City Council - Oct 01, 2026

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopely Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Chair, Lissette Panowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Gibbons Jr., and District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Richie Floyd. Welcome everyone to the October 1st, 2026 City Council Meeting. Clerk, if I can have a roll call, please. Gabbard, Harding, here, Panowitz, here, Vic Sanders, here, Riscoll, Gibbons, here, Floyd, here, Curtis. Today we're going to have our invocation given by our Council Member Deborah Fig Sanders, followed by a moment of silence, and then you will please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. If you can please stand. Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Let us take this moment in reverence, seeking peace, faith, and prosperity. We gather today with some doubt, yet with faith, with hesitancy, yet with certainty. Some carrying anger, yet so many choosing kindness. And through it all, we recognize that we are walking this journey together. Father, this is truly the day that the Lord has made, and let us rejoice and be glad in it. Heavenly Father, we know there will come a time when you call each and every one of us and ask us, what have we done with the opportunities that you have given us to serve, to love, to help others, and to make a difference? And when that time comes, may we hear the words, Well done, my good and faithful servant. So, Lord, let us not take this moment for granted. Let us never forget the many wonderful blessings you've bestowed upon us. We come with our heads bowed, our hearts humbled, knowing there is so much for which to be grateful. We simply want to say thank you, Father. We thank you for your differences. We thank you for the similarities that also bring us together. We ask you to continue to watch over us, because Lord knows there is a struggle in every household. Lord knows that there is something weighing upon each and every heart within the sound of my voice. Yet even in the midst of those struggles, we recognize your grace, your healing power, and your mercy. Mercies that we so often do not deserve. Yet you continue to bestow upon us each and every day. As we prepare to observe a moment of silence, we remember those who have fallen and those who are no longer here to stand among us. The ultimate sacrifice that they've made. So, God, we thank you because we are still on this side this morning. We are here today to conduct business that will not always be pleasant, and it will always not be easy. But we accepted the responsibility to serve. Give us wisdom when decisions are difficult, patience when we disagree, compassion when others are hurting, and the courage of others to remember the people we have been called to serve. For those who have fallen, for those of us still standing here today, we give thanks. May we move forward with peace in our hearts, kindness in our words, wisdom in our decisions, and respect for one another. In the mighty name of Jesus and in the spirit of serenity, unity, and peace, we pray and say amen. Now join us for a moment of silence for firefighter William K. Walker, last alarm, October 10, 1948. Officer James W. Thornton, end of watch, October 16, 1937. Officer William G. Newberry, end of watch, October 17, 1937. And Officer Eugene W. Minor, end of watch, October 25, 1929. Thank you. 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. May be seated. Thank you, Council Member Fix Sanders, for that beautiful invocation. Council Members, we have an agenda before us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally now to vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Members Driscoll, Gabbard, and Gurdis being absent. We have a consent agenda, Clerk. Do we have cards? We do not, Madam Chair. Okay. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move the approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally now to vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously with Council Members Driscoll, Gabbard, and Gurdis being absent. Thank you. Do we have speakers for open forum? We do. Yes, ma'am. We have speakers. If you can please read. If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the Clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only City residents, owners of property, business owners in the City, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you're speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once, during the open forum, or when the item comes up on the agenda. Applause is not permitted except in connection with awards and presentations. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual would 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 asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you have reached the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All Raise Hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting, and the rules of decorum. If my public comment is disrupted by a violation of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comments by all term means and claim by email only. And, Madam Chair, we do have a speaker. Go ahead, if you can call the speaker. Dr. Perry Washington. Please go to either podium, state your name, address, or cross street. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address Council. Trustee. Can you hear? We can hear you. Dr. Perry G. Washington, 175th 5th Street North, 2nd Avenue, St. Petersburg, Florida. On the 9th of September, I came here to speak to the council. You had dogs up and down the aisle. I have asthma. You gave me bronchitis. I still had to go to the doctor. Hmm? I created that building not by dogs. So, you have a choice. Isolate the dogs. Isolate me. American Disability Act. Second, throw me out this building any time you want to. But I'll be back. If I'm not back, my people will be back. Third, one man, one vote. Hmm? One man, one vote. You can't figure out what district you in. I came here to this council and told all of you what occurred on the 14th. I was arrested. Broke into my house and arrested. I asked you to look into it and find the truth. You did nothing. I went to court for eight and a half months. I told you they would drop the case. And guess what? They dropped the case. Why? Mr. Washington, Dr. Washington, we've covered this before. Would you move this back? Yeah. Everything they see doesn't like the way I talk. The way you talk, you're screaming. I'm not screaming. I determine if I scream. You don't. You don't tell me. I tell you. And that's the problem. We've gone through this before. You're interfering with my time. Sir? Move it back. Move it back, please. No, we're back. Again, you don't tell me how to talk. I'm a man. Hmm? Ass man. Sir, you're warned. You're going to keep the rules of the quorum and you're not going to be screaming. We've covered this before. We've had meetings where you have screamed and you've given latitude and you've caused audience members to be nervous even to come and speak here. So we're not going to do that anymore. One, you say the rules, you can't clap in here. You say anytime you want to present something, you have to fit in it three days prior. And you, only you see it. You had them rules for me. Why? Because I created the situation. I understand what the past is. Down there, black folk were hung and you had not apologized one time. Right there, black folk couldn't cross 6-3 before 7 o'clock in the morning and couldn't be cut downtown after 6 o'clock at night. Penelope County is still the most prejudiced county in the state of Florida. You don't know black people are buried on that concrete at the stadium. Thank you, Dr. Washington. You're cutting me off, huh? You had your three minutes and they're up. Next speaker. No more speakers, Madam Chair. Thank you. Open form is closed. Next, reports. We have F1. I believe Council Member Gerdes, you asked for this report. Thank you very much, Chair. First of all, I apologize for being a little tired this morning, but very excited to have Eric Stillman here, the President and CEO of the Florida Holocaust Museum. Mr. Stillman and I have been at a couple of events over the last few months together and it just seemed timely to have him come in and give an update on the Florida Holocaust Museum. I know a lot of us were there celebrating the reopening of the museum and I just thought, again, I just thought it was a good update and something for us to celebrate here at the beginning of October. And Eric, thank you so much for joining us. The museum is gorgeous. I'm just so excited for everything that's going on there and excited for this update. So thank you very much, Chair, and excited to have you, Eric. Thank you so much. I appreciate the invitation, Council Member, Chair, Vice Chair, and other members of the Council. It's an honor to be with you all. So as the screen shows, I'm Eric Stillman, President and CEO of the Florida Holocaust Museum. For those who may not be familiar, the mission of the Florida Holocaust Museum honors the memory of millions of innocent men, women, and children who suffered or died in the Holocaust. The museum is dedicated to teaching the members of all races and cultures the inherent worth and dignity of human life in order to prevent future genocides. Many may be aware of the history of the founding of the Florida Holocaust Museum by Walter and E.D. Loebenberg, and it moved to its present location here in downtown St. Pete, just a couple blocks from where we are right now, in 1998. And as Council Member Gerdes referred, we had our reopening after a renovation and expansion, and that took place in September of 2025. So one year ago, and during that time, we've been very busy fulfilling the state mandate on Holocaust education, as well as preserving the collection to provide Holocaust education and to do research on the subject. For those who did not have the pleasure of coming to the museum since we reopened, the enhanced security entrance, the accessibility features, the open air. It says second-story balcony. I really think it's a third-story balcony, but we could quibble about that. I'm not an architect. We have our reimagined core exhibition, the history, heritage, and hope. We have our new artifact, Thor, the Danish fishing boat, which is a remarkable addition to our museum. And we have the special preview for the Wiesel collection, which, because the family of Elie Wiesel, probably the most famous Holocaust survivor who ever lived, chose our museum here in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, to be the permanent repository for his complete collection of all of his artifacts. Much more about that to come. So we accomplish our mission in many ways. We welcome visitors to the museum. We provide public programs and events, such as we did just last night and the night before, field trips from schools, virtual tours. We have dimensions in testimony. That's the Holocaust survivor testimony, where there's no AI. It's actual survivor testimony, which has been recorded. They answer 1,000 questions. And then we have a database system that any one of us could go ask a question. And the computer lines up the answer from the Holocaust survivor, which most closely connects to our question. And the Holocaust survivor answers, in his or her own words, with actual video testimony. Again, no AI whatsoever. And that is a remarkable thing. I'll talk more about that later. We have our free online curriculum and resources. Our training program, Law Enforcement Society. We, in fact, just two nights ago, had a presentation at Nerd Night with Chief Holloway and members of the Florida Holocaust Museum and Anti-Defamation League staff explaining about what this program is. We also have other programs, Speak Up, Speak Now. We provide teaching trunks throughout the state of Florida, throughout the United States, and into Canada, teacher trainings, and testimony video. So, ways to get involved, of course, we always welcome members, volunteers, docents, people attending an event, or supporting us in any other way. Museum happenings, I made reference to Nerd Night, which was two nights ago. Last night, the film Raised was screened along with