City Council - Oct 03, 2024

Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Hopely Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lisette Kanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Fick Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. Let's officially call our October 3rd, 2024, St. Petersburg Council meeting to order, beginning with the roll call. Gabbard? Here. Montenari? Here. Kanowitz? Here. Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Muhammad? Here. Floyd? Curtis? Here. Thank you for that. First of all, first official business is, how is everyone? We're here. Yeah. We're here. Thank God we're here. Glad to see you. Glad to see you. We will have our invocation given today by Pastor Brent Brown of Rebirth Empowerment Ministries, which will be followed by a moment of silence to honor our fallen first responders and those impacted by Hurricane Alene, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Will you please stand and join me? Pastor Brown. Let us pray. Eternal God, our Father, we come to say thank you. We say thank you because we know it was you and not ourselves who have brought us this far. We come praying for those affected this morning by the storm and we pray that you will continue blessing those families, God, and provide them with the necessities to recover from this devastating storm. We pray for the fallen of this nation and around the globe, our service members and our police officers and firefighters. We pray, God, that you will continue to bless us and forgive us of our shortcomings and please continue to bless us. Now, Master, we pray that everything today will be done decent and in order and that these proceedings, God, will go without any foul language or animosity. God, just bless those families that are represented here on this day. Bless everything that is done in your name. We give you praise. We give you glory. In Jesus the Christ's name, let every heart say amen. Please join me for a moment of silence as we honor our fallen first responders. Firefighter William K. Walker. Last alarm, October 10th, 1948. Police Officer James W. Thornton, end of watch, October 16th, 1937. Police Officer William G. Newberry, end of watch, October 17th, 1937. Police Officer Eugene W. Minor, end of watch, October 25th, 1929. And those and all who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. Thank you. I pledge that you would like to rise to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands for the nation of your God, indivisible, of liberty, and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Graham. So appropriate, and I appreciate all of that. And thank you again and welcome to those that are here. Council Members, we have an agenda before us with the addition of F-6, the We Are St. Pete Fund Resolution. If there are no changes, I'll entertain a motion. Move or vote. Second. Thank you. Now that we have a motion that has been properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting? Now that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Floyd being absent. Thank you. Council Members, we have a consent agenda before us. Do we have any public comment on the consent agenda? No cards. I entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda. Move or vote. Second. Now that we have a motion, we're probably seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please cast your votes. Now that all present Council Members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Floyd being absent. Thank you. So now we will move on into open forum. Clerk, can you please read the rules? Madam. If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the Raise Hand Feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 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 reach 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 live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have some speakers, Madam Chair. If we had a time, they can go to either podium. First two speakers, Robert Vincent and Matt Widener, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good morning. My name is Robert Vincent. I'm here this morning on the address, 26, 31, 37th Street South. Once again, good morning, and all the council members in your respective places. My name is Robert Vincent, and I am here just like other citizens who've been impacted by the storm. It was a little different for us for the first time on our street. We lost everything, lost every vehicle and everything inside of my home. I have residents here with me who's standing here with me in solidarity and members from my church. We cannot control an act of God. But what I can say to you is being born and raised here in St. Pete and one who's not only a product of this city and the decisions that have been made here by City Council. For the first time, we received almost five feet of water in our neighborhood. I was in a position of literally removing the screen from my bedroom, jumping out of the window to rescue my family. Literally, it was that much water. We've never, ever seen that before. We were rescued. It was a failed rescue for my family, but the family behind me, they were able to be rescued. But we had to kind of walk through water with alligators and snakes and whatever else was in that water. So it was different for us. We cannot control the act of God. But I want to ask you to do three things. The Clam Bayou was a beautiful revitalization project. Beautiful. But something has changed. And I think this storm has exposed something. And I believe that now that there's an open access to Gulfport, to the Gulf, due to that Clam Bayou revitalization project, which is beautiful, I think it needs to be reassessed to see what else needs to be added. But because that much water to come just on our street was beyond scary. Second thing I'll say in a minute, there's 30 seconds that I have left. We did not receive adequate coverage in our neighborhood. We understand that other areas were impacted, but we did not receive adequate protection. For three days, it was almost like we were left alone. We did not have police coverage. And right now, as I speak, we have individuals who are not only going through our belongings, they're opening up bags, putting shopping carts in our bag. So we, we, we, we, we, ma'am. You got three minutes. Thank you. Three minutes. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Members of Council, Matthew Widener, 250 Mirror Lake. I know you all understand the tragedy and the pain that the people you represent are suffering. I also know that you don't understand how your historic preservation ordinance is magnifying that pain and suffering. Just yesterday, I watched as your historic preservation staff was right down the corner looking at the Studebaker building right near y'all's districts. These people need help, but what we don't need is historic preservation. I hope you watch that email that I sent that talked about that Westminster project in your district. I hope you watch it carefully where staff is arguing with the developer about putting plaster on there that was generated over 100 years. And CPPC staff says, you can't just rip it off. We got to get contractors from up and north and something. We don't have it. I know that you don't understand how much this historic preservation fanaticism has cost the members of this community already and is costing right now because we have housing units that could have been online that are not online, that are not contributing to affordable housing because of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of costs that historic preservation in the CPPC and the DRC process charges. The engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the engineers, the developers, back and forth in that Westminster project. I beg of you, watch when the application was submitted, October 23, and then the hearing was just held a couple months ago, and then staff bombards them with a 100-page-long analysis days before the hearing. I've been asking you for years to audit the process to see when they are responding to the engineers and the consultants and the professionals to get these projects done. Look at that Westminster one because that is merely an example of what happens to people over and over again. Did you know, as an example, that historic preservation staff have jumped in front of the line of the building officials and inspectors, and you can't get building inspectors to check out windows until historic preservation staff comes in and checks them out? So, if you're suffering right now in a district, and you don't have windows, and you don't have roofs, and you don't understand why the building official can't sign off on it, it's because historic preservation staff have interfered with that project. You've got three full-time employees that are doing nothing but doing, well, not nothing, that are doing historic preservation. That's not where the priority is right now. The priority has to be to allow density and allow building and development that supports what is the most urgent need that this community faces, and that is housing. And when you get the dense, rich housing downtown, that money gets kicked off that we can put affordable housing in opportunity zones. But you folks haven't taken ownership of the DRC and the CPCC project, and you haven't audited what's going on in there, so you don't understand why housing units are so expensive, why things aren't moving along, why we got 10 stories instead of 17 that we need. I beg of you, I've been doing this for years. Do it. Please audit it and understand it. Thank you all for your service. Speakers, manager, we have one in Zoom and one more in the chat. I'm going to call the final one in the chamber. Joe Farrell, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Good morning, Joe Farrell, 4590 Almerton Road. Good morning. Like Mr. Vincent, I'm here to speak about the storm and the aftermath of it and something that we've noticed over the last... Petersburg, resident, business owner, property owner? Business. In St. Petersburg? Mm-hmm. Address of the business. Address of the business. We have business in this county. Yeah. County or city? City, county, lots of them. The address, because we have your... I'll sit down. Never mind. Next speaker in Zoom, Jay Tolberg. Tolberg, once you're into the meeting's place, please state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Jay Tolberg, are you there? Hello. Can you hear me? Hello. Yes. Please state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. My name is Jeremy Tolberg. I live at 417 Lito Way in St. Petersburg, Florida. I just want to say I'm keeping my promise. All those on council who are here, who voted for the stadium, I've lost count of how many houses I've gone through, unloading people's lives into cardboard boxes, demolishing furniture, beds, evacuating children. All of you on this council who voted a couple months ago to hand almost $2 billion to a developer and a rich billionaire. Ed, I'm living in your district. I can't keep track of how many homes I've seen that are destroyed. It's an embarrassment. Everyone who voted up on that council without a single demand for getting money back to the people of the state and city who are living in absolute poverty now, who don't even have places to stay. We're hosting families on our floor, feeding our neighbors, and helping everyone who's too old or sick or just overwhelmed, don't know a thing to do as they're rebuilding their lives. Everyone on that council, we told you this. We asked you guys to think of the future. Think of the disasters that the future could hold. Every single one of you who voted for the stadium gave zero interest in protecting the rights and duties and safeguarding our citizens. And here we are looking sad and holding prayers and acting contrite. Not a single one of you took the warnings. You guys should be out there apologizing door to door. Does anybody know how Stu Sternberg's mansions are doing today? Is anybody worried about him? Because he's going to be taking the money, every single penny that this city could be using for the next 30 years. People are going to be dealing with this disaster for decades. Families, entire generations who don't know where they're going to stay tomorrow. You guys did an embarrassing disservice to the city for the next 30 years by greenlighting a corporate welfare for a billionaire who does not need it. Does anybody care about going to baseball games while they're living out of a cardboard box? It's an embarrassment. Absolutely. You guys all derelicted every single shred of duty you hold to this city and the people living in it. I want to thank Councilman Torres, Councilwoman Hanowitz, and Councilman Montaneri for standing up to this. I mean, you all should be embarrassed to sit up there and hold prayers and act like you're concerned now suddenly. It's an embarrassment. Thank you. I hope this city deserves better than you all. No more speakers. I was trying to get clarification legal on that address. Sure. Madam Chair, for open forum, there just has to be a connection to St. Petersburg itself. It can be a residence in St. Pete business, organization address, even if the organization is also in other areas. I think that's what the inquiry was from the clerk, just trying to identify that St. Pete address. For other agenda items, unlike open forum, that's not required. But your rules for open forum are more specific regarding city residency. He's left. He's left. He's left. I think he's left. I'm sorry. I think he's left. Okay. All right. We will move on now to our reports. Item F5, our Hurricane Elena after action report. And joining us is our fire emergency management manager, Ms. Amber Bolin, who I wish for everyone to please give Ms. Amber Bolin a round of applause. When I tell you, I have to come up, Amber, when, when I think about all that we went through as elected officials, and she's also going to be joined by our mayor, but Amber, who all might not know, and, and she suffered a great loss herself, but she was there every moment. She has children and you did not miss a beat and you are to be thanked for that mayor. We know you were there too, but I'm going to tell you that Ms. Amber, every time we have a storm or anything like that, you have stepped up. And so mayor, I'm going to commend you for having such an awesome staff and we want to welcome you all for this report. And we want to thank you, um, for what you did for our city during Hurricane Elena. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am on the same page with you. Um, before I turn it over to Amber, I just wanted to first, uh, and she's really the tip of the spear as we go into these battles, but I wanted to recognize, uh, teams under every administration, under, uh, administrator Gerdes, uh, police chief Holloway, police, uh, fire chief Watts, our chief of staff, uh, and legal as well. Uh, they all did extraordinary work in preparing us for the storm during the storm. And now as, as we are in recovery, and so Madam Chair, I know council joins me in thanking all of our team members, uh, for their extraordinary work, uh, during the storm. And as you said, as you said, many of them were working, knowing that they were suffering losses at the same time they were trying to protect our community. Uh, just wanted to also note that, um, it was a week before the storm that, uh, council had, uh, your resiliency cow and, um, council member Gabbard. As we said, then, uh, our work, um, has to adapt to the rapid pace that we're seeing with storm sea level rise impact of, of intense weather, uh, and hurricane Helene, unfortunately was evidence of that. And so I know that we have the resources and the innovation, uh, to handle this challenge going forward. And we look forward to that work as we go forward. Uh, our community is resilient and I want to thank all the members of the community, the organizations out there for pitching in and helping us move through this event. So thank you for your partnership and now I'll turn it over to Amber. Amber. All right. Good morning. Thank you chair for kind words. Uh, to reiterate what mayor said though, it's, it's such a team effort and I am blown away and blessed and fortunate by the support, not only from the city team, but just the hard work everybody puts in. I really believe there's, there's no better team than the city team, um, that truly cares about the community, uh, that we serve and, and we'll do anything to make sure that we protect and, and help our, our city be resilient and get back to that normal and, um, be even better for it. So with that, I will jump in. It's always a pleasure to be here, um, to present to you. Unfortunately, it's, it's for another disaster that we're dealing with. Um, so today it's, we're still very much active in the response and in, in the recovery. It's impossible. I think to cover everything that we're done and everything we're working on. So, uh, my goal is to provide that kind of that thousand foot overview, um, on behalf of the team and then open it up for your questions to allow for more discussion or, um, to get more, um, you know, specifics on any one, um, point that you have. So again, just my disclaimer, it's very broad. I wish I could cover it all. Um, but there's so much going on and this team has done so much work, um, that I, I want to give them an opportunity to answer your questions and talk about some of those things. All right. So today I'm just going to go through, um, each phase of the storm. We'll go through ahead of the storm, kind of the response operations during and how we're doing, um, with recovery and what we're, um, some of those actions we're currently taking. So before any storm, there are certain citywide department, um, preparedness protocols that are activated. And we try to, you know, some are standard and some are tailored more towards the disaster that we're looking at. So we were always looking at five to eight feet of storm surge, which is a lot of storm surges more than the city had ever seen. So we ramped up a little bit more and looking for that flood or, uh, to address that flood scenario. Stormwater teams handed out 91,000 sandbags over a three day period. Utilities generators, um, and vehicles were prepped by the public works teams. Portable stormwater pumps were deployed to those vulnerable areas, as well as high water vehicles staged in those, uh, storm surge vulnerable areas. Um, we had police officers out there again, our first responders are really our eyes and our ears to this operation. They let us know what's going on, um, you know, where the gaps are, what we can do before that water starts coming in. Um, we deployed the variable message boards, um, this time, not only to warn of high water, but to warn of how much high water, um, to keep people out of those streets for when, um, you know, that water came in. And Pinellas County ordered a mandatory evacuation for all level a that was issued on September 25th, which was Wednesday. Um, because of that mandatory evacuation, we conducted our special needs evacuations with the fire department. So our folks went and they called over 400 people to see if they, um, to let them know they were in an evacuation area. And if they want needed a ride to go to the special needs shelter, um, fire ended up transporting 35 people and two pets to this special needs shelter. And then in addition, Pinellas County opened up, um, all the general population shelters, pet friendly shelters, and the special needs shelters in the County. We worked hard on public messaging. Um, we set a battle rhythm with those daily, if not twice daily press conferences, um, updating social media, Everbridge alerts. So if you got on your phone where it said alert Pinellas, um, the County was pushing out messaging, the city was pushing out messaging. And then once we went into the warning, so, um, tropical storm warning, storm surge warning, when those get issued, we get the wireless emergency alerts that get pushed out through the national weather service. So everybody's phones should have been beeping. We were trying to make sure everyone was informed and they knew what those, um, risks were that we were looking at. EOC activation timeline, the emergency act operation center. We began our partial activation on September 24th ahead of the storm. When we, we really started getting those, um, um, um, briefings from the national weather service to talk about, you know, what were we looking at? And, and from day one, storm surge was, was always that primary impact. Uh, we moved to a full EOC activation on September 26th. This was 24 hour operations over at police department headquarters in the EOC. We had about 30 to 35 folks there, um, at any given time, uh, uh, monitoring what was going on and, um, you know, creating that strategy to implement out into the field level. And then we have been in a partial EOC activation since September 29th. So that's still very active. We still meet, um, every day going over, you know, what the status of the city is, what's going on, what gaps do we need to fill, um, deploying resources as quick as we can. Um, so again, all very much an active situation. In addition to the emergency operations center, we have additional department EOC sub centers that activate, um, of those that are activated, uh, just a quick list fire, police, water resources, sanitation, stormwater pavement, traffic ops, DOTS, parks and rec, engineering, fleet, housing, city development. I may have missed, uh, a couple, but I want, I want you to know that it's not just the city EOC. It's every department in the city that has these critical functions, um, are working and they're still working. Um, some are still open and active, um, to help solve problems and, and create solutions. Storm impacts. Hurricane Alene passed about a hundred miles west of St. Pete. And I feel like I, I say that a lot for these storms lately, a hundred miles west of St. Pete. Um, and it, it shows that no two storms are the same. This one passed a hundred miles west of St. Pete, just like, you know, Adalia did last year. Um, and we saw vastly different, um, impacts from it. So we had about 7.1 feet of storm surge NAVD and 6.31 feet MHHW. So I want to say a quick word on the datums here, because even on social media, sometimes, you know, people were posting 14 feet of storm surge because it used a different datum. Um, so to be consistent, I want to talk about MHHW when we hear on the news and the National Weather Service, when they give us a storm surge prediction, those are generally an MHHW. So when we were told five to eight feet of storm surge, we got five to eight feet of storm surge. It was 6.31 NAVD, um, is a datum. So when we look at elevation certificates or how, how high a house is, that's reported in NAVD. So, um, at the city level and planning, that's the datum that they use because it allows us to take a look at city infrastructure and where that sits with relation to the, the water envelope coming in. So the graph that you see here is depicted in NAVD. Um, as you can see, this, this storm was more water than we've ever seen in St. Pete before this storm, you know, we all talked about hurricane Elena in 1985 and, and that was, you know, the big surge event that we saw and we received, um, 3.97 feet. I see St. Pete set a new record of 6.31 feet above MHHW surpassing the previous record of 3.97 feet during hurricane Elena in 1985, significant amount more, um, because of that, we had, um, lots of impacts. You guys, some of them are listed here, widespread power outages. Um, I'm happy to say that those have, uh, I checked the outage map this morning and those are significantly better, just small pockets here and there. I would say under 1500, um, homes without power right now. And I forgot to introduce our partners from Duke Energy are here as well. If you have any questions, um, traffic-like outages were widespread. I'm also happy to report as of this morning, we were down to only two intersections left, um, to get back online. So that was, that's a big win. Um, in response to the storm, storm, the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, um, was de-energized and personnel evacuated to protect, um, from the storm surge, uh, that occurred Thursday night, um, during the surge event. Damage to public infrastructure. We sent our damage assessment teams to look at all the city facilities, roads, um, all of our infrastructure, that current estimate is $17 million, very fluid. Um, there's still more things to check. Um, so that number is by no mean finalized. It's just, that's our initial damage assessment. And as we work through that number will, will change. And then I think most importantly is the significant, significant damage to private property. We've already heard the stories this morning and that's widespread, um, you know, throughout our city, it's not any one, one neighborhood, you know, with this surge, we saw it in every area of the city, just about. Um, so we have, um, numbers in the thousands that received major flooding. And I do have a slide that will show those current damage assessment numbers. Initial response, life safety, you know, is always priority in any disaster. So as soon as conditions allow, it's those life safety, um, you know, is, is the primary mission. Um, so fire rescue was operating six high water vehicle teams and nine boat teams to get out there and help get people, you know, out of harm's way and onto dry ground into a shelter if needed. Um, we also requested mutual aid. So we had search and rescue teams and, um, other fire department teams that came in from out of the area just to help us run our normal 911 calls so that our folks could go out and do what they do, you know, and help rescue people and, you know, and the more vulnerable areas that they were familiar with. Um, access to flooded areas, um, was closed by the police department, um, to a few different neighborhoods. Again, for safety, it keeps people out of the roads, um, you know, so their cars aren't stalling and floating away, but also to help protect the homes out there. So we're not creating those, um, traffic or the, uh, wakes that push even more water in. Um, we deployed the damage assessment teams at first light, um, as you know, to most areas of the city that they could access. It took an extra day or so to get to some of the, uh, more impacted neighborhoods to get the damage assessment done, um, that has wrapped up for the most part. And I'll share those numbers, uh, with you in just a moment. Um, we delivered portable, we had portable generators delivered to sewer lift stations lacking power. And the Northeast water reclamation facility was brought back online Friday evening. So it was, um, just under 24 hours from de-energizing to having it back online for residents, recovery operations. I wish I could list everything and all the work that's been done. This is, I think, uh, for me, a moment of pride. You know, when you look at recovery, it's really hard because you, it's hard to plan for recovery because you don't know what's going to happen and you, it's hard to prepare for any scenario, but I would say this team is, you know, second to none on, you know, identifying issues and using as much resources as we can get, um, to get pushed out to the community that needs it. Um, some of those are comfort stations. So areas, um, that are set up Azalea, uh, Enoch Davis and Robert's rec set up as comfort stations, as well as the remote permit sites to help one, a place of normalcy. They can come, they can cool down. If they don't have power, they can charge their phones. They can get information. Um, we have some recovery resources, cleanup resources for people. Um, and it gets them back on their feet a little faster with those remote permitting sites, community feeding. We've partnered with multiple partners, um, around the Bay area to try to get, you know, as much resources, especially feeding resources out into the community. Um, we've sent food trucks out, you know, to deliver meals to people and, and, um, it's been, uh, a great program with great feedback. And, um, we're really happy that we can, again, kind of create that little bit of normalcy for people, you know, with the food trucks and getting those meals, uh, mobile restrooms and laundry facilities deployed, you know, part of this storm with, you know, people's homes being inundated with water and them having to pull everything out is sometimes you lose this vital facility. So we've deployed those bathroom trailers, um, and laundry facilities so people can help, um, get back on their feet or just have those, those basic, um, you know, needs that they have, uh, somewhere to go. Disaster housing support. We're still working on this. Um, we're working with the County. We're working with the state. We're working with the federal government to get as many resources as we can down here to the local level to help with that housing. We were declared for a FEMA individual or for a presidential declaration. So we now have FEMA individual assistance and we're encouraging residents to apply for, um, that assistance. And we're, uh, should be launching a disaster recovery center here in the next few days with FEMA. Um, so we're working to get that online and that'll be that one-stop shop to apply, apply for FEMA or SBA or get insurance information or just long-term recovery information. Debris pickup, um, it, it planning is, is happening. We're anticipating it to begin next week. Um, debris pickup 101 was a great video that, uh, the city put together and put on social media to help, uh, guide people through that process. It's by no means a simple process. Um, so we tried to make it, um, as straightforward as possible in that video on what, um, people can expect and, and how to plan ahead. Um, and then the street teams and damage assessment teams, these folks, you know, we talk about people affected by the storm, you know, and, and it wasn't just, we have lots of employees affected by the storm and these included people, teams and damage assessment teams and throughout the city, and they're still going out and they're still, you know, performing, um, to make sure that we understand what the need is at the neighborhood level. And we're trying to get those resources there. Um, and, and they've been out there since day one to, you know, canvas the city and, and find out what we can do, um, to better serve them. This is our damage assessment, um, page. So when we have our damage assessors go out, they're collecting that data on their tablet, and then it's sent up into, um, county GIS to compile these maps for us. So as you can see, there's nearly 11,000 homes that have been assessed for damage. So they received some type of damage of those 146 or a total loss, uh, destroyed properties. 5,190 are majorly damaged. Um, that's over 18 inches of water. 