this instead of actually pushing the button to do all of the roof at once. And I'm not saying that we won't do the roof later on. I'm just saying we can meet our legal obligation right now, and we can in the coming weeks get more certainty about what the extent and scope are going to be. And that's all I was asking for. I'm not saying no at all right this second. I'm just saying we don't have to do this right now. We can go a little bit slower. And I don't think it'll hurt anything in the long run. And I think that that option is very much open to us. Like, we do not have to do this today. And I also think something that was lost in the conversation was the Rays came up here and said they were willing to negotiate whether or not we need to do this at all. And we're saying, okay, we'll continue those negotiations, but let's just go ahead and spend $27 million on top of the, or I'm sorry, $23 million on top of the $6 million we've already spent. Like, I get the $6 million and why that was necessary. You know, I didn't vote for it at the time, but I understand. And after time, like, we had to protect our asset. Our asset is protected now. It's protected now at this point. And so, and just because we vote to put a roof on right now, this roof's not going to be completed until, I don't know, we had the date, but late next year is something that I heard. So, I heard late next year, also, there was a quote here, a lot of things have to go right as well. So, I don't think that, like, just giving us some time to figure out if FEMA's available, how insurance is available, I do think that would have helped. And I just wanted to make the point that despite, you know, what's been said, like, I personally do not believe this is what we have to do. And I think that that's been backed up by legal analysis and by what the Rays have said. And then I'll just say a couple more things quickly. I'll just start with thanking Council Member Hanowitz for bringing up FEMA. I wasn't going to go into it, but whenever I, like, heard, and this isn't a surprise to the administration, I said it to them already, but when I heard the, oh, yeah, FEMA's going to give us money for this baseball stadium, I couldn't believe it. Like, yeah, people are getting denied FEMA claims. And, like, I had a FEMA claim on my own home and got a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of anything. And I'm the only person I know that's been successful. And they're going to pay for a baseball stadium. What is wrong with the federal government at this point? Like, that is so absurd. Anyway, so thank you for bringing it up. And I'll just end with, like, you know, like the speaker said, like, I have spent so much time talking about a baseball team and a stadium when there are so many homes, small businesses, and lives destroyed in our city right now. I'm disgusted with it. So I just wanted that to be public. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just reiterating, thank you for that, Council Member Floyd. We can meet our contractual obligation by just doing the plans that were discussed, and I'm with that. And thank you for reminding me that the tenants, we're talking about a landlord-tenant conversation right now, and the tenants are willing to talk with the landlord to say, we may not need to do this. But we're saying we're going to go ahead and vote before we have that conversation with the tenants. That's, I think that's a little bass-ackwards. That's just not accurate, sir. We've had multiple conversations with them, and that's just not accurate. Well, thank you for that. And thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. So, again, thank you, again, everybody, for stressing and expressing. And we have a motion on the floor to, a subsequent motion on the floor that's been motioned and properly seconded to adopt F5A and B. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F5A and B passes 4-3 with council members Driscoll, Fick Sanders, Gabbard, and Gerdes voting yes, and council members Floyd, Hanowitz, Mohamed voting no. Thank you. We do have a 501, but I think we might need a quick break. I think we need a break. So, I have 5, I'm sorry, I have 415, 430. I'll see us back here, 430. Good night, Madam Chair. You're welcome. Ready? All right, council member. Calling the council meeting back to order. We are now resuming, and we are on item F3, stadium bond series. And joining us, I don't see Ms. Fritz, Tom Green, and, oh, there you are. How are you? We're ready to get started on F3. Thank you, Madam Chair, and no, I'm not Ann, nor Tom. That's all right. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, council members, members of our city team, members of the public, thank you all for being here. I know you've had a long meeting so far, but I think it's worth a few minutes to share our perspective on where we are with the historic gas plant development and the path forward. True to our 2024 experience, there have been unexpected developments in this process, but we do believe there is a path to success. And that path requires that we move forward and position ourselves to fulfill our obligations as a partner in this development. Now, as you know, we have a set of painstakingly negotiated agreements for the redevelopment of the historic gas plant district that were approved just over three and a half months ago in July. In a 30-year span, they're literally hot off the presses. If the partners to those agreements, the city, the county, and Heinz Reyes, fulfill the obligations detailed in those agreements, then this impactful 30-year plan will go forward. If any of the partners do not, then the plan will not come to fruition as we have envisioned it. So given that context, I think it's important that we as a city complete the necessary steps to finalize funding for our commitments, our share of the stadium and infrastructure costs, so that we can fulfill our obligations under these agreements. Now, these bonds are based on the overall city contribution that was approved by city council in July, and there are no additional funds requested. We will continue to work with the county commission ahead of their December meeting on the bonds. I disagree with the notion that that is a done deal. You may know I served on that commission for two decades, and I've heard folks say it will never happen before. They said it would never happen when we talked about a CRA just based on poverty for the South St. Pete area. And you know we've had that very successful CRA in place for some time. I've spoken with each commissioner, and our staff has either offered, provided, or scheduled briefings with all of the commissioners, including the newly elected commissioners. So those discussions are ongoing. If you follow the media, you'll know that one of the key votes said that he's neither for or against the agreement. He's looking for the best deal for the taxpayers. So this is certainly something that I'm optimistic about when you look at the plan of the 30-year agreement. It remains a viable and well-vetted plan that garnered council's approval and county commission's approval in July. The fundamentals of these agreements have not changed in three and a half months, and this development will be a primary economic driver for this city for the long term. I want to make sure the public understands that we focus on all of our pillars, on education and youth opportunities, on housing, on neighborhood health and safety, and on infrastructure. And each of those pillars is vital for the future of our city. And the historic gas plant development will be a major driver for our equitable economic development, arts, and business opportunities pillar. Another thing that we've heard even today is about the impact of the storms. And we know that informed decision-making is one of our governing principles. The lessons from this summer, from the impacts of Helene and Milton, have increased the urgency of our planned investments under the infrastructure pillar. But you all know, because you approved the budget, that we started those investments last year. Mid-year, in fact, after meeting with members of the community, we have $740 million currently in our five-year CIP for stormwater and wastewater improvements, and I've asked our team to accelerate those expenditures and to find impactful modifications and funding sources to strengthen our infrastructure to meet the higher level of impact that we're seeing from these storms. There are so many firsts that we hear about. The first time we've had to shut down two sewer plants. The first time we've had a citywide boil water order. That's because the storms are getting more impactful, as has been predicted. And so we're adjusting our infrastructure spending to reflect that. We will continue to focus on all of our pillars. And as you consider this bond issuance, please know that, as we have from the start of this process, we remain focused on providing certainty for our city going forward, and I believe approving these bonds meets our obligations and moves us to the next step. So thank you, Madam Chair. And now, Tom? Okay. Anne? Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We can go ahead and advance the slides. But today, we are going to go – we discussed this earlier. We had updated some documents. But what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead to this page, which is what we're doing today. We are doing two series related to the stadium, which is the 2024A series and the 2024B series. The first series is $75 million in tax-exempt funding for stadium-related infrastructure. This is a bond issue that will be backed by a covenant-to-budget-appropriate non-advalorem revenues. Our planned source of repayment is the in-town TIF revenues. The up-to amount in the resolution is for pricing, flexibility, and issuance costs. A companion resolution relates to the 2024B, and that is $212.5 million in tax-exempt funding for the stadium-eligible costs. But also, is it a covenant to budget and appropriate non-advalorem revenues? The planned source of repayment, again, is the city-only in-town TIF revenues. And as well, up-to amounts on resolutions, it's typical that you see us in a bond resolution to provide pricing, flexibility, and issuance costs. As part of the financing plan for the project costs relating to the new stadium, the resolution authorizes the issuance of a bond award, and that the issuer, which is the city, we determined that the project serves a public purpose. We duly and validly adopted Resolution 2024-296. That, we have gone through the validation process, as well as the appeal process, and those bonds are validated. We also determined that it is, in this resolution, it's the best interest of the city to accept the offer of their underwriters to purchase the bonds at a negotiated sale pursuant to the terms of the purchase contract, if certain conditions are satisfied. We have our bond team here in the room with us, okay, and the selected underwriting team is two senior managers, Bank of America Securities and Raymond James & Associates, with four co-managers, including Samuel Ramirez & Company, Rice Financial Products Company, Siebert Williams-Shank & Company, and Truist Securities. And if you don't mind, I'm going to have Jay Glover, from Public Financial Management, introduce the underwriting team here today. Council Members, Jay Glover from PFM Financial Advisors. We are the city's financial advisor on debt-related matters, and as Ann mentioned, we do have representatives from your senior managing underwriting team, Bank of America. I think Doug Draper is in the audience here, as well as co-senior Rick Patterson is in the audience from Raymond James. In terms of the co-managers, I think we have Katie Hoard from Truist Securities. I know Kevin Schuyler from Rice is in the audience. I think Peter Hill from Ramirez is in the audience or was in the audience. And Robert Cox from Siebert Williams-Shank was also here earlier but had to leave. So you do have representatives from each member of your underwriting team here to address any questions you all might have related to the financing, as well as myself. Thank you, Jay. The resolution also approves, appoints, and authorizes the purchase contract, the form of the purchase contract, and issuance and sale of the bond through a negotiated sale, the distribution of the preliminary official statement, the form, and authorizes the execution and delivery of a disclosure dissemination agreement, and appoints you as a bank, trust company, as a register and paying agent, the form of and authorizes the execution and delivery of an amended and restated interlocal agreement between the issuer and the in-town community redevelopment agency. That will be discussed on the next item on the agenda because the city council will have to convene as the CRA to have that discussion. It also, the form and execution and delivery of construction funds trust agreement, that was per the July documents that were all executed. The one, we had two, one for the stadium and one for the Heinz project, the HBGP project. The form of an execution and delivery of construction fund trust agreement would be executed by all parties. We also have U.S. Bank as escrow agent relative to the bonds and the execution and delivery of an escrow agreement. What this means is when we issue the bonds, first of all, we won't issue the bonds until all the preconditions to issue the bonds are met. And then on top of that, once we issue the bonds, the actual proceeds go into an escrow account, and they will sit in that escrow account until we have the preconditions of the funding release date that has all those boxes checked off, would that actual escrow be released to the construction fund trust agreement for the project costs. The project includes the financing and reimbursements of project costs to the transaction costs, then the balance of the proceeds for the project, then would go pursuant to the development and funding agreement until the release date. And then at funding release date, it would be moved to that under the construction fund trust agreement to what's called the city fund subaccount 2024 A or B, and then only then available for eligible project costs pursuant to the construction fund trust agreement. The HDP-related supplemental resolution, that is the city contribution for phase A, and other phases will commence per the HDP redevelopment agreement, and the up-to amounts, again, as we discussed, allows flexibility within the resolution. So for the series C then, very similarly, I'm not going to repeat all of these, but you can see all of them, but you can see we have all of the same conditions as the 2024 A and B, except that it has its own preliminary official statement, and it's a disbursement agreement instead of the construction fund trust agreement for the HDP project, which is the series 2024 C. Right now, here's our schedule. We passed the master bond resolution and the other agreements in July of 2024. In November here, we are asking for the supplemental bond resolution approval and bond validation. The bond validation has been completed, and you can see the commenced bond sale in January of 2025. Why we're asking you to pass this today is there still things that we need to do after a supplemental resolution, like going to the rating agencies, getting all of the documents ready for the issuance, any prospectus type of items that we may want to share with our underwriting team. The actual bond issuance, then, would not actually be done until February of 2025, and the funding release date would be at earliest March of 2025. And, again, all of that requires all of those preconditions to be certified that they are before we issue those bonds. So, you know, we have to go through that full process, and it does take time. And we've just given you a summary here of back in October 16th when we ran these documents, we were at a total print. These are principal and interest for both the stadium and infrastructure. Okay, we could see it actually had gone down since last October. But, as you know, the market changed daily. So, we certainly can't guarantee that this will be the actual amount. It's a negotiated sale. It would be done, you know, with our team. But, certainly, the market conditions can change between now and then based upon the national market. And, again, just to let you know why we are asking for this, this is an interlocal agreement that does not involve the county. This is an interlocal agreement between the city and its own CRA. Okay, so what this does is it documents the relationship between the city as it relates to the bond issues. As the CRA is the source, a major source of repayment of the bonds, and the city is the issuer. And, again, this will be a separate meeting. Are there any questions? There are a lot. Do we have cards? We do. I'm going to call two speakers at a time. First two speakers, Michelle Dyson and Chris Steinecker. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and city council members. I'm Chris Steinecker, President and CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, 102nd Avenue North. We ask you to move forward with confidence in these bond issuances. We do believe that, as you heard from the mayor, we do believe there is a path forward. We do believe we want to send a message to our raise and to our community that we do understand that path forward. We have been asked, and I have met with county commissioners about the same issue, and they really are looking at us today. They're watching us today, and they want to understand, is their partner still involved in this? And your vote will show them as well that we are still moving forward together as a major league community. You heard from our partner, the raise. They're concerned about their ability to move forward. What we want to show to them is we are a major league city. We are going to go through this. I worked at the St. Pete Chamber in 1990. Nobody believed we could be a major league city then. Everybody said, why are you bringing this subject up again? We're not a major league city. We proved we are. I do believe we have to prove again that that is our DNA. That's what we've become. We have generations of it. You've just heard about the thousands of employees that have that in their DNA as well. This is about just continuing to show that we have an economy of confidence and an economy that does value and support Major League Baseball and all those who work for that as well. So we ask for you to move forward in confidence. Thank you. Hi. My name is Michelle Dyson. I may cry a little bit because I am one of those Tropicana Field employees. Today you heard a lot from people discussing numbers and financial impact of losing or keeping the raise. I'm here to talk about the human and emotional impact this would have on our community. To talk a little history, the city of St. Pete has hosted spring training here for over 100 years. Owling pursued the St. Louis Browns to play right here in this city. In 1914, the Sunshine State had the making of a future league. Then came the Babe and the Yankees. New York writers used to get under Owling's skin by telling him St. Pete was discovered in 1925 when the Yankees came to town. We may never know the positive impact this made on our city and how many people put down roots and invested in the city's future. But we did realize in the 40s how much Owling's decision to bring the worst team had made financial on our city and named a stadium after him. The mayor once was quoted to say, We are going to use baseball to help us get the story out about the great things our city has to offer. This is not our whole story, but this is a good part of it. So here we are, after all the history has taught us about the impact of baseball in our city, discussing a deal that was kind of already done. You ran a whole campaign on the Rays were here to stay. We energized our city, our city's enthusiasm. People were excited, businesses. People had promise of a bright baseball future, of a thriving city that gives the smallest person hope and opportunity. Then here comes Bonnie and Clyde, oh I mean Helene and Milton, with other plans, plans to rob all of us of things, plans to tear our dreams and emotions to the core. So here I am, a concessions worker, devastated emotionally and financially, by my second home being destroyed, but thanking God that it's something that can and will be repaired. This stadium, a new stadium, should be and will be built. Represents the future that endures things like this. It gives the city hope, it keeps people like me and my TROP family employed. It gives back to the community by staffing non-profit groups that receive money to help their churches, kids' sports, etc., many of which would not survive. The Rays are a part of who we are in St. Pete. The TROP has been part of many family members' graduations. The community needs to know that we enter serious jeopardy of losing this team, not really because of money, because we have already allocated that. It's over a bunch of egos and unwillingness to work together. Like baseball, let's work together. Somebody's missing the sign. Can we have a meeting on the mound? Maybe we need a call to the bullpen. Whatever it takes, let's get the deal done. Let the Rays know we're willing to build this future, the future for people like me. Thank you. Next to the speakers, Madam Chair, Dylan Dames and Mike Sweesey. I think that's what it is. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Good evening, Council. My name is Dylan Dames, and I live at 4546 Fifth Avenue North in St. Petersburg. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here. I've come today in objection to item F3, the bond resolutions to finance the construction of the stadium project. So baseball players are workers, so if the stadium needs to be fixed, it should be fixed. I don't think that needs to be on the public's back, but what I'll say is, number one, I understand that we're past conversations about the shape of the project, and we're here to talk about money or the formality of money. And two, I don't believe that the drama at County Yesterday and the Ripped Roof is worth pushing aside the central conversation that Faith in Florida has been having with you and the public for two years, that this project is bigoted and bloody and at best represents an incremental step towards the accumulation of wealth and power in high black spaces as opposed to any real distribution of wealth to black working class people at large. You know what type of people would be living in the units on this site if you make the unconstitutional decision to go into debt for a private enterprise, curing it with the bonds before us today. You know what it means that the displacement started at the genesis of this project threatens to sophisticate and mature itself in this commercial giant that we're looking at today. You understand the thousands of working class black residents the city has lost, and you understand that we'll lose more. Gloria Frentine-Maxwell has wrestled with this administration for a permit to move back into our house for almost a year now. Her and many others represent a chapter of impacted people that Faith in Florida helps every day, and it breaks my heart when I tell them I couldn't get something done because I was busy fencing with the city about rent restriction breakdowns on land valuations. This is not the real world. This language means nothing to average residents. These processes are not accessible for them to come and practice their democracy. This is a dance of the powerful, as was that letter sent to the commission. And I want to make it abundantly clear. I don't think the work that you do is unimportant and frivolous. I think it's really good work, but if people can't understand the process and they can only understand the results, what does it mean that we took on this giant and we come out with 600 units, on-site units? We need you in a way like never before. The fact that this new stadium has remained a stubborn priority for you, while so much difficulty hits our residents, reinforces the feeling that it doesn't matter what people ask for or what they experience, that your agenda is resolute and unflinchingly set on profit. I know that's not true because I've spoken to some of you, and I know you have goals bigger than profit. So I encourage you to think very critically about public-private partnerships, especially at junctions like these, when people that are not responsible for us show us what their plans are and what their true colors are. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson and Councilmembers. My name is Mike Swayze. I reside at 235 3rd Avenue North in St. Petersburg. I'm also President and CEO of the St. Petersburg Economic Development Corporation. First and foremost, thank you for your service. You guys take a lot of bullets up here, and you're doing all the things for the right reason. We all have differing opinions, but we all are doing things for the best of our community. So that's a beautiful thing. And thank you for this real-life story that we just had from this courageous young lady that came up to speak about her job. Obviously, the hurricanes devastated our community, and as we recover, we want to make sure that thousands of jobs are not also among the casualties. I'm asking you to please vote to save jobs. Now, more than ever, it's important that our city retains and attracts new jobs. If we don't follow through with our commitments, that's going to send a negative message to the business community, not only locally, but across the country. So we do need to move forward on our commitments. The Rays have well over 300 full-time employees and over 1,000 when it comes to part-time and additional employees. And then on game day, as we talked about, that job number swells to in the multiple thousands. Please don't allow these jobs to be a 30-year casualty of these storm events. In addition, the thousands of jobs that we created that I just spoke of, there'll be tens of thousands of jobs associated with the historic gas plant district, much-needed jobs. They will start with construction jobs, but bring much-needed space to grow additional jobs on-site. This project will be an economic engine for decades and generations to come. Please approve the bond financing for both the stadium and historic gas plant district. Project to ensure these jobs are not yet another casualty of these horrific storms. Please also approve the emergency repairs to the TROP so we can get baseball back where it belongs in St. Petersburg and also meet the city's contractual obligations. Thank you for your consideration on these votes to save existing and new jobs for decades to come and for supporting a once-in-a-generation chance to really move our community forward, creating new jobs, office space, housing, equity, and opportunity for all. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Michael McGrath and Tom Rask. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon, Council Members. My name is Michael McGrath. I'm a lead organizer for Sierra Club, Florida. I'm representing our thousands of members here in St. Pete, Pinellas County, and across Tampa Bay who have various concerns around our community's resilience, sustainability, and also future prosperity. We obviously stand at a crossroads today for the proposed Ray Stadium deal and a stored gas plant district redevelopment deal. As it stands, the project financed public bonds. This is a critical opportunity to align itself with regional resiliency initiatives that will better prepare ourselves for the challenges of climate change. And I think if this is a public asset, it should be a resilient one. As it stands, Hurricanes Helene and Milton vividly demonstrated the destructive power of climate change, underscoring the urgent need for infrastructure capable of withstanding these challenges. And I realize that based on the comments of your colleagues at the Pinellas County Commission and also the race today that that proposal might be in jeopardy, but any proposal that comes before this body to be voted on, I think should be able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. I think that's an interest of both the race and also us as taxpayers as well. It should also be on-site renewable energy for generation of electricity during grid allergists to help with first responders and also for nearby residents and also help in aiding our community's disaster preparedness. And finally, it should be aligned with existing sustainability goals, such as the Integrated Sustainability Action Plan, so we can also do everything we can to help lessen our greenhouse gas emissions for these different assets within our community. Without these current guarantees, we risk committing hundreds of millions of dollars to our bonding capacity and taxpayer dollars for a project that could fail to protect our communities in the decades to come. Imagine what the devastating impacts we could have if we were to rebuild a stadium that cannot withstand the next major storm. I think more than anything, it shows that we need to improve our existing infrastructure, right? We have aging sewers, pipes, and wastewater treatment facilities that need to be reinvested in, need to be refurbished. You know, while progress is being made, time and money remains significant hurdles. We need to fast-track these initiatives to repair our aging infrastructure and ensure that we have increased resiliency because really the stadium will be the least of people's concerns if you can't flush your toilets or there's sewage spills or there's public hazards within our waterways. So this deal really comes down to your leadership. The Sierra Club still believes that, you know, we can have it all, a thriving baseball franchise, a stable urban environment, climate-resilient infrastructure, and also clean and safe waterways. But it requires your leadership to fix this deal not more than ever. So I hope that you all can be a leader for resiliency, a leader for the state of Florida, and also a model for how we can make this all come to fruition. Rejecting this deal and the bonds as it currently stands is not outright opposition. It's an invitation to partner with the Rays to get it right for any deal that comes forward before this body. I would urge you to delay the vote so we can have more time to negotiate and also allow, you know, people like Mr. Gerdes here and also the Rays to kind of pass things out so we can actually make something that's improved for our community's shared values. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Tom Resk, Unincorporated Pinellas County. For the record, as a point of order, the differential treatment of speakers under the open forum, I think, does not meet the strict scrutiny standard laid down in Korematsu versus the United States. I wanted to put that into record. I'll follow up later with the city attorney's office. I'm going to offer my comments in a sort of stream of consciousness style rather than having a prepared speech. As I often say at public meetings, I'm not here to make enemies, but I'm also not here to make friends. I drove here all the way from Western Seminole, Unincorporated County, in my 15-mile-per-gallon, 23-and-a-half-year-old Tahoe, which should concern the previous speaker's concern about CO2 emissions and similar. And I came here primarily, and I've sat here for hours, to put into the record that I'm asking one of you to turn to the city attorney today and ask whether the letter that was sent, which Mr. Auld has expressed regret over, constitutes anticipatory repudiation of an essential element of the agreement. This is important. I'm here both as a citizen and a citizen reporter. It's a bit of an odd situation for me. Usually I'm one or the other, so I'm wearing two invisible hats right now. On Tampa Bay Guardian, I sent you all an article on tampabayguardian.com. I'm not the only one who writes articles there, and I mention that so that people at home can go look at it. It's an important issue. It was raised by Mr. Diner last night. I did additional research. And we want to make sure we don't end up in an Indianapolis cold situation where you build a stadium, and then they leave in the middle of the night. I'm not saying they would, but that happened about 40 years ago. Looking at my notes, if you look at since 2012, there have been four new stadiums built where there's been significant taxpayer funding. And that means that at 30 teams, the average stadium at the current rate would last for 120 years. Good. That's how it should be. I don't know why you should be building a new stadium every 30 years. Mr. Auld said that the county commission, I can't give you that, replaced two yes votes with two no votes. I don't want to quibble about semantics, but it was the voters who did that. This is starting to look a little bit like the Truman Show. The hurricanes were that Klieg light that had to fall down before Truman Burbank understood that he's living in fantasy land. And I appreciate that you're now realizing what reality is. There's a lot more I could say, but I'm urging you as a citizen to delay this so you get the best outcome. I remain firmly opposed to any public funding of municipal sports stadiums, but if you're going to do it, do it right. Thank you. Thanks to the speakers, Madam Chair. William Kilgore and Pete Boland, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address City Council. Hi, everybody. William Kilgore, 2550 28th Avenue North with the St. Pete Tenants Union. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, speaking about the deal, you all know my views. The bonds don't do it, vote no. We don't support it. We don't support putting money into the pockets of a billion-dollar sports franchise while tenants are getting evicted around our city. People are living out on the streets. You know, this is just on principle, it's wrong. It's wrong. Corporate welfare is wrong. And, you know, I just think about, like, you know, we talk about this partnership and all this, you know. I mean, just look at the raised behavior and the way they've treated this community. You know, they say, well, we love the community. You know, they come do a penance of a little bit of charity here and there. Meanwhile, they're, you know, they've been in this stadium not paying for any of the maintenance, insurance. They don't pay taxes. I mean, you know, these guys, and then, you know, you've got these owners who are just expanding their wealth, you know, and that was done on public money. You know, meanwhile, I'm thinking, like, you know, since the storms, I deliver food, you know, around town on my bike, and that's, I've been working pretty much every day. I haven't taken a day off trying to make up for lost income because the end of the summer was so bad, you know. And then these guys sit here, you know, and threaten and extort, you know, the taxpayers, you know, and here I am, you know, busting my behind, you know, and these guys, Stu Sternberg's just sitting there watching the stock ticker go up. You know, it's an unpopular deal. There's a lot of people who feel the way I do. I'm not just up here being dramatic spouting my opinion because I hear the same kind of thing from other people. I talk to a lot of people around town. I'm telling you all, you know, I think it's a foolish decision to move forward right now with everything that's going on with the county in the situation where their bonds are at. I don't think this is a good decision. It's just really not. Please vote no, delay it, whatever you have to do. Thank you all very much for listening. I appreciate it. Have a happy Thanksgiving, too. Thank you. Good evening now. Good to see everybody again. My name is Pete Boland, 4670 Chancellor Street Northeast. I'm a recovering candidate for elected office, and I'm also the executive producer of St. Pete's Greatest St. Patrick's Day Festival, Paddy Fest St. Pete, coming to Williams Park. You know, I just want to make a quick comment about the last two speakers that said the voters spoke. That is true, the voters spoke. The only person I felt that was on the ballot that was a part of the deal won in the biggest landslide in the city's history. So there is a lot of popularity with this project and with this agreement. So hats off and congratulations again, Madam Chair, on your resounding victory. But I'd like for us to forget the debate about the deal. It is done. It is a done deal. We have to hold our end of the bargain. To torpedo this now puts us at even greater risk. Let's put the onus on the team. To me, it's asinine to be so against the deal and to be so committed that you were right to want to make it worse for us. It makes no sense that you would want to prove your point by making this a worse outcome for our citizens. If they want to move and abandon the project, and we all knew that was a possibility from the start. We all knew that. We know that's a possibility right now. Let them break the agreement. Let that be on them and let us move forward with the project in the best standing possible for us. A vote in favor of issuing these bonds puts St. Pete first, above all the noise and above all the egos. That's what it does. A vote in favor of these bonds continues our city's great legacy and great character as Florida's best-run city. And I'll leave you with a quote from one of my idols in life. It's the great John Wooden, the great UCLA basketball coach, the winningest coach in the history of college athletics. He won 10 national titles in 12 years. He's a historic author and just an epitome of a true Christian man. He said, worry more about your character than your reputation. Your reputation is merely what others think you are, and your character is who you really are. We have to stand up and be St. Pete. We are St. Pete. We deliver the goods. Let's deliver the goods today and approve these bonds. Thank you. No more cards? No more cards. No more cards. Okay. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the presentation this morning and this evening. You know, I'll go back to what I said this morning. I'm very happy to have this in front of us. I'm not all that happy that the county delayed it. But in my opinion, it gives the city the opportunity to lead. And I'm okay with that. And so, I have just a couple of questions real quickly, and I think, and maybe just one. So, just so I understand it, Jackie. So, taking delay out. If we vote no on this, there's real no obligation for the raise to move forward with anything. There's no obligation on the county for the new agreement. One of the grounds for automatic termination is STATCO would have the option to deliver notice to the city and county that they're abandoning the project. Okay. And that would not, that is an option that they have, so it would not constitute a default for them to do that. Okay. If we vote yes, all of the responsibility is on the raise to get to the next step for the preconditions for us to then issue the bonds, right? Yes, except for the county. Other than the county. The county is a condition to us, to the city commencing the bond sale as well. Okay. All right. And so, this puts us in a position to where we've done what we've needed to do on this, and now it's the county and the raise responsibility to do the next steps to get to issuing the bonds and the whole nine yards. I would say that's accurate. Okay. All right. So, I'm not sure I could have said it better than Pete. And so, you know, here's where I'm at on this. I was in favor of this, all of the agreements, not just one agreement, all of the agreements from the very beginning. And I'm still there. This is a generational project, and I believe that it is. And I am okay disagreeing with people on that. I get it. I get all the disagreements. And I'm okay with them. This is just where I stand. And in my opinion, my responsibility is to do everything possible to get us to a position of strength, the position of strength being the city of St. Petersburg has done everything it has needed to do, and our partners need to do the same. And so, that's where I'm at. And just on a personal note, I personally want to do everything to get this to a place. And if the county or the Rays don't want to do that, that's on them. But I do not want to look. I got asked yesterday at a t-ball game by a kid who's known me all of two months, you know, if the Rays are going to play here. And my only answer could be, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that they do. And I'll be damned if I'm not going to do that. And so, I move approval. Second. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thanks to all who took the time to wait and speak today, as well as all who have sent us emails, phone calls, text messages, and the like. I'm proud that we're such an engaged community and that we have people not just from the business side, not just from the environmental side, not just from the social justice side. This matters to all of us. And it is not easy to be standing here or sitting here right now taking all of this in and figuring out where we go from here. My position on the plans for the new stadium and for the development of the historic gas plant district has not changed. I was excited to vote for it in July. I was proud of the work that we did to get to that point and I still am. I want the Rays to be here. I want us to move forward with building a new stadium so that the Rays will call us home for generations to come. I believe in the entire project, particularly with the Heinz Group leading the process. I just returned from a benchmarking trip with the St. Pete Downtown Partnership in Nashville where we got to see one of the projects that Heinz has there. And let me tell you, believe me when I tell you, we want their work in St. Petersburg and I want to continue working to make sure that that happens. But since we took that vote in July, a lot of things have changed. Our city, our county and our Rays have all sustained extensive damages from these storms. And each individual entity is still trying to figure everything out, figure out the extent of the damages, what needs to be done to fix it, and how much it's going to cost. Right here in St. Petersburg, we're estimating right now, or we've identified so far, about $88 million in repairs that need to be done. And I'm sure that that number is only going to grow as we go forward. And that includes not just the TROP, but all of these different city facilities and assets that were damaged. Everything from rec centers to stop signs, trees, it just goes on and on, and it all adds up. This is going to be very expensive, and we know that we're not necessarily going to be able to count on insurance and FEMA to take care of it all. We are going to have to come up with some money. We also have an infrastructure system that has weaknesses that have been laid bare by these storms. As the mayor mentioned earlier, we're dealing with a lot of firsts because of the problems with our infrastructure. Right now, we don't know how much is going to be covered. We don't know how much it's going to cost us. There are still a lot of question marks out there. The same thing goes with the county. They're dealing with their own things. The Rays are dealing with their own things. But that's what the city has, and that's where we have a responsibility today. Now, this is actually a new reality for us because we know that it's not the last time that we're going to have a situation with a bad storm. I am so encouraged and so supportive of the mayor's statements committing to accelerating our plans to improve our infrastructure. This is critical. Now, almost everyone in our city has seen and experienced for themselves just how critical that is. What we had in place was what we thought was a smart and strong investment plan that has turned out to not be enough. And getting to enough where we have a system we can count on, this is everyday stuff. We want to be able to know that we can flush our toilets and drink the water and brush our teeth during a storm and in the days after that. We want that, and we know it's going to be expensive. But that does have to take priority right now. In order for me to be confident in committing this funding, I need to know, and the people of our city need to know, that we have this plan. We need to know what the plan is to accelerate. I love that we're announcing that, and we're making that public commitment. But we need to know more. What does that plan look like? How much is it going to cost? And how are we going to pay for it? And how do we pay for all of this? How do we pay for a stadium and these infrastructure improvements that we need? I'm really concerned about how we can afford that. I see Tom approaching, so he might have. Thank you very much for your question, Council Member. Excuse me. And I think a lot of that, we have laid out a lot of these plans. I might remind Council, we did visit with the PS&I Committee in April. We had a discussion of the known 30-year CIP, that's the Capital Improvement Program, and we had a discussion of that. And I don't have that presentation in front of me, so I'll beg your little latitude here. But what I'm recalling from that presentation is roughly we're anticipating over that 30-year period something like $1.6 billion in penny for Pinellas revenue. And just as a reminder, that funds things like streets and roads and bridges and kind of the core infrastructure that our city needs, rec centers, et cetera. And then we also have the Stormwater Master Plan and the Water Resources Master Plan. Collectively, I'm remembering, was it $5 billion, $4 billion? And so those are all supported by rate payers, and the rate payers fund the operations of water resources and fund borrowings for funding. None of those resources that we're talking about there at the PS&I meeting are used to pay for anything with respect to the historic gas plant redevelopment or a new stadium. All those resources are separate and distinct from the known 30-year CIP. Now, when the mayor talked about ramping up some of those investments, we're working on that plan right now and have it ramp up the stormwater investments over the next 10-year period to get to that place where we have better resiliency, and we're working on that. I'm not able to share that information with council at this moment, but that is forthcoming in the not-too-distant future. All right. Thank you. And, you know, you mentioned that, you know, part of this funding, a lot of it is with the funds that we get from rate payers. Many of those rate payers can't afford it anymore. Many of those rate payers don't even have a home that they can live in right now. We have to accelerate this and not do it on the backs of our citizens, not do it on the backs of our utility customers. And that's a very good point, and I will mention, I think we're scheduled in December to come to BF&T and talk about the grants. You know, I'm happy to stand here and report, and I think council knows we've had our best fiscal year, I think in forever, securing over $50 million in grants from various different funding agencies, whether state, federal. So we are aggressive on a lot of different fronts to meet that. And I think council understands and will remember that every year through that rate-setting process for the utilities, we're balancing affordability with the needed investments in our infrastructure. It is a delicate balance, and we struggle with that every year. And we will continue to do that as we move forward, understanding that we do have big expenses and investments that we need to make in our infrastructure. Right. Thank you. And, yes. Oh, well, Mr. Prayman was just reminding me that, you know, the project that we're going to do at the historic gas plant will add new customer base to the utility system, further diversifying the base, so to speak, so adding new revenue to the system, as well as, you know, we'll have to add capacity to address that, but maybe Prayj will clean up what you were just telling me. So good day, council, British Premier Engineering Capital Improvements Director. So the proposed development will add utility providers to utility users, so additional customers to the system itself. We did run some initial estimates, but we'll continue to update that as we go through and coordinate with the Heinz development team itself. But also there's also the connection fee for the new developments itself, each one of the, if I may say, toilet fees itself. So all those fees will contribute towards it, and remember we have those additional higher usage, and also because it's a new system, it's much more efficient as well. So, again, you'll have that offset with the new ratepayers coming onto the system. Okay, thank you. So there's that, but we don't have a plan yet. When will you be able to present a plan to us for these infrastructure improvements? So I know currently we are actually scoping out quite a few of the projects. Some of the existing stormwater master plan projects that we did receive the grants on, we are advancing those as quickly as possible. So actually today I was reviewing the draft scopes on three of those projects. So I'll say probably in December to January timeframe, those projects should be coming quickly towards you, and that will include, by example, the Basin C lift station project, pump, sorry, pump station project. So we'll add additional design criteria to that. And, of course, the city council approved within the CIP itself and the rate structure for the stormwater fund itself, an additional, and I'm trying to remember the name, I believe it was actually a resiliency line item, which is about $6 million in 25 and goes up to $10 million in 26 in each of those respective years. So what we're looking at is actually identifying what's the threshold on an extreme weather event and balancing that with what is a typical rate of event. Because there's a distinct balancing point, and I think we've had a lot of conversations, like you can't overbuild because it increases your maintenance, because you don't get that volume to flush out your system. Yes, I understand that, but even the mayor has mentioned, and most have read it in the media, that we have to plan for higher storm surge. We've learned it's one of the great lessons that we can take away from this. And the people need to know that, and you've got to know that the timing is not great right now, because what we need is to be able to show everyone that, yes, we are committed, fully committed to funding the critical infrastructure needs that we have in our city. And approving this for the stadium first, it feels a little bit backwards to me and to many others. Madam Chair, if I may? Yes. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to see somebody to say yes up there, and I'll start talking. So great points, and as Tom mentioned, these are really different funding sources. And I know I'm going to date myself, but I asked our staff probably a year ago to bring me a Marshall Plan. If you remember Marshall Plan, you know, rebuilding Europe, all the infrastructure. That's what we need. They're working on that. We're having a blue sky on Tuesday to make sure that what they've been working on aligns. But a good example is a northeast plant. You know, there's a $70 million project right now to raise that to 11 feet of storm surge, if I'm remembering that correctly. But Milton was going to come in at 15 feet. So do we even have the right targets? Right. So that's the scope of what we're looking at. And I've also asked Tom, give me every possible funding source, whether it's Penny for Pinellas, whether it's a general fund allocation, grants, of course. So we're looking at the entire scope. But we really have to reassess our entire resiliency program. And, you know, the state under Mr. Guthrie is really talking about not only building back but adding resilience to our infrastructure. I think that's going to be a source under the Resilient Florida, is that the name of it, program. Hey, Claude, you show up and I start talking about this stuff. But that's the scope of it. They've been working on it about a year. Has it been that long? And it's going to be that kind of investment that we need to make us a resilient city. And you said it exactly when I was at Great American Teaching and talking to middle school kids. They get it. They couldn't flush the toilets. They couldn't do the laundry. That's the first time that's happened. We've ever had two plants that we've had to shut down because we've never had that level of storm surge. And so it's a new day for us. And that's kind of the scope of the plan. Yeah. Thank you. And I know the people need to see a plan. And I know that there are, when it comes to funding, there are different buckets for different things. But most of our residents out there don't understand. Actually, one of our speakers earlier, Dylan, said people don't understand the process. They only understand the results. So we can talk about the different buckets all day long. But the only one that people really understand, the only bucket that they are concerned about, is the one that they have to pee in when there's a storm. And we have to fix that. And we have to show how we can pay for it. So we've got big work to do there. I'm confident that we have the right people to get that done. So thank you for that. We're not the only ones that are hurting. The Rays are hurting, too. And it's been unfortunate that there has been so much contentious communication between the Rays and the county. I don't know that that has been the case with the city at all. But you can see the pain that they're going through from that letter that they sent. And I'm looking at that. I know this was brought up in BF&T this morning. And I know that this is not an official notice of any kind. But it is a hint. It is a preview. Because it states in there that because of the delay, or whatever, it says that because we're now looking at a 2029 ballpark delivery, it would result in significantly higher costs that we, the Rays, are not able to absorb alone. They mentioned that they suspended work on the entire project. That was mentioned by someone earlier as well. And what gives me hope, so this was really sad to read. What I liked and what gave me hope is at the end when they said we stand ready to work on a new solution with any and all willing partners to preserve the future of Major League Baseball in Tampa Bay for generations to come. What that tells me is this is at the point that we can't afford it, but we're willing to have conversations to show that we're in this together and we're going to get through this together. That's what I see with this letter. Now, the county's had some hesitation. The county's going to do county, okay? But it just seems like everyone needs time because nobody has told me what that new solution is. I want us to have those conversations because now we already know that the money is going to be an issue. So in some ways, I'm like, why are we even here with this today? We've already been told it's going to cost more. But we have the right players in place. We have the right roster, if you will. And Pete Boland, I have my own favorite coach, Mr. Don Shula, who once said, the one thing I know is that you win with good people. We have good people. We have good partners. And I know that we can have a good outcome on this for everybody. But I think we all need more time. We can save this deal. And to be clear, because everybody's counting and everyone's wondering, I can't move forward with this today. We have too many unanswered questions. But we can save this, even if it looks a little bit different from what we have right now, from what we've all been working on for so long. We can fix this deal. This is the option that I want today. Now, I haven't talked with anyone about this to figure out the timing. But I know that it's not going to happen. I don't think that this is something that can be fixed in just a couple of weeks. If so, then that's great. But between the infrastructure needs that we have and the more information that's needed on that and the fact that this really would have to go, whatever is changed, needs to go to BF&T, I'm looking at January 9th, where we have both of those committee meetings scheduled in the morning and a council meeting that afternoon. So, it would seem logical that if we set that up, that gives over a month to get into this sandbox together and figure out how to make this work. I need to know more. There's just too much that's vague between our infrastructure needs, between what a new solution means. I'd like to hear what those ideas are. So, that's where I stand, and I'm challenging everyone to work together to get to yes by January 9th. And so, I'm going to make a substitute motion to defer this item to the city council meeting on January 9th, 2025. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Gerdes, did you want to? Oh, I mean, now it's irrelevant because there's a substitute motion in a second, right? I needed to clarify my motion for A and B, but now there's a substitute, so is it irrelevant? You could, I mean, depending on whether your motion is back on the table, so it doesn't do any harm to mention that now. I was just making clarity that my motion for approval was for F3A and B. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. And maybe for mine. Okay. Same for mine. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Well, first of all, I think it's important. My understanding is there were some comments from Brian Alden. And Brian Alden, if you can come up, because I'm just curious, after we had the votes and there were some comments that I found out about, and we're having these discussions, and you're in the room, so we have other partners here. My understanding is that you have made it clear to the media that there is no deal. Again, I... No, no, I just... Is that... Yes. Okay. I hope that was clear from the letter that has set everybody off. I just, I want it to be... I mean, it happened outside. We're in chambers. We're having meetings, so everybody needs to be on the same page. We just had conversations at a meeting. We just had a vote. That was said. I found out about it. The other thing is, you're not in favor of fixing the TROP. Would you like me to... Yeah, go ahead. I have... I believe it's going to be next to impossible for the TROP to be repaired in time for the 2026 season. And given that that's the case, efforts to try to repair it in time for that will cause us to have to have a parallel path for some other alternative for the 26th season. And that feels to me like a bad use of funds across the entire group. And so, what I am hoping we can figure out is a way to move together and partnership with the city in a way that makes sense. We've been having discussions. I also want to just say, Pete, Council Member Driscoll, Council Member Gerdes, like, we all want the same thing here. We all worked on it. We had it. I just don't feel like I can pretend that what existed prior to October 29th still exists. That's what's informing these comments. Okay. So, because that way everybody knows there was just a vote today on fixing the stadium. Everybody knows right now. I don't know if we can rehash that again. But obviously, every council member here is aware of what he said outside. So that way, if somebody wants to change their mind, they're able to. On the letter, okay? You made statement. Obviously, you've said it here. You made statements pretty much about the cost, and you can't go forward, and you made clear this deal was dead. Okay? We talked at BFNT this morning, and I asked our attorney about the provision under Section 3.C, Automatic Termination Date, that says, SADCO delivering a notice to A, the city before a city commences a city bond sale, or B, before the county commences a county bond sale, SADCO's intention to abandon the development and construction of any of the project improvements. That results in automatic termination. My question to you is, I know that we don't have a legal letter, and there are certain requirements, but you're telling us specifically that's the case. I'm saying specifically, I don't believe we can make the economics around this arrangement work anymore. I don't, candidly, I... I'm trying to understand what the difference is. I mean, we're parsing information here. You're putting them on notice. You said that we have no deal. There is a provision here, and I need to understand where we are at, because bottom line is, then it terminates. Then I don't understand why this is an exercise in futility, what we're doing here. That's where I'm at, and all that we're talking about, I understand people love baseball, all these emotions. Guess what? All that, what matters is what is written in the agreement. I don't think I disagree with anything you just said. Right. So I just want clarity, clarity. I think everyone deserves clarity. It's unclear. And so are you putting us on notice that this is it? Should we expect the legal notice to come under Section 3.6? I can't speak to that. I suspect that the legal machinations here that have been alluded to in a number of ways, the rights to land, all of which we want to work out in partnership with the city, are affected by any number of those decisions that we make. moving forward on rebuilding the trope, how the county votes, how you all vote, I don't understand all of it. I am very much of the mind that we need to do what Council Member Driscoll said. We need to accept the facts on the ground as they are. I hate to be the one to keep suggesting it, but I can't continue to move forward based on what I've seen from the county. And so I am open to any and all discussions that will get us there. We sent the letter quite simply because the conversations that we've been having don't seem to be landing. And we wanted everyone to understand that those conversations have been had and that we are working through them. Okay. So you made a comment regarding the land decision right now that the stadium deal could be dead and you're entitled to, to the, the, the development agreement still stands. I definitely don't have a position on that. So, I mean, I would think if the stadium deal says last, I mean, I recall many people talking about this cannot happen without the stadium. And now you're telling me that possibly this development deal, you all are going to want land and the stadium's not happening. I need to understand this. I would very much, and I think given in particular that we're recovering from, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, ma'am. No, no, no, you're fine. Okay. Given that we are recovering from two hurricanes and the future of the baseball team that I think we all love is up in the air, I think they're, and, and, and all the partners that we have in the gas plant development project, I very much would like to see any number of those partners be able to move forward. I'd like to see some of those projects come to reality as soon as possible. That's been the subject of a number of the discussions around how to settle all of these issues have gone forward. I don't know how all those are going to work out. I don't know what the attitudes of most of the folks on the council are around that. And obviously I'm up here today because we haven't been able to reach an understanding on all of that yet. But there are folks in this room. There are folks that have gone to bat with us. There are folks that have trusted us. And before we can resolve that issue, I want to make sure that we're looking out for all of them. I appreciate that. I, I, I will tell you, and I appreciate you answering the questions. I will tell you, you know, the language at the end of the letter was brought up. You are ready to work on a new solution with any and all willing partners to preserve the future of major league baseball in Tampa Bay for generations to come. I don't read it like other people do. That's very broad. That's very broad. It doesn't say us. It's very broad. It says any and all willing partners. It says Tampa Bay. And so, so, you know, I took this letter for what you said. I was very clear with what you're saying. I'm very clear with what you're saying now. And I want city council to be very clear and everyone in the room to be very clear where we are right now, because everyone, I think we're pretending something's not happening and it is, and it's going to be hashed out. And my understanding this morning, when I asked legal, we can approve the bonds. The county commission could approve the bonds and they could still walk. The, the provision that you referenced it. Well, I mean, partly there's a little bit of a distinction between approving the bonds and commencing the bond sale. So the, the language that you were referring to, I mean, there's two provisions in 3.6. One of them is in A, Romanet 1. That's the failure of Stag Co. to satisfy the conditions precedent for the city to commence the bond sale or the county. And the second is Stag Co. delivering notice to the city before the city commences the bond sale, which is the printing of the POS, that they are abandoning the project. Right. So we, we could do all this, you know, at the end of the day and still be in the same place in terms of where they're at and we don't, we don't know what's going to happen. But I, look, I just want everyone to understand, and it's clear, the parties right here, at least from what I'm understanding, are not on the same page. I, unfortunately, I feel that's true. We, we. Call the question. Pardon? Okay. So the, yep, there, so there was a motion. Motion to call the question. All right. So pursuant to your rules, any council member may move to immediately bring the question being debated or discussed to a vote, which suspends any further debate. The motion must be seconded and a two-thirds vote of the quorum present as required for passage. The motion to call the question is not debatable. So at this point, it would be, is there a second? And if there is, then you vote, it would require a two-thirds vote to, for it to pass. Okay. So it's been seconded. Second. Okay. It's been properly seconded. And we are voting on the motion to call a question. So that would just. Yep. Madam Chair, ma'am. Sure. So calling the question means that those who are in the queue to speak will not be able to speak on this particular item and we would just go. It ends debate and then we vote. Correct. Right. Right. So the first, it's kind of a, it's a two-part process. So first you would vote on the, if there, since there's a second, you vote on that. And if it passes, then there's no further debate by anyone else listed. And you have to, you would immediately vote on the motion on the floor. So if I wanted to hear from the listed. Mm-hmm. Correct. Okay. The machine has been, can you open the machine for voting, council members, please? Oh. Now that our, oh. I thought I pushed my button. I'm sorry. But now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to call the question fails. Council members Driscoll, Floyd, Hanowitz, and Mohamed voting no. Okay. Council member Fick Sanders, Gabbard, and Gerd is voting yes. Okay. So now we continue. You just continue your discussion. Okay. So were you. I was actually finishing up. So I've asked the questions I needed to ask. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to ask questions. Thank you. I'm just going to, I'm going to be really quick on this because I'm glad that Brian recognized the fact of all of the support that the Rays had in getting us to this point. Um, that he recognized the point of a lot that has gone into this particular project. Um, I want to remind people that infrastructure, major infrastructure changes will come with the gas plant project. Um, and that should not be forgotten, but I think where we are with the discussion on these bonds and, and moving forward with it is that it's, it's two part series. I don't want us to think that if we don't move ahead that the, the deal is dead. And, and I just listened to the last round of questioning where there is no commitment that the deal is dead because I don't know, just call me an optimist. But again, I just think that there was a lot of work put into this just for either party to walk away. I want us to keep in mind that our city has truly experienced a very difficult time, a very difficult, difficult time. How can we talk about baseball during a time like this, but business still has to go on. We still have to make those major decisions. And do we like being a part of some of these conversations? No, the fact that we're here, I don't appreciate being here, but we have to have those conversations, um, to move forward with this. And so holding up one part or the other, when we keep saying we need more information, I know that that's going to come. And those are truly, truly relevant requests, um, in order for us to get that information. But I still don't see how that would stop us from moving forward with what it is that we need to do. I'm going to go ahead and continue to support it because I want us to make a move. And we keep saying that the season won't be ready. We won't be ready for the season. We won't be ready for the season. Well, we won't be ready if we keep speaking it into assistance. We won't be able to get there if we keep finding reasons why we can't before we even entertain a conversation as to why we possibly can and what other options and alternatives may look like. Um, so I'm, I'm at the point, I'm going to vote for it if I'm the only one, but I still want us to continue to remember that we still have to continue to move forward with the city's commitment that we originally agreed to in July. Every person's vote is their own, but there are a lot of people that sacrifice a lot on this program. Everybody just can't pick up and move and follow the team somewhere else. Everybody doesn't, you know, they didn't have the funds to rebuild that some people have. And I understand, you know, we're saying that, you know, we're going to provide those jobs. But again, the community needs to see us moving in a direction that's going to provide, and I'm huge on the development piece, um, about this project. And, and I haven't even considered, um, what that would look like for all of those people that left the lives that they knew, depending on this moving forward, that we gave a subsequent approval to move forward. They, they left jobs. They made career changes based on this. So again, we don't know what the future holds, but I am confident that we will give it our best effort to make the best decision to benefit all involved. But I am confident that we are going to continue to find what those options are, because those options are fluid. We can meet 10 times over the next 10 months and still not come with something that everybody is going to agree upon. I'm, I'm, I'm sure of that. So we are, we're here. Um, again, thank you all so much. Y'all, we have been, we've been here all day. It's been a long day for us, but this was very important for us to have this conversation. But I still want us, regardless of what the outcome of this is, I don't want those of you all that have been involved with this for the past year or so, a couple of years to forget the people, um, that were impacted by this. I don't want us to forget the promises that we said we wanted to keep that are for some reason so easily forgotten. And I don't want us to forget those people that were looking for this to happen. And that glimmer of hope with all of those gas plant descendants that we sold and dangled that carrot in front of their faces to say that we're going to finally make good on some of those promises that we said we were finally going to keep, that we were finally going to keep. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. Um, I'll be quick. I just want to get some clarification out in the air. Um, first, I think we have, we had representative from the Rays speak, and I think there's representative from Heinz. I just wanted to get clarification about the, uh, gas plant agreement. Like, are, are, are they thinking about this as two separate things? That's really what I want to know. I'll answer for the Rays. Uh, they're, they're awfully tied together, but we've mentioned to Administrator Gerdes, um, if, if this council, this city, and a lot of our partners want to move forward on this development, we are open to any kind of arrangement and doing whatever it is that we need to do to, to help make that happen. Um, there's obviously a ton of question marks right now, and the presence of a ballpark or not is material to, to plans, but, uh, that, that's our general approach. Okay. Uh, thank you, Lane Gardner with Heinz for the record. Thank you for the opportunity and the question. Um, it has been a difficult time, a lot of uncertainty, and I'm, or I thought to go out to all those that are affected by the storm. We, too, have employees that have moved here and are affected as well and are local citizens here. So, um, you know, we feel everything that everybody's feeling. Um, we remain committed to the Rays to try to help them through this transition with what's going on in the short term and kind of help things get back to normal. Um, it's really our hope and desire, uh, although there is uncertainty that we can work with the city and the Rays to help see whatever the, the future vision for it is for the historic gas plant. So we're open to whatever ideas you have. Um, we poured our hearts into this and had been working diligently for the last two and a half years up until about a week to two weeks ago. So when the uncertainty really came with the county. So we're here. Um, we came tonight. We're, we're still, uh, committed to be partners with the Rays and would love to work with the city on whatever the future outcome is. Okay, cool. Thank you for that information, uh, because I think there's a lot of questions in the public about, um, you know, is there an opportunity that the gas plant deal with the Rays and Hines can go and the Rays stadium deal might not. And from my perspective, uh, we've gotten ourselves into a pickle at this point. Um, uh, you know, I played baseball my whole life, uh, coached a little bit of softball for a while. I always used to make them practice a pickle because it was fun. Uh, this one's not fun, but, um, because, you know, we hold up our end of the deal and pass the stadium bonds, which just so that y'all can hear me say this, like, I'm not going to vote for it. Like y'all know, I'm not going to vote for it. I've made myself clear over and over again about not supporting it, but that's where the pickle comes from. Um, we hold up our end of the bargain or yeah, I see council member Gerd is shaking his head. He knows what's up. Or we get ourselves into a situation where we give them an out, they get to keep the land and, uh, we are, uh, left with no, potentially no baseball team, but a baseball team owns a big chunk of our downtown. Um, I mean, sucks to be in that situation and, uh, I think a deferral is, uh, you know, I would love to be done with this, but I'll take it right now, I guess. But yeah, we put ourselves in not a good, not a good position. Um, if I could just comment on that chair, um, we would appreciate a deferral to, it's obviously unfortunate. Uh, we wish something like this maybe could have been handled in a different way. Um, but based on the comments that were made by Mr. All tonight, I think the respectable thing to do would be to deliver us a written notice of termination. Um, so, uh, we would, we would ask for a deferral tonight so we can coordinate with them through the next week. Oh, thank you, uh, Administrator Gerdes, because I saw what was going on there. Like, we're getting told, you know, you're doing your business, like, we're getting told that they're not wanting to go forward with the deal as currently written, but we're not getting a termination letter. These are two very different things legally put us in a very different position. And so, uh, I just want people to be aware that that's what's going on. I feel like my colleagues have figured it out. And I want the media back here to report on it as well. So, uh, I'll leave it there. Thank you, Chair. Um, had a motion to delay or have a motion to delay, um, F3A and B to January 9th. Is that sufficient, Administrator Gerdes? Yes. Okay. So, Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I just wanted to give the administration the option of suggesting an earlier date if you feel that, um, an agreement could be reached. And with our partners, the Rays, before then. So, I'm not, um, um, I'm not stuck on that. It just seemed to make sense because we have those committee meetings in the morning. And I know that this could take some time. And so, I didn't want to put a date in there that, um, would force you to come back before you're ready. I appreciate it. But we could say the 9th. And of course, if you want to put it on sooner, um, thank you so much. So, we could change. So, so it could be, um, so I could amend this to, um, have this brought back no later than January 9th, 2025. That would work. Okay. Who was... I second that. My second. Yeah, I'll second that. Okay. So, that way you guys have... Because... Yes. There's a meeting in the morning. Yes, that's fine. Yes. You get it with that? All right. Okay. Excellent. And I, I have a feeling that you guys can reach an agreement sooner. Our relationship with the Rays has been very positive. Yeah, I mean, we, we agree with, uh, what Council Member Hannawood said about the broad nature of, uh, the letter. And we assume that they're working with many private partners to raise equity. Right. And like I said, saying they want to work on a new solution, it gave me some hope. So, let's explore that. I can't wait to hear what happens. Thank you. All right. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I've been back and forth on my button a lot. Um, just really quick. I want to honor the request to ask this question. Um, two questions. What is anticipatory repudiation and does that letter constitute anticipatory repudiation? Well, I'll go in the reverse order. Um, in, in, in my opinion, does the letter that was sent to the county constitute, it's, it can be called anticipatory breach, anticipatory repudiation. Uh, my, in my opinion, no. Um, the primary reason for that is in Article III in these sections that we've been referring to throughout the day, Stagco has the option, just like Mr. Gerdes was alluded to, and we talked earlier, they have the option of providing a notice and abandoning the project. So, because, because they have that option, it's not a breach for them to do that. They have the ability and the right to do that under the contract. So, by so doing, there's no breach to begin, to begin with, let alone an anticipatory breach. Thank you. And then the other, I guess as a consideration, when we talk about the date for postponement, it's not lost on me that that's probably going to be the first or second council meeting of two new council members. Um, and if it's anything like my first meeting, when you get that big stack of documents, it's going to be a lot to cover. And so, it looks like everybody's comfortable with that, but God bless those two that will be here, uh, and getting up to speed. And then lastly, I just want to, um, say it's unfortunate how it's all kind of happened. Um, but I'm happy to see that the landlord and the tenant are willing to continue having conversations so we can see if we can get a better deal for our city. Um, as you know, I was a no vote, um, specifically for these types of reasons, um, knowing that the raise had an out and the city didn't have an out, knowing that if we didn't issue the bonds based upon the agreement, that now we get into a situation where it's discounted prices on the land, like none of those elements were in our favor as a city. And so, seeing how this is all kind of playing out, I, I, I'm looking forward to watching, uh, the, the conversations. Um, hopefully, we can get a, get a better deal that's more balanced and equitable on behalf of the city and not so lopsided for the raise organization. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. So, we have a current motion and second on the floor. Yes, Mayor Welch. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page in terms of expectations. Uh, also in those agreements is a clause that says that all cost overruns would be borne by the raise. And so, I do not intend to bring you back anything that has a higher contribution from the city. That agreement is three and a half months old. Uh, secondly, uh, the administrator has said he's expecting a termination letter. And so, that is the path that we are moving in. And I'll let Jackie speak to the question that the Vice Chair asked initially by not moving forward with the bonds. Does that put us in a different position, a weaker position? So, I just want to make sure we're clear. I'm not bringing back a dime more for the raise because the agreement we have is three and a half months old. And it says all cost escalations will be borne by then. So, I talked about that a hundred times over the last year. That's one of the reasons the land was priced that way. And we're not profit sharing. So, that is what I intend to bring back to you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, can you please tally your vote? Cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce your votes? Madam Chair, the motion to delay F3A and B to no later than the January 9th, 2025 City Council meeting passes 5 to 2. With council members Driscoll, Fick, Sanders, Floyd, Hannah Witton, Muhammad voting yes. Council members Gabbard and Gerdes voting no. Thank you for that. And thank you, administration, for your request on this. So, we do look forward to this coming back. So, now we are going to continue to move forward. We'll withdraw CRA3. You'll withdraw? Okay. Madam Chair. Oh, okay. Council Member Gabbard. So, I'd like to ask legal what it would look like to revisit F5 and have a reconsideration and vote on F5. All right. So, first, let me say you guys are keeping me busy on the city council policy procedure tonight, y'all. Fortunately, it has the search button. So, the way that this would work is this is eligible for a motion to reconsider. So, there's a few elements in play here. First, it has to be – so, I'll just read it to you. City – part of it. City council may reconsider any vote taken at a meeting, no later than the same or the next regular meeting, to correct an inadvertent or precipitant error or to consider new information not available at the time of the vote. The motion to reconsider must be made by a council member who voted on the prevailing side, must be seconded by any council member, and requires a majority vote of the quorum for passage. So, this is, again, a two-step process where it would have to be a council member – if you could do it now, you could do it at the next meeting – it would – you'd have to identify the new information that wasn't available at the time of the vote. You vote on that first. If that passes, then you go back to the underlying motion, which was the approval of the earlier items. So, if I made a motion for that, would I have to give my rationale as to what that new information is? Yes. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion that we reconsider F-5, and the rationale with the new information is that we have even greater uncertainty now than we had before as to the future of the city of St. Petersburg and the Rays. And I believe that possibly after we made a different vote, we could talk about what moving forward with a later conversation on that may look like. But I'm just not quite ready to put $22 million towards something with an entity that we may never have a deal with again. I think we need to look at that very differently, and it needs to be looked at holistically, and I want to reconsider that vote. The administration would be supportive of changing the vote. So, we have enough time to come back with an engineering or architectural agreement if we need to. That was going to be my question. So, the administration is? That's A and B, correct? Yes. I'm sorry? F-5. A and B. Yes. Okay. Were you done, Council Member? Yes, ma'am. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. So, are we voting to take it up again, and then we take it up again? Correct. Two parts. So, the first thing is, do you want to reconsider the earlier vote? If this passes, then you go back and you can vote on that again. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, it's been motioned and properly seconded to reconsider the approval of F-5 A and B. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please cast your votes. Now that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to reconsider approval of Agenda Item F-5 A and B. Passes 6 to 1 with Council Members Driscoll, Fick Sanders, Floyd, Gabbard, Hanowitz, Mohamed voting yes. Council Member Gerdes voting no. So, legal at this time, I'd like to make a motion that we defer F-5 A and B to the January 9, 2025 meeting. Is that procedural? Procedurally, it's okay. Okay. However, that would be after the 90 days would run in the use agreement. Gotcha. Okay. So. You could. We would recommend you just deny it and we'll come back with something else. Okay, then I will make a motion to approve F-A, 5, and B again, right? Yes. Yeah? Okay. Motion has to be in the affirmative. Yes. It has to be in the affirmative. So, motion in the affirmative to approve it and then you vote yes or no. Could you explain the yes or no for if the no means? Sure. Sure. So, all motions have to be made in the affirmative. So, it would be the motion, essentially, if you approved it, it would be the same result as earlier. If you vote no, then the agreements and the funding that were described in those items would be voted down. Got it. So, question. So, a yes vote is what we just rescinded. So, the yes vote was on the motion to reconsider. So, you're done with that. You are, in fact, reconsidering. So, now you're back to the items themselves. So, because you can't make a motion to say no, you have to make the motion to approve. And then if you do not want to move forward with those two items that you considered earlier, you vote no. So, I guess my question is, and I see you're Bud and Vice Chair Gerdes, but my question is the 90-day period that we just realized would be impacted by what we just did. Understood. So, I think what Administrator Gerdes is indicating is that you don't have to set a particular date at this time. We'll continue to work with the administration. They're aware of the 90-day window and what is required under the agreement. So, if you make the motion, if the motion on the floor is to approve it and you vote no, that doesn't automatically make you in breach of the existing use agreement. We would go back, have discussions with administration, and look for the path to comply with that. That's nothing that you need to concern yourself with tonight unless you choose to. Okay, but if you vote yes, you're still saying you approve F5 and A, F, A, and B, but you can still come back with alternative options. Yeah, I mean, if City Council wants to still approve the roof order that we went through, that's up to you. We would recommend that you deny it and you let us come back with something else. Okay, because I'm more concerned with the 90 days than anything else. We're on top of it. Okay, okay, got you. Vice Chair Gerdes. So, administration, thank you, Madam Chair. Administration's plan is to come back with the architectural plans inside of the 90 days. I'm just, not with the plans themselves, but with a request for an appropriation. With a request for the appropriations to create the plan. I'll vote yes, because I don't want to be contrary, but I don't like this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Gotcha. Or I'll vote no. You guys knew what I meant. Yeah. Yeah, this is a sad place. I'm really disappointed. I'm extremely disappointed. I thought we were better than this. So, we have F5, A, and B. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that our, Council member Driscoll, now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F5, A, and B fails unanimously. Thank you. And I want to thank all the people that worked so hard on this, especially our community members that gave up so much, including relationships, to get us to this point, only to get to this point. Thank you, everybody. We're going to go ahead and move on. I'm going to go ahead and... Madam Chair, can I request a 10-minute recess? Well, can we finish the CRA piece first? Can you hold that out? CRA piece has been pulled. No, they pulled CRA3. They didn't pull CRA2. I'd still request a 10-minute recess. Okay, you need a moment. Yeah. Okay, he needs a moment. We're going to convene. I have 608, 620. Good. I'm going to now call the city council meeting back to order. At the same time, I'm now going to the council and convene as the CRA. We're going to take up CRA2. And joining us is our zoning official manager, Corey Maleska. Thank you very much. Corey Maleska, City of St. Petersburg, Development Review Services Division. I'm the zoning official with that department. Before I eat today, I'm just going to wait for the PowerPoint before I get too far in advance. There we go. Thank you. So the property before I eat today is currently developed with a single-story commercial building and service parking lot. It is located at the northeast corner of 1st Avenue South and 17th Street South. On June 15, 2023, the Community Redevelopment Agency did approve a resolution finding a proposed eight-story building with 97 dwelling units consistent with the redevelopment plan. The applicant is seeking a modification to that approval for a new project that will consist of a 13-story building with 60 dwelling units and 60 hotel rooms. And the project is valued at a cost of about approximately $22 million. These are some of the existing pictures of the site. The property is currently developed, again, with a single-story commercial building. To the west, there is a one-story commercial use and surface parking lot. To the north, there is a seven-story hotel use known as the True by Hilton. To the east, there is a two-story multifamily development. And to the south, there is currently a vacant lot associated with Tropicana Field. This is the proposed site planned before you today. Again, the proposed building will be 13 stories. The building will have a four-story base before it being set back along the north side of the property. The east side of the building is set back 30 feet from the eastern property line abutting the townhomes. The ground floor of the building will consist of a lobby area, club room, back-of-house facilities, 12 service parking spaces, and 12 bike parking spaces. The lobby area will be shared by both the residents and the hotel guests. Floors 2 through 5 will have a total of 54 hotel rooms. The 6th floor will have 6 hotel rooms and 6 dwelling units. Floors 7 through 12 will have a total of 54 dwelling units. And the 13th floor will have an indoor and outdoor amenity space, and also include co-working space, fitness area, and pool. Amenities will be shared between the hotel guests and the residents. A residential unit that is less than 750 square feet does not require parking, and the hotel use requires one parking space for every four hotel rooms. Based on the number of residential units and hotel rooms, a total of 15 vehicle parking spaces are required. 12 vehicle parking spaces will be provided. The applicant is substituting bike parking at 20%, as well as using a 10% reduction for high-frequency transit, which this is located along the BRT Sunrunner route. This is the west and east elevations before you. As described by the project's architect, the modern style of the high-rise building is defined by the shifting balconies and folding planes that infuse a playful energy into downtown St. Petersburg. Bold architectural composition of alternating glass patterns, aqua accents, and gradients of gray ascend upward to highlight the iconic canopy and signage that activate 1st Avenue south. This is the north and south elevations of the building, and some perspective views of the proposed building. The go of the redevelopment plan is to provide a specific development focus for the dome district that supports the in-town west redevelopment area and capitalizes on the opportunities generated by Tropicana Field. The redevelopment plan does include design and development guidelines, such as developers shall submit projects to the CRA for review. All buildings should integrate architecturally, aesthetically, and functionally through building design, materials, open space, scale, circulation, pedestrian level, activity, signage, and lighting. Development should provide design elements that include trees, canopies, street furniture, and trace to the building that are in scale with the human dimension. Development shall provide appropriate architectural style. Ground floor of the building shall contain uses as permitted by the code. Open space shall be linked to the pedestrian system. Infill development shall create a sense of place and identity. And all new developments shall relate to the building scale and mass within the area. Some additional renderings of the building. The subject property is located within the DCT zoning district. Mixed-use developments with a floor-year ratio of up to 7.0 are allowed by right through the approval process by the CRA and the Development Review Commission. The proposed development has a proposed FAR 7.0. The proposed building will fit with both older and newer developments in the district. The proposed building height, placement, and massing are consistent with other existing proposed developments in the immediate area. Site improvements include 10-foot-wide sidewalks, street trees, landscaping, open space, bicycle parking, and a new drainage system. The building is urban in scale with pedestrian-oriented street-level features that include storefront window systems consistent with urban buildings, and streetscaping, including planters, street trees that accent the building. The existing pattern for downtown, again, does create a different variety of building types. The building form and relationship of the building are consistent with other projects within the immediate area. These do include projects located at the Fusion, which is 1560 Central. That's a five-story mixed-use building. Vantage, which is an 11-story mixed-use building located at 160 16th Street North. True by Hilton, which is directly to the north, is a seven-story, 131-room hotel. And at 1650 Central Avenue and Madera, they're a 20-story mixed-use building that is located at 201 17th Street South. The building design did take into consideration the relationship of adjacent buildings by creating a continuous street edge, integration, open space, and landscaping, and concealing the surface parking area from the right-of-way. Staff does recommend approval of the attached resolution, finding the 13-story building with 60 dwelling units and 60 hotel rooms consistent with the redevelopment plan. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no request to speak, I entertain a motion. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Can you please open the machine for voting for CRA2? There's no cards. Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. Now we're going to go ahead and adjourn as CRA and reconvene as City Council, and we're going to move into our new business item, which is for Gabbards. Oh, pardon me, Madam Chair. I've got to switch to my other binder. Give me one second, please. My apologies. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Respectfully requesting a referral to the December 5th, 2024 Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Committee, a discussion on potential post-storm housing recovery programs allowable with local, state, and federal funds. This discussion should include an overview and status report of Blue Sky Housing Programs. And I so move. Second. Okay. Having a motion and a second of G1, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce a vote? Madam Chair, I have a motion to approve agenda. Item G1 passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. We're going to move right along into our public hearings, and thank you for those that are still here waiting to speak. We are going to go to item J1, an ordinance enacting year appropriation adjustments for fiscal year 2024. We don't have any cars or anything. Not for this one. Not for this one. Okay. And joining us is our budget director, Liz McCoskey. Read the title. I'm going to read the title. Oh, read the title. I'm sorry. Thank you. Ordinance number 601H, an ordinance enacting year in appropriation adjustments for fiscal year 2024 for the operating budget and capital improvement program budget and adjustments to the fiscal year 2025 budget and providing an effective date. Madam Chair, based on having this presentation at BF&T in first reading, I move approval. Second. Thank you. It's been properly motioned and seconded. Without a presentation, can you please open the screen for voting for J1? Okay, I can't see, so I don't know. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J1 passes unanimously with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. We're going to move also to J2. Can you please read the title for us, clerk, please? Yes, ma'am. And we do have a card for this one. Oh, we have a card? Okay. Let me read the title. Ordinance number 602H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending Chapter 22, Division 4 of the St. Petersburg City Code relating to the Supplemental Firefighters Retirement System by amending Section 22-201N to remove the availability of a variable cost of living increase COLA for pension accounts originally established before October 1, 2008, providing for an annual COLA beginning on January 1, 2025, for pension accounts originally established before October 1, 2008, providing for the payment of such annual COLA to pension accounts if the member for whom such account was established, attained, or would have attained age 60 prior to October 1st of the applicable year and providing an effective date. And we do have one card, Madam Chair. Do you want to go ahead and do the presentation? Is the presentation desired by the... I think we're good. You think you're good? Okay. So can you go ahead and call the card? Tom Kimmler, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Hello. How are you all doing? This is going to be short. You've had a lot of people talking at you today, I think. And basically a thank you anyway. Name and address for the record, please. Pardon? Name and address for the record. Oh, my name's Tom Kimmler. My address is 175 2nd Street South. And I'm a retired member from the fire department. I did 26 years on the fire department. And first thing I want to do is thank you in advance for your support for this issue. I know I've had conversations with a few of you over the years. And the union also has talked to you. It's been a few years since I've talked with them. But they, you know, reminded me that they don't, you know, bargain for retired firefighters. Sometimes they can bargain against, but whatever. And I know they told you that we had, that we knew what we got when we retired. And that's true. We did. We knew we had a pension with a cost of living benefit in it based upon CPI, Consumer Price Index, to which we're entitled. But we've kind of slipped through the cracks for the past, gosh, couple decades. And what you have before you today is, I think, a simple, elegant solution to ensure that, you know, we don't slip through the cracks going forward. And to that, it also, I think, it gets it off your guys' place. You no longer have to, you know, have guys like me coming in when you get elected and talking to you about our issue, making you aware of who we are. And also it will make a big difference to a large number of men and women firefighters who gave their working lives in service of the city. So, basically, I'm here to, you know, to thank you on their behalf for putting this forward. I think it's an excellent solution, and they'll be more than happy to – oh, it went longer than I thought. So, again, thank you all very much for doing this. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert. Thank you, Madam Chair. And it's been a long day, so I will try to be brief. It's not often that I would vote on something the way that I am going to vote today when it comes to firefighters. I stand with our men and women who have served our city, and I thank you for your service. However, for me today, this really is a place where I do not feel comfortable interjecting myself into collective bargaining agreements that were agreed upon long ago. I think it sets a really dangerous precedent. I think that the collective bargaining process is one to be respected and one to be stood on, and I don't want to see us go down a path where we could have unintended consequences into the future and set precedent for other councils to go back on agreements that are made at the time. I just, I can't go along with this. I just feel like it, like I said, it sets too much of a precedent, and I know we have collective bargaining coming up, and I just, from our conversations that we had last time, there has been nothing that has been provided to me that would give me any relief in not believing that this will come up in collective bargaining in the spring, and it could have an impact into the future. And so I just wanted to go on the record to say that that is why I am voting against this. It is not that I am voting against the men and women who have served us. I am strictly standing on principle when it comes to the collective bargaining agreements and the process and not setting a precedent into the future. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Oh, I just wanted to ask. So last time we were here, we asked about, you know, differences, and it was generally the same. So I just wanted to blurt out, like, I was told that the retirees we're working with now or we're talking about doing the COLA for now have retiree health care and that retirees after whatever year don't have retiree health care. Is that true? Very complicated. And they're separate items. These weren't negotiated items. It's coincidental. I want to say that. But first of all, because of the GASB standards, the city did make the decision not to fund retirement health care for anyone hired after 2010. If you were still remaining with the city prior to that, is that you continue to receive a subsidy for health insurance when you retire, but it's at a static rate. There's a set amount that was agreed upon in approximately 2009 or 2010. So they do receive that. So those that retired prior to 2008 do have health insurance as part of their package, and anyone hired after 2010 does not. Okay. It's complicated. No, I got that completely. That's not what I'm worried about. I was more worrying about how I was going to frame my next statement to be polite. That's what goes through my head. Like I have the not impolite words pop in and then I have to filter them. So do you see how, like, that is a significant disparity, like, in what different retirees are getting? And when we were here last meeting, you made it sound like there wasn't. Like, there is a disparity there. So it's not like everything is equal. Oh, and these people get cola and these don't. And, again, like, my complaint here is not that we're giving retirees anything. Obviously, I want to do that. I'm in the same vein as Council Member Gabbard, although I don't know exactly what I'm going to do right this second. But I agree completely, like, about, like, respecting the process of collective bargaining. And I just think that there was an easier way to do this. Like, this could have been much easier than, like, us passing an ordinance that guarantees it. Like, it didn't have to be like this. And so, and it would be helpful to, like, have that whole picture when it comes to things like retiree health care. And so, I don't know, I'm annoyed, I guess, is all I can say right now. And I'll just leave it there and let everybody else talk because I don't know what else to say. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Chris, you said something about GASB. How does GASB affect whether or not one group has health care subsidy and one group doesn't, or one group has health care or one group doesn't? When the GASB standards changed, it was that any retirement benefits had to be counted as liabilities. And health insurance is a huge liability. So, the city needed to draw the line, or at the time wanted to draw the line that we were not going to be in the retiree health insurance industry. It would have really been a hard hit to our books. It could have affected bonding. I'm going to defer to Tom or somebody in budget to respond more definitively on that. I don't mean to put you on the spot. No, I mean, Mr. Gwella covered it. I mean, but these are two different issues completely. You know, we're talking about a COLA for a specific group. Now, and I think if the question is about that, and that's the issue that we have brought today is addressing that COLA. Now, there are, the health insurance issue is a totally different issue. I agree with that. My question was really, that doesn't seem to be a GASB issue. It seems to be, we didn't want it to be a liability and to fund more into the pension. It was a money decision. It wasn't an accounting decision. Well, I think there was an update to GASB standards that would require us to record all that as a liability, and we chose not to do that, you know, as a financial savings going forward. Right. I understand that. But if in negotiations, and I understand this is not what's in front of us, but it goes to changing what has happened. If the current group were to negotiate down a benefit, they could negotiate in health care. If that was a focus of their negotiations, they absolutely could. That's something that the city would have to bargain if they brought it to the table. My issue is that we're comparing, the whole comparison to me is about the current group can negotiate, past group can't, and it seems like we're trying to make this equitable, but they had their opportunity to negotiate. There were five contracts between the time that when I did the research, our records went back to 94, and there were five contracts negotiated up through 2006 that they could have brought that up. And I'll be honest with you, and this isn't their fault. We just went through like three hours of discussion about contracts, and I'm a little chapped about that conversation. And so, but that's not their fault. But I am really struggling. I mean, I'm right where Council Member Gabbard is. I'm really struggling with the, they had an opportunity to, and I've said this to Tom before, so this isn't anything new. There was an opportunity to negotiate. Other things were more important. And now we're renegotiating after it's all locked in. To get around the problem, which is we don't want, if we continue to give a 1% COLA, and it's based on decisions every year, and couldn't we go around that by saying, all right, we're going to give a 3% COLA this year, but we're not going to give a COLA for the next two or three, and then we'll give a 3% COLA then? As long as we are conscious of establishing what could be deemed a pattern, we have the ability to do discretionary COLAs each and every year. I'm just really struggling with the fact of like renegotiating this contract after the fact. I'm struggling with that. But I would love to hear input from everybody else, so I'll leave it there, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I agree with Vice Chair Gurdison, Council Member Gabbard. This is very difficult. It's something that, I mean, we want our retired city employees to be able to have things like this. And we're always particularly supportive of our first responders. This does set a precedent. And in between the first reading and now, I just kept going over all the other scenarios, the whole Pandora's box that this would open, and where does it stop? I think I asked that in the last meeting. I started thinking about it. It wouldn't. And I do respect collective bargaining, and I'm going to continue to do that with my vote today. But didn't you mention before that there actually is something that we've been doing without having an ordinance in place? If we establish the pattern, is that what you're saying? Yes. Yes. If we continue to give ad hoc COLAs that looked like every year they were getting something, and a counsel we got from our actuaries who had conversations with the Division of Retirement at the state is that any time you do about three in a row, three COLAs in a row, you're starting to get into that pattern territory. And five was about their upper limit that they would consider that a pattern. So you've got to be careful of that. And there's also other ways. It could be instead of doing 2% every year, maybe you did 3% every other year. Eventually that's going to establish a pattern too. So we would have to be very careful how we structure ad hoc COLAs in the future to avoid that. But those are created and given at times. Right. With avoiding that pattern being in mind each time. Right. So there is a way for some additional benefit to be given without having to create an ordinance, which creates a precedent. That is correct. That's why I'm going to vote the way I do. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Can you just, you know, I guess the administration can speculate, can y'all talk about, or can you just tell us, do you think there's an alternative to making this an ordinance right now, one that includes more conversation amongst us? Because, I mean, unless I'm missing something, did we talk about this in a committee? Yeah. So, like, I don't want to tell people no. Like, I want this to happen, but I want it to happen in a way that, one, respects collective bargaining process, and two, like, maybe all that needs to, all that that would need to be is, like, just something slightly less formalized than an ordinance, a request from us to go about. But I think, I mean, I can see right now you've had three people say they don't want to do it this way. So, I'd love for us to have a different discussion, and I don't know what y'all, maybe you can't imagine anything right now. Maybe you hopefully can just, I don't know, I'll let you talk. Well, if I could, Madam Chair, just respond. I mean, I appreciate everyone, the sentiment that everyone wants to respect the collective bargaining, and therein lies the issue. You know, collective bargaining is the responsibility of the administrations, and then we bring, you know, updates to council, whether it's in a closed session, and then ultimately council sits as the final arbiter if we cannot reach an agreement. So, in this context, there isn't really the mechanism through which we would, you know, brief you on this other than an ordinance, and I may defer to legal on that process, but so it is kind of an odd situation, but we can, you know, clearly I can read the tea leaves here on the discussion this evening, but, you know, annually we can evaluate, and we do. We look at this, and we decide, and the mayor decides whether he wants to provide a COLA or not, but we just thought this would, the mayor wanted to go forward with making this a permanent, but, you know, I can see if council does not want to go forward with that, and that's certainly the discretion of this body, but, I mean, so, I don't know if that helps with any clarity, but there are ways that we can continue, but we do run the risk of, if we make, establish a pattern, that it does become. I might be able to add, if you're okay, that, again, that group is not represented by the union, and the union has no obligation to do that, but if it wanted to come to the city during its negotiations, and as a part of all of the negotiations was to give something to that group, that could be incorporated into a new agreement. We would still have to update the ordinance, but that would be part of a new agreement, and I'm not trying to put this all on the current union. It's their choice to bring this. Of course. You know, you can bring priorities from the administration side to that negotiating table as well, so it's not just that, but I guess all I'm saying is I don't want this to die and be the end of the conversation today. I'd like for us to have a time set aside in the future that we're going to talk about this, and also, I have another question. Can you just clarify, because my understanding is we establish a pattern, and then it has to be funded, but right now, by passing the ordinance, it has to be funded in the pension plan. So, like, your concern about establishing the pattern is that in the future we'll have to pass the ordinance instead of right now? Like, it doesn't, it seems like it's the same thing. If we're doing it ad hoc like this, we only have to fund it the one time. Yeah. And put it on the books, and that's it. It's not something we have to put on there every year. And we could go to, as we have in the past, we could go five, six, seven, eight years without a COLA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, like, say we don't pass this. We do 1% every year, and then it's like, oh, no, you've established a pattern. Now you have to make sure it's funded going forward in the pension plan. And won't that just put us in the same situation we would be in if we pass this ordinance? You're exactly right. Yeah, okay. That's why we were coming. That's what I want. Because it was Mayor Welch's intention to start doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it, I get it. And it would establish a pattern. So, he wanted to just go ahead and sort it out, yeah. That would be from a funding perspective. Yeah. This change would be from a payment perspective. Okay. So, the concern that's been raised is the funding perspective, and the change here is what gets paid out. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Okay. I'll let, I mean, if someone asks you a question, I'll tell you what, yeah, I'd like to hear from Mr. Kimler. Please be brief, yeah. You have to go to a microphone. I want to show the distinction between how they initially were done with our ad hoc cola and the way they do things now. The second increase we ever got, it was in 1997, and it was nine years from 1998 when the first one was ever given. And that one time, this was one time payment, they said, and you'll agree, Chris, you'll agree, get 2% for each year that you were retired since 1988. 2% for each year. So, if you were three years, 2, 4, 6, you got 6% increase. Now, what they do is they say, okay, it could be eight years, nine years since the last one. They go, we're going to look this year. Okay, we got one one year, 0.7%, because that's what happened that year, not what happened, not looking back, cost of living due to CPI. And that's the difference that got us here, which is why I believe the mayor's suggestion of making it 1% per year is simple, it gets it off the table forevermore, and you're not going, what you're determining is the payment, not bargaining or anything. We have a cost of living adjustment. But if we got like we previously did, 2% per year for every year retired, and not just what was it this year, that would make a difference. Do you agree, Chris? I got this information from you, actually. It could be. I don't think we need to. I can relate on that. Okay, anyway. Thank you, yeah. I want to point that out, because it makes a difference. And this affects people, and just to receive the COLA that we all knew we had in our pension that we used to get, and now we don't. And if I'm not here to tell the new people coming in, you won't even know our people exist, and I'm not going to be around to do that. I shouldn't have to. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'll leave it. I'll let Council Member Gerdes say something. Okay, Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't do this very often, but this is one I really, really want us all to be together on. Any of us want to, like, be the Lone Ranger here? And so, you know, I don't know, Council Member Floyd, if you're, I can't believe we're talking about deferring again after all the conversations today, but I want us to be together. So, I guess, A, from those who haven't spoken, I'd love to hear from you. Or, B, if you want to have a bigger conversation in committee, I'm happy to do that. But I really would like us all to be together on this. When we're talking about our employees, specifically first responders, I think we need to be together. That's just my opinion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Mohammed. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just my remarks will be very brief. I, of course, like everybody else, supports, you know, firefighters, first responders. However, if there's another way to do it, then I would be supportive of another way to do it and not supportive of doing it. So, I'd like to hear what that other, as discussed, and then see if we can get there another way. I wouldn't be supporting it today. Thank you. Thank you. So, what I am hearing is that we didn't get any further clarification or comfort from the first presentation of this item. And what I know for sure is that no one up here wants to say no to our firefighters and our retired firefighters. And what brings me some solace in this is knowing that it's not something that's written in stone. We do have time to find a resolution, whatever that looks like, because we've done things and I know we had the conversation about setting a precedence. Well, we've done some things that I questioned the setting of precedence before in the past. So, and then you made the statement of we're setting a pattern. Well, we already did that, which is why we got to this point. So, could we ask for what those options are and to have this discussion in committee, if it doesn't pass today, in committee, and to see how soon we can bring this back so that it doesn't, well, I hate to say impact our retirees, but they're not getting it now anyway, right? The only way to resolve this, though, is with an ordinance change. Our plans are governed by ordinance. So, eventually, it has to come back to you and we have to make these changes. But absolutely, we can come to a BF&T, if you want, and present options or at least discuss options, how it might look. Okay. Okay. I want us to all be on the same page, but I'm kind of torn with this. I want us to have the opportunity to provide the COLA to our retired employees, especially our firefighters and, well, all of our retirees that actually deserve this. So, you know, I'm almost willing to take a chance on it because I want to see something move. But I think I need a little bit more clarification as to what those options look like from you and the mayor's office. I understand him wanting to go ahead and get it done. But I still remember having a conversation about obligating us financially that it's going to grow and grow and grow and grow. And we don't know what that looks like. We don't know what that looks like. That was made clear the last time we had this conversation. We don't know what that increase would look like for us. So I'm more so not supportive as I was the last time we had this because we haven't gotten any additional information from the last time we had this conversation. And I would definitely look forward to having a committee where you can bring us options for this. So I don't know what's going to happen between me now. I'm pushing this button. But we didn't get any more information this time. Yeah. Our intent is not to mislead or I'm not here to sell you something. And if I may, Madam Chair, I mean, we do have the expense. It's forecasted at $479,000 a year for 10 years. And Mr. Guilla did follow up with a memorandum to counsel addressing some of the concerns that were raised last time. So I feel like we did provide some additional information to address the questions that were raised. And we do have the costs. So I just wanted to make that clear that we do have this. My apology. I missed it or forgot it. So I am. I'm so tossed. I don't know how I'm going to do this. But I still want, because once we vote on this ordinance, this is it. You're not bringing it back to us, nor are we coming back to the committee, correct? If we come up with another solution, we're going to have to bring it to this same forum. But it's not going to be a priority for you because we've already voted on the ordinance. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. Council Member Driscoll? No, we haven't. We haven't voted on this yet. No, no. I know we haven't voted on it. That was my statement. If we do vote on this and it passes, then it won't be a priority for them to bring it back to us. So that's... I'd like this to go... Oh, sorry. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'd like this to go to PS&I. I really think that we... Oh, yeah. BF&T. I was thinking public services. Yeah. To BF&T, which I know is very busy. We could probably get this item relatively early in January. I don't think it would take a whole lot of time. Yeah. I think if we're willing to insist that the administration and the Tampa Bay Rays get in the sandbox and work out something, then we can expect ourselves to get in the sandbox and work this out. Not knowing what the outcome might be, but I think a more robust discussion, even if we come to a conclusion that we will not be doing this, maybe there's something else. Maybe there's another way to make sure that our retired firefighters all feel seen and recognized and appreciated. So we're in a public hearing. Do you happen to have another procedural question? I'm happy to weigh in on the options. I don't know what my procedural options are. Okay. So a couple of things. So we're in the public hearing setting now. So one of two things can happen. You could, the way that the law works is you can continue the public hearing as long as you establish a new public hearing date with a date certain. So you could push it out, state a date tonight that would allow for a BF&T meeting in between, or you could take no action on this, in which case it dies and would need to start again after your discussion. So it's really a matter, or you could vote no, or you could vote yes, and any of those things. But if you didn't want to take action tonight and didn't want to start over, the typical solution for that is to continue it to a date certain that would allow you to do whatever else you want to do in the interim. All right, I'd like to hear from the Chair of BF&T on when this might be able to be added to the agenda so that we could determine that date certain, as well as the date certain for this to come back to Council. Can you give me two minutes? Okay. Council Member? Thanks. I was going to say thank you. I'm sorry, because I meant to ask if Council Member Driscoll was done. No, I am. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to say, like, we can do it like this, or we can just, like, let this go by, and then someone can just put it, send it to BF&T as well. But, I mean, I guess Vice Chair Gertie's gone now, so I guess we'll just wait for him to come back. Madam Chair, maybe if I could, just as we're waiting for the Vice Chair to come back. I mean, I'm not certain, you know, the options are pretty clear. Either we make it permanent or we just continue the path that we are doing, where the mayor evaluates every year. I'm not real certain what a conversation would really look like in the committee. And so, I mean, if Council does not feel comfortable proceeding and making it permanent, we can just go back to the process that we've been following. And I'm just concerned that those are the options. And I don't know what an additional conversation in committee would yield. Also, Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for that insight. And I appreciate that you want to help us be efficient and not, you know, go to the lengths of having a committee discussion when the options are quite limited already. I think maybe where I am now is we go ahead and vote on this and then, you know, give it some thought and if we have some other options that do come up or another idea, maybe get maybe getting a little creative, then I would hope that the staff could. And as we said, we review this every year. Yeah. So if we come up with other options, we'll be glad to bring it to you in a committee or some other format before we get to the dice here with an amendment. And Tom is correct that we're really limited on the options. Yeah. I didn't want to say no. I mean, we're always willing to talk, but we really. Well, having the ad hoc option that can be taken sometimes without a pattern is something. And if there are other options or additional offerings that could be made, I'm sure you'll reach out to us and let us know what we could do going forward. So this isn't it, though. Councilmember Floyd, if I could just add one thing. I want to address that you did ask, were there any benefits that one group was getting that the other wasn't? And I was really focused on the pension benefits. That health insurance was a completely separate item. I just want to make that clear, negotiated at different times for different reasons. So it really wasn't even on the radar. And I apologize. There was no intent to mislead or. I'll just say, I appreciate that you saying that I don't like I know that when y'all are thinking about it, like you're thinking about like in terms of like the like legal bounds of the contract and like and the money spent. But like when a general person is thinking about it, it's like a holistic picture. So and I think we got into that conversation last time. So I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. So before we go into the vote, quick question. So we could do what we've done. This is being done because we don't want it to seem as though we're formulating a pattern and which is why it's a cost thing. But we can do what we've done in the past this time until we have the opportunity to discuss other options further. I will clear one thing up. We weren't doing this one permanent to avoid it becoming permanent. No, no, no. And I don't think anybody wants it to not be permanent. We just want a better opportunity to look at other options as to how we can do it without setting a precedence of doing it here on the dais without having a conversation about it. According to the advice we've received, we probably have one more ad hoc in us before we have to start seriously considering. I mean, we need to get to work and make it happen. All right. Sounds good. Seeing no further requests to speak, we have J2. I don't know if we've had a motion or a second. We have no motion or a second. We have no motion or a second. Okay. Ready to get a motion means what? I know it dies, but so they can bring it back to us, right? Well, I mean, probably, yeah. If there was additional discussion and some additional information or changes to the ordinance, it could come back in a different form. So you could still continue to discuss it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. So we're going to go ahead. J2 dies without a motion. Now we're going to go to J3, an emergency ordinance related to the use restrictions over certain city-owned and charter-protected submerged lands in Tampa Bay. Can you go ahead and read the title for us? Opposed ordinance number 604H, an emergency ordinance making findings related to use restrictions over certain city-owned and charter-protected submerged lands in Tampa Bay, authorizing the mayor as designate to execute a deed of conservation easement with Southwest Florida Management District over these submerged lands for the purpose. Water Management District over these submerged lands for the purposes of establishing the North Shore seagrass mitigation bank, providing for servability and providing an effective date, and we do not have any cars. Of course. And hi, Engineering Director, Rajesh Raymond. How are you? I am great, Council. Good to see you. I'm Rajesh Brown, Engineering, Captain Improvements Director. And I will tee this off a little bit, but in case I misspeak in any form or fashion, I will always defer to Michael Thiemann, who will eloquently correct me. So this is primarily, this has been a long journey. This started back in 2016 for the Seagrass Mitigation Bank, and essentially this is the closest we've ever gotten towards getting it approved. Back in 2015, the referendum was approved in November, and then in November 2019, City Council approved the conservation easement related to this item, the original conservation easement. However, that did have a reverted clause that placed a four-year time limitation on it. Five. Thank you. Five-year time limitation. So we're coming up on that expiration period, which is December. Unfortunately, and fortunately enough, just in November 12th, we received a letter from the Army Corps Engineers of general acceptance of the Mitigation Bank Instrument, or what typically is referred to as DAMBI. We have the other permits. This is the last outstanding item. We do have a few items related to it that we are working with, with finance and our outside council. Michael Diemann is spearheading a lot of this with Julian, the engineering office. So we just need some additional time to try and secure this MBI with the Army Corps, and this is basically an ordinance to extend and reset that type of work for us. Michael. Anything else you want to add, Michael? Okay. Council Member Gabbard. So just real quick, I just want to say thank you for bringing us some good news today. I think this is one of the first things I ever talked to Michael Diemann about was this, and that's why you're over there not even reading your computer, yet you know, like, all the details, because you have been so intricately involved in this. And, Rajesh, the work that you guys have done in this, I'm very excited to see this come forward today. So I will move approval. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second with no further requests this week. Can you please open the machine for voting for item J3? Council members, cast your vote. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J3 passes unanimously, with Council Member Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council. Chair, if I may, really quick. Thank you, by the way, for moving that forward. But getting the letter from the Corps a couple weeks ago, that is actually a big deal. You know, I didn't want to come in here and be like, you know, change the record already. We're still waiting for the Corps on the federal permit, right? But that generally acceptable letter is a big deal, and it really does signal that we're on the last couple of literally crossing T's and dotting I's at this point. So we are excited in 2025 to bring you the MBI and the federal permit and get going on actual moving dirt and things happening out there. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now we're going to go ahead and move to open forum. No cards, no Zoom. We have one speaker. We have one speaker. Andy Oliver, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. Andy Oliver, pastor of Allendale United Methodist Church. I waited to the end because I thought there would be less eyes on this, and it looks like I was right. I need to make public comment about the lack of appropriate response by our St. Pete police. That put my congregation in danger. Three Sundays ago, a man drove here from Clearwater. He stood outside my church alongside the crosswalk yelling about how all of us were going to burn. He called the women sexually derogatory names. He called people who were black the N-word. He called others derogatory slurs for LGBTQ people. We called the non-emergency number to report harassment under Florida statute 784.048 and report someone attempting to interrupt a worship service restricted under Florida statute 775.082. An officer came to lecture my staff about the First Amendment. I need someone with some legal authority to help our police understand that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that free speech in the First Amendment has limits. Defamation, fighting words, and threats are not protected speech. What was even worse, after we called the first time and the police left, we heard the man say, we will burn down this building. We then called 911 and reported an active threat. A sergeant and two officers responded but parked 100 yards away in another parking lot. My staff member went and found them and talked to the sergeant and explained the threat. The sergeant said to her that he couldn't do anything unless the man made good on the threat, meaning that we should call back if our building is actually on fire while we are all inside trying to hold worship. The sergeant and the officers eventually left without even talking to the man. I have filed complaints, but apparently our system of police investigating police falls short on accountability. The chief issued you a misleading report in his investigation saying there was no body cam supporting our claims. What he didn't tell you was that there was no body cam because the sergeant either deleted his footage or didn't turn on his camera in the first place. I will not let this go as the safety of my people and all people of faith are left unprotected when our police do not take harassment and threats seriously. No one took our active threat that we heard and reported seriously. I'm looking for a change in our policing procedure, so this will never have to happen again outside any faith community. Thank you. Thank you. So now we're going to move in on to our announcements. Vice Chair Gurdis. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I frankly should have done this at our last council meeting, but first I wanted to welcome a new legislative aide, Ryan Adelberg. He happens to be my legislative aide, and so we want to welcome him. He's done a great job so far. Excited to have him. It also happens to be his birthday on Friday. And so although it's been a long day, the first thing I'm not going to do is forget to sing happy birthday. So we'll sing happy birthday to Ryan. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Ryan. Happy birthday to you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Any other announcements? Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And again, I just want to thank everybody for just doing what we were elected to do. I appreciate each and every one of you. Today was a good day because we are all here sitting and we're able to tell each other how much we mean to each other. So today is a good day. And with that being said, meeting is adjourned. Thank you, Madam Chair. We're adjourned, Bruno. Thank you.