a panel discussion, which was very moving. We have seminars coming up. We have a joint program, actually, with the DALI coming up in October. There's an exhibit from the DALI of works by DALI, which was done in commemoration of the anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, and the DALI Museum is providing us with a portion of the artwork to display, and that the DALI will also be displaying it, and then a member of the DALI's curatorial team will be coming to the Florida Holocaust Museum and giving a lecture. We're going to have a rock musical. For those of you who are interested in a musical interpretation, Rise talks about the untold story of women who were fighting in the resistance during the Holocaust, and again, not a story that maybe a lot of people know about. The Kristallnacht Observance on November 9th. Then something very new and first time ever. The Wiesel Symposium is taking place as a conference right here in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's going to be November 15th and 16th. We will have the only son, only child of Elie Wiesel, Alicia Wiesel, will be coming here along with other guest speakers, and we'll be presenting a series of lectures and panel discussions over those two days. We also have two more lectures coming up in December and our annual True Life Gala, which is in January this year. We always want to thank all of our sponsors and partners, and we are grateful, incredibly so, to the city of St. Petersburg and all others. The future. The future is now, as the expression goes. So, there are projects which are underway and are on the cusp of getting started. I want to recognize and thank the St. Pete Rising story, which was covered in yesterday's online issue, which talked about some of these projects. One of which is an immersive theater with the dimensions and testimony experience. I was talking about those Holocaust survivor testimonies. It's going to be going into the immersive theater and then the Wiesel experience that I mentioned before with all of the artifacts and the collection from Elie Wiesel. So, the immersive theater is going to be built in the first floor of the museum where there used to be a vault. Many of you may be aware, prior to the Florida Holocaust Museum acquiring the building, it was a bank building. I believe Rutland Savings at some point or other. And the bank had a vault and the vault was removed during the renovations. And it's a room, it's not quite as large as this space right here. However, it is large enough that we believe we can put 68 movable chairs in a theater with wraparound screens and surround sound. And this will be a huge improvement over the much, much smaller space that we currently have available for dimensions and testimony. And the number 68 is particularly important because when we have school groups and we average more than one school group per day of the entire school year, if you get a school bus worth of kids to come to the museum as we do and those could be 50, 55 children plus their teachers and chaperones, we needed a space large enough to be able to get them all into one room so they could all interact with the Holocaust survivor at the same time. There's an illustration of what that could look like. The Holocaust survivor, as I said, we have four of them. They are all recorded on video in their own words, in their own, you see their face, you see their response, their expression. Absolutely, again, no AI whatsoever. And this immersive theater will have microphones in it. And so that the school children, the teachers, the chaperones can all ask questions of the Holocaust survivor and then the survivor answers in their own words using as the computer database finds whichever answers closest to the question that you ask. And so that's going to be very powerful. And instead of having to break up the school groups into smaller three, four groups, we instead can have the entire school group all together at the same time to hear each other's questions questions and to ask questions of the Holocaust survivor, and then to be able to hear the answer and ask follow-up questions. I'm also very excited to share that for the first time publicly, the Florida Holocaust Museum has received a grant to record two more Holocaust survivor testimonies from right here in our local community. And so we will be able to ultimately have six Holocaust survivor testimonies. We will also have an introductory film, short film about each survivor before the Q&A with the survivor, and a wrap-up film as well as a film which talks about Elie Wiesel to encourage people to get ready for when the Wiesel experience opens on the third floor of the museum. The immersive theater can also be set up in other ways, so in addition to showing dimensions and testimony, we can also show other films or videos or set it up for a small luncheon or other meetings or gatherings. For those who are interested in what the drawing from an architectural perspective might look like, this is what has been submitted a version of this to the City of St. Pete and is under review right now, and as soon as we receive the permits from the City of St. Pete, we will begin that construction on the first floor. Now I mentioned about the third floor, the Wiesel experience. We believe that this is going to attract not just visitors nationally but internationally because we already do have the only collection in the world of Elie Wiesel's personal artifacts, and we will be presenting it in this interactive format which will be a combination of video screens. You see the architectural renderings there with his Nobel Peace Prize, and you can see here from this quasi-architectural drawing, if you were looking down from above, it will have a combination of introductory panels, a recreation of Professor Wiesel's office, his actual desk, his books, his bookcases, that will be on the right side. Then in the center, there will be two giant curved touchscreen walls which, if you look down on them, they look like they're quotation marks because he was all about the written and the spoken word. There will be room for chairs in between those two. We won't normally have the chairs there. And then on the left side, you'll see a writing lab and library. He had lots and lots of books. The writing lab will be an opportunity for someone with a prompt to say to visitors, here's an Elie Wiesel quote of the day. Please feel free to write down your thoughts, your feelings, your reactions to what he had to say, and then we'll give you a copy and we'll take a copy so we can build another database of people's thoughts and reactions to the words of Elie Wiesel. And then lastly, what you see, the sort of curved, round shape, which is the dynamic dialogue space, and that is another space where a facilitator with an Elie Wiesel quote of the day can invite people in for dialogue, for conversation about ethical dilemmas that we face as a society in our homes, our schools, our houses of worship, and it's a chance to help people to talk to one another and to be able to have dialogue. So that is the Wiesel experience. This relates to our collections, preservation, research, and education facility. We are in the process, we hope, of acquiring a location in the city of St. Petersburg to move that location, which is currently stored in Largo, to the city of St. Petersburg. Just a little bit of illustration of what will go into that facility, which includes another library, again, many, many books, conservation lab, digitization lab, and many other features. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions. Appreciate your time so very much. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Eric, you and your team are awesome. This is a, in the space that you work in, making these things available to the public, you have the hardest job. A lot of what is around the city and around the state and around the country is neat stuff, fun stuff, cool stuff. You have taken on the task of making sure that we never forget. And the things that you deal with are not kind. They're, quite frankly, horrible. And I put that in perspective because you guys have done amazing. I mean, to get to the level of attracting the attention of Professor Wiesel's family, that's the pinnacle. That's it. That's as big as we get. So, I have no questions. I just want to say thank you for two things. One, for the incredible work that you and your team have done. And two, when you look at the gems, the pieces that put your city on the map, this is absolutely one of them. This is one of those things that will attract global attention. So, thank you very much and congratulations to you and your team. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. Thank you kindly. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Eric, thank you so much for the presentation and coming in and sharing with us. Council Members, you can see why I thought it was timely. Certainly, there's still a whole bunch going on here with the museum. Very exciting. And just from a personal perspective, being a religion major, I had the opportunity to read some Wiesel while I was in school. It's just amazing, thought-provoking work. And to have that here is going to be incredible and, frankly, is incredible. And I remember it being some of the most impactful reading I had in school. And so, because it really does make you look at, you know, for the sports guy, both sides of the ball. And so, you know, the beauty and the gorgeousness of life, but also the other end of it, which is what he experienced. And so, I just, I'm very thankful that St. Pete is going to be home for that, but also very excited for residents and visitors to experience that, like I know you know they will. So, thank you so much for sharing the update. Can't wait to see all this to come to fruition. Again, just an international gemstone here in downtown St. Petersburg. And I remember going there as a little kid. My kids now have gone. My daughter goes, I think, either next year or the year after with her school. And I'm just, I'm so happy they're going to have those same experiences like I did when I was a child here in downtown St. Pete. So, thanks for making sure that continues to happen, Mayor. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you. Yes, thank you for the great presentation. It's great to see all this stuff going on at the museum. I just wanted to speak to how cool I found it. You reiterated it wasn't AI multiple times. How cool I found it that you would have the survivors able to answer questions. And you mentioned, like, being able to select the answer that's most close to the question. And I was just imagining, like, kids on a field trip and how wild those questions might get. I would love to see that one day. I think that'll be really incredible. And I'd love to see how it handles that. But that's a really cool feature. And so I just wanted to say I was excited to hear about that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Eric, for your presentation today. I know the Lodenbergs are proud of the work that has carried on. I certainly am. And to Council Member Gerdes' point, I remember that field trip, that fifth grade field trip that I looked forward to because I just remember hearing everybody talking about it, the experience. And although the experience has evolved in 30 years, it's still very much the same. And I'm grateful for the work that you all do. It is incredible because this really is a world-class museum. I've had the opportunity to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. And this is very much second to none. We are right up there with the best of them. And it's thanks to your leadership, your board, and everyone else who labors to preserve this institution. I'm excited because I had the opportunity to hear Mr. Wiesel when he came to speak at Florida State many years ago. And that was an opportunity for me to be exposed to a great man while he was still here on this earth. And so I'm excited to be able to experience this immersive exhibit because it really will hopefully connect you to the man because that man really challenged us to become better humans. And I think right now, more than ever, the world needs a little