3,725 are minor damage. Um, so that's, that's flooding up to 18 inches. And then another 1,793 are affected. And this is just for the city of St. Petersburg. With that, I will, um, turn it over if you have any questions. Again, the whole team is here. Okay. Council Member Monteneary. Thank you. Well, thank you, Mayor, uh, for the update. Thank you, Amber, for the, for the briefing. Um, this has been, uh, as long as I've lived here in St. Petersburg, my family moved here in 1976. I've never seen any, anything like this before. And just my, my knowledge of the history of the city on your slide, Amber, you, you had a lot of other storms, uh, and just my history of the city. I'm thinking, uh, the, uh, hurricane of 1921, uh, is probably the closest that we, uh, we had in, in that, in that hurricane, it destroyed a good part of St. Petersburg, including all the piers downtown in our waterfront, uh, coming out of that storm, uh, that's, that's when the city decided to build a million dollar pier. And, uh, but if you look at the pictures after that storm, uh, the, the city was almost destroyed, uh, by, by that storm. Uh, so I want to start off by, uh, thanking the administration. Nobody walks in your shoes and nobody's ever going to know everything that you all worked on and, uh, the hours, uh, that you put in the, uh, the heartache that you saw, uh, while your, your own homes, your own families, your own, uh, friends, uh, have been affected. And, uh, it takes a certain amount of dedication to do these jobs. And I want to thank our whole city team for everything you did. And we also had a lot of heroes in our city. Um, I know there's going to be a lot of questions about what happened at the Northeast water treatment facility, but I also know there's people that are out there that, uh, put themselves in harm's way to, uh, protect that, that plant and do everything they can to keep that plant up and running. And, um, Craven, ask you is a plant operator out there. He's been out there for years. He's a Navy veteran and he just cares. He cares about our city and, uh, he cares about that, that plant. And, and I wanted to, to recognize him. Um, so I wanted to start off and say, say, thank you. The other message I want to get out, uh, before I get to my questions is, uh, this is a very tough time, but this is where leadership and leaders stand up. Um, and we, as leaders need to be optimistic back in 1921, our city was destroyed, but people didn't give up on St. Petersburg. They rebuilt our city. They built it stronger and better and more resilient and moved our city forward. And we're going to do the same thing. And that's what we need to do. Um, so, uh, can, can I just start off and ask some, uh, for just a little review of the Northeast water treatment facility? Do we have, Claude, can you just walk us through what, what happened there? Cause I know a lot of us had a lot of questions about, uh, that facility. Thank you, Councilman. We have three water treatment facility, wastewater treatment facilities in the city. Two of them are located in zone, a evacuation zone. Sewer plants are historically and continue to be located in low areas of the city because sewer systems run by gravity. The sewage flows downhill through gravity pipes to the sewage treatment plant. Um, that's the case throughout the United States, throughout the world of those three plants. Like I mentioned, two of them are located in zone, a evacuation zones, and that is the Southwest and the Northeast plant, but the Northeast plant is the lowest plant in the city. We had not experienced a storm surge like this before, but we knew that the, that plant was vulnerable as is the Southwest plant to prepare for that vulnerability. We've done several things. Uh, one of them is a large project that we have undergoing right now that was planned. It came out of our, uh, our St. Pete water plan in 2019. And the planning was done. The design was done. It was approved in 2022 and construction began in 2023. It's a $70 million project, very large project. Part of that project is to lift some of the critical components of that Northeast plant higher than they currently are. But that project hasn't been completed. It's not completed. So as we prepared for this event, we were able to, um, bring in what's called tiger dams to protect the more critical portions of the plant up to a seven foot elevation. As was mentioned, the, the projection was, this would be a five to eight event. So our protection was up to seven feet, but we knew there was a chance that it was going to exceed that seven. And when it exceeds that seven feet, we, in order to protect that equipment, we had to de-energize the plant. The equipment that we had to protect is electrical equipment, motor control systems and, and, and electrical units that if they had been impacted by the salt water while they were on would have caused arc flashing, possibly caused fires on the plant would have definitely, um, put those units out of commission. And based off of what we've seen at other facilities that have gone through, um, uh, storm surge damage, it could have been anywhere from three weeks to six weeks, get that plant back online if it had not been de-energized. So we made the difficult choice to go ahead and de-energize the plant to protect it. And we had to evacuate our team. I'm really grateful council member that you brought up Craven Askew and his team members. I do want to bring them to council at some point. We all can see them face to face, but Craven and his team were in danger. We had two feet of water across the plant site. In some areas, those three feet of water, cause nothing's perfectly flat. Um, they were in an evac a zone and we had to evacuate, make them safe. So the, the, the team worked tirelessly to, to, to make sure that we kept the plant running for as long as we possibly could. And knowing that it takes time to shut the plant down, it's not just a single switch that you just switch and then plant's done. You have to go around and de-energize the different systems. Um, when it, when it became clear that it was very likely that the surge was going to be higher than the seven feet that we felt comfortable with the protection. And we had to make the very difficult decision to go ahead and de-energize the plant, which we did at approximately 10, 20 on Thursday night. After the plant was de-energized, uh, the, the plant staff evacuated, unfortunately, because the, the, the floodwaters were so deep, particularly as they got out to 62nd Avenue Northeast, their, their truck stalled out. So they were stranded in three to four feet of water and we had to get a, um, a high rescue vehicle out there to recover them. They, they were out there for two hours without any lights, um, in the dark, in the water. When we were able to recover them, we brought them back, uh, gave them showers to decontaminate them, clean them off. And they got a couple of hours of sleep next morning at 7. A.M. They were up, they were back on site at the plant at 9. A.M. I have my timeline here, forgive me. So 10 hours, it was 10 hours after they evacuated 9. A.M. They were able to return to the site and to begin the re-energization. By 1. P.M. They had the plant pump stations brought back online and water began moving through the plant. So 14 hours after de-energizing the plant, we had water moving back through the plant. However, we did not call for a resumption of, of sewer service at the time because we had to test to make sure that the plant was going to work. We had it back up online. We had water moving through the plant, but we still had to do the investigations and the inspections to make sure it was going to stay online and not go back offline. So we spent the rest of that day making sure that we felt comfortable that it could stay online. And so at 3.30 in the afternoon, 17 hours after evacuation, we were able to announce that service was going to resume at midnight that night. Now, frankly, and honestly, since the water was moving through the plant, if people were using their facilities during that period, it would have been moving through the system. But we did want to, you know, just, just give ourselves by ourselves that comfort, that delay. We, we believe, we firmly believe, and based off of studies of other facilities that have not de-energized before a storm like this, we firmly believe that not only would it have been weeks before we would have gotten the plant back online, but the damages would have been probably 10 times more than what we think we're going to be experiencing on this. So while it was a very difficult decision, something that none of us in our careers have ever had to do, none of us in our careers have ever had to do this, although we knew it was a possibility. We felt it was the right decision to make. We will continue to work towards resiliency of that plant, making sure that it's, it's strong. We are looking at the plans, not only for that plant, but the Southwest plant to see what more we could do other than what is currently underway. Um, and we, there's a lot of lessons learned under this, this first time event in, in all of our careers. Thank you. I know my colleagues are going to have some questions on this also. I do have one, one other question. The, uh, new facilities that we're, we're building the new MCCs. What's the elevation going to be of those, those facilities? Those would be at an elevation of 11 feet in AVD. Okay. So, um, since the, since the site itself, the ground there is roughly five feet, four to five feet. Then if you're standing next to it, it looks like it's probably about six to seven feet taller than the ground elevation. But when you're looking at it, um, in terms of mean sea level, it's 11 feet above mean sea level. Okay. All right. Thank you, Claude. Uh, my, my next question is about debris removal and I'm getting a lot of, uh, uh, inquiries from, from people about, uh, the, uh, solid waste facility and why individuals can't, uh, move some of their debris themselves to the, to the solid waste facility. Can, can somebody kind of explain what the, what the County is thinking? Because, uh, I'm, I'm getting a lot of information that in other counties, uh, in the Tampa Bay area that they're allowing this, this to happen. So, so Mike, can you just kind of talk about debris removal in general, and then maybe talk specifically about why Pinellas County is different than the other counties in the area? Sure. I'm, I'm Mike Jeffries, um, uh, community enrichment administrator. And, um, I, I'm not comfortable speaking for the County. I can tell you what I have learned. Um, I can tell you that we have shared our frustration, uh, with the County as well. Um, I can tell you that, um, what we are hearing is that there is a concern for capacity, um, both at the landfill and, um, at the, the processing plant, uh, proper. Um, I can tell you also, um, that debris cleanup is completely and thoroughly regulated by FEMA and every step of what would appear to be a very simple process, um, has a lot of regulations and a lot of guidance that must be followed. Um, I can tell you that when we look at the city of St. Petersburg's past storm experiences, we have been extremely successful for our taxpayers as far as getting full reimbursement for the debris process that we've, um, taken on. And that's something that we're very serious about. And I know I've talked to almost all of you about why are we doing X, Y, and Z, and we wish we could do it a different way. Um, I am assuming that, um, some of the challenges, uh, that the County has faced is, is FEMA regulation and what debris, uh, FEMA really wants to know at a very detailed granular level, what is being picked up, where it came from, what it is, and where it's ultimately going to, um, reach its final destination. So again, um, those questions are better asked, uh, of the County. Um, but that is the information that I've, that I've, um, gained on, uh, some phone calls and emails. Um, I know that, um, at all levels of our administration, we've reached out to the County and we've, we've made the same requests that, um, the citizens are making as well. So, um, that truly is a question that's better answered by the County. I will take an opportunity. You did want me to talk a little bit about debris and I'm happy to do that. Um, I will tell you that, um, Amber said that we are planning to start rolling, um, on Monday on the seventh. I'm happy to report that as of seven o'clock this morning, we have trucks in some of our, uh, most damaged neighborhoods. Um, again, that process is very cumbersome and has a lot of, um, a lot of FEMA regulations that, that are involved. Um, we have been responding to issues, um, uh, immediately after the storm, as most of you are aware, we are responsible for the first push. Uh, so we had staff that was out, uh, pushing clearing streets for first responders and, um, working with our fantastic partners, Duke. Um, we actually, this storm, we were able to have, um, uh, a Duke truck that ran with our forestry division. So we were able to do first push, um, faster than we've ever done any other storm. As far as first push, we were able to have our forestry trucks there. We were able to have Duke, um, de-energize, um, work on the, the, the wiring that might be entangled and allowed us to move forward. So, um, I really do see that as a huge success and I'd like to thank our Duke partners for, uh, their help with that. Um, as far as debris, and I don't want to get into the weeds, but, um, you know, we are, um, we're looking at a very serious, uh, a very large task at removing all this debris, a task in which this city has not participated in anything of, of this size. Um, I will tell you that the first homes that we pick up, they're going to think we did a fantastic job. The homes that we pick up last are going to think that we did a terrible job. Somebody has to be first and somebody has to be last. Um, what I'm here to commit to each and every one of you, um, we are making sure that we're clearing this, uh, this city as a whole. We are not working on certain areas first. Our goal right now, um, today is to, um, hit the areas that were flooded the worst and, and start to get some positive impact there. As we start to get our entire fleet, um, certified FEMA certified and on the road, we will have trucks working in each and every one of your districts, um, until we're able to clear those districts and then again, continue to work and kind of spread out. So we're looking at this as a, um, a holistic approach and we're making sure that we're covering the entire city. Um, I will tell you that, uh, we've had some challenges as far as our DMS and that is our debris management site. Uh, we typically have used the Maximo property, um, that is owned by FDOT. Um, we were, uh, surprised, uh, we've used that location in the last couple of storms. We were surprised that FDOT, um, decided to mobilize and use that, that property. Um, so we are working on several, um, other plans, um, as far as the DMS. Our goal is to have several, um, debris management sites throughout the city so that again, anytime that I can limit the number of, uh, miles or the travel time that's involved in debris pickup, the more responsive and the faster that we can be out in the community. Um, I know that there are some things and it's, it's the same things that we hear over and over again. I think I should just address them now. Uh, we've got concerns about bags, you know, why aren't we allowed to use bags? I'm happy to, to share that that's again, a FEMA regulation that is, um, it's important when you step back and you, and you think about it, they, FEMA does not know what type of equipment will be arriving to your disaster. Um, bags can absolutely damage, um, hauling equipment, processing equipment. Uh, it can wrap around, it can tangle up, it can really shut down your operation, but most importantly, um, each type, each category of debris is reimbursed by FEMA at a different rate and the haulers need to know what they're picking up. Um, it's very common that we would have a hauler that is more equipped to pick up vegetative debris, uh, versus C and D, which is your construction debris or white goods, which are your appliances. Uh, there's electronics, there's also household chemicals that, um, will be picked up as well. Um, the haulers need to know what they're picking up. If it's in a bag, they, they don't know what they're picking up. So, um, again, that is going to be a consistent message in every city, every county, every storm that we face that that is a FEMA guideline. Um, the other, um, item that we, that we hear a lot about is, you know, why do I need to sort my trash? Um, and let me just pause and say, as mayor indicated, many of us have been personally impacted. Um, you know, without going into details, um, we have, we have suffered a lot and, um, fully understand the trauma and the pain that, um, seeing all of your belongings and your mementos on your front yard means totally get it, totally understand, wish that we could clear it all, um, you know, as quickly as possible, but it is a, it's a big task. Um, we do need to have that debris sorted. Obviously, um, we will do our best to navigate and to pick up, um, the debris as best we can, um, in the fastest scenario possible. We understand what everybody's going through. Thank you, thank you, Mike. Uh, my, my last question, then I'll give it the floor. I was saying, oh, sure. Go ahead, mayor. So just on the County landfill issue, just wanted to add a little bit to that. Several of our team members have been in contact with the County on this. I was on a call yesterday with the chief of staff and the administrator, Barry Burton. It is a FEMA issue that they're trying to deal with to try to maximize that FEMA reimbursement. And I can tell you also as chairman of the council of mayors, uh, for the counties, other cities are contacting the County as well. They have that same exact issue. So we're working with the County on that. They understand it's an issue. They're trying to resolve it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, my, my last question in this, uh, Amber, this may be for you. I was in a shore, uh, shore acres meeting last night, uh, and it was a, it was a two hour meeting on Q and a on both real estate issues and insurance issues. A lot of when, when, when we have almost 11,000 homes that have been flooded in the city of St. Petersburg, uh, a lot of people have questions on dealing with, uh, especially with flood insurance claims, this, uh, disaster recovery center, uh, that you addressed in on, on slide six, uh, can, can you give us a little more detail? When, when's it going to open? Where is it going to be? How long is it going to be open? Because there are a lot of questions about this topic. The site we're looking at will be the Enoch Davis center. Um, we have, there's, you know, we're, we're ready to go. We have to wait on the process to work. So, um, FEMA is coming in the next day or so to do a walkthrough of the facility to identify the different areas they're going to use. Um, once we get approval from FEMA to use that facility, then fairly quickly, they'll be able to get up and running. I don't have a timeline on it. It, it could be as quickly as this weekend. Um, but I don't want to hold us to that because again, we're kind of at the mercy of when FEMA is able to come in and activate it. We're ready to go as soon as they are. Um, but that will be the one-stop shop for assistance, especially federal assistance. So, um, FEMA will be there different, um, non-government organizations will be there to help provide wraparound support as needed. Um, SBA will be there, you know, with their services because they can fill gaps, you know, from between the insurance and what FEMA assistance can provide. So it's going to be a great resource center. Um, in addition to the county, um, I spoke to them yesterday and they're looking to also mobilize some mobile DRCs that will be able to, you know, again, they'll hit the road. So they'll be able to come in and hit some of our harder hit neighborhoods and provide on-site DRC services. So I'm working on that now. We'll hopefully be able to announce, um, that operation soon as well. Okay. One of the things in, uh, and this will be the last thing I have that came up last night was, uh, people that have been, uh, affected by flooding that have a, a, a, uh, NFIP, uh, program, they have 60 days from the date that, uh, the hurricane came through here to put in a sworn, uh, statement of loss in an inventory of their property. Apparently FEMA does extend that. Uh, and so I'd like to have our, our lobbying team and I'm sure, you know, statewide, everybody's working on this, but, uh, that needs to be communicated. Uh, also 60 days is a short amount of time trying to get an adjuster to your home and then going through an inventory and every, everything, uh, you don't want to miss out on a, on a deadline and then lose any sort of insurance that you have. So I'll leave it right there. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Excuse me, Chair. Um, at your discretion, I think we'd really like to do a short report from, uh, Duke Energy. And then Tom Green has a very short report on some expenditures, emergency expenditures over a hundred thousand, uh, council members might have questions on both of those. So at your discretion, if we could do that briefly and just give that full information to council for further questions. So actually I'm conversing with legal now I have, and thank you so much for that. I have three council members that are willing to speak. Um, and because I've already let council member Montenari speak, I need to entertain, um, their, their questions as well. So I'm going to ask if council member Hanowitz, council member Gabbard and council member Driscoll, um, see any issues with moving the agenda versus you having your comments now, because just for full disclosure, um, there will also be a, I'm going to, if it gets too long, I'm going to move further discussion to our October 10th, um, council member, if we need be, um, as I said, as chair, I will have that discretion of moving it to October 10th, um, if I choose to do so. But if we have, um, council member Hanowitz, do you have any issues of letting them make their reports now and coming back to this? Actually, I don't think I have any questions regarding what Administrator Gerdes mentioned. And my comments, and unless they want to hear from council member Driscoll and, and council member Gabbard want to hear from them, frankly, my issues, you know, we don't need additional information. I don't. Okay. So your request is to have them speak. And since they're not, they're not requested to speak and have a report, we will keep it moving. I'm sorry, chair. I was talking to Mr. Green, just so you know, at some point, maybe after the questions, if Mr. Green could just provide the information, I think we have a legal requirement to provide the expenditures over a hundred thousand. Thank you. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you. And thank you, Cher. I want to echo council member, uh, Montanari's, uh, comments, thanking administration, all our city employees, all our residents for coming together to start rebuilding, uh, our city and our lives, frankly. Um, you know, as Floridians every year from June 1st through November 30th, we face hurricane season. I'm in my fifties. There are people that have done that for many more seasons than I have. Um, but it only takes one hurricane to change a community. I saw it happen. And when I was in my twenties in Miami and hurricane Andrew, and it changed not only the landscape of that city and how people viewed hurricanes and took them seriously because there was life before Andrew or, Oh, hurricane's coming. It's okay. And then there was life after that. And everybody understood when meant to evacuate and the damage, not only during the storm, but post storm, which is not days and you have electricity, it's weeks and months and it goes on and on. And the debris, it's unreal to get the debris out of a city and get the city to some sense of semblance to get back to some normalcy. And so we're going to have that. And, and we're not the only ones, by the way, as we see horrible images from North Carolina and see those communities, how they've been affected like we have, but you do learn that we all come together and we try to find a way forward. And it also makes you stronger and better prepared for the next storm. Because I will tell you, we will learn from this and we will get better in responding to it. Look, we are even lucky. We have electricity and all those homes that are flooded. Imagine without electricity and being able to air out and dry out all those homes where we would be. If there was wind and would have knocked out power through the city and we would have had more of a direct hit, we probably would not have electricity because I saw that happen. And so we are actually in many ways fortunate to have some of the things that some other communities don't even still have, including electricity in areas that were flooded. So I do want to look in the future and how do we better prepare and learn from this? I have just a few comments and questions. I do want to mention the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility. I know, Claude, if you can come, I know you're working on some solutions and I would like to bring something to PSI to discuss what we're looking for, not only for the Northeast, but all the other plants. So we know where we are because I think one of the biggest issues for everyone is having information so they can prepare, okay? And giving, I don't want to put our employees in danger. I don't want to hear that they were there last. I want to make sure that we know if that's going to happen, what can we do to mitigate as much as possible that situation? If we have to get the word out there to people that this is what's going to come, then we do what we got to do because there are acts of God and we are not going to be able to always keep the plant open. So we'll have that discussion because I would like to have that sooner rather than later. And I do want to give appropriate notice to residents. I will tell you a lot of people were affected. They were in areas that were evacuated. In my district, a lot of neighborhoods were not in evacuation zone and were going to be affected and were affected by that shutdown. So that means people that may have special needs in the community. And I'm talking about, you know, from, from Five Points, Magnolia Heights, all the way to Meadowlawn, all those neighborhoods that people thought, okay, it's, it's fine. We don't have, there's only flooding, but if they would have found out about it, they may have made different decisions about leaving because of that and how it may affect your lives. So I hope we can do that soon. Okay. Um, and then the other thing I just want to talk about in terms of our first responders, I, you know, I can't thank enough. Our first responders, our police, our fire fighters, our paramedics that go out there and treat people. I will tell you, I want, and I'm telling city council now we're going to have a budget meeting, but I want to have that discussion. Look, our first responders are our eyes and ears, and they're the ones, they're the first stop of knowing what's happening in the ground. I know that. And I went to the station to check on them, to take them food. You know, if you have the opportunity, go thank your first responders, do that. However you can just thank them. I went over there, I sat down with them just because I wanted to hear what it was like for them. And we need equipment and we need some specialized vehicles to respond to the storm for our first responders. And I want to make sure that we do that because we do live in an area. This was one storm, by the way, there was a lot of flooding. We can have an, it's not even November 30th yet. And it's every year. And there are flooding situations that happen in our city without a hurricane that in these low-lying neighborhoods that they have to take out these boats. So we have to talk about the amphibious search and rescue boats that they need and all these other things. They had to use personal waiters. This is our first responders saving people. With, I know there's somebody in the hospital because they were in the water and got some infection. And one of our, you know, first responders. People, by the way, the water is not to play in. And you see pictures and people, this is not play time to go in that water. There's lots of stuff in there and you don't want to end up in the hospital with some infection that they can't find a way to treat somehow. So do not do that. That's, that's the one public service message that I want to say. So with that being said, I want to have that discussion later on. I just want city council to know, because I know there is some money that maybe we can move and, and kind of address some of those needs. Because again, we're not done with hurricane season. Be safe, everyone, and we will get through this. Thank you so much for all the employees and all the work you do. It's truly appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Gabbard, do you want an update from Duke and Mr. Green first? Or do you want to go? Not necessary. Council member Gabbard, go ahead. Thank you. So, okay, so I was saying to Rob and some others that I think this is the last place we all want to be today, because we all want to be out still helping our residents. There is so much, what feels today and over the last week, like unsurmountable grief and misery across our city. But we know that every day away from the tragedy is a day that's a little bit better than the one before. And so, you know, we all come here together. We're glad to be able to come together because we're here to do what we need to do today to represent our residents and to talk about what we need to do to not only further respond, but to also make sure that this evening that we pass a budget that will help us be able to continue to bring those services to our residents. So, hard to be here today, but very, very glad and grateful that all of us are safe and able to be here. On Friday, myself and my legislative aide, Kim Amos, we were out in District 2 as quickly as we could be as soon as it was safe to be. And I will just say from moment one, when those streets cleared and response started, we started communicating with our city team and you guys are the most incredible people to be able to lead our city through this, to be able to respond. I cannot say enough thanks personally, but also on behalf of the residents that I serve. They can feel how much you all love them, how much you all want them to be whole, and the work that you're doing. And so, for me, from Kim, and from the residents we serve, I just want to thank every single one of you. Many of you, Amber, are doing this work. Many of you, I know, were impacted personally, yet you still have put in, gosh, I mean, probably two weeks worth of work at least into one while dealing with your own personal situations. And that's really something that I want to lift up today is the number of residents who have been impacted but are still helping others. In Riviera Bay, Riviera Bay is the largest neighborhood in District 2. We don't have a ton of neighborhoods because we have a very large business community. But Riviera Bay is the largest neighborhood. Almost every neighborhood, because that surge did go as far into the district as 16th Street, we are 95% coastal high hazard area. So almost every single neighborhood had some level of impact, my own included. But in Riviera Bay, it's every single home. Every home. There is no one who is not affected. When you drive down the streets now, a week after the storm, if you don't see debris in front of someone's house, it's because they have no one to help them. Or it's because they are stuck in a trauma response, and they cannot help themselves, and they cannot even take the help from others. It is a traumatic experience for these residents. And so I just want to lift up the ones who are doing the work, not just our city team, but the people who are out there every single day. The people who were affected and not affected, who are bringing supplies, who are mucking out houses. If you've never mucked out a flooded out house, you don't know what personal trauma and tragedy is for people. It is horrible. Me and my son, my 13-year-old son, was helping a lady clean out a house on Saturday. And she picked up a stack of items off of the ground, and it was her 30-some-year-old child's footprints. Gone. Destroyed. They disintegrated in her hands. And to some people, they might say, it's just things. It's their whole life. And it's gone. So what I'm asking is, if you can help, if you can do anything for someone else, please do. Because those of us who were not personally affected, we have so much more to give, and we have to continue to do this. We cannot expect the city team to do this on their own. So it's going to take every single person in this city to build our city back. While I'm giving a moment of thanks, I do want to say a thanks to our state delegation. We know many of them were also impacted. Senator DeSigley, for instance, living out on Indian Rocks Beach, who was greatly impacted. I want to say a very special thanks to Representative Lindsay Cross. Once again, personally out there mucking out houses with her over the weekend. She helped organize a group of volunteers with Representative Hillary Cassell from Hollywood, Florida. She came over. She brought a team from Hollywood, Florida yesterday. They're out again this morning. I'm getting text messages from them. Who else can we go help? I want to thank them for that work. They did over 50 homes yesterday. They'll probably do another 50 today. The heroes are everywhere in this story. And so if you see someone or first responders or anyone who's out there helping, even a cooler of Gatorade and water that you can go pass out to volunteers, that will help because those people are out there. There's still a lot of need across our city. And one of the greatest needs I think that we need to talk about very seriously today is the temporary housing situation. We already had an affordable housing crisis. And now we have an entire neighborhoods that overnight are basically homeless. A lot of people are still staying in these homes, even though they should not be for their own health and their own safety. So I wanted to ask the administration, because I've been speaking with a lot of friends that I have across the state who are trying to kind of come up with some state solutions regarding short-term rentals, regarding like bed tax that needs to be charged for short-term rentals, things like that. Looking at DBPR with the licensure for some of our apartment buildings, things like that. Can we talk a little bit about the temporary housing issues? What we have been able to do, but then also what we're kind of trying to do to be able to bring additional options for people. Sure, Councilmember Gabbard. So the housing EOC sub-center is active. A hundred percent of my housing employees, as well as our social service employees, are working on that, which is why other programs, I know some of you have gotten requests about why isn't down payment assistance working or other things. There's not a special storm crew that comes in and supplements us whenever this happens. So the housing sub-center is active. The social services team is supplementing them, as well as HR, as well as legal administrative staff. So when the street teams are out on the street and they are knocking every door in affected areas and passing out materials, they fill out a JOT form with what people need. Do they need immediate housing? Do they need longer-term housing? Do they have some other need that comes into the sub-center? And then that team starts calling down that list after triaging them. So we have a prioritization schema because we can't help everybody. And so the schema really has to do with, do you have medical needs? Do you, we're actively working diversion. So do you have family and friends you can go to? Do you have other resources? Are there babies in the home, right? So infants are prioritized. And then after they, the diversion conversation takes place, if people just need groceries in order to be able to go and stay with a friend, we are using our credit cards, going out and buying groceries. If it's transportation, we are getting an Uber account set up, putting money on that, taking care of that. If there is no housing available, we are putting them in hotels on the city credit card. And so right now we have more than 30 people in hotels. We have another team that all day, every day is calling every single hotel in our community and reserving every room that we can find in order to do that. And so people can't be picky. We have hotels that won't accept pets, some that normally don't accept pets that are accepting them right now. Many of those hotels are not in the Pinellas County area because most of our hotels are in evacuation zone A. And so it is very unfortunate that we're lucky that we're able to place people. A couple days, I would have told you we had zero hotels. Right now we have about 30 we're working with, 30 rooms on hold that every day we're filling up. We're giving people a week in that hotel, and then we will reevaluate where they are and what their needs are. There's a subcommittee that includes the Bay Area Apartment Association and lots of other industry groups that is meeting. We get vacancy lists from that association daily that we can push out to folks who maybe have means but just need to know where those vacancies are. Many of our apartment communities have waived fees, waived that they normally require 12-month rentals, things of that nature. We are also helping employees at the same time. So as of yesterday, I believe 164 employees who need housing have also been called and triaged. I think we have nine in hotel. And then again, many employees are helping each other. So that is being worked right now. It's one of the reasons we set up the We Are St. Pete Fund so that we have some flexible dollars to assist people. We've talked to other communities and have been told the biggest need is midterm and long-term, right? And so we can't spend all of our resources right now because we're going to have to help people once they get denied from FEMA, once they get denied from their insurance, once they have no other solutions. We do plan on using those staff in the DRC and having that housing sub-center there. We did try and the team did create a plan to have the housing EOC split up at a variety of locations. I don't think I can staff that. And so we're trying to adjust our plans depending on what the hours are for the Enoch Davis Center and figure out how we embed there. And then what we would do to have, you know, a smaller team and a mobile DRC. And we still have to handle employees too. So a small team of housing people who are going to, you know, muster areas of our employees and helping them as well. I will tell you, well, you've all received the emails. So I don't need to tell you that we have citizens who are upset that we've had to tell them that we are not actively enforcing codes right now, which includes if they are sending us information on short-term rentals, a hundred percent of the codes team, they are not out doing codes right now. They are doing street teams. They are going into our mobile home parks, helping those folks. They are mucking out homes themselves. They are moving furniture. We have people who have been in the hospital from heat exhaustion. We have people who are resigning. And so I think that folks really don't understand that there's not some special team that comes and supplements our work. And so the day-to-day work is stopped while we are doing the things that are needed most for our most vulnerable at this time. And that changes every single day. Yeah. I mean, the codes issue, I certainly, I've received those same emails and I have no interest in us enforcing anything regarding short-term rental right now. I think that that is just such a slap in the face to the residents who need this housing. They need a roof over their heads. They need a dry place to sleep at night. I am not interested in that being what our code enforcement team is doing. I know residents that I went and knocked on their doors to ask them for help and turned it over. And you guys were there the next day, helping them get those wet things out of their homes so that that mold would not start growing. I mean, I know what you guys are doing for our residents. And so I completely support you in that. And think that quite frankly, it's just an insult for people to even bring that up right now. So thank you, Amy. A lot of what you said there, I think, just kind of shows the kind of downward spiral of this event and how widespread the impact really is. You know, today's my first day leaving the district. I'll be back in it tomorrow. Don't plan on leaving it again. He'll have to come back here again next Thursday. But I just want to share a message from Riviera Bay and from District 2, because we talk a lot about resiliency. We talk a lot about planning for the future. Well, the future that we've been trying to plan for is now. And these residents, while they may feel hopeless and overwhelmed today, I can tell you that they are strong, that they are resilient, and that they will build back, they will recreate their neighborhood. But it's going to be so much better for the future of our city and what we're facing. We talked in our resiliency cow about the impact of what a storm like this could do. And then a week later, here we are. So I just want everyone to know that my district, we will continue to be strong. We will continue to be here for many, many generations to come. And this is just the beginning of the thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. And I do, before I called, Council Member Driscoll, I do, you wanted to hear from Duke, correct? Duke and Tom? Yeah, if we can have those quickly, please. So if we can have Duke, Duke and Tom, whichever order you guys want to make your presentation, but I do want to say, we're going to have this conversation. But what I discussed, I don't know if it was with you, Rob, is if Council Members still have additional questions, if we can't, because there's some information that you all still need to gather and assess and put together for us that you cannot do for us today. I am entertaining having a further conversation on this October 10th, because I think this was too important not for us to continue that conversation and to get the information that you still have yet to provide for us beyond this point. So let me calm people down, go ahead and clarify that, which is where that statement came from. So we're going to have the conversation today. But I do know in having conversations that you all still don't have all the information that you would like to present today, and we will have additional talks on that. So welcome, Mr. Green. How are you? Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Council. I can be super brief on this, but in our procurement code and in the event of a declared a local disaster, if we exercise certain authorities under those provisions, we are required to report those. And quite candidly, we've had conversations about this, so it can be very brief. But with respect to the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, the mayor did authorize us to enter into a not-to-exceed agreement with Wharton Smith, a contractor, to ensure that when we re-energized that plant, we had done all the proper procedures and everything was good. So that is the first item that we, that the mayor authorized. And I believe that during the weekend, we reported to you via email that that decision had been made, but this is the official announcement of that. And then with respect to the Crowder Golf contract for debris removal, we did have to make an amendment to that underlying agreement. Because of the nature of this disaster, we're going to have a lot more C&D construction and development materials that we're going to have to haul and move. The, the agreement did not fully address that. So we did make a change in that agreement. So I wanted to make council aware of that. And then finally, there were an agreement that was executed with Puro Clean to assist in cleaning up Mahaffey Theater and Outlang Stadium. Total amount of not to exceed about 400,000 on that agreement. So those were the three items that I wanted to share with city council as the mayor did authorize the execution of our emergency procurement provisions. Good morning, Madam Chair, Councilmembers, Mayor, Melissa Satius, State President for Duke Energy Florida. First and foremost, I want to thank you for inviting us and including Duke Energy in all of the emergency management preparations, and allowing us to be with you during press conferences, EOC meetings, and certainly to fire rescue and law enforcement, who worked so closely with our line crews when we were restoring in particularly sensitive areas that had storm surge. So this morning, I'm going to give you kind of two updates, one on where we stand at this moment, as of this morning, and then our work plan moving forward. So I think you know, recently, we had the opportunity to come and speak to you, give you an update on undergrounding overall in the city. City of St. Petersburg has about 40% of the facilities that are underground. Certainly, the storm surge just created havoc with those types of facilities, and I'll talk a little bit about that. I am happy to report that all the overhead-related outages from the storm have been restored. Now, we'll continue to always get new outages that come in, but those outages have been restored. But because our infrastructure was so heavily compromised by the storm surge, most of the outages, the remaining outages that we have within the city of St. Petersburg are underground-related. As of this morning, we have nine that are currently off, nine outages that are currently off. That affects about 400 customers. All of those customers have received a revised estimated time of restoration for midnight tomorrow night. And I'll give you a little reference on the location, the geography of these locations. Four of those nine are located in the area of about 42nd Street to 49th Street South, and from 40th Avenue South to 62nd Avenue South. These are customers who are served out of our Maximo substation. In the Northeast section, customers are fed out of our Pillsbury sub, which is over there near Shorecrest. We have areas like Pinewood Mobile Home Park that are impacted, customers on Michigan Avenue Northeast, and also some in the Caya Costa area. The remaining one is actually an underground service that feeds a toll plaza at the Skyway Bridge. So to address these issues moving forward, so we're going to restore these customers' estimated time of restoration tomorrow night. They've all received customized text messages explaining the extended outage and the cause. But recognizing that these pieces of equipment could continue to experience interruptions because of the corrosion. And the corrosion happens almost immediately on impact and continues to develop. And so we have developed a very detailed, dedicated plan to proactively replacing impacted pad-mounted transformers mostly. And we have used GIS mapping to help us identify where those places are. I'm sure that we'll also get data from city staff that can help us with this. Uh, but we will begin replacing these pieces of equipment proactively over the next several weeks. Uh, and as I said, some of the condition, uh, these transformers could be, uh, operating now, but customers may end up seeing flickering lights or ultimately an outage because the corrosion has just gotten to the point that it's, um, caused the piece of equipment to fail. So, uh, this team, uh, is dedicated, we brought in a dedicated set of resources that will work on this and, uh, that team is already actively, uh, we'll put those, um, that action into, into place. So to give you kind of some perspective on that, just for the city of St. Pete, that could be up to 500 transformers, 500 pad-mounted transformers located within the city of St. Petersburg. And we don't want to wait for them to fail, which is why we're being proactive and identifying those and going out, uh, to replaces. And of course we will communicate with our customers when we go out there for the outage, uh, as well. We really do want to thank our customers for this patience. All of you have so eloquently spoken about the impact, uh, everywhere that I've been from North Florida and the Big Bend area where the storm came through, uh, to parts of St. Petersburg, parts of Clearwater and the Barrier Islands. Uh, not in my lifetime of the 40 plus years I've lived here, uh, in the state of Florida and here in Pinellas County, have I seen such destruction. So we will, with our customers also moving forward, if they have been impacted by the storm, uh, then we ask them if they're facing any kind of financial hardship that's impact, you know, has to do with our Duke Energy bill, we really encourage them to call us. We will work with them. Uh, and each customer will have a different set of requests. Um, some customers are deciding that they just need to have their service disconnected, close the account. They intend to move others who are going to disconnect it temporarily because of home they believe needs to be, um, demolished a lot of different sets of circumstances. And we recognize that we need to be, we need to meet our customers where they are. And so that's why we want them to call us so that we can work with them, uh, individually. And of course, uh, you know, your impact or your, your feedback is always critical to us. Uh, we always conduct an after action review of everything. Uh, we try to be very, very self critical. Uh, but the feedback from our, uh, all of our municipal partners is absolutely critical operationally on the operational side and the communication side, the communication side can always be challenging because people receive information differently. They interpret it differently. So we try to use a variety of diverse communication channels, text messages, outbound calls, emails, um, or even in some places doing door hangers, uh, we'll continue to, to do that outreach. Uh, but we really do welcome your, your feedback, but want to thank you all again, uh, for everything that you have done to keep the city of St. Petersburg, uh, the vibrant city that it is helping your citizens, which are our customers. Uh, we will stand by you and helping to, uh, revitalize those areas and this, and the spirit of people who have, um, really endured so much and will continue to, uh, work through this process. So we thank you. We're always happy to take any questions, uh, but thank you for the time this morning. Thank you so much. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Melissa, for that, um, that briefing. That's very good information. I'll have a couple of questions, but I kind of want to start at the top and, um, share in my colleagues gratitude for all that our administration and city staff have been doing. Um, and, um, in particular, our first responders who, um, are out there helping others while, while they're, um, dealing with their own, their own losses. A lot of, a lot of people are out helping others while dealing with their own. It's hard. Um, I have not been affected, affected by, um, by a storm before. I've been very fortunate in the past. This time I was affected and, um, trying to manage your own stuff while trying to be there for others, getting the communication in and then out and, um, you know, checking on, on friends and neighbors. And, you know, there are times when it just gets hard to keep it together, you know? Um, and you just have to keep trying to convince yourself that you were built for this. So many of our residents are, are doing the same thing and they're, they're doing it without all of the resources that we have. Um, most of the time I can get information at the, at the, through a text, through a phone call so quickly, but others can't. And there are many who are dealing with this alone. Um, or, you know, it can be a single mom with young children just trying to figure all of this out. And, um, I know that, uh, you know, that we're not the first community for this to happen to, but for many people, it's their first time having to deal with it. And, um, so, so one of the things I want to ask about, we've, we've got a lot of resources out there. And on Monday, I was working on a special newsletter to send out, um, with resources for people. And the one thing that I was not able to get any response on to add to my newsletter, um, was, um, an, an easy way for people to get some, um, mental health assistance and just someone to talk to. And I'm like, oh my gosh, is 988 really the only option that we have right now? Councilmember Driscoll, we have a number of resources that have been added to the website. It just, it takes a few minutes for everything to get activated. Um, but let me give you a few things. 988 is one of the resources. Um, Florida department of children and families has also stood up resources. That information is on our Helene assistance webpage. The disaster distress hotline is also open 24 seven. That number is 1-800-985-5990. I'm going to say it again. 1-800-985-5990. Additionally, the County's care about me program, which can, um, help people get appointments with a mental health professional immediately is open. That website, um, is care about me.org. Um, they also have a phone number and there are a number of other mental health resources that have been added to the website. So I think most of those got stood up yesterday. We got that out on the web. Um, and then we will work to get that information out to people. We'll create some kind of rat card that we add to our, um, street team stuff and get out to neighborhoods as well. Um, if folks that were in our South St. Pete zip codes, um, around the hub, uh, the hub is also a resource and has been taking calls and doing street teams and assisting people. But I knew that the, um, mental health piece was important to you. And so we were able to get those up yesterday. That's great. Thank you. And I would make a strong suggestion that, um, planning for this be pushed further to the top of the list so that, um, we've got an action plan that can be triggered right away. Will there be, um, um, assistance available at the three, um, disaster recovery centers? Do we have, um, you know, folks are, are partners with Gulf Coast, um, um, or any, anyone? So Amber, I'm going to, I'm going to ask you about this specifically because you guys have Dr. Benson at a time like this. I wish everyone had a Dr. Benson. Sometimes I'm like, I wish I could call Dr. Benson. She's amazing. We need, we need that outreach. And, and I honestly don't think phone numbers are enough, which is why we have Dr. Benson, right? Because the, it's been shown at least it's something, but it's not a person saying, how are you? And really wanting to know the answer. We've got to have, we've got to have that out there. Council member Gabbard was just talking about the, the woman who was holding her, her, um, mementos of, of her child. And it was just falling apart. Like she probably was on the inside. We've done as a city, big C city. We've done a lot to push mental health forward in the conversation. And I think we have been making some great strides in eliminating the stigma or at least trying to, but it's still, it's still there. But at a time like this, I, I, I feel like we really need to prioritize it. I do worry about that just as much as I worry about, um, more than I worry about debris, power, all of that stuff. So I'll get back to a question because I said a lot and that's about what are we going to have in the disaster recovery center? So first, you know, when we talk about eyes and ears and that first touch point with the street teams and Amy's teams, you know, I, they kind of are that first, how are you? Right. And so that helps inform us on what services we can provide to meet that need, whether it's a physical need or a mental health need. Um, so I think it's, that's a work in progress, but you said, there's, there's more, you know, we can do when we can, that can be done. I don't have a comprehensive list of services that will be available yet at the DRC. I will work to secure that today and we'll send out to you. And I'll, um, try to advocate, you know, the, the mental health services, um, for that site and what could be there or what the plans are. Yeah. Any, anything that we can do to, um, have a, an, an actual trained person in person there at those three locations. We just have three, it's not a lot to ask for, and it's worth every penny if we have to go out and find it, but we do have a great partner with Gulf coast. I feel like that could be a good, um, a good first option for us at this moment, if that's possible. Um, the, the damage assessment slide, how, um, how was the assessment done? Was it drive by eyeball? It was, they were on the, they were walking the neighborhoods street by street. Looking for water lines or looking for, uh, um, good morning, James court city development administrator, um, our, our damage assessment team, uh, spread out using the nine one grid. And, uh, generally what they had to do is walk door to door looking for water lines. If they were able to make contact, they were also looking inside the home to determine the level of damage that was, uh, impacted inside the home as well, when they were able to see that. But generally, if they were not able to see inside, they were looking for the water lines on the exterior of the home, as well as any other damage that may have been caused by trees or anything else. Okay. And, and the city has been combed through at this point. So this number, the number, so the, so there were, it says 10,854. So, I mean, obviously there are more homes in that in our city, right? Were those, um, it just looks like a, a lot of that was, um, you know, of course in the, in the hardest hit areas, but this map is, um, and the numbers, I'm just trying to figure out, like, how do you, how do you decide what's major? I don't know where my house would have fit in, you know? And then you've got other people who, um, I mean, was this by flooding only? It was by flooding only. It's a, it's a FEMA category. And Amber mentioned the major and minor is based on the number of inches that were received in a home versus effective. If it was only the water only reached the garage, for example, if it didn't reach the finished space. So it's a defined definition, uh, by FEMA as what we consider major minor, but it is based on the level of water damage. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, in addition to, uh, mental health resources, I, I would suggest now is, um, the time to really, really amplify the importance of how to avoid scams. Please. Councilmember Driscoll, just if I may with the damage assessment. So the 10,854, that was the total number that was found to have damage. And that could include wind damage. We just didn't see so much wind damage, um, with this storm. Um, the ones that are destroyed could have been houses that caught fire, um, and, and burned. So more houses were assessed than that 10,854, but those are the numbers that were found to be at a minimum affected. Okay. Yeah. And council member, thank you for the question about scams. The state has sent, uh, resources here. Uh, Erica Langans, our CFO has been coordinating with them and others to ensure that, um, folks are dealing with licensed and reputable. Yeah. I have seen some communications, um, out there in the city, but, um, I'm, I'm very concerned, especially with the number of homes that we have damaged and the number of, um, uh, seniors and others who are particularly vulnerable to, um, those despicable practices. Thank you. Um, did someone say that the County declined to have someone here with us today? I'm sorry. I didn't hear it. We don't have anyone from the County here. We don't have anyone from the County. I, I did not personally reach out to the County and ask for somebody. I don't know if another staff member did, but okay. I had, I had mentioned it a couple of days ago. Um, it's unfortunate that they are not here. Um, the offer of, uh, for parking in the, in the South core garage ahead of time was fantastic. Um, I don't know if anybody has, an idea, did that fill up? I don't have that information, whether it filled up or not. I know that's something that's utilized, um, quite often when we make it available for storms. So I will get that information and share it with all the council, but I, I do know it was utilized. I'm not sure if it filled up. We had a large number of people who did lose their, their cars, um, offering something like that, I think is, is, um, was a great idea. Whoever thought of it, um, is, um, to be commended and I'd love to look for whatever that capacity is, make sure that we have that. And, and then some, uh, whatever else we can do in the future. Um, we had a lot of people who lost their cars. Um, I want to talk about, oh, um, one good news item regarding the housing. I did get, um, an email this morning from the CEO of Stoneveg US, um, the builder of the Lake McGorry apartments. And they have been, um, they have reached out to three of our area schools in areas, in neighborhoods that were affected and have, um, made arrangements for, um, I think it's 10 now, um, uh, teachers and their family, teachers who were affected, um, to be able to, um, house the, um, stay there for, I think six months, um, that they've given them. So, um, uh, I think they've, they've set a wonderful standard and I wanted to publicly, um, share that and also thank them because that's what, that's what good members of our community to do in the business community. Um, so there are 10, uh, teachers and their families who, um, don't have to worry about a roof over their head, um, for a while so they can figure out what their next steps are. Um, I want to talk about, um, and I'm almost done, um, in general, and I'm going to get to debris pickup. So whoever wants to come up and talk about that, um, and then, and then Duke as well, I'll have questions. Um, mother nature doesn't pick winners and losers. Not really, you know, it's an equal opportunity offender, right? But we have to make sure that in our communications and in what we talk about, where we're helping and who we're helping, we need to make sure that all of our, all of our city is seen, heard, and attended to. Um, we have Mr. I think it's Mr. Vinson, uh, who spoke earlier during open forum today, um, who lives in the Clam Bayou area. And his words sounded very similar to the words of many of the people of my district in the Coquina Key, on Coquina Key, in the Coquina Key area. Um, South, South of there, um, Harbordale. What about us? What about us? It was hard for me because, you know, before this, before the storm even got here, I, I said to PD, tell me when Coquina Key gets cut off. Tell me when it opens back up. We have, we have other council members who have neighborhoods accessible only by bridge. I, I have this one. Why is it so hard to get that information? Why? When we've got thousands of people who live on that Island, you know, I mean, it doesn't take much, but I see the announcements and I have to keep looking and looking for when are the streets in the Southern part of my district going to be recognized and seen and as told, yes, these are passable now. No, if you're on the Island after the storm, you just have to get in your car. If it still works, if you still have one and go and find out on your own, because we don't have the communication at the level that it needs to be still, unless you live in certain neighborhoods, we need to be seen everyone. And I don't want someone who lives in the clan Bayou area to feel like they don't matter that they saved themselves and that we're going to get to them eventually after the hardest hit areas with the debris pickup. It was said the hardest hit areas will be first. So please could someone turn to this gentleman and tell him that he will be last. I don't want to say that. I'm, I'm really tired of this. And it's not that I don't know what's happening. And it's not that my heart doesn't break for everyone who is dealing with this. Yes, we have entire neighborhoods that are repetitively dealing with this stuff, but we also have, we, we have someone in every neighborhood who is affected by this and I want them all to be seen. It has been really a struggle to get the information I need. And, and the, for people who are not in certain areas of our city, I don't want anyone to feel like they are last because you know what? I have people who had no flood damage damage, no, no water intrusion at all. The only thing was that they lost power. And on Sunday, one person telling me all I need is my power back. The food is gone. The food is run. All they needed was their power back so that they could just start to kind of get things back together. And they're, they're miserable because it's hotter inside than it is outside. You can't sleep outside here. I mean, the calls I was getting and the texts that I was getting, it was just distressful. And, and that made me think even more about the mental health of some of the people who I had to talk to because it just, it does make you crazy. My power didn't come on till Saturday afternoon. I thought I was going to cut somebody by then, you know? So you got, you talk about Sunday night, Tuesday, that gets tough, especially when that's the only thing you're missing. So, and this can be, and this could be something, you know, power wise. I don't know what the answer is. And Melissa, if there's, if there's a rhyme or reason, if there is a procedure that's followed, I just feel like there's something I don't know about how Duke decides who to help first. I, I'm not placing blame because I know that there are things that I don't know. I also know that we've got to make sure that every single person in our city feels seen. Here, if I could, I think this is a very important issue. Equitable response is a very important issue. And thank you for, for bringing it up. And I I'd like to hear from Chief Kvasif and some of the administrators. We did do some directed patrols on 26th Avenue South and tried to get out there. We sent the street teams back out to Harbordale because we were not seeing the type of material brought to the curb, uh, that we thought we would. We tried to be very equitable in the distribution of resources, uh, in the recovery. So if you don't mind share, I think, uh, unless Mary, you want to say something, I'd like to hear from Chief K and from Administrator Foster on some of the things we've done related to equitable recovery, because it is very important. Well, before Chief Kvasif comes forward, uh, we take your, your comments to heart, uh, Councilmember Driscoll, as we looked at allocation of resources, uh, whether it's the meal trucks or laundry facilities or bathrooms, we were intentionally looking at making sure it was equitable across the whole city. I live in South St. Pete. You know, I did go to Coquina Key. I went to Bartlett Park personally on the Harley folks. I mean, we're waving. Uh, and so we want to make sure everybody is included. I know Pastor Vincent, I didn't hear your comments, uh, but he's got my phone number. We can chat. Uh, no one's going to be left behind. And I don't want anybody to think that the city is only going to certain neighborhoods. We went North, South, East, and West out on Saturday, went out to Causeway Owls with Councilmember Gerties. I went to Riviera Bay. I personally went to Coquina Key all the way down to Palos Point, Lakewood, Bartlett Park, all across this city. No one will be left behind. We're trying to over-communicate. I've gotten really good response to what our marketing team and communications team have done and getting things out on social media. So folks know what we're doing, but we can always get better. And so if there's something you see that we can do to better communicate, we will do that. But I want you to know we are responding to needs across this entire city going forward. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to touch on one item. So traditionally up until a few years ago, um, obviously we know where the flooding areas traditionally were, but we did not shut down those areas up until a few years ago. It was collective discussion amongst the command staff, myself and Chief Holloway on when the floodwaters were to rise in neighborhoods, what to do to allow access, ingress and ingress. About two, three years ago, we decided that we would take a more proactive approach from the police department. Ultimately, I ran a number of the items this weekend and we decided some of the areas were going to be closed down. Uh, and those are tough decisions to make. Uh, people obviously want to be able to get rescued. We try to do the best we can, but we shut down Shore Acres, Snell Isle, Yacht Club Estates, Coquina Key, and some of the other areas. We also found challenges that our officers couldn't make it out there, which goes back to some of the challenges related to vehicles. We lost 14 vehicles this weekend. Uh, some of them were related to being at officers' residences, but multiple related to, uh, some of the recovery efforts that we did as well. So those are tough decisions that we make. Uh, we try to take everything into consideration and then ultimately I get calls throughout the day. When are you opening up? When are you opening up? Because we also have to make sure people are not victimized twice by people that are irresponsible going back into those areas, looking for opportunities for looting, looking for opportunities to push more flood water into their residences. That is one of the key things. I can tell you pushing out information. If people wanted to walk back in, which is a horrible thing to do, by the way, we didn't stop anybody, but we limited vehicle traffic going back into those hard hit areas because it just becomes another person we have to go out and save. One thing that Chief Watts and I worked extensively on is I've never seen this before in the 30 years I've been in law enforcement. They were holding hundreds of calls mainly in evacuation A for people that didn't leave. And one thing that we've never done in the past, we shipped a squad of officers over to assist with lower priority calls to make sure that we didn't forget about anybody as well. So it is balanced. We can always do better. We can always learn some of the areas we've never seen flooding like we've ever seen before. And it gets difficult to be able to kind of message that out. But as Mayor said, we're here to learn. And if we can do things better next time, we definitely would take the opportunity to do so. And reference claim by you. I've already spoken to Chief Gilliam. One of the areas I made sure that officers were sent out there today if they weren't out there as quickly as they should have been. But we try to find that balance on where we need to go. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll, I'm going to have Mr. Wall come up and talk a little bit about the work of the street teams. But I want to just give everybody a little bit of context of what it looks like after a storm. So on, my days are running together at this point. But whatever the day after the storm was, which there was still flooding in areas, we had street teams activated first thing that morning, they were here so early, actually, that they couldn't get to the flooded areas. And so we had to prioritize in different ways. And one of the things we did this storm that was a little bit different from previous storms, knowing how bad the storm surge was, was we were able to take the list from the fire department of people who have asked for special need evacuations, who did not get picked up to go to their homes and assess whether they were alive or first. And so that was our first outreach for street teams. We did push out resources as we were able to secure them. So I know we heard a lot of feedback about Allendale receiving laundry first. But that was done. And while that was being done, we also started working with the South St. Pete laundromat, and then a West St. Pete and then a North Gandy laundromat. Unfortunately, our South St. Pete laundromat and, and just to be clear for the public, these are not owners of laundromat's doing this, donating their services. We are putting money on an account as the city so that people can go there and wash their clothes. Unfortunately, the South St. Pete laundromat had to close yesterday because of challenges that the customers were causing. And so we are actively looking for another South St. Pete laundromat right now. Um, we are also having to change some of the hours at the Allendale laundry mat because of things that are happening in the overnight hours. And so, um, you know, this is active operations happening in real time. We could have waited until things were perfect and rolled everything out at once, but we felt like it was important to roll out resources as we secured them to help folks. I want to give a real big thank you to Shelly Luz and David Thompson. They don't have a DOP that they are required to operate. And when many of us as administrators are operating five disaster operation plans at a time, they raised their hands and said, how could we help? So we've never had somebody specific to coordinate feeding. They are coordinating feeding across our city and have thought about doing that in equitable ways. Bathrooms have been deployed, um, in Bartlett Park and Coquina Key, Shore Acres Rec Center, Riviera Bay Park and Sunset Park based on feedback that we've heard. And then I just want to make clear, as Joe tells you a little bit about what, um, street teams are doing. Street teams is not a one and done thing. And so we have just recently completed our first push of street teams in that first push. People received information on after the flood, what to do with your debris. We know people are not, they don't have power. They're not watching TV. They're struggling to, um, locate things on social media. They also receive things about the mobile permitting site and about scams to your point earlier. Um, the next push will include all of the resource type things. How, how do you get unemployment assistance? How do you, um, get SBA loans? What's the FEMA information? Uh, we are also going to directed areas as people lift them up. So folks continue to raise Harbordale as an issue. We've hit Harbordale three times and knocked every door to make sure we know what is going on there and can activate the end team if needed. Um, we've had the tenants union, let us know about a particular apartment complex. We've gone out there. So as needs are lifted up, we make additional rounds. I anticipate that there could be five rounds of pushing out information. Um, but I just wanted to let folks know this is not a one and done after we've knocked the door, you don't see us again as issues and new resources deploy. We're going back out to get that information out to folks. Um, yesterday and today, some of the work, the street teams are doing is, um, letting folks know, as we knew the debris contractor would be coming online to say, Hey, you know, this is what we're seeing, help us get this organized. Um, and so that messaging is going to change based on the issues we're seeing on the ground. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Joe, uh, who is with COATS compliance and assistance. Thank you. Good morning, council members. Uh, just wanted to give some more information about, um, our efforts with the street teams. So as Ms. Foster mentioned, we deployed first thing on Friday morning and we had, um, 40 employees. So we had them in 20 teams and that comprised staff from our COATS compliance department, not just my investigators, but my administrative staff, our housing, um, staff and our social services staff. So it was really, truly a team effort. Um, and some of the first areas that we deployed to were Coquina Key, um, Clam Bayou, uh, out West in those areas. Um, I planned on talking to the pastor after this, because unfortunately, um, and these things are going to happen. We had hit the area just North of the canal going towards 22nd, but we failed to cover the area to the South of that. I think that was brought to our attention on either Saturday or Sunday. And as soon as we realized that we had two additional teams deployed to that area that day to make sure they were getting those resources. Um, so one thing that I think was unique in this situation, um, was the impact to our renters. Uh, there were multiple apartment complexes where the first floor flooded out and we are now getting, um, numerous emails, uh, because they are all receiving notices, uh, that they have to vacate within seven days. So not only do we target our single family neighborhoods, but we had, um, teams that were going directly to these apartment complexes to make sure that they had the resources that were available to them as well. And we are meeting with community law this afternoon, just to get some more information. We've shared some information with Mr. Kilgore and the tenants union for things that they can push out to, um, tenants that may reach out to them. Um, but it's really been, you know, as everybody knows, it's much different, uh, storm than what we've dealt with. So that's just a little background on what we did. The street teams have our answer questions. If you have any, thank you. And I actually did have, um, uh, one of the street team members knock on my door on Friday afternoon, as I was trying to figure out what happened and, um, what I needed to do. And, um, I was, um, really excited to see them and then really mortified because I had to tell them who I was and I wasn't wearing makeup and my hair was awful. And it was very sweaty because I had no power and I'm like, no pictures, please. I mean, but I could not thank them enough for being out there. And it was just, um, I knew from our communications that they were out there, but to have one of them and they didn't know they were knocking on my door, uh, either. So seeing that was, was really, really helpful. Um, they were able to tell me, they were able to tell me some of what they were seeing at other areas of the Island, um, because I hadn't had an opportunity to go in, um, and, um, see everything yet. So, um, that was, that was good. And another round is good because some people left, some people didn't, some people didn't know the extent of the damage they might need. They might, they may not have thought they needed resources on Friday and now they do. So we've got that. So I'm glad that you're doing more, um, like some frequency on that. And especially in places like Harbordale too. Yeah. And we will continue to do that. As, uh, Ms. Foster mentioned earlier, you know, we are not wearing our normal codes compliance hat right now. Um, we are out fully focused on recovery. Uh, my staff knows that this is the mission for the foreseeable future. And we're going to make sure that as issues get elevated to us, we're back in the impacted areas. We're continuing to circle back because we know some people may just be coming back to their homes and they didn't get the information before we haven't been able to have that conversation. So this is going to be an ongoing effort for our team. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, thank you for all that you're doing and please extend my gratitude to your team. Um, the last thing I'll say is just simply with the Northeast plant, um, we're all learning lessons through this storm. We learn a lesson with every storm and, um, this one is no exception. And I, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that when they say storm surge will be five to eight feet. Uh, your max is seven. Uh, if it's five to eight feet, you probably have to plan for 10. Um, we got to get this fixed. We got it. We got to get a solution going here on that. So that's all I'm going to say. Um, lesson learned, right? And then if Duke would like to give any input, I'll be finished with that. Well, Councilwoman, uh, Driscoll, uh, Driscoll, you bring up, uh, an excellent question. What's the process that utilities were, uh, use to restore service? This is probably fairly standard across all electric industries, but I'll talk to you about what we do here at Duke energy, Florida. And that is first and foremost, we work with all of our, uh, municipalities, both at the County and city levels to understand their critical facilities. And we revise that every single year. And we take that with us to our operational centers and also to our EOCs, the, our employees that we embed in the EOCs, the critical customer list typically includes, uh, uh, facilities that are hospitals, uh, nursing homes, lift stations. Uh, those are the facilities that we attempt to get on first. Those are the critical customer lists that we start with, but we can do things and we do things concurrently. So while we're getting those critical customers on, we're also doing damage assessment. And then we're also, uh, the, the process works by, we try to repair or replace equipment that allows us to get the most customers on first. So for example, that could be a primary, uh, major feeder line, uh, that serves about 2000 people. We can make those repairs that gets a large number of customers on, but it also the way that the system is configured allows us to fix everything that's upstream. Because if we go to a neighborhood that maybe has one transformer off with 12 customers, there's like, if, if the main line isn't working, the power is not going to flow to that customer on that transformer. So there's that sequence from kind of larger, uh, uh, infrastructure to smaller. And I'd also add that often things that we have to repair aren't necessarily in front of the customer's home. The fuse that we may have to fix or transformer may be three blocks away. So we recognize that if people don't see us, they think that we're absent. Um, and, but what I would offer to any members of council and to any staff where we welcome the opportunity to sit down and really go through in detail how that process works, but it is a very, uh, well thought out process for restoration that allows us to get the most customers on first and allows us to repair the system in a way that when we are in neighborhoods with smaller pockets of outages, everything else upstream is fixed so that when we change out that transformer, those customers get bought gone. But if you don't work for an electric utility, you wouldn't really know that. So it's on us to ensure that our customers know that process. Uh, but again, we welcome the opportunity to sit down and talk in more detail, uh, with anyone from the city. So thank you. Do you have, um, a list of special needs customers? We have, uh, what we call our, uh, medical needs customers. Uh, those customers proactively reach out to us and they have to have, uh, physicians, uh, kind of certification, uh, on their needs for electricity. The reality is we always communicate with them and we always encourage them to make sure they have alternative plans because there is no way to guarantee a hundred percent service. So we do have a separate notification for those customers pre-storm to ensure that they've got, uh, as I said, those alternative plans in place to ensure that their health is not compromised. Okay. All right. Thank you. Council Member Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. A lot of what I've had has been said, questions have been answered, but I just want to add my voice to the course of my colleagues who are thanking the city team, city staff, emergency response, uh, first responders, as well as the countless number of community organizations and volunteers and, you know, unsung heroes or, you know, people who've stepped in and pitched in to, to really provide support, not only, you know, in the recovery phase, but in the response and also in some of the preparation work to prepare our residents for the storm. So can't say thank you enough. Um, I'm going to try and be quick with some of these questions. So around the preparation and the evacuation, um, I know there was the, um, evacuation of zone a, and when we talk about the evacuations, I heard it come up with, uh, chief K, um, two things. Can, can you maybe just walk us through the evacuation, like the communication strategy for evacuations? And then how do we address those who chose not to leave? Um, and what type of conversations we can begin to have now around evacuation and post, you know, Haleen? So we'll start with the ordering of the evacuation. So the evacuations are ordered by county. So Pernal's County has jurisdiction to order the mandatory evacuations and the, we as the city, um, work to help enforce and to, um, amplify that. So their messaging, uh, that begin, I believe, um, the morning they ordered it, sorry, I'm looking at my notes, um, of Wednesday, September 25th is when they started pushing out that messaging. So they did it through alert Pinellas. Um, so that's the system that we encourage everyone to be signed up for. So it blasts it out to the phone. Um, and then the media picked it up. So new stations. So we were trying to get that message out, um, through everybody. And then we announced it at our press conferences. Um, to your point that we had a large, I think we don't have exact numbers of who evacuated and who did not. Um, but we had a large population and the evac level a that did not evacuate. I think that's a search and rescue, um, that we did and the different calls, the sheer load of, uh, calls that we received about floodwaters. So I certainly think there's opportunity for conversations, um, internally and with the community for, you know, education touch points and public education on, um, what evacuation is and, and why we do it. Um, and it's not easy for people. I talked to my own grandmother who lives in an evacuation level a, and she told me she was not going to go because they told her before she would, she's going to flood and it's never happened before. So she's fine. And I told her she wasn't, and she was not fine. She flooded and lost both of her cars. Um, and so it's a, you know, it's a frustration point, you know, for me on my side, cause you know, if I can't get my own grandmother, you know, to understand, you know, what the threat is and, and it's just a real challenge. It's a challenge for people because a forecast is just that it's somebody's best guess, right. At what's going to happen. And we operate in the worst case scenario. So, you know, it's possible we could get five to eight feet of water, you know, and that's the, you know, the general worst case scenario. And so we all like to think that it's going to be a better case and we haven't ever flooded like that before. And I think that's, you know, in people's minds, but after these disasters, you always hear, I'll always evacuate for the next one. We heard that during Ian, people didn't evacuate and I'll never stay again, you know? So I think just like we learn, you know, at the city level and we get better and we do our after action report and we work to make sure that certain things don't happen again, cause we've learned from it. You know, we hope that residents also had that conversation, you know, with their own families and, um, you know, with their neighbors and with their loved ones, it says, Hey, you know, we're being told by somebody's best guest. Who's, you know, way smarter than, you know, what I am, you know, me, the best information I have is what the scientists are telling me, you know, and if they're telling me that it could flood this way, then, you know, I have to protect my family. So I think it's, it's conversations on several levels, starting at the residential level up through the city counties. How do we change that messaging to make it more effective and make people truly understand what their individual risks are? Gotcha. And in that same vein, if we could just add to that council member, do we want to talk a little bit how we had the police department out making announcements related to the evacuation? And before chief K comes up, I just wanted to say council member Muhammad, that is one of the issues that definitely keeps me up at night. Um, I know we're going to talk about, um, 80 plus high water rescues, uh, all in the evac zone. Uh, the issue that it's not just a surge, but what the surge can do to public services like the Northeast plant, uh, is important. Uh, and so I think all the deaths in our County were in evac zones, but again, it's through the ability of folks to move. Yeah. That's why I was going next. No. And so we've got to look at that holistically, but that is one of the things I'm really worried about is how we get folks to evacuate. If we've got a storm, God forbid, actually coming towards us, it could be much more impactful to touch on two points. Close the loop. Um, we deploy officers out to those areas and a, and all mobile home parks in the city. There's not many left, but they go around and they'll do the speakers. So everybody will hear it, whether it falls on deaf ears. Um, we actually pushed that out this time to make sure to put it on social media. We hit a number of the different neighborhoods. We probably didn't hit all of them because it's difficult to hit every little nook, but it's just one more way to try to make sure that they see the presence out there. They're over the loudspeakers trying to say this evacuation level a, I did receive a number of calls and can we make people leave? We can't. Um, we've talked a lot about property destruction. Our city was very lucky. Uh, unfortunately we had one death. Uh, we had a second death that was attributed to a suicide during the storm, but for the most part, most of the damage and loss of death was on the barrier beaches. So, but we try to find different ways to be able to kind of message that traditionally the old school way of having the officers go back out to those neighborhoods, hit as many of those roadways as possible, saying it over. You are an evacuation level a, you will, you need to leave. We don't, we don't really say like we give them a whole script and saying that you need to leave. It's not like giving them a choice, but unfortunately with the number of the rescue calls, a number of people just didn't listen. Thank you, Gene. And then the other question that I have is after the order is given to evacuate, are there resources available for those who don't have the ability to evacuate transportation? Like if you tell me, you know, I got to move a family of four in 24 hours, if I don't have a place to go, if I don't have a car, if I don't have, you know, adequate supplies, like what type of support or resources do we have as a city or as a county for those who say, you know what, I'm willing to go, but I just don't know where I'm going, how I'm going to get there and just support for those who are in order to evacuate. I think there's a couple of different approaches to your answer. One is we work very closely with the county to make sure there's no barriers to make so that you can't evacuate. So whether it's, you know, shelters are open across county and we tell people, you know, it's your life boat, not the cruise ship, right? A shelter shouldn't be plan A necessarily, but it is your safe haven. So there's always shelters available, you know, that provide food, water for folks. So if there's no other option, there's public shelters, there's pet friendly shelters, there's special need shelters. If you need a ride to a shelter, you know, and we can work on the communication better, but there's numbers that were listed for the county information center to help people connect to rides. PSTA was running for free. Fire department was picking up special needs folks and bringing them on a bus. Not having transportation is in itself considered a special need. So folks are registered or encouraged to register for special needs program. And we can also transport people to general shelters if they don't have a special need other than they've lacked transportation. I think it's really important, you know, when people get that evacuation order and, you know, they don't know how, you know, where they're going to go or how they're going to get there. That's a conversation that we really want people to have blue sky, you know, before June 1st starts. We've made a really big push in my office to try to get out to the neighborhood associations, to the senior centers, to, you know, different condo associations to talk about that. What is your risk and what is your plan going to be so that if, and when it happens and evac a is told to go, you're not starting at square one to say, well, I don't know how I'm going to go. I don't have any supplies. So it, you know, it's really easy to, you know, Monday morning quarterback it all day long. But again, it's those lessons learned that we can all take now. And what are we going to do to make sure next time? I think Wisconsin or Hannah would said it's not over yet. You know, it's November 30th. We still have, you know, the blobs, right. That we're watching now. Typically September, October is a busy time for the Gulf of Mexico. It's not over. So, you know, for those who got caught and didn't have a plan and didn't feel prepared to leave their home, now's the time to look at that. And what do you know now that you wish you would have known then that's going to help you be more successful next time? So I think it's a learning opportunity, but again, for everyone and even us at the local government level is how we can better facilitate that decision to go and kind of remove those barriers for people who feel that they can't go because kids or pets or whatever the case might be. I believe the county opened six shelters. We had two in the city, John Hopkins and Gibbs. They have a capacity of 3,200. I think the max we hit was about 850. So there's plenty of capacity at those areas. Obviously there's gonna be challenges for people and then maybe they don't want to go there, but we did have substantial capacity that was open for those two locations. Thank you. Shifting gears a little bit, so you have neighborhoods that were in order to evacuate and then we have neighborhoods that like, you know, Mr. Vincent and those in like Twan Bayou and Twin Brooks who just haven't seen this type of flooding. What's the message now to people who felt comfortable that, you know, I'm not in a flood area and I don't have to, you know, pack up and, you know, I'm going to hunker down. What, how should we be thinking about that now as areas that have never experienced this before and we're seeing this happen. That's, that's been a common theme when I talk to people is like, I've never had this. We've never, never, but we can't say that again now. So what's the message to people who haven't experienced this before? Our risk is, is a changing risk. We're seeing storms more often, stronger, flooding in places that haven't typically flooded. We've had, you know, I feel like a couple different 100 year events already this year. So it's, we're, we're going to have to look at it and adapt. It's adapting our planning and our messaging. And yeah, I don't know that there's an easy answer for it. I don't know if anyone. I hear that. I guess maybe one of the things is like, do we have newly identified areas now where we have, okay, we know that these areas flood now with the series of recent events, are we seeing other areas that are consistently flooding in these events? And then what type of communication are we having with the residents in those areas? Council member Claude Tankersley, Public Works Administrator. I can speak briefly to that. The areas that we've seen flooded during the three storms we've had this summer, all match up with areas that our stormwater master plan suggests would flood in a 100 year storm. So while we all acknowledge that these areas might not have flooded within the last 20, 30, 50 years, we, we, we have identified that they are at risk. Gotcha. Thank you for that, Clarence. Communication around response. So I know a lot of the updates were on social media. Um, and that was great. It was really helpful. Um, how does the city provide more localized updates, particularly for residents who don't have power, um, internet or reliable phone service? What, how, how are we getting, I heard Administrator Foster mentioned street teams, but what are some of the other considerations for people who may not have power to watch TV or phone service to be able to access it, you know, internet or anything? So street teams, like you mentioned, and then in street teams really came about in this 2017 after Irma, when we had those large scale, yeah, the child's part of the large scale power outages. So we were really having trouble communicate, uh, communicating with the residents. So that was, I think when street teams really became, you know, uh, uh, more organized, um, process. Um, I see Joe, um, can speak to them, but it's also all of our city facilities. So I think, you know, when in doubt, if you're not getting information, making your way to a rec center or a library, we tend to push as much information out, um, to those centers as well as a communication point. Yeah. I would just say, I think street teams is the, is the main way we get that out there. The information that we're pushing out has the information for the cooling stations. That way, you know, they can go there and all the resources that we're handing out as a street team, we're stockpiling those there as well. So if residents come in, they can get that same information. Thank you, Joe. And, and is there enough, and I mean, this is all with Thursday morning quarterback and, um, to have that information in advance so that, because that was a part of the work that we talked about in Child's Park was getting this information beforehand so that you don't have to make your way to a rec center. Like, you know, this is going to be a place. This will be a hub. This will be, you know, these are things that will be identified in June as opposed to September. Yes. It's also difficult because we don't know damage that could be available and we don't want, you know, it's hard to identify those places beforehand because you don't know what the damage is going to be and you don't want to send people into damage. So I, I hear that. Yeah. I hear that. Um, and I'll go into access to resources now. This is another one. I'm hearing from residents who are concerned about, uh, repairs, sheisty, you know, people's. So do we have a list of like vetted contractors or preferred providers that we can give to, to residents like during these recovery periods so that people know, like the, this is a list of people, or this is how you qualify whether or not this person would be able to assist you with your recovery. So Pinellas County has a list of, uh, uh, contractors that are approved. Um, I'll double the check to see if we, we could mirror that list. Um, we're, we're going to be making an announcement, um, coming shortly, um, about permitting, um, that we're going to waive fees related to, uh, uh, properties that need to be demolished or rehab due to, um, hurricane damage. But part of the reason why we're doing that is we want to take away any barrier for someone to pull a permit. Um, if somebody says I can do this faster and I can do it cheaper and you don't have to pull a permit, you should really avoid that. It's probably not going to end well. Um, but I will work on, on that to see if we can, uh, push out a list for a list of all approved contracts to have it. So people know, you know, who they can contract with, if they have resources to hire, particularly like electricians. I know that was one of the things people, you know, wanting to go in and turn their electricity back on, but you know, not being comfortable without having an inspection done. So just like a list of, you know, resources that are available for contractors would be helpful. Absolutely. Um, thank you. And then now talking about debris removal, um, and restoration, um, thank you for those updates from Duke and Mike as well. Just a simple request. Would you mind publishing the explanation of the process for how you prioritize neighborhoods? Because that is, you know, a dominant narrative. And so just saying, okay, here's how we decide what neighborhoods. And I'm like really falling in love with these short videos, these one minute explainer videos to say, this is how we decide. So that thing that was just described, so people can really have the information and then, you know, extrapolate from there, how we want to do it. But, and I, and I just want to, um, clear up some confusion. So we, our plan, we will be fully mobilized on the seventh, as we've said from the day after the storm. Um, our vendor has been able to provide trucks, uh, sooner than we had anticipated. So again, we were happy to announce that they're rolling today. What I said was, um, we are hitting the areas that Joe and Amy saw the most damaged today. Um, Coquina Key being one of those, we have trucks rolling in Coquina Key right now. Um, because we have other storms, other rain events that could potentially be coming. We want to get, we want to get kind of our bang for our buck. But as I promised, uh, as I stood here last time, we will have trucks, we'll have assets in every one of your districts. And that's how we manage the process. So what we do is we make sure that we have a response in each one of your districts. As those areas get closed out, we then relocate back to the areas that have more need. As you can imagine being in areas where we have, um, uh, an opportunity to be more efficient and more effective. That's where we're able to kind of move the quickest. Um, but that's, that's how it's set up. And that's how we, we, um, that's how we roll out the debris removal. Thank you, thank you, Mike. And I, and I remember, um, maybe a few years back when we were doing some debris removal, there were like updates on areas that were covered. Would we, can we expect that same type of communication so that we know, okay, we've covered this area, this district, almost like outage maps. We're working with our vendor right now on that, um, to see what options are available. Um, but I think we would all agree that I'd like to have them out in the field as much as possible. So, um, if we find that that's going to delay the process at all, then we would, we would punt on that. Um, and then I get a report weekly. Um, and I believe that I shared that with most of you during our last storms as to the amount of debris that's being picked up, just kind of give you an idea of what's going on out in the street. Um, and so we would continue that process as well. Awesome. Thank you. And then the last thing that I have, um, is around the community engagement and the volunteer efforts. Um, and maybe I could just schedule some time with Administrator Foster, because I'd like to see how we can contribute to those efforts. But I wanted to know if there, um, is a centralized space right now for people who want to volunteer, um, or have resources, like how are we coordinating that? Because I've gotten several people who have said, you know, I'm good. I want to help. And they're looking to be routed into areas of need. Is there some? So Councilman Muhammad, we actually do not have a way to coordinate, um, while we're still actively running all of our other emergency operations. As I mentioned previously, Shelley Luz and David Thompson have been taking point on that. There is a form on our website. They are connecting people as needed. Kristen, Maury, and I are working through ways that, um, employees can help, um, employees and average citizens. But the real answer, there is a VOAD call. Um, and I always forget what VOAD stands for. Um, the county is our emergency management team. Um, and so they coordinate those volunteer efforts and they have asked that people use, um, volunteer Florida. And, and so we are directing people there because they have the resources to do that. Um, but again, at the neighborhood level, Susie's team is coordinating some, and then Shelley and David are working with folks that come in, um, through the volunteer form on our, our website. But for large scale efforts, I would really direct people to, um, the resources that the county has stood up. Absolutely. Thank you. And just as a final note on that, as we do our Thursday morning quarterback, maybe looking at how we can put some of those things in place going forward so that we can announce, you know, after the storm, if you'd like to volunteer, here's a way that you can do that. So people know how they can tap in because we do have an amazing city, uh, lots of amazing people who were willing to, you know, just lay it all on the line and offer themselves up for service. And so we want to activate as many people as we can. I heard some other people who were willing to volunteer as part of like the street team. So if you're not getting the coverage with those 20 teams, there are people who are willing to help with that effort. And so it's just a lot of people who are willing to contribute in multiple ways. And so having some type of hub or centralized location, and with that, I thank you again. And thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I'm going to be brief. I'm sure everyone's eager to get back to work, um, doing everything we can for our city. Uh, first, I just want to say thank you so much, uh, to everyone who's been out helping, particularly, uh, all of the city employees. Uh, it's been a huge effort and I've seen it, uh, firsthand how much everyone's, uh, putting in right now. Um, I'm going to be brief. I really only had one question, which council member Muhammad just covered. Uh, I am fortunate to live in an area that, uh, did not get as severely impacted. And I know a lot of people who are interested in volunteering. I had been directing them to volunteer Florida. Um, that's what had been given to me, uh, through other resources. I hear that that's probably the best place to keep directing people. Um, I was going to ask that question, uh, and, uh, but I guess I have the information now. And then I'll say like, I have a lot of things that, uh, have been communicating, communicated to me, uh, feedback that I think would be really helpful to the administration and staff going forward, but I will hold all of that until a week or so goes by because I know we're still in the midst of things right now, but just thank you so much, everyone for everything you've been doing. I understand it's been a big, massive task and, uh, you know, it hasn't gone perfectly, obviously, but I really believe everyone here is doing the best they can, uh, in a way that, um, you know, you don't see, uh, all the time or you don't, uh, necessarily feel all the time and I can see it and I can feel it here. And so I really appreciate it. So I'll leave it there. And I look forward to a lot of discussions on this topic in the future. Thanks. Vice chair Gerdes. Thank you, madam chair. Uh, I'll also be very brief. Um, yeah, I just, I would echo all the thank yous. Um, I know how I feel both physically and mentally. And then I think about our employees and the residents that are affected and how I feel is probably pales in comparison. And, uh, to be honest with you, that breaks my heart. Um, so just a big thank you to all the teams. I also want to, uh, thank administration and, and, uh, our staff here at, in the city council office for the communication. Um, it, I, I really think the communication has been phenomenal. Um, it has been helpful, uh, mayor you and your team coming over to the West side on Saturday was greatly impactful. And so I'm just very thankful for, uh, and I know, you know, we all are going through it in our own ways, but just very, very, very thankful, uh, for all the work that our team has done and continues to do. And I know that it's that that's going to last for a while. Um, I also want to thank Duke Duke's communication, Jeff, through your office, the communication has been great, uh, with some of the issues. We had a couple of schools that have boarding students needing, uh, needing power. And so, um, I just appreciate the communication and being able to communicate with them that that means the world to them. Um, and so I just, again, appreciate, it's not always going to be the answer they want, but communicating I think is the most important part. And then, uh, I just want to thank all my colleagues for, I know all the work that they're doing. Um, again, going back to, I know how I feel. So, um, and the West side is new to this and I can't imagine what some of your districts go through, uh, multiple times a year because I am beat right now. Uh, and so, uh, just very thankful for all the work that you guys are doing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. And again, um, you know, and I know I singled out Amber, um, because we don't have the luxury of if we're, we're stuck, we're stuck, but Amber and her staff don't have that option of being stuck. And there are some things that we have, um, as council members, we're getting information and communication to us, but it has to come from somewhere. And that would be the mere staff that's giving us that information, which means you're still working and you're working hard. So from the mayor on down, from our stormwater, all of our city staff, they still have the issues. And I recognize that. And I think all of my colleagues recognize that. So please know, um, that the questions and the comments, um, or for finding a way to do better again, as pastor Vincent said, there is no way you plan for anything like this. There is absolutely no way you plan, which is why I really want us to continue this conversation because in order for us to do better, we have to know better. And some of the questions that you've been asked, you don't have answers to right now. So for all of the staff and one of the encouraging things throughout this entire storm for me, as I drive neighborhoods is seeing our neighbors helping each other. That was phenomenal. What I would have liked to have seen as they're putting things out on the curve is for them knowing how to sort that stuff prior to, because now they have to go back and go through all of that, that they put on the, on the curve and now separate them categorically that we heard this morning. So I think that's going to be a headache for those that had to get issues, um, with help in the first place. So now they're going to have to have someone else to come back and help them put those things in order. Um, now that, you know, we've been through this, some of the same questions that were asked about the dumpsters. Why can't we have dumpsters? Those things I think need to be included, um, in our information going forward. Um, I would love to see, and I made a couple of notes. Um, I would love to see how we plan because this was new. So some of the areas that were here for the first time, I would hate that they will be last because they never experienced this before. Cause when I see whole streets, I went down whole streets in that clan, clan by you area, right behind Bethel, Mr. Polovan. And I'm talking to the whole, every neighborhood, every neighborhood, piles of furniture and things that are out there. They've never experienced that before. So I would hate for them to be last. I would hate for them to be last. Um, and I stated before council members would love to help, you know, Administrator Foster made it very clear that the staff she has, there's nobody else that's just going to jump up and help. We're utilizing existing staff. Number one, who's also gone through the same thing. Number two, we're expecting to try to address some of the same day-to-day issues. And number three, be responsive to our questions. That's, I think that's a big pill to swallow. And I think that is a huge ask of that same staff. And I've asked over and over again, have your staff had the opportunity to take their own mental, their own mental break in order to service our communities? Because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else. That mental health check is real. It is real. And I want to make sure that our staff gets that same opportunity and that we allow you to do that. Um, what I would also like for administration to ponder, once you've got an opportunity to take a break, assess where we are, is to find out what resources you will need to deploy in case something like this happens, because that did strike home with me when Administrator Foster said, these are the same people doing the same thing that we budgeted for, you know, every year. And now all of a sudden we've had this once in a lifetime, or I'm going to claim it once in a lifetime occurrence. How could we better prepare for staffing? Because we had to contract out for this and contract out for that. How could we better prepare for staffing to bring in for such an occurrence as this? Because we're asking people to go door to door. These are the same people that come to work Monday through Friday to not only now go door to door to all of our homes. Um, it's a big gasp. And I realized that, you know, and as council members, we realized that because we realized what our struggles were personally, professionally, and trying to make sure that we serve our constituents. So first request that mental break, assess your mental health administration. I need you to do that. Council members, y'all do the same thing. You have to assess your mental health. And we will continue to have this conversations because it's too large and too important and too vital not to. So with that, I'm going to, unless I see no further requests to speak, any other questions, uh, this conversation has gone, um, quite a bit and we do have some other, but I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to speak, um, on this. Yeah. Yeah. Cause this, I have an hour and 45 minutes. So again, um, thank you administration for being prepared to answer those questions. Thank you, um, for your thoroughness in this and, you know, you were trying to handle day to day and prepare for today's meeting. So, you know, I want to appreciate you for that. And thank you council members for also taking the concerns of your constituents and bringing them here today to make sure that, um, we address these questions early on. And I look forward to, uh, follow up with more details so that we can better, um, as I said, as a city, um, prepare ourselves for something that I'm praying is a once in a lifetime occurrence. I'm praying. Okay. Seeing enough further requests to speak. Thank you so much. So we're going to now go ahead and move on to F6. We are St. Pete, one resolution that will be presented by Tom Green and Administrator Foster. Good morning again, chair and city council. I think, um, as much of city council spoke this morning, uh, uh, chair, you mentioned neighbors helping neighbors and other members talked about how we were going to be resilient and we're going to recover. I know we were feeling down right now, but we're, we are, I think all of us in this room are very bullish on, on our city going forward. Um, and to that point, um, you have a resolution, uh, on your desk or on the dais this morning that would authorize a supplemental appropriation in the amount of $200,000, um, to create the, we are St. Pete fund to be administered by, um, our, our partner at the Pinellas community foundation. The goal of this obviously is to provide the seed resources to go and ask neighbors to help neighbors and raise additional resources to bring to bear, to help with the recovery of, of our community and our residents, small businesses, as well as city employees. So it's a, the, the resolution is, is quite candidly, very simple and straightforward. We're asking for $200,000 from the unappropriated fund balance of the general fund. Um, that will be used to, um, offset the cost of the administration, the administrative costs of community, um, uh, Pinellas community foundation. Um, and additionally, uh, resources would be available as, like I said, the seed to start, uh, the real fundraising efforts, uh, throughout our community. A lot of the details, uh, administrator Foster, and, and we are working through a lot of the details and we will, we will have an agreement on the not too distant future, but, uh, this is the resolution this morning that we seek for council to approve. And we certainly can respond to any questions that you might have. Thank you. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you. And, and thank you, Tom, for, uh, bringing this administration for going forward on this. I have a question because, um, in terms of the, uh, 200,000, a hundred thousand is going for administration. How do you come to determine the amount that's necessary for, for that? Um, I understand there'll be more money coming in, but you know, there is typically a certain amount that you have to allocate and how is that determined? So, um, as I mentioned earlier, we're doing this in, in real time without all the details figured out. That's how emergency management works. So we do not know yet what the cost to take in those applications and push out resources will be. I believe it will be well under a hundred thousand dollars. Um, but based on working on other projects with the Pinellas Community Foundation and knowing what staff and benefits cost, um, we felt like being able to say up to a hundred thousand dollars to administer the fund would be needed. If you, um, can remember COVID cares, there were hundreds of people hired at two on one in the County and through Tetra tech and others that helped process this assistance. Um, and we felt like a hundred thousand dollars was a reasonable, um, cost in order to make sure there's somebody who can answer the phones, process the checks, um, look at the applications, understand, uh, what's needed, but we do not have that full cost yet, which is why you do not have a contract to review. Um, we are very thankful to the Pinellas Community Foundation for saying, yes, we'll stand this up and start accepting funds. And we'll figure out the details with you later. Um, Jess Rydell, who, um, many of you know, work on our ARPA American Rescue Plan, um, ACT investments, as well as our opioid settlement investments. She, uh, will be the one working directly with the Pinellas Community Foundation to, um, help deploy these funds. We will also be working with our partners who put dollars into the fund. So Foundation for Healthy St. Pete may have specific ideas about how they want those resources deployed. Um, we'll be working with them, um, and, and others, the Rays and Gary, um, Hess and Trevor Burgess. So we're excited to be able to stand something up in less than 24 hours from the time we started having the conversation, but all of those details are yet to be worked out. We have a meeting this afternoon with the Pinellas Community Foundation to start to have some of those conversations. And thank you, Amy. I appreciate that. You know, whenever there are funds like that, just like when we donate to a nonprofit, people are always looking where the money's going and whether or not it's being taken over in administrative costs versus out there in non-administrative costs. So it's kind of a transparency thing for people to understand, uh, where that money's going. And then hopefully we do have a report obviously later on in terms of what our actual costs and why. And, and, and I think just, that's very important when you start a fund like this. So thank you for, for your information. Yep. Sorry. Thank you. Just a technical question, Tom. So we haven't approved the FY25 budget. Uh, uh, so is this coming out of FY24, FY25? Why? And the other question is, why didn't we go to the contingency fund? So a council member, that is a really, really good question. Um, so by virtue of the state of emergency that the, um, um, the governor issued for the state and included Pinellas County, um, you know, we functionally were allowed to continue under that order and the department of revenue offered or gave us specific instructions, but to your point, to the question, it's, it's kind of a, a strange time, right? We're spending resources and effectively amending the FY25 budget because we're in fiscal 25 and council hasn't even adopted it yet. So it is kind of, um, uh, a little bit of no man's land, so to speak. Uh, but with the disaster, I think we were, I think, uh, I was kind of joking around offhandly saying, you know, the, the, the governor and the DOR waved their magic wand to allow us to continue to operate. But, um, and I don't know if legal has any, um, uh, guidance on that, but it is a little bit of a, a strange time that, but, but, and to answer your, your question, we went to the general fund, um, unappropriated fund balance because we have a fairly healthy fund balance. Um, and because if we did the contingency, we would have gotten into the very question you're asking, are we using $24 or $25? And really ultimately at the end of the day, the expenditure from the unappropriated fund balance, it doesn't matter which fiscal period it happens in. Um, and we, it, it, it's treated the same way, so to speak. Okay, good. I just want to emphasize I'm supportive. Just had technical question. Legal. Did you want to try to tackle that? Yeah, I, I think council member, and I agree with Tom a lot, but this is a, when the budget is in flux like this and you haven't, uh, approved it, my interpretation though, I think the way that the resolution is structured is that this will, this will really kick in. You'll approve the resolution today. You approve, assuming that you approve the budget ordinances today. I view this as part of that budget. Um, and, and then after that, obviously no funds are being actually dispersed until the agreement is in place. And by, by that point, um, you'll certainly be under, uh, the new budget. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Having a motion, uh, and an approval of F6. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted. Can you please tally and announce? I'm chair motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Floyd being absent. Okay. Thank you. And we are going to go ahead and move into our public hearing that was supposed to begin at 9 30 AM. And just for, for my easy understanding when count colleagues, when you finish, please at least say thank you, madam chair. So I'll know cause I'm trying to guess whether or not you're done or not. Um, and it's not a request of arrogance, but just helping me procedurally to know that you're done. Um, assistant chief attorney, city attorney, Janine Williams is going to present E1, E2, and E3. Uh, can we vote on all three at the same time since they're being presented or no, we're going to vote on them separately. Okay. All at the same time. Okay. And if you don't have any questions, I'd presentation for you today. Okay. Okay. Well motion. I'm going to read the titles for all these two. Sorry about that. Ordinance number five, 97 H in the ordinance repealing division eight of article five, section two dash two, six, eight through two dash two, seven, zero of the city code relating to major construction project requirements for employing disadvantaged workers and providing an effective date. Ordinance number five, 98 H in ordinance repealing division seven of article five sections, two dash two, six, one through two dash two, six, four of the city code relating to major construction project and providing an effective date. Ordinance number five, 99 dash eight in ordinance repealing section two dash two, seven, seven of article five, division nine of the city code relating to responsible wage for a certain construction contracts amending section two dash two, seven, five of article five division nine of the city code to remove provisions relating to responsible wage for certain construction contracts and providing an effective date. And we do not have any cards for either. Move approval E1. Second. Okay. Now that we have a motion and a second on E1, can you please click at the machine for voting? Council members cast your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes for E1? Madam Chair, motion to approve of gen nine of E1 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Floyd being absent. Move approval V2. Second. Now that we have a motion and a second for E2, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item E2 passes unanimously with council members Floyd and Driscoll being absent. Thank you. Move approval E3. Second. Now that we have a motion and a second for E3, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item E3 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Floyd being absent. Thank you. Now we'll move on to an ordinance approving the vacation of two partial right-of-ways on the north side of 3rd Avenue South for the property located at 3200 1st Avenue South. And joining us is our planner two, Ms. Cheryl Bregalio. How are you? I'm well. Good morning. It's going to read the title. Thank you. Ordinance number 1167V, an ordinance for approving the vacation of two partial right-of-ways on the north side of 3rd Avenue South for the property generally located at 3200 1st Avenue South, setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date. And we do not have any cards. I have a presentation. Should you want to? I'm going to ask, do we need a presentation? I'd like to see the presentation. Okay. Presentation. Uh, the ordinance is for, a vacation of right-of-way of two partial street right-of-way on the north side of 3rd Ave South located at 3200 1st Ave South in the corridor commercial suburban zoning district. The rights of way to be vacated do not affect sidewalk or paved roadway and are 960 square feet each. The rights of way are remnants from vacated 32nd and 33rd Street South, which previously extended northward into the property. In the 1960s, when those streets were still intact, three 16 foot wide drainage easements were dedicated along the full length of the southern side of the block. You can see them in the dashed line on the image. The easements contain potable water and stormwater utilities. The easements did not include the then existing rights of way. When the North South Street rights of way were later vacated, the 16 foot portions of right-of-way in line with the utility easements were retained to reserve the city's access to utilities in that area. This was likely a simpler solution at the time than requiring the dedication of new easements in the vacated areas. The vacations are proposed to facilitate an approved site plan, including improvement of the YMCA and construction of a five-story building with 330 dwelling units, multiple one in three-story buildings with 32,000 square feet of commercial space and 50 dwelling units, and a six-story 600 space parking garage. The eastern segment of right-of-way conflicts with the location of a proposed building and transformers. The western segment conflicts with the location of a required 10-foot green yard between proposed parking spaces and the property line. In the eastern portion of the site, potable water and stormwater utilities are to be relocated, and the 16-foot easements in this area are proposed to be vacated administratively. This is just an enlarged view of the site plan and the areas to be vacated. This is a photo toward the eastern area to be vacated and a view toward the western area to be vacated. So there were no objections from city departments. Engineering has no objection provided that utilities in the areas to be vacated are relocated or an easement is retained over those utilities if they are to remain. Water resources has a similar qualification. The fire marshal has requested a three-foot clear easement behind the fire hydrant located in front of the western right-of-way segment, and Duke Energy has objected because they have facilities in the right-of-way and the applicant needs to obtain a no-objection letter from Duke Energy as a condition of approval. There were no comments from the public. So the vacation request was heard by the DRC, and they approved, they recommended unanimously that the vacation ordinance be adopted. The related site plan application was approved by DRC, and there were no comments from the public at, after, or during the hearing. So city staff continues to recommend approval of the vacation with these conditions of approval. Again, dedication of an easement by the applicant for the utilities that are to remain in the area, and an easement around the fire hydrant, a letter of no objection from Duke, and the other are standard timing conditions. And that's the end of my presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no further requests to speak for E4, did we have a motion in the second? Okay. Can they read the, open the machine for voting, please? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce your votes? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item E4 passes unanimously, the council members Driscoll and Floyd being absent. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and move to our reports before we take a 30-minute break. And I do think that this is Councilmember Montaneri's item that he brought for USF St. Petersburg update, and joining us is Chancellor Christian Hardigree. But I'm going to turn the mic over to Councilmember Mohamed, Councilmember Montaneri, to introduce the presentation, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, when I put this new business item in, it was, well, before this storm. And just based on what we have going on in the city, I know Chancellor Hardigree is going to give us an update on the university. You know, being that we are the fifth largest city in the state and USF is just such an important, USF St. Petersburg is such an important part to our city. I always want to have a update of what's going on with USF current status and where the university is going. So I'll turn it over to Chancellor Hardigree. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon. And especially given what happened with the hurricane. And I will say very much personally and professionally, I've been here since my third year. This is our fifth hurricane. I think that my husband may be related to Amber's grandmother because he did not evacuate. I was out of state as we grew closer and returned. I was with our ride out crew on the campus throughout. And even Thursday evening received a call from my middle son who said something to the effect of questioning his dad's competency for handling the emergency and fearing for his life. So, and vice chair, we're over in your district over in the jungle. And so I know that this has been just horrific for our community. It's actually been very horrific for our campus. 85% of the campus was underwater at some point. We have three buildings that had significant intrusion. Piano Man, which of course was donated to the campus and has a long history here. Our special services building and the one building. The two of those, the special services building and the one building are located on First Street. And there was a significant amount of flooding that occurred there. And so we're in the process of evaluating those facilities. Those buildings primarily house offices as opposed to classrooms. And so we've been able to relocate those. One of those units is our family study center, which looks at brain health and children zero to five and help support families, particularly in vulnerable and marginalized populations in terms of co-parenting and parenting for child development. And so we have currently moved those into the former USF credit union space that's adjacent to the bookstore. In the meantime, the credit union had moved to our student center to just better serve our students in terms of locale and connection with them. I do, similar to many of the accolades that I've heard you give for our city staff and all of the incredible teams that have pulled together. I want to give a shout out to the valiant efforts for our campus. Our university police department did an amazing job under chief Hendry. Kevin Sheehy, who I recently recruited from Pittsburgh to come down here and be my vice chancellor for administration and finance, did an amazing job with a lot of golly gee shucks. We don't deal with this in Pittsburgh. We also had a new emergency manager, Kevin Sullivan. I've been joking that I'm only going to hire Kevin's because Kevin's did an incredible job. And then I also want to commend Karen Neesmith, who is our director of community relations. We, once we had power restored and were able to safely return people to the campus, we opened the university student center for our communities as a cooling station, a place to charge phones, cool off, get some food, things like that. And she led that. We also opened our fitness centers for our faculty and staff. This was before we had full power restoration, but in a building that we could accommodate them just for being able to shower. Currently, we have about 20 faculty and staff who are essentially total losses in terms of their personal effects. And we're communicating with our students. We have about 10 students who are either under major or severe damage to their homes and their property. And so we're working to try to provide for them. To the concerns about mental health that were brought up earlier, we recently added a comfort dog to the campus, Snowbird. This was through the former Southeastern Guide Dogs, now Dogs, Inc. And Snowbird was in our ride-out center to provide support. We even had some of the St. Pete officers come by. The most interesting call I heard of the evening was, there are alligators in my front lawn. Could you please come get them? And so just so you're aware that our police respond, not just to the traditional evacuation elements, but to some very creative ones as well. We are working with Florida Institute of Oceanography. We have three research vessels that are on our campus, and we're looking to utilize those as temporary housing for some of our impacted faculty and staff, where appropriate, just to try to be creative. As you discussed earlier, there's not a lot of hotel or other options that are available right now. And so it reminds me particularly, and very personally, of the strength and the resiliency that defines this community. And you've heard me say before, I've lived in a number of different places and places that love their universities. This community is different. This community is special. And I'm really, really struck by that. Since the presentation's up, with your permission, I will go through that somewhat quickly. I realized this was prepared in advance of today's topic. And so if that is warranted, I'm happy to go forward. Yes. Okay. Nodding. So, all right. Next slide, please. You have a clicker. Oh, I have a clicker? Goodness, help us all. All right. So our embedded video does not appear to be working. So it's, it's on this one. We're going to, we're going to skip the video then. So we'll start with just our AAU recognition, the American Association of Universities. And for context, folks, there are over 4,100 colleges and universities, 146 are research one institutions and R1. That's the type of innovation and discovery they engage in. We have been one of those. There's 71 members of AAU. And so when you think of those over 4,100 institutions, that really puts us in an amazing place. And AAU is really important because 63% of federal research dollars go to AAU institutions. So it allows us to bring in more resources to engage in that innovation and discovery for our community. When we look at our rankings and folks, we don't, we don't chase rankings. Rankings really are indicative of somebody recognizing the incredible and hard work. This is our sixth year straight being a top 50 public institution. And what I was really proud of was number 22 nationally for social mobility. We have this past year crested over $692 million in total research funding expenditures. That makes us top 15 among public research institutions for new patents in the past 11 years. Again, that is incredibly impactful for our community. In particular, for the St. Pete campus, our tip lab, that is the trafficking in persons risk to resilience that's there to help eradicate human trafficking. Our family study center, as I mentioned earlier, that does so much amazing work with our community for the brain and health development of zero to five-year-olds. And Bernali Dixon, actually, this is a faculty member in biology who's worked with students. She's developed an app that allows crowdsourcing information on flooding in the event of a disaster. And so we've been able to utilize that, which seems very timely given, given what we've been seeing. Everybody always asks about our enrollment. And this was one of our largest years. We actually were up 12% over last year. There was a little shift in how we enrolled for the campus. As you'll notice, the first column is one USF. That's all three of our campuses, or the first three rows. The next three rows are for the St. Pete campus in particular. And so we had a larger enrollment for summer. And this really was an opportunity to bring in students who may not have been in the same GPA or SAT, but are still members of our community who wanted to be able to get into USF. That doesn't count in some of those metrics that relates to our funding. And so we now know that this is a really great way to bring students in. If you look at the column on the right in 2023, you'll see there were 394 students in fall, whereas we only had 179 this fall. So that may seem a little wonky. But when you look at the summer, we had almost three times the number of students in our summer, which is really phenomenal. We had 177% increase in our black students, a 64% increase in our Hispanic students, and a 40% increase in our Asian students for the campus. And so we're really proud of the work that's being done. All of our admissions is done through our Tampa campus. And so we work hand in hand, we expect a similar influx for next next year that our summer will be a larger number of students than than our fall offerings. When we think of our Office of Veteran Success, you know, when I first came to USF St. Pete, we had about 400 students that had been identified as veteran or military connected. Right now, it's about 1100. And so when you think about the number of students that we house at our campus, that's almost one in four students who is veteran or military connected. And this year, we were incredibly fortunate through the legislature, the university as a whole, one USF, got $10 million to support that 6 million is going to go to renovating new space for our Office of Veteran Success. Ironically, one of those buildings that got flooded was the building we had earmarked for that. And so now if we're going to have a, if the building is totaled, which we're still waiting to find out, then we're going to have to be determining how we can utilize these funds and how we can seek additional funds in order to build something that meets current code so we can avoid the flooding in the future. The historic gas plant. I don't know how many of you ever seen the movie Draft Day. Kevin Costner. It's about the GM of the Cleveland Browns. I'm going to set it up in case you haven't seen it. It's the day of the draft. It starts off with him writing something on a post-it and sticking in his pocket. There's a lot of drama going on. It's a movie worth your weekend once things settle down. But at the end, when he pulls the post-it out, it says no matter what, and has a name. I won't ruin it for you if you haven't seen it. But I do think about what is the no matter what. The historic gas plant for USF St. Pete is a no matter what. No matter what, we need to be a part. We need to have a presence in the historic gas plant. No matter what, it has to meet the commitment to our population, to our history. It has to have a connection. No matter what, it has to help fuel workforce development. And for me as a campus, I need more housing. We had 240 students on our wait list this year. We've had over 100 in the past two years. We had initiated a housing feasibility study. And so no matter what, we need more housing. And to be able to be connected in this space is really important. So we've been talking with the Rays Hines group about whether there's an opportunity to donate some parcel of land for us to build upon that in order to hit our no matter what. And we've talked about the combination of business and journalism, communication, our digital arts, hospitality, sport management, sport broadcasting, etc. So there are some really great opportunities here. And we're looking forward to seeing what we can develop as we keep moving forward. Our Department of Journalism and Digital Communication has a phenomenal connection with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. And of course, you know, the Poynter Institute has a global reputation for training some of the world's best journalists. We're producing a podcast together. It's called Florida In Depth. It's on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon should you find you need something to listen to while you're driving to and from places. We're working together in our neighborhood news bureau. And this is really a unique opportunity for our students to get real life experience in the area of journalism. We have a new remote operated vehicle, the Taurus. There's no coincidence that the Taurus means bull, and we are bulls. So the Taurus actually has a two and a half mile cable. And so it can be deployed through the center of the Western Flyer, and deployed to depths that we have not explored. And this gives an opportunity to learn so much more about our oceans, the types of aquatic critters that are down there. We are the only university in the continental United States to have such advanced capabilities. And again, that's housed right here on our St. Pete campus. We have a garage mural. And this is one of the scenes I, you know, if you find that you need to get in some extra steps, I would encourage you to come over and walk through our seven floors. But one of our visiting professors, along with his students, designed a mural that is a different scene on each of the floors. It escalates from stingrays and manatees to pelicans to our sunshine and plane here. But given the commitment that St. Pete has, the fact that there are 11 museums within a one mile radius of the St. Pete campus, we thought it was very fitting to continue this commitment to the arts. I mentioned Snowbird earlier. Snowbird was out on Wednesday, making sure the campus was safe. And so this is our first comfort dog, as has been indicated. We've got to normalize mental health and mental health support. And there's a crisis, particularly among college age students. And so being able to have Snowbird on campus, we've actually through the hurricane recovery have been taking Snowbird to some of the students' homes to help them assimilate, as well as treating some of our first responders. Because comfort dogs can reduce levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness. And they're really a great tool for de-stressing. We have our upcoming Bulls and Brews by the Bay. And so this is our annual event. We started it a year ago. So this would be the second annual opportunity. But all of the proceeds benefit USF St. Pete scholarships. And we increased our scholarship pot by eightfold last year. And so it's a really great opportunity. Please mark your calendar if you are available and you can come out. We'd love to have you there. It is an October fest. It will focus local breweries, as well as our Brewing Arts Certificate Program, where they actually literally will be serving homework, the good homework, not the bad homework. But the things that the students have brewed will actually be a focus of that. And so with that, that was the extent of it. I didn't know if there might be any questions about any of the other initiatives or things that are going on campus. So I submit. Well, I do have Council Member Montenari one, if you speak. Council Member Montenari. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Chancellor Hartigree, for the update of what's going on USF St. Pete. And I do have just a few questions. So a few years ago, a priority for the city and the business community was the center of excellence for environmental and oceanographic services. And the three things that they were supposed to concentrate on was sea level rise, flooding, and flooding related to high tide. And it just seems like you're here at the right time. And I want to know where that project is because the legislature a few years ago appropriated, I believe, $25 million for that project. It's an $80 million project. And where did the Board of Governors weigh in on their priority for the next legislative session for this? Yeah, thank you for that. You know, the EOS, this is an incredibly, incredibly important project. It cannot be more highlighted by what's just transpired, right? And, you know, I know that present law recognizes the need and the community's strong desire to continue forward. The project has taken a little time to get off the ground, but it's not for a lack of commitment, right? It's not that that we aren't committed to it. It's that there was rising costs in construction when we first envisioned that project. It was actually 2020. And so there's some gaps in expected funding. One of the things that we were struggling with was the flooding that we do incur on the peninsula. When you're building an $80 million building, it's easy to start at 18 feet off the ground. When you only have $25 million for the building that that changes the parameter of that. And so we've been in a process of reevaluating that. And unfortunately, or fortunately, the impact not just of this hurricane, but that strange little storm that was just like an afternoon, you know, gully washer that turned into two and a half hours of trying to go three miles, right? And so we're in the process, we've, the Provost, who is the spearhead of that project, along with Tom Frazier from the College of Marine Science, are pulling together a team to redefine what we're looking at, and redefine perhaps where we put it, given the financial challenges. We also have to identify additional funds to be able to build out the support for that. At the time that that we had originally been appropriated funds in 2022 by the legislature, unfortunately, that was, that was not supported through the final bill signing. But at that time, we had 14 million in deferred maintenance that needed to be done to the building. Because the university felt strongly that we were going to have that 80 million signed, the deferred maintenance was taken off the docket. And so we didn't get the deferred maintenance, the 80 million. And so trying to really define what are we going to do has been a challenge. But Provost Moapatra has been working with Dean Frazier in terms of defining that. Okay. All right. That, to me, we can't, we can't let our foot off the gas on that project. I mean, it's, it's important. And just, just this discussion that you've witnessed today and that our, our city and our state is going through, uh, that needs to be a priority. Uh, and, uh, I want to keep it a priority and I may have, uh, legal, uh, draw up the resolution to get city council to weigh in on making that a priority. Uh, that maybe we can run, run it through the layer layer committee, uh, also, but I, I just want to emphasize, uh, that project because I, to me that, that puts, uh, not just USF St. Petersburg on the map, but it puts the city of St. Petersburg on the map. And we need more projects like that. The other thing I wanted to talk about just briefly is, uh, after consolidation, there are supposed to be more doctoral programs at, at USF St. Petersburg. Can you tell us what has happened since consolidation? Have there been any new doctoral programs at USF St. Petersburg? Uh, no, sure. There have not been any new doctoral programs. Um, we did have an interim provost for a year, uh, Eric Eisenberg, and, um, uh, and then, uh, Prasant Malapatra was appointed in March of 23. Um, so I know that he is going through an academic planning process, but at this juncture, we have not added any additional programs outside of an undergraduate program in hospitality. Isn't, isn't that written into legislation that was passed with consolidation? There were, um, consolidation notebooks that were put together. Um, the legis that my understanding is there were two legislative pieces, one of which expired and one of which is still current. Um, the one that's current establishes our campus board and our name and that we should have a regional chancellor and whatnot, but I've not seen any legislation that indicated that specifically. I believe it was in the consolidation notebooks. Um, and so, um, yeah. Well, that's, that's another, uh, another thing that was promised under consolidation and we just haven't seen anything. Again, we need to be advocates for USF St. Petersburg, uh, your, your, your, our, our only university in, in, in, in, in the city. Can you tell me, and let me, this, this will be my last question. I understand that the faculty, uh, on the campus does not report to you. They report to staff at, at, at, at USF in Tampa. Yes, sir. They report to the, why, why is that? And did it, did they used to report to you? I used to have a role in evaluating faculty and staff through promotion and tenure. That's been a subject for discussion because it creates a level of review that the, the, the faculty at St. Pete do not go through in Tampa. So if you're in a history department, for example, you got a big history department in Tampa and we have a smaller history department here, that history department here would through promotion and tenure would go through a review level with me that the history department in Tampa did not. And so there was a question as to whether that was equitable. So, um, uh, everything, all academics flow through the provost. Um, I'm certainly here to help support his vision for our campus, but, um, all of those, the reporting structures, the reviews, all of that do go through provost Moapatra. We do have a vice provost, Thomas Smith, who also has a dual role as a campus dean for arts and sciences, uh, who is sort of the primary liaison for those purposes. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Um, thank you for coming in. Thank you for the presentation. Uh, timing wasn't the best based on the storm, but, but then again, it does kind of line up, especially with the center of excellence. Absolutely. And that's the goals of that, of that center of excellence. So again, like I said before, I don't want to take our foot off the gas when it comes to that. That's a priority for, for the campus and for the city of St. Petersburg. So thank you for the update. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Member Montaneri. Um, so what I, I was most interested in is knowing that you were coming from USF St. Pete. And every time we have the presentation, mine always goes back to the enrollment and the numbers and that year when we went to preeminence, as far as the GPA going to a 4.2. And I know that Chancellor Ted Locke is no longer there, but I am still so very grateful for, um, the Chancellor and, uh, Dr. Williams for wanting to be creative and increasing. And since you brought it up, it's the only reason why I'm saying something about it is the enrollment of black students, which is now what less than 9% of your total enrollment. Um, and they, the summer program, since you also brought that up is one of those, um, vessels that they use to incorporate black students, um, or other students of color to join the USF family, um, that could not meet that, uh, 4.2 GPA, which I think the requirement was 4.0 or 4.0, but USF chose 4.2, correct? Um, I don't know specifically if it was a target in advance. I know that the desire to increase the profile for the fall was a decision the provost made. Um, and utilizing the summer was an opportunity to let in students who may not have hit that. I believe our average this year was a 4.3 with a 1306 SAT. Um, and I humbly acknowledge, I would not have been a student at USF. Um, I see a couple of people kind of like, Oh, me too. Um, uh, you know, the, the preeminence piece, um, is the funding. I mean, the university received $96 million this year. Um, and so trying to find the balance, I think is what the admissions office in Tampa is really trying to do. They're also undergoing a strategic enrollment, um, planning process. Uh, um, apparently there had not been one previously, um, for all campuses. And so coming up with a comprehensive strategic enrollment, uh, program has been one of the priorities of Cindy DeLuca who reports to the provost. So again, under that academic arm for one USF. And, and I bring that up because, you know, for years we've tried to work on a educational ecosystem here for the city of St. Petersburg, because we are highly educated, um, here in St. Petersburg. We have SBC, we have Eckerd, we have PTC, we have just over 49th Street, we have Stetson Law School, and we have USF St. Pete. And so we were really trying to address the needs of our residents here and trying to not only educate them here, but to keep those high cost degrees here to benefit us here in the city of St. Petersburg. And one of the things that, you know, came out of that, that 4.2 at the time was that if I had a 4.2 or a 4.3 and I'm from St. Petersburg, there's no way I'm staying home. If I can go somewhere else to college on a full scholarship out of my parents' home, that's where I'm going. I'm going somewhere else. And so I just wanted to say that I'm grateful that we're trying to find, um, creative ways to actually keep our students here at home and wanting to stay here because St. Petersburg is growing into an awesome place. The entertainment life, the art place, you know, if we can just find housing for them to be able to stay here. Um, and we want to continue to, to have that effort. And so that is always going to be a focus of mine is how many students from here and how many students of color can actually be educated at USF. So with the programs that, you know, Dr. Williams and, and, and Chancellor Tadlock started, I'm glad to see that they're continuing to kind of provide an additional opening to our students, that equitable piece of gaining a USF St. Pete education. So thank you for the presentation. And I see no further requests to speak. If there's no one else that we have. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I appreciate you. And we're going to go ahead and recess, um, the council meeting until one Oh five. If I'm looking at that correctly, 30 minutes. See you one Oh five. We go into the next report item, which is F two Sunday cold boat wrap update and joining us is stormwater pavement and traffic operations director, Marshall Hampton. Madam chair. If I may. Yes. Um, council member Gabbert. Thank you, Madam chair. Um, you brought this one. This was my item. It's okay. Um, this was another that like council member Montaneri said, this was put in prior to hurricane Helene, um, wanted to leave it on, um, the agenda for today, because this was an issue that occurred in Riviera Bay, um, not storm related, but, uh, wastewater or a stormwater related and, um, Bay specific related. And we wanted to make sure that we were bringing a after action report regarding what happened that day. Um, letting the residents know, um, you know, what protocols were taken, what exactly did happen and just make sure that we're being very transparent about the issue. So, um, that is the reason for bringing the report today, Madam chair. Thank you. Oh, Marshall Hampton, the stormwater pavement traffic operations director. Uh, just want to go over what did transpire and what led to the interaction that happened, uh, between on September 18th through the 20th, we were inspecting stormwater assets in the Sunlit Cove area. Um, part of the inspection requires us to dewater the, the stormwater assets. So for us to take a look at them, um, since it is a low region, the outfalls are partially submerged during tides. And so we're getting water out. The water that we were collecting was a mix of groundwater, which is silty because you have soil in it and you have tidal water from Riviera Bay, which is saltwater. And then you have the runoff water from the recent rain events. So, uh, when you see the water, uh, I would like to go into like the clarity of the water, the water is going to be brown. Typically after a rain event or storm event, your water's not as clear as if they had no storms at all. So it's a little more turbulent. The water that we collected was directly from the stormwater system itself. We know that there wouldn't be any sewer sewage in it because there were no reports of a sewage leakage in that area, nor report of illicit discharge. So everything we were collecting from the stormwater system was stormwater itself to the best of our knowledge. So we collected it, um, excuse me. And then that was, so three truckloads, we did it three times. So three days in a row, we dumped at the boat ramp, which is to a total of 6,300 gallons, which is what we self-reported to DEP. Um, from that moment, uh, we did from the interaction, our team wasn't like we live in the community, so we're not purposely trying to harm a body of water. We were literally just trying to move water, which was around this around the street from where we're collecting it from so we can get back, keep pumping water to investigate. Um, so from there, once we self-reported the water and on Monday, we took some steps to make sure that it wouldn't happen again. So just true transparency, every time we collect water now, we're taking it to the same site that we empty out our loads at the street sweeper on the water free resources campus. And, uh, really, so we were self-reported at FTP and we are trying to make improvements to our, our total, uh, I'll say work methods. And Madam Chair, if I can just add to, um, so for anyone who was not aware of what, you know, occurred, uh, this was caught on recording by a resident at the boat ramp, um, made a video. They were not aware that it was storm rotter. They believed because of that siltation and just kind of the murkiness of the water that it was sewage water. Um, so there was a lot of concern from the neighbors, um, from the community around the boat ramp. Marshall and his team jumped right into action to investigate, to get that information back to me as the council member, um, to make sure that we were able to communicate that out to the residents through the neighborhood association. So there was a very concerted effort over the course of a couple of hours. Once it was made aware, um, that we were able to respond accordingly, we were able to get correct information out. But then also on top of that, um, Marshall did go ahead and move forward into a, uh, day or two of testing of the water in Riviera Bay, because we wanted to make sure that anything that was put into that water was not going to mess with the safety of the water for the residents. We have a lot of fishermen, a lot of people that like to get in there and boat. And, um, it was on the weekend as well. So Marshall, do you want to talk a little bit about the testing and how that came out? Because we haven't, we went right into storm response and we weren't actually able to communicate the testing results. So we did three rounds of testing, um, in three different areas of the water. So it wasn't, it was also the source, the initial dump happened, and then two other areas kind of as controls to make sure to see how the, the, the overall health of the body of water was. So what we found, um, that the first and foremost, we don't have a baseline of the overall health of the condition of that body of water. So we don't know what's normal and what's not. So all we're reporting out to here is what we collected. But what we found in two of the three times that we tested during a high tide event, that the water was of good beach quality water where there was one instance where it was not, didn't meet it. It was during a low tide event. So during a low tide event, it did not meet the good beach quality of water. Um, that doesn't say that we, we wouldn't, I wouldn't feel safe putting myself in the water itself, but it just didn't meet the good beach standards. So to be transparent for whatever reason, but if how it flushes out, it was just, sometimes we don't have enough information to say if that's normal or not or what happened. But we did find two, two of the three times that it was good beach standards. And I just want to just add, thank you to Claude. You took the call right away. Marshall, you were right on it. Uh, Rob, you took the calls. I really do appreciate the responsiveness to the neighborhood, to the residents being a waterfront community. Um, very, very important, the health of our water and the ability to be able to use that recreationally and to access that. So, um, I really personally appreciate your response and, uh, I'm glad that we were able to bring the report today so that we could provide some transparency for the neighborhood. Yes, ma'am. And I'll be happy to fill any questions from residents as you get them. Perfect. Thank you. Council member. Thank you. Thank you for the, uh, the report Marshall. Um, so can you talk a little bit about, I've, I've never seen one of these vacuum trucks doing this. Yes. Is this a standard procedure or was this something that was a one-off that this, this, this happened? Or to be fully transparent. It's one of our new line clearing teams that we built. Um, I have not had any record of us. And to my knowledge, I haven't had any other record of us dumping or I'll say dumping, but discharging water into an open body of water. So what the team thought with that's when we knew that the anticipated storm coming up the next week, we quickly were trying to inspect items and the closest way to go return the water that the system was going to be out falling to, sorry, was to Riviera Bay. And the quickest way was at that boat ramp, which is the closest piece. Since then we have educated our team. Um, we're, we're always training. We always can do better. So we have an opportunity to let our team know, Hey, we don't discharge the open bodies of water. We have places that we have to collect it at. Okay. And then the other question I had was, you said you self-reported it to DEP. Yes, sir. Is that a, is that a state requirement or is that just a, like a voluntary? It was voluntary. Um, we're very big on doing what's best for the city. And to be with the feedback that we're getting from the citizens, we wanted to show that we are being transparent and fully accountable by our actions. And so we wanted to self-report to the state agency and let them make the determination of what was, what's tolerable and what's not. Have we heard back from them after that report? Have they? No, sir. And I don't know the statutory requirement of timeline goes, but they've been inundated with storm response now of recordings. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Claudio, did you have some comment? Thank you, Claudio Tankersley, public works administrator. Um, just a little bit more clarification. So we do have a permit for our stormwater system, just like we do for other systems. And that permit recognizes that we have to periodically maintain and manage our system. We have to go in there, inspect pipes and so forth. And when you have pipes that are always buried underwater, it's hard to inspect it if it's buried. So the pipe does recognize and, and we are authorized when we are doing those inspections to, to bypass the pipe, to, to push that water on down so it'll go where it was going to naturally go in the first place so that we can do that inspection. Um, so we don't believe this was a violation of our permit, but, but just to be, you know, um, as, as cautious and as transparent as possible, since the public was concerned about what we were doing, we did self report. We have not heard back. All right. Very good. Thank, thank you for the explanation. Thanks. I assume you're done as well. Glad, quick question. Come back. Sorry, Madam Chair. I'm so sorry. Quick question. I did, um, receive that same video and I don't know if, you know, it went out there on social media before it got to us. And I know a lot of people saw it. How are we, other than this forum, are we actually sharing with those that have shared and shared and shared that video of what our standards are? Is that something that we can even consider or, because what I'll do, the people that send it to me, I'll just ask them to tune in to watch this. I'll send the link to this as the explanation, but is there anything that we, so my understanding in talking to our comms team, communications team, the fact that it was shared in such a wide variety of places, really impossible for us to go to all the different Facebook posts and, and, and respond directly there. Um, as council member Gabbard mentioned, um, she has communicated directly with the neighborhood association. Administration is communicated directly with the neighborhood association. Uh, we've been invited to attend one of their meetings, but you know, for the, when it gets beyond that, um, we don't really know of a way for us to get the word out. Yes. I guess I'll just post something. And when you say communicated, did you verbally or was there something in writing? Is it something in writing? We actually had, uh, a statement. Absolutely. Yes. You're welcome. Vice chair. Thank you, madam chair. I'll just, uh, quickly comment just because one of the larger posters, I guess, I don't know what to call them. I don't do it. So, um, uh, actually retracted their original post at, based on the information they had gotten from the comms team, reposted it with the correct information that it was stormwater and not wastewater. And I did see that on the two biggest shares, the people that have the most views that really where, where it kind of blew up much larger than I think anybody had anticipated, both of those outlets then corrected the information. So, um, they did do that. So I just figured I'd share. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you. And just to further the conversation on the communications, you know, I, I get it. I mean, Facebook, that's just a different world, but is there a way at some point maybe to think when you have these situations, have something on the website, like a news release to that way, when people find out the information, they can go to a trusted source to get the true information because you just have it, you know, people may find it and it's like, oh, it's on Facebook, but there should be an alternative where they can get the actual data. And like, this was sampled and all this, and it may be worthwhile in a situation like this. And it could be another situation that we have it somewhere where people can access that information in general, because you cannot control what is in the Facebook world. And I get it. That's a good thing. You're welcome. That's good. Thank you. And seeing no further request to speak. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate that update. Thank you, Councilmember Gabbard for bringing this forward. So now we're going to continue to our next important item 4F4, which is the Foot Locker incentive package. And we have an A and B resolution. And joining us is our Economic Development Director, Mr. Brian Caper. How are you? Very well. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, City Council. We have two resolutions today related to Foot Locker, and we have a brief presentation to walk through those. I'll begin with just a very brief brief project overview. Then we will talk about the economic development incentive package. And then finally, the ad valorem tax exemption program. So Foot Locker Incorporated is proposing to relocate to St. Petersburg. They are the leading footwear and apparel retailer. They have approximately 2,500 retail stores in 26 countries. Their portfolio not only includes Foot Locker, but also Kids Foot Locker, Champs Sports, WSS, which is out of California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as Atmos, which is targeted on their Asian markets. This would be the new global headquarters in St. Petersburg. And they are currently looking at two different locations within the city that are both up in the Gateway District 2 area. We are proposing an economic development incentive package totaling $475,000. Funds, that $475,000 funds have already been appropriated in the economic and workforce development department's operating budget that is set aside for corporate incentives. So there would be no impact to any other projects or programs. They are also asking for the ad valorem tax exemption program, and they've submitted a pre-application. We'll go through both of those in just a moment. And finally, I want to acknowledge our project partners on this, the St. Petersburg Economic Development Corporation, Pinellas County, the state of Florida, of course, Administrator Corbett, as well as our economic development manager, Andrea Felby. So moving on to the economic development incentives, the $475,000 consists of two different items. One is what we're calling the base incentive, and the second is the hiring incentive. The base incentive is valid for $235,000 if all of these conditions are met. First, they must create at least 150 net new jobs with benefits within the city of St. Petersburg city limits. The average annual wage of these net new jobs must be at least $120,000 annually. They must lease or purchase 100,000 square feet of office space in the city, and I will tell you they are looking to lease at this point in time. Make a capital investment associated with the relocation of at least $20 million. And finally, work with the city's Office of Supplier Diversity to establish percentage goals to utilize small, minority, and women-owned businesses subject to good faith efforts. We did reach out to the company to get a little more clarity on the 150 net new jobs and the types of industries that that would reflect. The company provided us with the following statement. We are growing our presence within St. Pete, which will include a wide range of entry-level analysts to senior leadership VP roles. These positions span across multiple functioning areas, including buying, planning, allocation, e-commerce, finance, HR, and others. The annual salaries for these positions includes a broad range from starting at $50,000 to over $300,000 a year. Once these conditions have been met, then Foot Locker would be able to submit the documentation to the city in order to receive the base incentive of $235,000. We ran a quick economic impact on this job creation and these wage levels. And the source of this was using the RIMS II economic multipliers from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. And in looking at the job creation, obviously the direct employment would be 150 jobs, but it would also create 80 indirect jobs for a total economic impact of 230 jobs being created by this relocation. Looking at the earnings, I'm taking the 150 new jobs at $120,000 annually. That is a direct earnings impact of $18 million a year in our local economy and an indirect impact of $5,040,000 for a total economic impact of $23,040,000 in earnings. And finally, looking at the capital expenditures, the direct and indirect economic impact of $20 million of a capital investment, which is assuming about a 40-60 split between construction and renovations, improvements to the facility, and 60% of that capital investment going to purchase equipment and tangible personal property comes to about $14 million. The second part of this incentive is a hiring incentive up to $240,000, and it's broken across three different tiers. So the company would be eligible to receive $10,000 per hire for a job that pays 200,000, I'm sorry, 200% of Pinellas County average annual wage, which right now represents $122,866. $7,500 per hire if that new job pays 150% of Pinellas County average annual wage. The numbers you see there represent the Pinellas County average annual wage this year, but they would be required to match that percentage in the year that that job is created. So we expect that number would go up over time in order to be eligible. To receive that hiring incentive, not only do they have to be paid at that wage level, they must hire that employee from the boundaries of the South St. Petersburg CRA at the time that they're hired. They must be employed by Foot Locker at the global headquarters for a minimum of six months in order to receive that incentive. And once they have a employee that is eligible to receive the hiring incentive, they would submit documentation to the city that demonstrates that these conditions have been met in order to receive the incentive. The hiring incentive is good for up to 10 years, once Foot Locker opens their global headquarters or the $240,000 is exhausted. Moving on to the second resolution, which is related to the ad valorem tax exemption program. On November 8, 2022, City Council's authority to grant ad valorem tax exemptions to new and expanding businesses expected to create full-time jobs in the city was reauthorized, and this was via public referendum. City Council's approval of this resolution allows Foot Locker to make improvements and add tangible personal property while preserving their ability to apply for this exemption in the future. The way that this program works, ultimately, just for illustrative purposes, let's say they move into a building that is assessed at $10 million. They make improvements to that property, and now based on those improvements, it's reassessed at $15 million. City Council has the ability to exempt them from the increment on those ad valorem taxes based on those improvements made, so it would be up to City Council to approve an exemption of that $5 million increment that was created. The maximum annual abatement allowed is $100,000 annually for a period of 10 years or a maximum total abatement of $1 million. As previously mentioned, Foot Locker is currently considering two buildings located within the city limits. They intend to lease for approximately 11 to 13 years and make a capital investment of $20 million. It would include renovations into the building as well as tangible personal property purchases. This resolution ultimately signifies support for them to return at a later date with a formal application for the ad valorem tax exemption program, which would need to be approved by City Council via an ordinance. There's nothing in this resolution that states City Council is obligated to approve that ordinance once it returns. It really just preserves the incentive, acknowledging the fact that they do intend to take advantage of it and they will be coming back to City Council once those improvements have been made and we actually know the amount of that exemption that's being sought. Once Foot Locker completes the improvements and they desire the exemption to take effect, they will submit a formal application to the City for the exemption from these ad valorem taxes on the assessed value of the tax roll and the improvements associated with the project. And then that request will return to City Council to be voted on as an ordinance once those improvements are completed. That I appreciate your time and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. William Kilgore, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address City Council. Hi everybody, thank you Chair. William Kilgore has 2550 28th Avenue North and I'm an organizer with the St. Pete Tenants Union. I just wanted to stick around. This is an important thing to me, to us, to our organization. When we're talking about corporate welfare, here's another example of that. Folks don't like seeing a Fortune 500 company get money. You know, and we're talking about this amount, you know, $475,000 that they're eligible for. You know, it's half a million dollars. This has no effect on their decision to move here. They're going to move here and do what they're doing anyway. All of those things listed are things that are going to do these jobs, you know, high paying jobs, class A office space. This, this, giving them this money has no effect on their, on their decision. They're going to do it or they're not going to do it. You know, this is just like, just handing a lump of money to, you know, a billion plus dollar corporation. You know, and the problem is when, when you have stuff like that happening, you know, the city does a lot of good things, but when people see that kind of thing, you know, especially when folks are coming in asking for it, this is like kind of on par with a lot of the money folks are asking for, for education programs and, uh, youth education, other, other things, uh, you know, right to counsel, we could use money for right to counsel. I understand that it's already budgeted in the economic development department, whatever. I know how that works. It doesn't matter. It's what it symbolizes. Uh, you know, and, and while people are, are, you know, struggling and, and dealing with these issues and seeking more resources, pumping money into a huge, massive corporation, uh, is, is totally egregious. Uh, and, and this should be voted down. It should be rejected. Um, but we're going to keep calling it out. You know, I don't want to see the city, you know, I make the city look bad. I don't get up here just to, you know, be angry and obstinate about like everything that happens, you know, but I, I think it's a detriment to the city because working people, everybody we talk to whenever we see these things and we bring this to people's attention. People don't like it. People are pissed off. Um, you know, and the city needs to abandon this approach of, uh, just dumping money into the, into giant corporations. Just stop doing it, please. So thank you all very much. I appreciate you listening. Thank you. Um, and thank you, Brian, for the presentation and though, sorry, it just moved. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Um, thank you for the presentation and for the one on the ones on this, can we, can you go over just a little bit? Some, some of us weren't here for, for the long, for the history of this, because this is, this just didn't happen right now. The, it goes back to 2021. So why don't you tell us, uh, what happened in 2021? And then what was the original 2021 fine financial incentive program and compare it to what we're seeing here today and what happened with that one and how we got here? Absolutely. Thank you. Council member Hanowitz. So this is not a brand new project, but locker, uh, previously did come in front of city council looking to relocate their, uh, corporate headquarters from Manhattan back in 2021. Uh, at that point in time, there were really two things that occurred that caused the project not to move forward. Um, the first was that there was a confidentiality agreement with the company and they had not had an opportunity to notify their employees in Manhattan. Um, the information that was put together at that point in time protected that confidentiality agreement, but it also was, was pretty easy for someone to put in there based on the number of stores that they had, the number of countries that they operated in. Um, and at that point in time, based on some council materials that were brought forward, uh, the, the Tampa Bay times was, was able to do their, uh, homework and, and figure out who it was. And they reported that Foot Locker was looking at St. Petersburg. That really upset the company. It upset their employees because they were hearing it through the media rather than hearing it from the company. Um, so that was sort of the first issue at, at hand. The second was that it was still during COVID. Uh, they had not completely returned to work yet and they were not sure what their office needs were going to be at that point in time. So the company decided to pause on their relocation. What they did do is they had, uh, back office operations in Manatee County at that point in time. And they did relocate those back office operations to St. Petersburg. So we do have a Foot Locker presence currently in our community, but they maintained their global headquarters up in Manhattan. Uh, they've remained interested in St. Petersburg. And we believe based on, on the last year and a half of, of excitement of development of what's occurring in our community, that that really sparked them, uh, to take another look at relocating, uh, their, their corporate headquarters down from Manhattan to St. Petersburg. As it relates to the incentive package, it was the same amount of money. It was $475,000 is what was being sought from city council back in 2021. Uh, but it was rather than a hiring incentive, it was more putting together a workforce program. So it also had a base incentive, which matched generally the same numbers that you see today. The second part, rather than a hiring incentive where it was based on the jobs created in the wage levels, it was working with St. Pete works to put together a hiring plan. Um, in meeting with the company, when they, when they came back and started to renegotiate with us and with administration, um, we really felt as staff that that would be difficult, um, in order to determine if that had been satisfied and if those criteria had been met, putting together a plan, uh, to justify over $200,000. We just did not feel was as significant to the community or to the company as actually going out and hiring residents of, uh, especially of our, our community redevelopment agency area. Um, so that is, we did change that portion of the incentive related to actually hiring rather than putting together a workforce program. Okay. So that allows you to do your due diligence better. Correct. Um, why is there a timing requirement here for the 150 jobs? Because I looked at the resolution and I don't see a timing requirement. It would match the, the same time frame related to the hiring incentive. So they would have 10 years in order to take advantage of the overall $475,000. So I'm wondering, and this is where I'm confused. So in their pre-application, it says the total number of new full-time jobs will be 150. And they actually put themselves by 12, 31, 2026. So why in our resolution, does it say Foot Locker shall create at least 115 net new jobs by 2026, just like they have in their pre-application? So the pre-application, it's not necessarily locked into related to the ad valorem tax exemption program. The plea, the pre-application, uh, is something that we require in order to move forward with a resolution for the ad valorem tax exemption, but it's, but it isn't necessarily a formalized legal agreement, such as what we will have for the hiring incentive in the 10 years in order to take advantage of the $475,000 incentive. No, I, but you see what I'm saying? Yes. I mean, it's, it's, it's not in there. So they'll create 150 net new jobs by when, and it's nothing in that resolution. Correct. So the resolution allows the city ultimately to enter into an agreement and the agreement will state similar to the hiring that's in the resolution. They'll have 10 years. Now we fully expect they will do that much sooner. It's in their best interest to do it sooner, but they will have up to 10 years in order to satisfy the requirements of the base incentive in order to receive that, those funds. The 10 years on the, um, that you're mentioning, is that standard and customary? It really did that number come from negotiations with the company because every one of these projects ultimately is different. The needs of the company are different. Uh, the situation is different. This, this was a number that we worked with the company that we both felt comfortable. Okay. I mean, for me, I would, I would figure that these numbers would, would, would happen earlier than 10 years if, if they are moving their headquarters, we're in the, in the resolution, you said that they are currently have a St. Pete presence already, right? And then the resolution, it says that they qualify as a new business and you have found that we're finding they qualify as a new business under Florida statute, one 96.012 subsection 14, which part of subsection 14 are they going to qualify under? Because there's lots of parts. So I'm not even sure which one it is. It would be, uh, related to the office category and it would be a new business due to the corporate headquarters. Okay. And legal. I mean, I, it would be nice to know the clarity in terms of which part, because we're saying that they qualify under that subsection. So I would like to know what we clearly made a determination. I got to pull up the section, but I don't know if this helps to clarify it for you, but as Brian explained, there will need to be at some point an ordinance before they actually are able to get any sort of tax exemption. And so you'll get a lot more details at that point, because that's when we'll know more about what the exemption would be. The purpose of this resolution is basically just to allow footlocker to start doing whatever they need to do to move into the city and to lock in their ability to actually request the exemption later. Okay. Does that help? Or do you know, I know it's fine. And I know it's not, obviously it's a resolution at this time. And additionally, we'll have additional information. It would be good to find out if we're doing this for it. I would assume we'd have this basic information in terms of that. And I know I did not give you this question before. I just noticed it so you can prepare for it in the resolution. And I apologize for that. But I think if we're going to say that they qualify under something, we should at least know how they actually qualify. And I, yeah, and in terms of the net new job, the full time jobs, if they make a, I guess, a representation in their pre application for the ad valorem tax exemption that they're going to do something by 2026. Why wouldn't we want to kind of hold your feet to the fire on that? We fully anticipate they will make those jobs by 2026. But the pre application is not binding. No, I get no, that's what I get it. I'm just saying if they're doing it, it's in there. Just because they are still looking at two different locations, they have not signed a lease, they do not have an exact move in date yet. And we also at this point in time, do not exactly know who will accept relocation packages from New York to St. Petersburg. So their, their needs in terms of job hiring, may be very different, just depending on the situation. So really, the 10 years is just to give them ample runway to select a location, make those capital investments in in the facility and ultimately hire whatever needs they have based on the staff that opts not to relocate from Manhattan, where they located now their office here. Their St. Petersburg presence is, they are up in the gateway area off of Olmerton Road. In terms of, are there other tax incentives that have been discussed? We've mentioned, obviously, the city ad valorem tax exemption, the county ad valorem tax exemption. In your presentation, there's the state, which is, I guess, the capital investment tax credit. That's correct. Are there any other incentives besides these that would be applicable? No, council member. Okay. Okay. Okay. Those are my questions for now. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Council member, again. Thank you, madam chair. A couple of questions, Brian. So they are considering two buildings currently, both in district two. Do you know how close they are to making a decision on those buildings? Are they actually under contract on one of them? Are they going to use that existing building? The two that they're looking at? Are they looking at tearing down and rebuilding? Like, what do we know about the locations? So we do expect they will have a decision by the end of this year on which of those two sites they want to move forward with. Because they would be leasing. They are existing office buildings. They would not be doing any demolition or new construction. It would be renovations of the current, either of the current buildings in terms of space build out, potentially some reconfiguration of that existing office space. But it wouldn't be new construction. Okay. And that kind of leads into my second question, which is this idea of the 10 years from the time, says from the commencement of the date that it opens. And then to council member Hanowitz's point, the pre-application saying end of 2026. I was just trying to kind of get an idea of that timing, right? Because if it's from when it opens, but they're not going to make a decision until now. I wanted to know, well, are they going to have to erect a brand new building? Because what's the likelihood that could be open by the end of 2026? So I was just kind of trying to understand the timing around that. We expect that they will select a location by the end of this year, and they will start their relocation probably summer of 2025. We believe that their corporate headquarters will be open and operating in St. Petersburg by the fall of next year. Obviously, by putting this timeline in their pre-application, they're feeling pretty bullish about the way that they're going to move forward. Correct. Okay. I mean, obviously, I look at, you know, first of all, it's my district, largest employment center, one of in the Tampa Bay area. Very, very vitally important to me that we are continuing to grow economic vibrancy in that district. And then I look at kind of the return on investment here. I mean, $475,000 investment for the job incentive package, but then a total of a $37,000 or $37 million, I'm sorry, economic output of the job creation and the economic incentives. I mean, the math doesn't lie, right? And then when you first came to me and told me about this, before you could even tell me who it was, you just told me about the incentives and looking to hire from within St. Petersburg, but specifically from within the South St. Petersburg CRA, we are continuously looking for opportunities to help lift up the community. And economic development and job creation of this level of wage earning dramatically impacts our affordable housing. I mean, we've been talking about that as a piece of the bring more office space to St. Petersburg, right? Like we sing that song all the time. Here we are. This is what it looks like. So for me, I'm about the return on investment and anything that we do specifically when it comes to job creation and economic development, this to me, hands down, like gets it. Um, so I'm very looking forward to, um, hopefully this passing today, learning more, um, having, you know, more things come forward in the future and really making this a reality, but then also having this as a way that we move forward with our economic development opportunities for companies coming so that they aren't just bringing all their people here. We want more people, obviously, but we have an entire workforce here that we have to employ with higher paying jobs and this is how we do it. So thank you for, uh, bringing this forward. I'm very excited. Um, we have two resolutions in front of us. Um, can we vote on them together? Then I would move approval. Second. Right. Yeah. Um, oh yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Um, I guess I'll just start with my questions and then talk about things overall in a minute. Uh, there's one thing I saw when we got the backup that I guess I hadn't worked out in my mind before. Um, and it's about the base incentive. It talks about, uh, creating 150 net new qualified jobs, uh, in the city of St. Petersburg after relocating his headquarters. And then it goes on to say that a new job may include a current employee who relocates to work in Foot Locker's global headquarters. I hadn't keyed in on that before. And I'm wondering why, uh, consideration was given to employees moving here. I was under the impression it was about like net new. That sounds like a job that's created for, you know, someone who, uh, lives in the area or is able to apply and maybe move to the area, not, not actual relocation. So I just, we hadn't had a chance to talk about that. Absolutely. Thank you, council member. So when we look at, um, going back to, um, council member Gabbard's comment on return on investment, um, although it may be someone currently employed by Foot Locker in New York, it is still, uh, new wages that are coming to our community. Uh, it is new investment coming to our community. Um, so we still look at that as, as a net gain. Um, while they may be employed with Foot Locker at this point in time, they're not located in St. Petersburg. They're not in our community and we are not benefiting necessarily from their employment with the company. Um, so in looking at these 150 net new jobs, although some of them will be relocations from New York, it is still someone that's coming here from New York that now has wages that they're spending in our community, buying a home or renting a home in our community. And that has an economic impact associated with it. So that's why we look at a qualified job, including those that may already be employed with the company, but not necessarily located in St. Petersburg or in our community. Uh, and therefore we are not benefiting from at this point in time, their employment with Foot Locker. Yeah. And you're right. I do think it has an economic impact, but I don't think that it's necessarily always positive. I mean, we're talking about, uh, paying a company to relocate jobs here that are high paying in a place where we already are struggling to have enough places to live for people who live here already. And so, uh, you know, I think what we've seen in the city is a lot of turnover and who lives here because, um, of the cost of living going up. We see every year when the area median income comes out from HUD, it's gone up significantly while long-term members of our community haven't had their wages increased and it's because of people moving here. And so there is a negative impact to this kind of thing as well. And I do question if it's a good idea for us to invest city money in something that could have a negative impact. And so, uh, I, I want to take a step back now and say, um, uh, I've expressed skepticism over, um, economic incentive packages before, because I think my outlook on this kind of thing is people don't move to this city because we give them what is basically crumbs compared to what they're going to save on real estate costs in Manhattan. It's, this is nothing that this doesn't factor in the projections hardly at all. Uh, they're going to save a ton of money moving here, uh, because our real estate's significantly less expensive and, uh, economic incentive packages can often end up being a race to the bottom to see who, you know, a bidding war to see who can give away the most public wealth to a private corporation. And I want to step back and say, I appreciate that you've came up with something that it is relatively reasonable, although I do have quibbles with it. Um, but I think that the reason why a company would relocate to the city, um, is numerous. And, and I think there's other ways that we can be, uh, investing in our city to make it an attractive place for companies to come to that don't involve just giving money to the companies. And so I think people choose, uh, to move to St. Petersburg because of our quality of life, our natural resources, our, um, entertainment, uh, many things. And I think those are significantly more important. Uh, and you know, in economic development, I think we could focus more on increasing, uh, our efforts to, uh, improve the quality of life here, which I think would be a major attractor for a lot of, um, corporations. And so I have that perspective. I do think what you put together is relatively reasonable. Although I, my hangup is on the one jobs thing. Let me get a question about the hiring incentive. Cause I, I like the hiring incentive, but, uh, is it for people who live within the boundaries of the CRA right now? What if someone moved from New York, Manhattan, they work at footlocker, they move into the CRA. Does that hit the hiring incentive? It council member that technically would qualify. Yeah. So it is, it's at the time. Well, no, no, actually, excuse me, it would not because they have to be at the time they are hired by the company. They have to reside in the South St. Petersburg CRA. So if they are already hired by footlocker and they're relocating, that wouldn't be a new hire and it would not be eligible. Okay. Um, so it, it does, but, uh, you know, to your, to your point, if they were hired from the South St. Petersburg CRA, and then at the course of those six months, they move somewhere else within the city, they would still be eligible for this because at the time of hiring, they were located in the CRA. No, that's fair. I just wanted to make sure that like someone moving into the CRA wouldn't trigger the hiring incentive. That's, that's all I was going to ask. Uh, so I appreciate that clarification. Um, so, uh, I don't have anything else on the incentive package. Just want to say one thing about the, uh, sorry, I can't remember exactly what you've called it. The tax abatement. I don't remember what the term of tax exemption, ad valorem tax exemption. Thank you. Um, when I was elected this, the question as to whether or not we can use that was on the ballot, it failed. I did not agree with putting it back on the ballot. Uh, because I just don't agree with us saying, Oh, we didn't get the result we wanted. We go ask a different set of voters the next year. Um, and so I am not a fan of ad valorem tax exemptions for this kind of thing for corporations. I, you know, there's great people that move to the city every day and, uh, they don't get any money from the city to move here. Um, they improve their property doesn't make a difference. Um, we don't provide anything to them. And so I just see it as a fairness thing democratically and economically. And so, um, I just figured I would throw that out there. I don't think it surprises anybody to talk about this the whole time I've been here. So, but I appreciate you and the work that you did on this. Um, I have a slightly different philosophy, but I see where you're coming from. So I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, uh, Brian. Uh, I'm very supportive and excited about this. Uh, but I do have a question on the, uh, financial incentive resolution. And I think, uh, this is for, for legal. Um, so Janine back, uh, when we did a lot of the procurement, uh, committee, the whole meetings, uh, when Mr. Malone was, was here, uh, there was talk about, uh, this, uh, uh, a case, the city of Richmond versus Croson and, uh, setting goals. And on page two of the resolution, the second bullet, it's, it says to establish a percentage goal for utilization of small minority and women-owned businesses. Are we allowed to do that? Right. That's what we have established through our small business ordinance and minority and women-owned business ordinances. Uh, what Croson says is you have to pass strict scrutiny to be able to do that. And we have, through our disparity study and through the analysis, made sure that we are, when we set that percentage goal, looking at each business category and what the, uh, disparity study showed as far as deficiencies in our, um, contracting to make sure that we're aligning our goals with what the disparity study showed. So we should, um, be fine with that based on what we have done in the past. Okay. All right. Thank, thank you for that answer. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Brian, thank you. So, so you know me about those incentives and South St. Pete CRA and, um, you know, and thank you for the presentation and, and thank you for getting back with me so that, uh, my colleagues know that the, the footlocker thing, I was, I was, I was on the fence. Um, and definitely in regards to utilizing South St. Pete CRA dollars, because we know that everyone that lives now in the South St. Pete CRA are not with the initial mission. Chair, may, may I just make a very quick clarification? The, the, the funds that are, are set aside for this are operating dollars from the general fund. There are no South St. Petersburg funds going toward this. Very good. Okay. So with that being said, the $200 job incentives to hire those living in the current CRA, footlocker can choose not to even take that $200,000 at all. They don't, they're not bound to. That's correct. Employ. Okay. So therefore, when we say 475 is really 275 that we're looking at because that 200 is reimbursable, maybe they would have to hire them. They would have to stay employed for six months in order to get that credit, that additional 200. Just clarify that for me. That's correct. So the, the, the base incentive for $235,000 is if they do all of those different points, the $240,000 hiring incentive, think of it effectively as an escrow account. We set it aside and as they have eligible hires, they will submit to the city and we will draw down from that $240,000. Again, this is coming from our, our general fund operating that's been set aside for corporate incentives. It isn't using TIF dollars. Um, but if they do not have any eligible hires, uh, it, they effectively do not qualify then for that $240,000. If they don't make enough hires to draw that down within 10 years, then that's no longer eligible to them. Okay. Thank you for that clarification because I was so stuck on that St. Pete CRA dollars. I really was because on that. And then also I asked you for the job categories because I love when they say we're going to provide 150 positions, but what did those positions look like when we were targeting South St. Pete CRA residents? So, you know, my biggest two things were what the job categories were and how they're going to get to work. You know, cause if we're looking for South St. Pete CRA residents, but they're looking all the way in gateway, if we're trying to help employ those to upskill them, how are they going to get to work? And I did, um, you know, hope that we would provide some type of transportation for them to ensure that they're successful because I didn't want anyone not being able to get to work would not, would not be successful. And then again, thank you so much for providing, um, the information from Foot Locker in regards to what those positions are. And I do have to concur with my other colleagues about that 10 year timeline. I'm not understanding that. I'm truly, really not understanding because when do they plan to open? They, they plan to open next year toward the end of next year. So they would have gotten a return on their investment five times before we even saw anything with the hiring of those, um, from the South St. Pete residents. So I don't know what we can do in order to have a additional conversation with them about that timeline, but that in itself causes me a little unease, um, on that, but everything else I was okay with. And thank you for clarifying that South St. Pete CRA dollars will not be utilized or spent, um, on this particular incentive and I'm okay with that. Um, thank you. Council member Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment while I have everyone here, um, to, uh, share a piece of information so y'all can look up yourselves later. Um, but when I talk about my ideas behind economic development, I just want people to know, like, I'm not talking about anything that's like unverified, crazy left-wing ID. I'm literally using information from the center for American progress on local economic development. And this is a mainstream think tank advises people in the current white house. Um, they came out with a report November 1st, 2018 is called the realities of economic development subsidies. And it's the center for American progress. I'd encourage everyone to look it up. It's got like four key points and, uh, uh, four key realities. Um, and they reiterate exactly what I'm describing, which is economic, the first one's economic development incentives are not often not crucial to where firms locate. The second one is the benefits from invest, uh, incentive deals do not live up to the promises based off of wide ranges of studies. Uh, that one, it calls, uh, economic development subsidies, uh, the trickle down economics of the local level. Um, the third one, uh, subsidies may result in diminished services. And the last one is, uh, governments competing for businesses by incentives is often a zero sum game. So I just want to know, like there's hard science behind what I'm getting at right here. And you can look it up as a center for American progress. And they've been doing this work for a good amount of time. It does describe how to do economic development, uh, agreements that, uh, attract a business, um, in there as well. And I think some of those ideas would be really beneficial for us to look towards, uh, cause I just worry about using public wealth towards these, uh, private companies. I think there is another way to do it that can really, uh, be more beneficial for the companies and our local community. So I just, while I had everybody, I'd offer that. You can go look that up yourselves later. Thank you. Thank you. And just to touch a little bit about the referendum and where we are at this, and I understand council member Floyd's frustration about when it first happened and there was a new referendum, but guess what it passed. And that's where we are right now. We had a conversation about the Marina at some point. Right. And people, the voters had proved the Marina to exist. Right. And we were trying to make changes, even though at that point in time, the voters had already said, this is it. This is, this is the status quo until you have another referendum on the Marina. Then you change. I mean, not the Marina. I'm sorry. I've talked about the airport. Sorry. The airport. Everybody's looking at me. I'm like, why are you looking like that? And I'm like, keep saying Marina, the airport, right? Cause we had, you know, the voters have voted on the airport and then we went back and forth on, on, on the airport issue until you have another referendum on the airport and the voters have the final say on this. Look, the voters back in 2022, they understand that we're granting, uh, ad valorem tax exemptions. And the first time the package came before us, which is the same about back in 2021, it was approved. So all that information is out there. So, I mean, I feel, I feel comfortable in this, in the sense that this is something not only besides the economic impact and look, people are going to disagree what economic impact numbers are. I mean, we've spent months on this, on another project. Um, people could disagree with that, but I feel comfortable that the majority of our citizens based on the referendum and what we've done in the past are fine with this. So with that being said, I, I think this is, this is, this is fine the way it is. And, but I do want, there has to be more clarification and making sure you're holding people's feet to the fire. Um, and obviously things are going to come back to us. So, so we can continue having those conversations. So this, this allows conversations to go forward, right? Well, okay. So that's conversal. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Seeing no further requests to speak, we do have a motion and a second on both F4A and B. And if, can you please open the machine? Council members, please, can you vote? Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item F4A and B passes six to two with council members Floyd and Mohammed voting no. Council members Driscoll, Fick Sanders, Gabbert, Gerdes, Hanowitz and Montaneri voting yes. Thank you. So now we're going to go ahead and recess the city council and we're going to move to item CRA two, which is the resolution recommending that the city's council approve the fiscal year 2025 budget plan for the South St. Pete CRA. And joining us is our economic development manager, Mr. George Smith. How are you, Mr. Smith? Good afternoon, Madam Chair, council members, George Smith, economic development manager for the South St. Petersburg CRA. Thank you for this opportunity to present the FY 2025 budget plan or again, the South St. Petersburg CRA. The budget plan that we're presenting only reflects current year revenue. We will return in November after the budget cleanup to present a budget request that will include all any uncommitted and unencumbered rollover funds. The administration is requesting that the agency recommend and city council approves allocating an estimated $17.8 million for use in the FY 2025 South St. Petersburg CRA. According to the following categories, housing and neighborhood revitalization, $10.6 million. Business and commercial development, $4.8 million. Workforce development and education, $1.1 million. Personnel and operations, $1.2 million for a total of $17.8 million. As previously stated, the revenue for FY 2025 is $17.8 million with an estimated $10.7 million from the city, estimated $6.8 million from the county and interest at an amount of $194,000. Again, for a total of $17,800,000. There's been a tremendous increase in property values over the years in the CRA. And subsequently, we have experienced an incredible growth in the revenue since the CRA's creation in 2016. In the first year, we received $468,000 in TIP revenue. 10 years later, in 2025, the annual revenue is over $17 million annually. We plan to invest $10.6 million in housing and neighborhood revitalization pillar, $6 million in the affordable housing redevelopment program, and specifically, $500,000 for single-family development incentive, which supports developers and contractors by offering up to $10,000 per unit incentive that can be used to reduce the construction costs associated with building an affordable housing unit. The program will also allow for payment of up to one-half costs of a lot that the home will be built on, up to a maximum of $40,000. Our goal is to complete 10 projects this year. The Multifamily Developer Incentive offers financial incentives to affordable housing developments to leverage federal, state, and other funding sources. We budgeted $5.5 million. The goal is to initiate a minimum of 100 units this year. This program often supports multi-year projects such as Namaste Housing, Shell Dash, and Fairfield Avenue apartments. For the single-family residential program, we have proposed $4.6 million. In the rehab assistance program, our RAP is $400,000. And this is a zero-interest funding instrument to qualified applicants who own and occupy a residential dwelling unit. The funding provides resources for home repairs to address code violations, address efficiencies that could impair the health, welfare, and safety of the household occupants. The maximum assistance is $60,000 per project. And our goal is seven rehab projects for this year. Our down payment assistance program, $2.3 million, which offers funding that can help pay for closing costs. Down payment assistance and rate buy-downs to lower the principal of the home. Eligible applicants or 140% AMI may receive up to $75,000 for purchase assistance. Our goal is 30 new homeowners in the CRA for this year. Our Facade Improvement Grant Program provides grant funding for residential property owners to improve the exterior facade of their home. This is for homeowners whose income is less than 80% AMI. The goal is 25 new projects for this year. And our Neighborhood Planning Program, $1.5 million, where we work in collaboration with the Neighborhood Relations Department. And this provides funding for the creation and updating of neighborhood plans, as well as the plan implementation. Those eligible neighborhoods for FY25 would include Bartley Park, Childs Park, Arbordale, Campbell Park, Palmetto Park, as well as Melrose Mercy neighborhood. Campbell Park recently completed their neighborhood plan. Both Palmetto Park and Melrose Mercy will complete their plan this coming year. These three neighborhoods will begin to work on the implementation plan of their implementation portion of their plan. Our business and commercial development, where we set aside a budgeted $4.8 million, would include commercial corridors, where we provide funding to support the planning and project implementation of revitalization projects along our commercial corridors. This includes developing new and updating existing plans. And the commercial corridors that we'll be focusing on for this year will be 22nd Street or the Deuces, Dr. Martin Luther King Street, 16th Street, 28th Street, 49th Street, and 18th Avenue South. We will have additional details and upcoming slides on several of these specific initiatives. Our commercial property acquisition of $1.5 million provides fundings to acquire properties and to prepare sites for development. We have not yet identified any properties to invest in. Other properties, once properties have been selected and it's been determined that in acquiring these properties, that it could strategically promote affordable housing, economic development, or revitalization in the CRA. It would be important that these resources are in place to make those acquisitions. The acquisition of the Merinweather site on the Deuces is a prime example of this type of opportunity that we would need to have the resources available when that avails itself. Our site improvement grant of $500,000 provides funding for exterior improvement of commercial buildings along the corridors. Along 22nd Street, 1st Avenue, 18th Avenue, we've identified three specific projects that we will begin very soon. These include investing $1.7 million on 22nd Street to supplement an anticipated FDOT grant. This will include widening sidewalks, improving pedestrian crosswalks, roadway striping for bicyclists, improving street lighting, on-street parking modifications, and improving the gateway and identifying markers. This initiative is in collaboration with our transportation department. Along 49th Street, between 1st Avenue and 22nd Avenue, 49th Street's safe streets for all study was just completed. The stakeholders from both sides of 49th Street, including the City of Gulfport, made several recommendations, some of which will require additional study and substantial investment. However, several suggestions can be addressed immediately, such as improved crosswalks with ADA ramps, raised medians, and lighting improvements. The City of Gulfport has committed $6,565,000 for these low-hanging fruit initiatives. We are matching their commitment and providing additional resources because we have a greater need on our side of 49th Street. Again, we have budgeted $750,000 for this initiative. The South St. Petersburg CRA planning enhancements, which includes the Connecting South St. Petersburg Mobility Study. We have previously invested $17,500. We have previously invested $10,000, my correction. We're requesting to invest $17,500 for a total investment of $27,500 for this study. Our workforce education and job readiness pillar, we've set aside $1.1 million, which includes an additional $600,000 for continued funding for our project with St. Pete College, known as St. Pete Works. This initiative will complete in October of 2025. We've also set aside $500,000 for continued investment in our youth workforce development initiative, known as St. Pete Youth Farm. The processing facility is currently under construction on the site and is expected to be completed this fall. Our final pillar is our salary benefits for CRA personnel. We budgeted $1.2 million for staff implementing our various programs in multiple departments. The staff is housed in economic and workforce development, housing and community development, codes compliance, and engineering. The staff supporting this work throughout CRA includes five full-time and one part-time staff member in economic development, one full-time and four part-time staff in housing and community development, one FTE in engineering that supports the projects, all the projects in CRA, as well as four full-time and team members that are assigned to the codes compliance department. These are several updates to projects that were initiated over the past couple of years, and I really would like to recognize our housing community development department under the leadership of Administrator Foster, as well as Dr. Abert Slacker, because we could not carry out these projects if we did not have the relationship with them that we currently experience. As you can see there, Citrus Grove, which was completed in July of 2024, where we were able to invest in 84 units. Namaste development on Dr. Martin Luther King, which was completed in January. 