bit of his love and teachings. So thank you for being a part of bringing that here to St. Petersburg. And for those who have not had the opportunity to experience this museum, it really does change it for the better. We had the opportunity a few months back, Eric and I, to break bread with a group of pastors at the Florida Holocaust Museum. And many of these men, twice my age, had never been to that museum, although they've been lifelong residents of this city. And I'm just so excited to be working with them to try to get their congregations over there to experience that museum because everyone deserves to experience the Holocaust Museum at least once. Thank you so much for all you do. God bless. Thank you, Chair. You're so welcome. Thank you. Council Member Faith Sanders. Thank you. Well, what a wonderful presentation. What a wonderful opportunity. I have not been to the new Holocaust Museum as of yet, but I have had the pleasure of reading the names and saying them out loud. And I just simply want to say thank you for keeping the memory of them alive in a mighty way. That vault that you talk about at Rutland, I've been in that vault. I used to work at Rutland. That was one of my first jobs. I was a bank teller at Rutland. But I say all of this to say because of where we are and where we're standing as a nation, the fact that you have such grandeur in remembering and not allowing us to forget the past, I thank you for that because there are others of us among us that need that same grandeur, that we continue to support each other, that we continue to share just what it looks like from once we've come as to the glory of the things working together as to where we can go. So for that presentation, I thank you for that. I thank you for the memories. I thank you for the devotion that you provided to those, and I'm excited to see those interaction conversations because the old museum, I thought, was wonderful. I can only imagine what this is. So I do have to get on your calendar to come and view it. But again, thank you for continuing to tell your story because, believe it or not, you're telling the story of others, and for that, we appreciate you. Thank you. You're so welcome. Thank you. What an exciting time for the Florida Holocaust Museum. I remember when this journey started and when the Elie Wiesel Collection selected the museum and how exciting that was, and to see now all the steps to where the museum is now and knowing that the dimensions and testimony is almost going to be open at any time, I'm sure, before we know it, and all the other parts of the museum that we're waiting for, but it looks fantastic. I'm curious with the immersive theater, for groups, is that going to be open, like for school groups and any group that wants to be a part of it and experience it? Yes, Council Chair. So our plan is that every single one of our school groups will start in the immersive theater. They'll have a scheduled time just for themselves to have that interactive experience. And then we'll open it at other times where we're not conflicting with school groups to allow other visitors, whether they're in groups or individuals. And we may have scheduled time so that people may say, okay, at 2 o'clock I want to go see the dimensions and testimony, or at 3 o'clock I want to see the Elie Wiesel film, and we want to make it accessible for the whole visitor population and always to make sure that school groups have that exclusive time. That's wonderful to hear because I just know, like for my daughter, it would be great for her to have the experience that Council Member Gibbons had and Council Member Gerdes had. And also for, like, neighborhood associations and congregations and other groups to go in there and experience that. I think that's just a wonderful way for the community to learn about history and see what's happening at the museum. So I appreciate all your work. You have a fantastic board and a great team behind you, and they've done fantastic work on this. Thank you. And I'm so grateful for them, all of them. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Great job. Okay. Next up, we have our public hearings and quasi-judicial proceedings. We have E1. This is an ordinance designating the Mikey House, 147 Wildwood Lane, Southeast, as a local historic landmark. This item is quasi-judicial. Anyone wishing to speak on this item must fill out a yellow card and provide it to the city clerk, and all speakers must be sworn in before presenting testimony. The procedures for quasi-judicial proceedings can be found on the yellow sheet attached to the printed agendas or viewing digitally pages 13 and 14 of the council agenda. Clerk, if you can please swear in all parties and speakers, including city staff. Clerk, can you please read the ordinance title? Opposed ordinance number 143-HL, an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, designating the Mikey House, located at 147 Wildwood Lane, Southeast, as a local historic landmark, and adding the property to the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places, pursuant to Section 16.30.070 City Code, and providing for an effective date. And we do not have any cards on this. We will now move on to presentations. Each party will have 10 minutes for their presentation, and we will begin with the city staff's presentation. Good morning. Good morning. Cindy Kohanik, Historic Preservationist for the City of St. Petersburg. This project is the review of a local landmark designation for the Peter and Jeannie Minekey House, located at 147 Wildwood Lane, Southeast. This application was owner-initiated with support from Preserve the Berg. The Community Planning and Preservation Commission recommended approval for this application at their August meeting. Additional public comments were received since the commission meeting, and these public comments were included in your meeting packet. The Minekey House is located in the Driftwood neighborhood in Southeast St. Petersburg, just north of Big Bayou. The original subdivision plat for Driftwood was recorded in 1937 by Francis Marion Boone and Arthur B. Modine and their wives. Previously, this area was part of the Pinellas Village, settled by Abel Miranda and John Bethel, which included the first post office in the area. Much of Driftwood was developed in two stages, the pre-war era from 1937 to 1940, and the post-war era from 1948 on. The pre-war era construction took place under the guidance of Modine and Boone and designer and artist Mark Dixon Dodd as members of the Bayview Construction Company. Bayview was responsible for building almost all the initial buildings in the Driftwood area in the pre-war era. These early houses were minimal traditional with English vernacular revival, colonial revival, and storybook elements. Dodd's artistic touches found their way inside the houses he designed as well. Since Dodd was not a licensed architect, he turned to local architect Archie Parrish for formal design review. The front entrance of the house faces Wildwood Lane, but the parcel has three street frontages that include Bay Street and 24th Avenue. The house was built in 1937 as the first residence for the Driftwood subdivision. The building permit for this residence actually predates the recording of the original Driftwood subdivision plat. A detached single-story garage is located to the northeast of the main house on the site. And the garage, while not mentioned in the original permit for the house, was likely built at the same time. The masonry and frame house is a two-story minimal traditional with English vernacular revival and storybook elements. The garage is likewise a frame and masonry structure. Original wood casement windows still exist on the house. Details include painted brick chimneys, some more unique siding profiles, gable end vents, and scroll work, which all add to the visual interest of the building. Brick walkways and patios weave throughout the site. A simple wood railing on the side of the walkways helps delineate the pathways and attempts to keep the landscape at bay. Like many Driftwood lots, the landscape is abundant and includes several mature trees with the house located in close proximity to at least one such tree. The house has a high degree of integrity and appears much the same as it did when it was built. Minimal changes have been made throughout the years, which include small additions, the enclosure of the side porch, and some window infill. In 1971, fire destroyed at least part of the garage, which was rebuilt or repaired post-fire, but did not include the 1940s addition on the north wall. It is common practice for local landmarks to be named for the initial owners or the longest-running owners. In this case, none of the previous owners have owned the house anywhere near as long as the mine keys. Peter and Jeannie came to St. Petersburg in 1966. Peter taught at Eckerd College and was the poet laureate for both St. Petersburg and the state of Florida. Jeannie, who passed away in 2022, was an artist. Her drawings were featured in Peter's books and in other national publications, such as The New Yorker. This property was not their first home in St. Petersburg, but they were drawn to this property, ultimately purchasing it in September 1970. The mine keys have spent years restoring and maintaining the house, with Jeannie removing the paint that was covering the signature cypress beams on the interior. Staff evaluation yields at the mine key house meets five of the criteria for eligibility, including but not limited to cultural heritage and identification as the work of a master designer. The areas of significance include community planning and development, since Mark Dixon-Dodd may have been influenced in his design for driftwood by Frederick Law Olmsted and John Nolan, both advocates for the preservation of natural beauty and the retention of park-like settings in urban areas. Architecture is also another area of significance. While the house is a minimal traditional structure, it's not an ordinary minimal traditional house. Dodd designed the subject house to work with the surrounding landscape and added more whimsical elements, resulting in something that looks like it belongs in the English countryside. Another area of significance is art. Throughout his residence here, Mark Dixon-Dodd attracted like minds and created an artistic community. The neighborhood that he designed and the subject property drew in similar creative people with the mine keys. The subject property is eligible for designation not only for Dodd's association with it as the designer, but also due to the literary and artistic contributions of Peter and Jeannie. In addition to significance, a resource must demonstrate at least one factor of historic integrity to be considered for listing. This property meets all seven. Character-defining features are highlighted here and in more detail in the staff report. These include important features to protect in the future. Any new exterior work will be subject to a Certificate of Appropriateness or COA review if and when the house is approved as a landmark. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Does the applicant or the applicant's agent have a presentation? Good morning. My name is Manny Leto. I'm the Executive Director of Preserve the Burg. My address is 2219 6th Avenue South. Thank you for giving me time today. And we do have, I'm representing the owners. They were out of town and could not be here. We co-submitted the application with the owners and it is, as Cindy mentioned, an owner-initiated application. And we have, we do have a message from the owners and we'd like to play that for you now. My name's Gretchen Meinke and sitting next to me is my father, Peter Meinke of 147 Wildwood Lane, Southeast St. Petersburg, Florida. We have submitted an application for Historic Landmark Designation for the property and we're very excited about this application. And since we cannot be at the meeting in person, we thought we would make a short video, mostly to thank all the other people who helped us get this application together, specifically Preserve the Burg and Manny Leto, who will speak on our behalf. And we'd like to thank Cindy Kahanek of the CPPC for all her hard work on the application as well. And Jesse from the St. Pete Museum of History for helping us do our archival search on the property. And also to the various friends and neighbors who wrote in letters of support, we greatly appreciate it. And I guess we would, we were just very excited. It was a fun application and we thought we would finish appropriately this little video with a poem that my father wrote, Originally entitled, 147 Wildwood Lane. Thank you, Gratzer. You're welcome. Old Houses. Old Houses are best. They have secrets. Shadows trembling everywhere in closet and corner. Their weakness is secret. Cracks in the blocks. Corroded pipes. The termites patient. Annoying. Their strengths are secret, too. The hand-carved attic beam. The portrait paneled over. A feeling they've earned their way. Every board in the house has been pressed by finger and foot, forehead and knee. Tears on old tiles have worn their stories. Stories spread through the rooms like the hint of camellias. Camellias we breathe. Stories hear we inhale. Old passions. Exhale the dead resolutions that are still moving. In the closet there is something. Sun slants through casement windows. Around slender candles shattering. On the wicker where we sit. In love with the shadows. Old Houses are best. Old oaks bend over them, whispering, It's all right. It's all right. All those kids had fun. And remember that young couple who had such love for each other? It overflowed. And did the azaleas sing? And birds blaze like roses? And even the garage long ago burned down was an object of affection. Thank you. The end. Thank you, Dad. And thank you for your time. And we eagerly look forward to hearing the decision. It would be nice to begin every morning with a poem. For over 50 years, 147 Wildwood Lane has been the home of Peter Menke, Florida's poet laureate, and his wife, Jeannie, a working artist, two people who shaped the city's cultural life. The house itself carries an earlier layer. As you heard, it was built by Mark Dixon Dodd, who was himself an artist, teacher, designer, whose handcrafted cottages form the historic core of driftwood. The Menke House sits at the intersection of two distinct creative legacies, Dodd's as a builder and the Menke's decades of literary and artistic life inside the home that he built. St. Petersburg is known as the city of the arts, and this home exemplifies that tradition. I also just want to touch briefly on the economics of preservation, because this is not just about sentiment. In 2024, Preserve the Berg commissioned Place Economics, a research firm based in Washington, D.C., to study the impact of historic designation on property values in St. Petersburg. And their findings were clear. Homes in our local historic districts increased in value by about 120 percent per square foot over 14 years, compared to about 85 percent citywide. So what we know is that historic designation does not decrease your property value. In fact, it does exactly the opposite. The designation, again, is being sought voluntarily by the property owner, and we are really happy as part of our mission to help property owners like the Menke's and many others with the application process, and also with paying their application fees and sending out the public notice, which is, again, a service that we provide and pay for. And, again, we're proud to do that. And so I respectfully ask that you support this designation, and I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a registered opponent for this item? There is not. There is not. Thank you. We will now take public comment. Do we have any cards? I'm sure we do not have any cards. Okay, thank you. This concludes the public comment portion of the proceeding. Now we will move to cross-examination. Each party will have five minutes for cross-examination. Staff, would you like to cross-examine? Staff waves. Okay, does the applicant or the applicant's agent wish to cross-examine? No. Thank you. The recording can't record you nodding. You have to speak. Now we will move to closing arguments or rebuttal. Each party will have five minutes to provide a closing argument or rebuttal. Staff, any closing argument or rebuttal? Staff has none. Okay. Does the applicant's agent have any closing arguments or rebuttal? No. Okay, thank you. Now the quasi-judicial proceeding is now closed, and we will move into executive session. And Council Member Gurdas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, just last week we had a joint meeting with the CPPC and talked about how important it was to put their comments on the record. And if you read the notes from CPPC, it was a resounding yes to this project. And I would repeat everything they said. And just because we asked them to do it, I'll do the same. Obviously, it meets most of the criteria, the criteria for eligibility and historic integrity. And I think all of us are very excited to vote yes for this project. I just want to thank the Menke family for being great stewards of this home, both inside and out. Well, Manny, thank you for helping shepherd this to today, and very excited to support this. And thanks to the staff who helped along the way as well. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Cindy, thank you for your work in Preserve of the Berg and the Menke family. This is a worthwhile endeavor. But I do have a question, a better understanding of how this designation works. Once this property of this house or any of ours are designated, how does it affect the ability to harden that house in the future? Well, it's a permit process. So the COA review, we liken it to a permit process. It's an extra permit that would go through review, whether it be staff review or through the full commission. So depending on, let's say, for example, the windows, the windows on this house are original. Our preference would be to keep them. However, since they are original but they are replaceable, the commission would simply review them because their original historic materials, our matrix says it would go to the commission, and it would go to the commission for review, and we'd just be looking at some specifics about, you know, what condition they're currently in, if they're no longer salvageable. Is that something, you know, are they replacing them with impact rated? And if they are replacing them with impact rated, that typically weighs on that decision. And the commission does typically approve vinyl impact windows for something like that. But they are going to be looking for things to match what's currently there. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to understand that for future. Again, thanks for your work. Greatly appreciate it and an awesome project. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much. Cindy, thank you, Derek, thank you, Manny, everybody, and also the Mikey family. I love Driftwood. It's one of my favorite neighborhoods. I love walking through the neighborhood and just enjoying the history, the characteristics of those homes. It's like none other. It's almost like you were on the English countryside. And I'm just excited to know that there are individuals who own these properties that are willing to preserve them because it's not an easy undertaking. But thank you so much, Preserve the Berg, for being there. I know what you do. I know it's not easy because I'm constantly sending people your way. And same to staff. Thank you all for walking them through that process because I know it's strenuous. But, you know, you all make this easy for us. Thank you, Legal, for ironing out the criteria for what makes the evaluation for this designation process easier for us. And I just appreciate all the work. This process certainly does get a little bit convoluted. But I definitely think this property meets all criteria for historic designation. And that's why I'll be approving it. So thank you so much. Move approval. Second. So, Manny, first of all, thank you to you and Preserve the Berg for doing the legwork and helping the Monkeys with the application and being here and advocating for it when they could not be here. This is actually one of the coolest ones I've seen. It was made even cooler by actually seeing Mr. Mikey read one of his poems. Because I was reading the application and you find out about the history of the house. And it was mentioned that he was a poet laureate for St. Petersburg. Well, he was appointed the first poet laureate in St. Petersburg. And he was a poet laureate for St. Petersburg from 2009 to 2014. And then he became the poet laureate for the state of Florida. And so to actually hear him read a poem to us today was a pretty cool thing that probably none of us expected this morning was going to happen. So I thought that was nice. I'll repeat what one of the commissioners said. It does check all the boxes. This was an easy one for us. And as Councilmember Gerdes, we have to make those findings. But it did check all the boxes, as staff pointed out. And it's in our materials. I also enjoyed her drawings. They're really neat. There was a really cool drawing of the Benoit in the materials that she had drawn. So I thought that was fantastic to not only showcase the house itself, but some of their work. So we had some of the drawings, and we just got a poem today. So I thought that was nice. So with that being said, we have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present, Councilmembers voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item E1 passes unanimously with Councilmembers Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Well, congratulations. Preserve the Berg. And to the Mikey's, please. And he's always welcome to come and read us another poem. Okay. Next up, we have F4 USF St. Petersburg Nursing Bachelor Program update. I believe that Dr. Thomas Smith, are you going to be providing the update? I have a team here. But yes, Thomas Smith, I'm the interim chancellor on the St. Pete campus. We came here last year to tell you that this baccalaureate program in nursing was coming. And we promised to come back and update you. So, Councilmembers, Chair Hanowitz, that's why we're here today. Great. We're looking forward to it. With me, Allison Duffy. Allison is an associate professor who's running the program on the campus. And Colin Barnhart. Colin has been in college all of five weeks now. I'm sure when he applied to USF St. Pete, he had no idea he would be here before you today. But he's going to give you really the ground's eye view of what the program is looking like. So, with that, I want to turn it over to Allison and take it away. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Allison. Good morning. And we are back. So, thank you for having us again. And I'm Allison Duffy. I'm a pathway director for pre-licensure nursing here on the St. Pete campus and also on the Sarasota-Mantee Teachout site. And so, just a couple of achievements just to remind everybody about how amazing our program is. So, our NCLEX pass rates exceeded both our state and national averages. And so, you can see those here. We're proud of those. And then we're even more excited about our current pass rates, which is 96.18. Just a reminder that NCLEX is the certification or the licensure exam that our students have to take before they can even practice to be a nurse. So, they graduate from our program. That's great. They get a bachelor's, but they have to pass that NCLEX in order to go and be a registered nurse. A couple of other achievements. We have a mobile nurse clinic, and it's provided over 2,000 free patient visits across Hillsboro and Pinellas. And you may see it here in St. Pete. I dropped my kids off at school at Lakeview Fundamental, and I looked over, and I was like, oh, there's the mobile bus. I didn't even know that. So, it's around. It's coming. We're making sure we're getting it, you know, as far-reaching as we can, especially here in the Pinellas County. We have extraordinary faculty leaders serving on national and state boards. We're really excited about our linking industry to nursing education funding, and we are very proud of that because it gets our students partnered with our local hospitals, especially Johns Hopkins and Orlando Health Bayfront. So, it gives them an opportunity to get into those hospitals and get oriented to those hospitals and try to make sure that we have a good fit so that they want to come back and work in our community hospitals. Currently, our numbers, we have 68 students who are about to graduate and get out into the community and start serving those hospitals, and then we have 75 students currently in our level one cohort who just started in the fall. And that is different from the program that Colin's in because Colin just started as a freshman, so he will get to see us in fall of 28 and start that nursing program. So, to that point, we have about 60 students as first-time-in-college students who are admitted. So, last year we came. We said, this is what we're doing. This is our plan. We're going to be here, and now we're here, and we're living it, and we're so excited. So, we have about 60 students who are first-time-in-college students who are admitted into that freshman nursing pathway. We have 20, like Colin, who live on campus, and so they're in a living-learning community, and we love having this cohort of students who live on campus because they're a sort of built-in support system for each other. We also have an advisor dedicated to the cohort, so she's already probably seen you multiple times, Colin. And so, we've already had events. They came and saw our space with our lab space with the mannequins and all of the supplies to see what that future kind of holds when they come to fall of 2028. We also have a state-of-the-art simulation center that's now open on the Tampa campus, and we will be sending students to experience that state-of-the-art simulation center. No matter what pathway they are in, campus they're in, they will be experiencing that. And then we're really excited about our, in a week, we're going to host 90 students here from the St. Pete area who expressed interest in nursing. And they're going to come to the campus, they're going to tour the campus, kind of see a day in the life. They're going to come see us in our, in our lab where they can see hands-on skills, what they can do. We're going to have a student panel where they're going to be able to answer, ask questions. Why did you choose St. Pete? Why did you choose nursing? And so, we're hoping to continue with that pipeline of students, high school students in the St. Pete area who will then come into this freshman nursing pathway. So, that will be in one week. And, more importantly, if Colin wanted to come and give a little, you know, lived experience, a little perspective on how it's going so far. Hello, my name is Colin Barnhart, and I'd first like to talk about why I chose nursing. I chose nursing because a lot of the role models in my life are nurses, and I grew up with a lot of nurses around me, going to Pennsylvania and Ohio, seeing the people my parents went to school with, because my parents are nurses. Why I chose St. Petersburg is because there's a great hospital system, not even a walk away from the campus. There's All Children's, which is one of the best children's hospitals in the state of Florida. And, why I chose the program was because it's structured, and it allows me to be directly admitted to the nursing program once I become a junior. And, that's very good because I don't have to apply when I'm a sophomore. So, that's a great opportunity, and it's structured, and why I live in the learning living community is because it's a great opportunity to meet people in the program I'm in, and I'll be with them probably for four years. So, it was a great opportunity, and why I chose it. And, we've had events where I met Allison, the Scrub and Connect, like she mentioned before, where we toured the facilities, and it got me really excited for the upper division. Thank you. Well, thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much, Tom, for being here today. Thank you to your team, for all the work that you all do at USF, each and every staff and faculty member. And, thank you, Colin, for being here today. From one bull to another bull, go Bulls. And, I will say this, you chose a great school, but you also chose a great pathway. The career that you have selected, you probably couldn't have chosen a better. One, because you will always have a job in the healthcare industry. And, two, you have chosen a field where you can, you know, break barriers. You can really dominate and create pathways for other young men who may say, hey, you know, that's not so cool, but, hey, the pay is really good. So, I really appreciate you stepping outside of your comfort zone and embracing something that may not have been your first choice, but it is the best choice you could have made. And then, the last thing that I want to ask to USF, you spoke about partners. I do have a couple of questions. Do you have partnerships by chance with Evera or the health department? I'm thinking specifically about your career pathways, right, and partnerships for OJT, on-the-job training. Have you all done any work with them? So, that's a really great question. Evera is a really good option that I think we need to explore. We do send students to the health department. They have a public health community experience where we do get them literally out in the community. And so, we do get them into the health department. But Evera is a really good one. So, I'm going to write that down so I don't forget because we're always looking to get them out. And we have so many students who come to us, kind of to your point, who say, you know, I love nursing. My passion and my, you know, reason for being here is to take care of people, but maybe just not in the hospital setting, right? So, we have to get nurses out everywhere. And so, we try to give them that opportunity, whether it's school nursing, you know, getting out into the schools. We get them into, like, Head Start and all of these different community opportunities. We have a really strong relationship with Empath right now. So, they're getting out into the hospice, you know, getting a hospice experience. And so, we're trying to get them to understand that it's not just, you know, one track, you know, going into the hospital, right? And so, Evera is a really great suggestion. So, I'm going to see if we can get in there. So, thank you. Well, Dr. Duffy, I'd be happy to help facilitate that. And I'm excited also, again, to find out more ways on how we can get that mobile bus unit throughout more of St. Pete. I totally agree. So, I will see how we can get them. Definitely. St. Pete. And speaking of partnerships, I was also thinking about Pinellas Technical College and also St. Petersburg College. Can you speak a little bit about your partnerships with them? I'm thinking about their LPN program, right? Yes. We are currently having discussions about how to have sort of an LPN to RN program. And we do have students who are LPNs applying to our program. And we do find that that experience as an LPN is invaluable coming in, especially to students who have never been in the hospital before. They can sort of tap into that resource and say, you've lived it. You did it. What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing here. So, it's been really great. We just have to figure out a pipeline. So, there are other colleges of nursing who have an LPN to RN sort of track. And so, we're currently having discussions about that and how we can do that. Well, another conversation I look forward to helping facilitate. So, thank you for all that you all do. And again, go Bulls. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gurdas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Council Member Givens stole some of my thunder. Avara is going to reach out to you. I already texted Bill Merchant. And so, I'm sure Elodie and Ben will get right on it. And so, they have a great relationship with USF Tampa. It just makes a ton of sense. So, you don't even have to do anything. Bill will come to you. If I don't have to do anything, they come to me. That's even better. So, Council Member Givens can take credit for the idea. I'll just take credit for you not having to do anything. We work well together. I like it. And so, I just think this is really cool. I think I mentioned this last year when you came in. It's such a unique ecosystem where you are. Tom brought it up. Johns Hopkins All Children's. Bayfront Orlando Health. St. Anthony's just a few blocks away. That ecosystem is only going to continue to grow along with you. And it's so unique to me what's happening in downtown when it comes to training. And medical training. And all of those. I'm not in that world. So, I struggle with those words. But it's way above my pay grade. But I just think that ecosystem is so cool. And now you're helping that ecosystem grow. Because the only way it can grow is if we have the people to help it do so. And so, just thank you so much for creating this track. For diving in head first. I just can't wait to see this five, ten years down the road. Because as our hospital systems need, we know they need the staff. Right? We know the need. That's why we created this. We know the future wants to do it. They want to do the work. And so, this is just a great confluence of all of those things coming together. And I'm just so thankful for that. So, can't wait to see where it goes. Thank you so much for coming in. And congratulations. This is awesome. Thank you for the support. All of your support. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you. Tom Allison and Colin. Great job on the presentation. I always look forward to hearing what's going on at USF. I have a special place in my heart for nurses. Because no matter when I found myself in the hospital, whether it's me or, you know, when my mom passed away or whatever is happening, they're angels among us. They're the ones that are there with us at the hardest parts of our lives. And I have the highest respect for nurses and the work that they do day in and day out. And we need more like you, Colin, out there helping our community through some of their toughest times. So, I'm very thankful for the work that you do. October 8th, you said, is con day at USF. Is that open to, is that just like for the students that have already applied to attend through these programs? Or is it open to anyone? Can you tell us a little bit about that? So, they haven't applied yet. They're still in high school. But they have expressed interest. So, our team reached out to the area high schools, especially those that had sort of a health care track. And said, if you're interested in nursing, you know, express that interest and you can come to USF St. Pete and experience the day. Last year, we held the same event, but we didn't have a lot of people interested in nursing. So, we would, you know, I always ask, who wants to be a nurse? And it was maybe one or two hands. But now, we specifically went to the schools and said, you know what, last year was amazing. We're so thankful. It was a great first, you know, go of it. Let's see if we can get students who have at least thought about what being a nurse might be like and that it could be their journey. So, we do have 90 students from the area who have expressed interest. So, they are still in high school. And so, we will be getting students like Colin up there on – maybe not Colin. He's already done his good deal. But we're going to have a panel to say, this is why I chose, you know, nursing. This is why it's been great. And so, hopefully, to, again, get that pipeline. So, they've at least expressed interest. And that's where it starts. The reason I ask is because I have a mentee and she's in high school now. I started with her and she was in elementary and she's interested in nursing. You can send her my way and I will get her going. That would be great. She's at Holland. So, I could definitely send her your way. And, okay, that would be great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. And we look forward to hearing from you next year. And Colin – We will come back as much as you. Yeah. I mean – And Colin's going to not have more than five weeks experience next year. Yeah, right. So, well, thank you very much. And good luck with your studies, Colin. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Next up, we have F2. And I believe Carly? Morning. Good morning. Good morning, Chair and City Council members. Carly Piniella, Operations Support Manager for Housing and Community Development. Okay. All right. So, we're going to start with a little bit of background on the program. Due to the storms, 2023 Hurricane Adalia and 2024 Hurricane Helene, Congress appropriated funds through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. The city conducted an unmet needs assessment and public input to create an action plan. The city conducted public input at City Hall on tour. And some of the statistics we got from that is that 39% of residents felt that housing was a priority when it came to the storms. And of those 39%, 50% that affordable rental housing was their priority. So, from that, we allocated $48 million to the affordable rental housing for the development, rehabilitation, and or preservation of resilient affordable rental housing by qualified developers for households earning at or below 80% of the area median income. This was approved by council in June, 2025, and then approved by HUD in August, 2025. So, the city put out a request for applications on May 18th of this year for $42 million, of that $48 million, from the affordable rental housing program. In a nutshell, the RFA was for for-profit and non-profit developers and public housing authorities to build new construction, complete substantial rehabilitation, or conversion of affordable housing for 10-plus units in a project. Additionally, 51% of those total units had to be reserved for 80% AMI incomes and below. And additionally, there was a $15 million project cap and a $125,000 per unit subsidy cap. So, we started the process by putting out a draft RFA for a two-week comment period, which is kind of what Florida Housing Finance Coalition does. We received some great feedback from the developers that were really, really interested. Then, we held an applicant pre-conference where developers could come and learn about what the requirements were going to be and what the program was like. And then, we released the application for four weeks. After the four weeks was over, staff conducted a threshold review, which was basically to see if they met those minimum criteria. Were they an eligible applicant? Did they have an eligible project? And then, after that, applications went on to the review committee, and we held deliberations on July 21st. And after that, that kicked off a four-week appeals period. And now, we're here and still in the cone of silence until we execute all agreements. So, in the process, there were 34 applications submitted for over $246 million in subsidy requests. During that threshold review that staff conducted, seven applications didn't meet that minimum criteria, and some of those examples were not having site control or incorrect zoning. So, 27 of those applications went on to our review committee, and the subsidy request was still about $200 million, which was a negative of $156 million that we had for this RFA. And the city review committee was made of a multidisciplinary committee from different agencies at the city. So, the review committee had seven main focuses that they were looking at when they were scoring applications. The first one was developer capacity. Did the developer have the experience in affordable housing, and could they handle the federal requirements that comes with this funding? So, this funding has Section 3, Davis-Bacon, and other federal compliance that developers need to be able to handle. The second was the alignment with the city's housing for all plan. So, as I said, it was 51% of the total units had to be 80% AMI and below, but we were looking, are there additional units that are 80%? And are they more deeply affordable? The next was the readiness to proceed. So, could they have the ability to achieve certificate of occupancy within 36 months? So, that's showing, do they have financial commitments? Have they submitted site plan? Are they in their permit review? So, where are they in the process? Next was financial feasibility. Was the project have a viable and healthy development and operating pro forma? The next was priority populations. So, for the action plan, seniors 55 plus, homeless, or individuals with disabilities was a focus. The next was site access. So, does the site already have access to public utilities, and how close is it to transportation and amenities or community essentials, such as hospitals and schools and grocery stores? And then, lastly, they looked at the affordability period. So, for our RFA, we had a 30-year minimum affordability period, but we wanted to see projects that were going to offer a more deeply affordable project for longer. Up here, you're going to see the review committee's rankings and recommendations. You'll see that projects ranked the projects in order from their highest combined score, which is in the right-hand column, and then went down the list. So, how the review committee did their recommendations were they decided to go for the first five projects and fund them fully. By the time they got to the sixth project, they only had approximately $6 million remaining. And that, for that next project, was about $13,750,000. And the review committee decided that with the $6 million they had left, it would significantly change the operating pro forma and pro forma for the development and change that scoring drastically if they were to be awarded. So, the review committee looked at the next project in line, which was residences at 1663, and saw that they could fully fund that project and decided to fully fund. And they recommended $40,850,000 of the $42 million. So, we have reserved the additional funds for a possible future round. All right. So, here are some details about the projects focusing on the AMIs and the years of restriction. So, as you can see, approximately 98% of the total units amongst all the projects are at 80% and below. Of the projects that are 50% AMI below is 34%. And right now, for a two-person household, that's approximately $45,850. So, very deeply affordable. And additionally, all projects that were chosen offered 99 or 99-plus years of affordability. So, theoretically, permanent affordability. And additionally, we have projects in here. Two of them are going to be senior projects. And there were two additional projects that had set-asides for homeless or at-risk of homelessness and adults with disabilities. So, this map here, I think, is really, really great that I got from St. Pete Rising that shows you where all the projects are in the city. You'll see that Skyway Flats at the bottom is actually called Southwide Apartments now. So, we really didn't do this really on purpose, but it worked out really well that all the projects are kind of scattered around the city. So, I'm going to kind of take you through each project and just give you some highlights on each one. So, this is the Hartford-Saratoga project, which is a partnership between Blue Sky Communities and St. Pete Housing Authority. And you can see here that there are kind of two sites. So, if you're looking at the bottom left picture, that blank site is going to be the new construction Hartford site, which is 75 units. And diagonal across the street is the Saratoga, which is owned by the Housing Authority. And that is 34 units that will be rehabilitated. And right now, the one that's being rehabilitated has veterans living there, people that are at risk of homelessness, and elderly. The next project is J.R. Tower, which is 1850 Central Avenue. This is a Blue Sky Communities project. It is 150 units right in the heart of downtown. This will also have set-asides for homeless and adults living with disabilities. Next is going to be Trailside Estates 2, which is on the Pinellas Trail and 40th Street South. This is a phase project. The colored section is the phase that we are recommending for award. This is a 100% senior project, 94 units. And they're also planning on doing a dedicated pedestrian link to the Pinellas Trail so that the seniors living there can, you know, have access to the community through the trail. The next project, which is Southwide Apartments, is at the northeast corner of 38th Avenue South and 34th Street South. This is 176 units, so the biggest project that we're proposing. And they are, one thing I think is really cool about this project is they have 18 units set aside for youth aging out of foster care with already a memo from Family Support Services to make that happen, which is pretty great. Great. And then we have residences at 1663, which is also kind of in the heart of downtown or the Edge District. This is a cool project. This is a mixed-use project, so it's 60 units of rental housing and 60 units of short-term rental or hotel. The funding for this project would be only going to the portion of the units, also right downtown. And then lastly, we have the Portland Apartments, which I'm sure you guys are familiar with already. This is reserved for households earning 100 percent, 60 and below. This is a very popular place to live. They have a wait list constantly. They're planning on doing a substantial renovation, which was a requirement, so any of those critical needs, such as electricity, windows, roofs, things like that, and also doing elevators and internal units. So this is going to be really, really good for the residents that currently live there. It's a much-needed facelift and rehab, and they submitted a critical needs assessment, which showed that the new infrastructure that they're proposing would be working for decades to come, so very, like, new technology compared to when the building was first built. So that's going to be your overview of your projects. And lastly, we're going to talk about the funding commitment and loan structure. So you probably saw in your council packets there are performance agreements, which is kind of new for us. We're doing performance agreements that are enforced from city council approval to financial closing. So this is going to have certain development milestones that the developers must reach in order to achieve their financial closing, so saying submitting for their site plans or permits. And everyone's kind of at a different phase, so it might look different per project. And these are also dependent on environmental review completion. When you have federal funding like this, each project that's new construction, so five of the six, are going to require full environmental assessments, and those take some time. So we're predicting those to be done by the end of February 2027. So no project can financially close until that is done first, which is why you'll see closings are happening at least after that date. And then once they achieve their financial closing, they're going to enter into a borrower agreement with the city, which probably you're familiar with, which is actually the loan terms of repayment, reporting, and monitoring. All loans are going to be 0% interest, deferred, and forgiven. There'll be a declaration of restrictions, and as you saw, that's going to be 99 or 99 years plus on every single project we're proposing. It's secured by a mortgage or promissory note, and then subordination agreements, which are usually deal dependent, whether they have a commercial lending partner or they have a Florida Housing Finance Coalition deal. All right. And administration recommends approval of funding subject to the milestones and authorization to execute loan documents. We have several people here today. We have administration, housing, community development grants, and we have a representative from each of the developers here, should you have any questions. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Carly. Vice Chair Floyd. Thank you. It's nice to get a presentation with this much affordable housing all in one go. I can't think of another time. I mean, maybe ARPA funds had a similar effect, but seeing it all, especially like geographically spread out, 99-year land leases, it was all really nice to see. So I just wanted to say that off the bat. Second, I wanted to ask about the Portland because I've had like a lot of tenant complaints there, and I know it's rehabilitation, so I just wanted to let you speak to that a little bit more. Yeah, and I have a representative from the Portland here that can tell you more about what exactly they're going to be doing. Okay, cool. To start, my name is Logan Wells. I represent Sunrise Affordable Housing and SAH Portland sole member that currently owns the site. As mentioned, we will be conducting a substantial rehabilitation. We will be spending $70,000 per unit between materials and labor alone. We'll be adding impact windows, new kitchens, bathroom upgrades, flooring, lighting. We'll be addressing issues with the HVAC and chiller towers on the roof. We'll be replacing water heaters. We'll be replacing doors. We'll be installing ADA unit upgrades as well. We'll be putting on a new roof. We'll be painting, and we'll even be sealing the new windows that we're putting in to prevent any water intrusion. Okay. Do you have any time frames or anything? So we are anticipating closing around the end of quarter two next year. That will be May, June, trying to. That's going to depend on Florida housing as well as investor timelines. We are anticipating construction will take 12 months. We are hoping that residents will not be outside of their units for more than two weeks. That, again, is also construction dependent. Okay. And do you have any comments on, like, some of the tenant issues that have happened over the past? I know there was news coverage of the elevator not working for a while. I have notes on that as well. So there have been two elevator incidents this year at Portland. The first one occurred on March 15th when a new resident was moving in. Their couch, when they stood it up going upstairs, broke one of the sprinkler heads. Water, of course, came out at about 30 gallons per minute and took down both elevators. We were able to get elevator one operational within 24 to 48 hours. I don't have the exact date. It was put back up. Elevator two was returned to service on June 24th. That one required significant repairs. Our elevator contractor had to go down to Puerto Rico to get some of the parts. Okay. We did our best to get it back operational as soon as possible. We had a second issue on August 11th of this year, and we have filed a police report with the city because we believe it was vandalism. There was a hammer found at the scene, and one of the sprinkler heads was violently broken. Okay. That's interesting. We had... Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. All right. We had elevator one return to service on August 15th, four days later. Elevator two is still down as of today. We have received a violation from the city saying we have 90 days to repair it, and we are working on getting that done timely. Elevator two is going to require significant rework. It's estimated to cost $300,000. So is some of this funding dedicated for... Yes. ...this work? Okay. Yes. The elevator is going to be reworked now, and then once we... If we receive the award and we close on the project, that money will be refunded to Sunrise. But for right now, Sunrise is fronting the money. Okay. And you anticipate that the reworks that you have planned will be substantial enough to where we avoid situations like this in the future? Yes. We are already engaging an elevator consultant to see if there's any way we can case the electrical boxes to where if there is another flood, we don't have all the electrical and the elevators go out. Okay. And after the first elevator incident, we had little wire cages put around the sprinkler heads to prevent, say, furniture hitting them in the future, but still allow water to come down in case there's a fire. Okay. Unfortunately, it wasn't hammer-proof. Okay. All right. That's interesting. So I guess the last thing I don't know is a question, but there's been tenant advocacy going on there, and there's been some concern that tenants have been... How do I say this? Not in an inflammatory way. Tenants feel as though they've been treated unfairly for their advocacy. I don't know if you can speak to it. I'm not asking any questions. I'm just saying I'm aware that the housing authority is aware of it as well. I would just hope that any laws around tenant advocacy are followed and that tenants can feel safe and comfortable with organizing amongst themselves and are able to exercise their rights when it comes to tenant organizing. So I don't have any questions there. I just want to encourage the organization to, you know, be as respectful as possible to a tenant's right to organize. Can I speak on that with the time? If you'd like to, yeah. Yes. So we take tenant issues at our properties very seriously, not just the Portland, but all of our other sites. We have a manager on site. The manager is always encouraged to bring any issues to ownership so that they can be addressed timely. Okay. If there are any specific issues, we do not retaliate against tenants. We take every issue seriously. Thank you, Council Member. We work very closely with Sunrise. They are really a wonderful partner. We've seen many of these complaints as well and had meetings with them personally to try to address these. You know, we've talked to Codes. Codes has said that they are working with them diligently. They have been good partners, and so I appreciate you addressing that. And I just wanted to say from my experience, you know, we find them to be good partners and diligent stewards. I assumed that much when they were suggested in the first place. But, you know, I have the tenant advocacy people reach out to me about some of this stuff, and I wanted to bring it up and make sure people know that I'm paying attention to it. Also, Councilman, if you wanted to give me your contact information, you can reach out to me personally after this meeting for specific issues. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chair. Because I am employed by one of the partners of one of the project developers out of an abundance of caution, I'm going to recuse myself to prevent what could appear to be a conflict of interest. Okay. Thank you for letting us know. I just have a quick question. First of all, great presentation, lots of information. I'm going to reiterate what Vice Chair said, you know, the 99-year leases, it's spread out through the city. It's done really well, all the work that's gone into this. I was looking at the materials, and maybe I just couldn't find it. But the review committee, who was on the review committee? So, yeah, I think it was on at the fourth slide. That's a good question. So do you want exact names, or do you want to partner? Yeah, I just want who was in the committee. I mean, I think it's something that should be included. So it says the review committee was a cross-functional team, which included city representatives from housing and strategic initiative, grants. I've just, these type of things, I like to know who's on the committee that makes the decisions. Yeah. So we had Elizabeth Statton from transportation, Mark Van Leeu from housing, Bradley Warnkin from grants. We had Kamisha Tim from finance, and we had from real estate, we had, I'm blanking right now. That's okay. If you can just send it to me after that, that's fine. Typically, I like to look at these every once in a while, I get some, and I have a question as to who's on the committee. Sure. Yeah. And whether they have the expertise, and so that's why I want, I always like to make sure who's on the committee. Of course, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gerdes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I don't have any questions on the current presentation. Thank you. Very helpful. Obviously, I think we're all very happy about 99-year term of restrictions and the AMI. My question would be, I know we talked about the possibility of a second round because of an MOU hopefully coming with the county. Can you just give us a brief update on what that might look like? Thank you, Council Member Gerdes, for the answer. And, Council Member Hanowitz, the person from real estate was Kelly Gilbert. Great. Thank you. We are in the process of negotiating the interlocal between the city and county. I think we are at a good place. And, you know, Councilor Kovalarch has been working with the county legal team. There is some language in the HUD agreement that the county is not comfortable with, but if we are able to get the interlocal passed from this body as well as the county commission and HUD approves that interlocal, they are willing to strike the part that the county is uncomfortable in the HUD agreement. So they really want to bring all of those agreements together, if possible. So I was hoping maybe end of this month, it's looking more like November, December, just based on, you know, material requirements for the county commission. But we are working diligently and believe that that is forthcoming. So thank you for the update. And so that would mean RFP on the street sometime Q1 2027. Yeah. I mean, as soon as possible. We are meeting next week with those who've requested debriefs from round one. The team has already started working on changes to round one minor things that have come up that we wanted to tweak. I was going to ask if there are any changes. Yeah. Minor things that have come up that we wanted to make a little clearer. And so we'll be ready to go as soon as we get the green light. Awesome. Thank you for the update. And again, just, you know, to count to Vice Chair Floyd's point, just very excited to get these projects going. And I will say personally, and I know, thank you for the map. It's very helpful. I would just say, I think things like shovel ready. I'd love to see it. Selfishly, I'd love to see a project a little further west. But I'm very happy about these. And I mean, I remember when the Portland was built 20 something years ago, and I actually applied to live there when I first moved back to school. And so very excited to see all of these partners, St. Pete Housing Authority, Blue Sky. I mean, it's we know, you know, all of these players. I'm very happy to see that. And so just I just wanted to get an update because I know I'm sure we're all very excited to get even more of this to happen. And I know you guys are, too. So I just want I wanted an update for all of us. So very excited and looking forward to supporting this. And I know Council Member Fick Sanders is going to comment, but I'll move approval. I'll move a second. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you. I was going to motion, so we're on the same thing. Council Member Gurds. I want to agree with Vice Chair Floyd on this to say that this presentation and all of the affordable housing options is phenomenal. The one thing out of this presentation that has resonated me with me and will is the units dedicated to youth aging out of foster care. Which apartments were those again? I'm sorry. That's the Southline Apartments or Skyway Flats, it might say, but Southline Apartments. And how many were those total units? There's 18 total units. 18. And how many were designated for youth aging out of? Oh, it's 18 total units for youth. That's 176 units of the total project. So, you know, with all the comments that I concur with here today, one of my hopeful takeaways is that we continue to have that conversation for youth aging out of foster care in all of our affordable housing units. Because we do know whether, well, we personally may not know, but we can only empathize with that trauma of children aging out of foster care. And so that, to me, was really one of the highlights of this whole presentation. And whomever came up with that in regards to negotiating that, I thank you for that. And I support you to continue to have those conversations with all affordable housing units that rely on city partnership with that. So thank you so much for that. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. And by the way, thank you for also including Cone of Silence is still in effect. All agreements were fully executed after city council approval. I think that's the first time I've seen it in a presentation, and I think it's always a good reminder. Fantastic. Well, thank you. We have a motion second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. God bless you. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously with Councilmembers Driscoll and Gabbard being absent and Councilmember Gibbons reaccusing himself. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmembers. Thank you, everyone, for being here for this. Now we recess as City Council and convene as CRA. Next up, we have CRA2, and I believe Rajesh is going to be presenting on CRA2. G'day. G'day, Rajesh. G'day, Council. It's a pleasure to be here today, and we are bringing forward a project that is funded by some CRA funds, and it is a portion of the St. Pete Grand Prix racetrack that we will be resurfacing as part of a stormwater project. Currently, there is a stormwater asset, and historically, how it was built was a junction structure underground with no access points. So it was difficult for maintenance, and this is along Central Avenue on the north side of Central Avenue between Beach and Bayshore. So as part of the project, just to make sure we have access points and maintenance, what we're looking at doing is actually taking out that stormwater box junction structure and providing an access point. And as part of the project, that was actually improved by City Council on May of 2026 as construction contract with PCL. So as part of that project, we are removing that box, constructing a new access point. We'll also be cleaning that line, inspecting the line, as well as aligning a section of it. And why is that important? Because if you look at that section of roadway, there are little depressions that form. And prior to any race, the engineering department walks the racetrack with the staff and the marketing and the special events team and identify the locations that may be at risk during a race. We do any emergency repairs, preparing for the race itself. So we identified that there are some locations along this pipe that's creating those depressions. And what we're doing as part of this is actually taking out all those other concrete patches that have been put in on the previous repair points and resurfacing that road as part of this final approval of the CSA contract. So, again, this is the resurfacing element of that stormwater project. And this all goes in line with the overall support towards the Grand Prix and making sure it is a safe racetrack. And hopefully no residents try to drive at 100 in the ED good around that corner. But thank you. Okay. Move approval. Second. So we have a motion and a second. So I just want to point out this falls within the Table 2, Waterfront Transit and Parking Improvements, which includes transit infrastructure and improvements. That's correct? Correct. So it's consistent with the in-town redevelopment. I have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tallying us a vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Thank you, council. Now we adjourn as CRA and reconvene as city council. And next up we have report F3. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. This is on the item that we just voted. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tallying us a vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up we have G1 and Council Member Harding. Do you want to put something on the record? Thank you, Chair. I do. As with what this council has done before on this topic, I'll abstain from voting on this item to avoid the appearance of any conflict. Our company owns property that is in this geography that's being considered. So, with that, Chair, I'll excuse myself. Okay. Thank you. Proposed ordinance 48-H. An ordinance amending the St. Petersburg City Code, Section 16.30.060.3.1.C.1. Increasing the regulated maximum intensity distance from a quarter mile to half a mile from the Sunrunner BRT bus rapid transit overlay urban station area type. Adding a footnote clarifying the regulation where two maximum intensity distance radii overlap, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is October the 15th, and we do not have any cards. Thank you. Under the motion? Move the approval. Second. A motion of second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally us a vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve. Agenda Item G1 passes unanimously with Council Members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent, and Council Member Harding recusing himself. Thank you. Next up, we have D2. Move approval. Second. Well, we have to read the- I'm sorry. We have to read the ordinance. That's okay. We want to read the sign. Okay. Proposed ordinance number 649-H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, amending section 27-505 of the City Code, related to the use of brush disposal sites, and the penalties for violating the section, providing for an appeal process, and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is October the 15th, and we do not have any cards. Okay. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally us a vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve. Agenda Item G2 passes unanimously with Council Members Driscoll, Gabbard, and Harding being absent. Next up, we have G3. Thank you all for being here. Proposed ordinance number 650-H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, amending the City Code to increase parking penalties provided in section 26-167A, amending section 26-168, related to residential parking permits, to increase permit fees, adjust eligibility criteria and duration of permits, and make updates to the program. Generally, amending section 26-178, to increase the downtown parking permit fee, amending section 26-172, to increase the removal charge of an immobilization device, provided for severability and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is October the 15th, and we do not have any cards. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present, Council Members, the voter clerk, Cowley, announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item G3 passes unanimously, with Council Members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up, we have G4. Clerk. Proposed ordinance number 1180-B, an ordinance of proving the vacation of the 7th Avenue South Right-Away between 34th and 35th Street South, and the Edward Replant Subdivision, generally located at 3430 Fairfield Avenue South, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is October the 15th, and we do not have any cards. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item G4 passes unanimously, with Council Members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up, we have G5. Clerk. Proposed ordinance number 1181-B, an ordinance of proving the vacation of the 7th Avenue South Right-Away, abutting Lots 1, 2, and 3, in Block A of the General R&T Replant Subdivision, generally located at 4451 8th Avenue South, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is October the 15th, and we do not have any cards. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item G5 passes unanimously, with Council Members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up, we have Council Committee Reports. Thank you all for being here for these items. I won. This is going to be presented by Vice Chair Harding. Thank you, Chair. On behalf of Chair Driscoll, I respectfully request City Council approval of a resolution supporting the Flood Mitigation Industry Associations Initiative, FMIA, I'm urging federal partners to allocate and transfer appropriate grant funding to establish and expand the Community Resilience Skills Training Program, known as CREST, for flood mitigation and elevation. And with that, I move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Administrator Gerdes. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, City Council. Just wanted to let Council know that the Mayor did also send a letter of support for this, so just wanted to make you aware of it. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Being that all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce a vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-1A passes unanimously with Council Members Driscoll and Gabbard being absent. Thank you. Next up, we have open forum. Clerk, any speakers? We do not, Madam Chair. Thank you. We close open forum. We get to announcements. Any announcements? Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, everybody, for a great meeting today. Just want to invite everyone out Saturday morning. If you're available October 3rd, the fall weather's out. I know a lot of us are enjoying this cool weather, nice change in the heat, but we'll be hosting a cleanup at Lincoln Cemetery, and we invite the community to come out, have a lot of different partners in this project, and, of course, there's plenty of space out there. So we welcome Council to come out there, bring your weed whackers. We'll be cleaning headstones. Pastor Williams has done a lot of great work out there. They've made a lot of progress. We're looking forward to getting an update here in the next week or so, but I definitely would love to have you out there this Saturday from 9 a.m., excuse me, 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., and you can come early if you're an early riser like me. We welcome you. Again, thank you so much, Chair. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us. Council Member Gurdis. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I want to apologize for being a little tardy this morning. Thank you. Fine. Thank you for the flexibility. A couple of things. Big sports weekend this weekend in Tampa Bay. Obviously, the Rays are the AL East champions. We'll be raising the flag tomorrow. First playoff game Saturday evening. The Lightning also kick off their season on Saturday evening, so a lot going on, and obviously cheering for both the Lightning and the Rays this weekend. As we take on the Yankees, I'll leave it there. The other thing is, it's my daughter's birthday tomorrow. I wanted to wish her happy birthday, and so happy birthday to Callie. I love you. And then last but not least, tomorrow is Ryan Adelberg's last day as my legislative aide. To say that I will miss Ryan is an understatement. I would not have gotten through the last year without Ryan, and that is 100% the truth. He's the man behind the curtain. My respect and admiration for him is boundless, and my family, our office. I could not be the dad, the husband, the business owner, without the support of Ryan, and that would not have happened. I want to thank Janie for making an amazing selection. He's moving on to BayCare, and I'm so happy for him. I'm going to fight John Learn, but I'm so happy for Ryan and making this step in his professional career. But I just wanted to take a second and just tell him how immensely thankful I am that I got to spend time with him and work with him, and I'm going to miss him dearly. And so, Ryan, if you're listening, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Well, I want to echo your words about Ryan. When I found out, I was very sad for us, happy for him, but very sad for us because it's nice when you have legislative aides, and they all work really well together, and they seem like they've had a great team. He was a great fit for you. I thought I worked with him. He helped on PSI, and he was always fantastic on time, thoughtful, professional, easy to get along with, and sometimes we have to deal with so many difficult issues here on the dais, and then you go back and you have your legislative aides who give you the support, and he always had a smile and always offering to help out. So, we are going to miss you, but we will always be here in case you want to come visit us, Ryan, so don't forget about us because you are going to bigger and better things. So, anyhow, I just wanted to share that. I also want to share tomorrow is the flag raising that was mentioned. It's at 10 a.m., so for council members who can join tomorrow at 10 a.m., that's the raised flag raising. Thank you, everyone, for a great meeting today. Thank you for everyone here in chambers that helped support us. It was great work today. So, really much appreciate it. And we're just a few minutes under 11. With that, meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.