11 new units of construction, of which all that were available to be sold have been. Shell Dash currently under construction, as we speak, 10 new units of affordable housing. Burlington Post, which is 75 new units, we invested $656,000 in that initiative. The project has closed in August of this year, and construction should begin very shortly. And Fairfield Apartments, which is an investment of $9.7 million into 264 affordable rental units. The financing is being finalized, and we hope to close on that very soon. Total investment of $13.9 million, which with 444 units, the average investment of $31,000 per unit. In addition, we have individual housing units that have been developed in collaboration, again, with housing and community development. This past year, we completed 47 units, and I think we have some updated figures that have been brought to me this morning. I did not update the slide. But we invested $3.7 million for 47 units for DPA. We had a goal of nine units, so we far exceeded that number. Our rehab assistance, our RAP program, we completed nine units, invested $500,000. In our residential facade improvement grant program, completed six units, $118,000 investment, and our rebase for residential rehab of $65,000 with three units completed. Again, $4 million worth of investment in 87 units that were completed. Continuing investment in CRA even goes to our microfund program, where you've seen that we are now at the stage in the midst of our final cohort, the fourth cohort, which was launched in September. Once we complete the program in December, we would have invested in 198 businesses and invested up to $1.4 million. This is a recap of what I have brought for you. One thing I, again, would like to emphasize is that we will be coming back to you all in November with a budget plan that would include any rollover funds that have not been expended. It is our intention to reallocate those funds to those areas that have been previously allocated, as well as any emerging needs. So, in closing, the administration is requesting that the agency recommends and the City Council approves the FY25 budget plan, which allows for the appropriate use of 2025 tax increment revenue and to allocate it in those areas that I've previously outlined. Do you have any particular questions that you'd ask me at this time? Thank you. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you, George, for also the one-on-one keeping a surprise on this. I don't know who can answer this question. In terms of the resolution, the interlocal agreement that we entered originally with the CRA back in 2015, I was just curious why the difference between 95% for us versus 85% for the county in terms of their contribution. Who knows that answer? And I didn't give you guys a heads up, but I was noticing that I'm just, I wasn't here when it happened. I'm just curious why it's not equal. Thank you, Councilmember. Effectively, it was negotiations with the county. Right. Okay. So, basically, and for those who don't understand the CRA, because it can be complicated, you have the CRA as an economic statutory tool that you're allowed to have as a community to take care of blight in areas. And what happens is whatever is within the those boundaries of the CRA, those tax dollars, the increment of the value of the real estate, that money goes back and stays in that community. It doesn't go out to the rest of the city. It doesn't go anywhere else. And it stays within that community. For this one, it's going to be for 30 years to 2045. There is a max that is contributed for us is 95% for the county's 85. That can be changed to less. But it's not going to be more, but it can, it can go down. So, you know, I was just curious as to why it wasn't equal. It's the, I'm curious in terms of the projects as we've had many conversations with the in town CRA recently, with historic gas plan, we have city assets there that need a lot of investment. And I think of MSC and nothing has happened and other city assets. So I want to understand, and we, I asked about Enoch Davis, because I want to make sure while we're doing all this, there are things also that are in that area. Later on, it's not going to be like, well, that's, nothing has happened. And MSC is one of the things I think about. There are other things like the marina and that are in the in town CRA. So I want to understand, what are some big projects in, in the future in there that you see that are have not been covered that will fall within these budget categories. And I think what I'm talking about falls like Enoch Davis, where do you see it fitted in the future in terms of budget? Thank you, Councilmember. So going back just a little on the history of the South St. Petersburg CRA and a different philosophy that was taken at the time it was created versus in town and in town west. Generally, those are project driven CRAs, things like the historic gas plant infrastructure, seawalls. I mean, it goes to kind of these tangible projects. We had three smaller CRA areas in South St. Petersburg at that point in time that really were not generating any incremental tax values. At that point in time, the administration, Christman administration, decided to take a different approach toward community redevelopment areas, investing more in in people and programs as opposed to projects. We are now at a point where we have wildly and it's a wonderful position to be in, but we've wildly exceeded our initial projections for what that incremental value was going to be. And we feel and the administration feels that we're in a position where we can now do both. We can continue to do our programs, but we also can start to do some of these big projects. And so you've already started to see that with some of these housing projects. For instance, the investment in Fairfield represents about $9 million of TIF funding going to support the construction of that project. Similarly, the Manhattan casino renovations, which as Mr. Smith mentioned, will be part of the budgetary cleanup for the South St. Petersburg TIF coming back to city council in November. We anticipate, with council's approval, using some TIF funding for those renovations. Similarly, the reconstruction of Enoch Davis, and that will be a very large project and it's going to require multiple sources of funds in order to complete that. We see the South St. Petersburg TIF being one of those pieces to help bring that forward. So we are now at a point where we do feel some of these larger projects, it is time to start making that investment similar to what you see in in town and in town West. And I understand that. And to be clear, like MSC, that could fall under in-town CRA too, because I've had this conversation with legal and it falls within whatever legal requirements, depending on what the plan says, you can fit these projects in. And part of the community redevelopment to me is a recreation center, Enoch Davis, right? And the Manhattan and all these city assets that add to the community. So that falls well within these plans that we're talking about. I just want to make sure that when we're approving these budgets, these things, it's not going to be later on, oh, this, I want to understand what are the choices we're making now and what are the things that maybe are being put off. So later on, I'm not surprised, this wasn't included. That's kind of where I'm trying to get at. So I have a kind of a broad picture. So Enoch Davis is in the pipeline, the Manhattan obviously is in the pipeline. And, and those are the most, and at some point, I guess we'll talk what, what you see more in the future. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'll be brief today, but I just wanted to ask a question about the workforce development for youth on the St. Pete Youth Park. Yes. Big surprise that I'm going to ask you about this, right? So in the backup, it talks about the 503,000 specifically for staffing and stipends. But I thought I heard you say about the site plan improvements. So can you talk about the totality of what we're doing at the youth farm, continuing to try to do the site plan improvements? I did not see that in the backup. So I wanted to have a conversation about it. Over prior years, we had set aside money in our prior year budgets that provided sufficient funding that could address the needs for the site or the site development, the plant, the project that is being developed now, the processing center. We had previous funding that addressed that. Okay. So the processing center is still moving forward and that is from the previous year's budget. That is correct. Okay. So there isn't, the 503 specifically is for the staffing and the stipend. That is correct. Okay. And can you again, remind us of how, um, the money flows because you don't actually manage the youth farm that is ran by Mike and his team. So can you talk about that again? Sure. So the staff and the students, uh, are employees of the city through parks and rec. So we provide funding to parks and rec department, which they then make those payments. All right. Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all I had. Thank you. Yeah. And thank you for the presentation and, and the one-on-ones before, um, they made me feel very comfortable with everything that we've been doing lately, um, on this. I just wanted to, while we were out in public, uh, have you talk a little bit about, um, a couple of things that were added in the past that aren't in there now for obvious reasons, you know what I'm going to say, housing probate assistance and, uh, eviction diversion. It's been some questions in the community. It got up, brought, got brought up earlier. Um, just, they're not in this budget, but we do anticipate continuing those programs. I figured I'd give you an opportunity to publicly say, yes, that's the case and what's going on. Thank you for your question. The relationship, a contract we have, uh, with community law program has been completed. However, we are extending the contract, but there was no need to include it in this budget because we had sufficient funds from the initial contract to roll over. So we did not need to, uh, bring that forward for your consideration today. However, in our discussions with community law program, their focus is going to start going towards probate assistance, uh, more so than tenant diversion or tenant, um, tenant assistance. Uh, and one reason is because many of those that have come to community law program, uh, needs, uh, are more so as far as rent. Uh, and we cannot provide funding to pay back rent. Our codes compliance department has hired additional staff that will work directly with those individuals that are facing eviction as a result of, uh, lack of paying rent of funding to pay the rent, uh, and try to assist them in addressing their needs. And of course, focusing on, uh, trying to prevent them from, uh, for, for, for the eviction to fall on their record. Uh, but, uh, the energy now is being focused more so in our agreement with community, community law program, more so on, uh, planning and discussion with community members, uh, in alleviating, uh, the need to go through probate, uh, some wheels and that type of training. Um, one thing that we have found is that we can have a greater impact in the community as relates to, uh, preservation of property by the probate assistance program than we can through the tenant assistance. Okay. Um, some of that's news to me actually. So now I have some questions. Uh, so you mentioned like focus on one thing over the other. I mean, will they still be providing the, uh, uh, uh, eviction diversion services and, uh, uh, it was supposed to be like just general legal counsel towards people facing those issues. Is it still going to be provided? It will not be in their agreement in their contract to do that. All of their, all of their focus will be on probate assistance. Okay. However, they will be working in codes who has been very involved, uh, with residents as they, uh, get to the point of being evicted has been working very closely with them in coming up with solutions. Uh, and again, because we don't have the ability to provide any, uh, funds for rental assistance. And that is what they have found in, uh, I would say over 90% of the cases also that they have found is that a great portion of the evictions that they have been, uh, addressing were outside of the CRA, which they will continue to do from other funding sources, uh, and apartments that they can identify, uh, that they have a majority of the evictions that occur in the city are not within the CRA. Yeah, that's, I'll let you go ahead. One, one clarification. So community law program will continue both of those programs moving forward. Um, what Mr. Smith is referencing is just the TIF funding. So moving forward, our CRA funding is going to be more on the probate assistance, um, due to just statutory, um, issues. There are certain things we can spend TIF dollars on. There are certain things we cannot legally spend TIF dollars on. Community law program is going to continue working, um, with the eviction prevention services. They're going to work with our codes. It's just going to be coming from a different source that doesn't have the same restrictions on it as our, our TIF dollars do. So we are going to be moving forward. Both programs will continue to exist as they do today. It is just our TIF dollars will be more focused on the probate piece. Okay. So when you say that they're continuing and there's, where are the other funding sources you're describing for this work? That will be coming from, uh, the codes department, uh, and administrator Foster. Okay. You allocated general fund dollars for this last year. We're waiting for the pilot program to complete. We've conducted meetings with them. Um, and so that'll be conducted out of the office of housing justice. Okay. Okay. And it's not, it's no longer limited just to the TIF area then. That's correct. Due to the statutory issue of using CRA funds in that way. Yeah. The statutory issue of using them outside of the TIF. Yes. Okay. So, all right. Give me a second to digest this. Cause this was not explained previously. It's the first time I'm hearing all of this. Um, I mean, the first thing I have to say is that we knew that, uh, the majority of cases were going to be people who had not paid their rent. And the idea was that those people would, uh, be given legal counsel to tell them like, this is what you can and can't do now that you have not paid your rent, uh, in order to avoid evictions, get people to drop evictions, uh, negotiate with their landlord, um, time to exit their place. So, uh, I don't think any of that's a surprise at all. No, um, council member, it's not a surprise. I think I would maybe nuance what was stated. So it's the issue isn't that there aren't rental assistance funds. That is a problem. But if you remember your conversation, you wouldn't allow us to create a registry to put money into, which is what makes this type of work successful. And so without that registry, um, we are not able to have the same success that we had during COVID. No, no. And yeah, we, we, we knew that it wasn't going to be as successful. I mean, I supported us creating that registry. We had industry groups out here who, uh, don't want us to help working people quite frankly, and, uh, that advocated against it and a majority of my colleagues listened. So I just want to make sure that this work is not getting lost. It took a long time to set up and, uh, get across the finish line. And now I'm hearing things very differently from what I heard when we had our one-on-one. And so, uh, I have some skepticism because of that. And I, I think I'm going to need some broader clarification. I don't want to spend everyone's time up here doing it today, but I want to make sure that this is continuing, um, that we're given an opportunity to discuss it in public before we, uh, decide, you know, how we're going to, uh, shift funding around and we haven't had any of that. And so I would hope that, um, we could do it in the very near future. Thank you, council member. And just to clarify, we really view this as a positive because now, um, as administrator Foster mentioned, there are funds that have already been allocated for this. It now can, can go beyond just the South St. Petersburg CRA. So we're really widening the pool of people that are eligible for these services. We, we view this in a positive light, but we would be more than happy to schedule a one-on-one and, uh, continue to discuss this and sort of the strategy moving forward. No, no. And I understand too, because I sat down with community law and they described that, uh, they were doing a lot of work outside of the CRA and their funding was very tight for that. Uh, and that they were hoping to be able to access the funds that we had set aside to do, uh, broader work. And so that way they could be more effective. And so I'm glad to hear that that's happening. Uh, it's just, just didn't get communicated to me very well as my only complaint and like my frustration. So, um, yeah, I do think there's still opportunity in the future to make it better, but, uh, I'd like to see it. Um, I'd like to sit down and hash this out so I can, uh, wrap my head around it a little better. So, but I appreciate the update today. Thank you. Thank you. Um, George, it's always great to see you. I always appreciate all the work that you do. And just a few questions, um, regarding, um, the current budget, the FY24 budget. Um, what can you remind us what that budget was last year? I think the overall budget, uh, once we had to roll over as well as the new funds is around $36,000, $36 million. Okay. And I can confirm that, but that's what I recall based on information I recently received from my budget office. Okay. And so from, from the 24 budget, how much has not been spent? How much are you looking at rolling over? As of a couple of days ago, 12 million have been expended and 24 million will look to be rolled over. However, one of the challenges that we've run into is that many of our projects are long-term projects. And even though those funds are rolled over, they are still committed, even though they may not be encumbered. What I mean by that, and I can use Fairfield as an example, that in our rollover amount will be those funds from Fairfield Avenue apartments. Even though we have made commitments for those funds, it will still show on our balance sheet as funds that will roll over because we have not entered into an agreement and we have not encumbered the funds. Okay. How much do we have left in unencumbered? That is part of what we will find out as a part, uh, when we go through the budget, uh, cleanup. Okay. It seems like every year we end up with a lot that's left over. And, um, for a long time now, I've brought that up because we want that money going back into the community, um, quickly. I also appreciate council member Hanowitz's, um, remarks regarding larger projects. And we have a different kind of CRA here, but, um, we also want to see that we're, we are doing something that's transformative. And, um, I know we've, we've had a couple of hits and misses on that, but, you know, seeing, seeing as having a lot of leftover money at the end of each year, that's not already allocated for something like Fairfield, um, is it's, it's a little bit frustrating sometimes because we know that the need is out there. We know that there are ways that we can spend it that would benefit the community. Um, and you know, then having large, having larger projects, you know, gives us something that we can point out and say, this is, this is the CRA dollars at work. This is what's, this is what's coming forward with that. There's a lot, um, in the in-town CRA that you can point at that was directly related to the creation of, um, of that plan. So with this one, you know, it's more grants, it's more, you know, going out in these smaller amounts and then we have all this money left over at the end. I just, I feel like we are, we're missing something here. Um, I'd like to see one thing that I noticed was in the, the chart. It was on page 17 of the PowerPoint with the different, um, rehab grants, things like that. You've got three different kinds of rehab grants, but it doesn't look like when you, when you look at those, you know, 18 units and working on rehab stuff, helping to preserve the housing that we already have and, you know, make sure that that housing stock, those homes that people live in or the ones that someone could live in, if it was fixed up, there's so much opportunity there. So I wonder what are we missing? Cause we're not missing money. I mean, funding is funding is there, but I wish we, I wish we had more people, um, saying that they've benefited from those three programs. Is there, is there a reason? I can't say there's a specific reason for us not having the level of, uh, support if you will, from the community that we would like to have, uh, we do have adequate staff that is working with us. Uh, we are marketing extensively, uh, but development does take time, uh, and the properties that we are able to rehab, they are of income level, uh, that those that we're trying to impact could benefit. Um, and, uh, I think one of the challenges might be that we have, um, that the ones that are done are probably more, um, owner occupied. And this is a part of our city that has a high number of, of, um, homes that are rented. And so it's a matter of, um, having the actual property owner, um, willing and interested in improving those properties. So Dr. Avery Slyker, housing and community development, an additional thing too, is that we also have federal and state dollars that are going into housing. Those dollars often have to be spent first because of the way that the funding comes in. There are quotas that we have to meet and goals that we have to meet in order to continue to draw down those funds. So oftentimes those are the funds of the first use in the housing world. So we have certain things that we need to meet in regards to their different AMIs. You have to do 30 and below, then you have to go 50 and below, then 80 and below. Then we also have disabilities that we need to meet, disability markers. So a certain percentage of those funds have to be used first. And then we tap into the CRA dollars. However, based on the loan report that we got for September, just this week, we've spent 8.4 million as a total in housing this year for loans, for rehabilitation and for down payment assistance for new homes. Out of that 6 million came from the CRA. So we are starting to see some increase and some pickup with some of the recent changes that we've made, such as increasing the amount for down payment assistance. Okay. I, I appreciate that. Um, I, I'd like to, I'd like to see those numbers on rehabs going up. It's, you know, there's, there's plenty that's going in for down payment assistance. And I think that's great. Um, it's just, it's just, you know, you can, you can drive around, go to any neighborhood and you can see many, many homes that could use some help, you know, and you're so good at communicating the information with, uh, neighborhood associations. And, uh, maybe we need to get you back out there for another lap around and, uh, get some more people interested because those numbers just stood out to me as less than what I think we all would like to see. Um, I am very excited about the investment in the neighborhood planning program. This is something that the other things were, were helping individuals, but the neighborhood planning program and doing that plan, um, it's truly resident driven. It is community driven. So it's more than just about one homeowner or one family. It's about neighborhoods speaking up, seeing what they want, um, and being able to be part of Crete, not just by coming to one community meeting and somebody takes some notes and that's it. This is real work that the residents themselves roll up their sleeves and help to get done. And through that, by that, through that engagement and, um, in the planning and then the implementation, you see that sense of neighborhood pride going up and, um, you see real improvements that are based on what the residents themselves have said. Um, so I'm, I'm a strong believer in those neighborhood plans and seeing that you've got money for both planning and implementation is very encouraging. So, um, I'm thrilled about that. I'm thrilled about the neighborhoods that are listed on here that are going to benefit from that particular funding in the coming year. And I, I can't wait to see, um, how, uh, what the plans look like and, and how the residents are feeling about it. Once you move forward with that, all I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Smith, for this presentation. You know, um, I was on the, I'll say PCRA, the AC second year, I think 2017. And it's moments like this that make it extremely important, um, for my colleagues to understand just how important those committees are. And some of the questions, um, that we're asking in some of the statements that we are commenting on, a lot of the initial conversations start in those committees. Um, and it moves forward in regards to how strong the committee is, um, when they come with their requests for how we spend some of these dollars. And I would love to, you know, maybe possibly, cause I, I watch some of the recordings just so I can kind of see where we are with that. Um, and, and I liked a lot of the, the neighborhood conversations that the committee members bring, um, to the table. Do they necessarily always get incorporated in what we see now all the time, but I do like what I've seen here, um, in regards to what we've presented, um, because, you know, just think about it. You've gone from 400,000 to $17 million, um, over, um, you know, a short period of time, which I think is commendable, but I do really want to see, um, a little bit more put back in the communities, a little bit more creatively, but I like what you have. The one question I have is the positions that we're voting to fund, how are they going to be posted? How are they going to be, uh, filled? Because I don't want us to apply for jobs that already have people's names on. The, most of the positions are already filled. The staff, uh, that are working in the in-team engineering department, uh, we will be hiring, uh, two additional staff in our department, economic development, uh, in the housing department, those positions already filled. So these are not necessarily new positions. And one of the positions was a position that I once held, uh, and then when I was promoted, then it created a vacancy. So we need to fill that position. So like, for example, the in-team members, the four coming from code now, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the in-team department, I thought were already understaffed. Are these members that we're finding new jobs for? How, how is that happening if they didn't have enough employees to meet the needs of the requests that we have now? Councilmember Fig Sanders, this is a labor allocation issue. So, you know, there's a variety of sources that fund positions throughout the city. Um, and the CRA funds positions within the in-team. I would have to get you a report of whether the CRA specific in-team positions are filled or not. And the reason why I ask is again, because, you know, if we say we want to make it about the community, I want to make sure that it is the community that have access to these positions. Um, and if they already have names on them, I'm just trying to see how. There's not new, I, I think that's the misunderstanding here. There's not new positions. These are positions that have been in place for multiple years and people are in those jobs. They are being funded through this money. Okay. So they were originally funded through these. They were or were not? Excuse me? They were not originally funded. How are they being paid now before? They're being paid now. This is not, this is our current budget, but we're just indicating that these are positions that we're paying for out of our current budget. But these are positions that have been filled for years. Okay. Okay. Because when I got it, I had the impression that they were new. Okay. They are not new this year, council member. They are not positions that were, um, reallocated for this. So a couple of years ago, you added positions, but they are not new this year. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you for that clarification. Um, that is all I have. And I see that we have approval. Well, I know. Oh, yeah, we have a card. Steve Morris, Stephen Morrison, please go to either the podium. State your name and address for the record. We have three minutes to address city council. Hi, my name is Stephen Morrison. Address is 1517th Street South here in St. Pete. I hadn't planned to speak on this issue. I'm a former member of the Citizens Advisory Committee, like, uh, uh, the chair before me, uh, complete recently, recently completed that first three-year term and decided to do some other things. But I find myself still caring about this, listening here. I got another agenda item today. Um, when I was on the CAC, I think I, with Ms. Driscoll, I, I agree with you entirely. I was frustrated that it seemed like we had a lot of money that just never got out the door that was constantly rolled over. So I'd like to throw out just as a general idea today, one of the ideas I had, um, as a CAC member, um, my, one of the drums I banged pretty much every meeting was Tangerine Plaza. And I understand there's already been agreement that's been redone to move forward with that. But my point on the Tangerine Plaza was, um, every parcel of real estate's different. Um, the city owns, you know, a grocery store complex in a food desert. And so I found myself saying at every meeting, and Brian was very good at constantly giving me updates on that. Um, the idea of running a public-private partnership, St. Pete City Market, use TIF dollars, employ new city employees from the CRA to work in the grocery store, serving the area that they're in. That's just an idea. Maybe that ship has sailed. Um, I tend to think Tangerine Plaza might just kind of float along for a little while and, and hopefully something positive will happen there, but I would encourage the same idea, Manhattan Casino, anything else is instead of always waiting on the develop development side to come through with a project to where we can then give them money. And these things roll over year to year to year is maybe start looking at some CRA dollars to employ actual CRA residents, potentially as full city employees or some hybrid contract type thing, but where we, where we control the money that it's going out to our community, hiring people from the CRA to do some of these important things, um, within the CRA boundaries. And so I would just encourage to think outside the box where there's things you can control the money on proactively spending instead of waiting to reimburse somebody who may or may not do a development project down the road. So thank you for that. Right. So we see no further requests to speak. We do have a motion and a second on CRA two. Yes. If you go ahead and please open the machine for voting. Councilmembers, please ask the votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the vote? Madam chair, motion to approve agenda item CRA two passes unanimously. The council member Gabbert being absent. So now we're going to go ahead and adjourn the CRA and reconvene the city council. And we're going to continue with our report item F three, which is the resolution approving that this will be a 25 budget and remaining with us, Mr. Move approval. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second, no request to speak. Can you please open the machine for voting for number three? Council members cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam chair, motion to approve agenda item F three passes unanimously with council member Gabbert being absent. Our new ordinances. We're going to move to G one. We wanted to call the updated application. This is quite a judicial manner and joining us at the panel two with our urban planning and historic preservation. Mr. Andrew Jurex. Hi, how are you? How are you doing? Can we have the title red, Madam chair? Yes. Opposed ordinance number 795Z, an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, by changing the zoning of a 0.10 acre portion of a 0.20 acre parcel located at 3089 15th Avenue South from neighborhood traditional one NT one to neighborhood traditional mixed residential one NT M one providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective date. Public hearing for this item is on October 17th. Thank you and welcome. No presentation. Move approval. Second. Motion is the second with no further requests to speak for G one. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council member, please cast your votes. Seeing our present council members have voted, can you please count and announce the vote? Madam chair, motion to approve agenda item G one passes unanimously. The council member Gabbert and Montaneri being captioned. Thank you. Now, can you please read the title for G two and joining us as a real estate and property manager director, Mr. Aaron. Those ordinance number 600 H dash H in ordinance in accordance with section 1.02 C three St. Petersburg city charter authorizing the grant of a public utility easement to Duke energy, Florida LLC, a limited liability company, DVA limited, Florida limited liability company. I'm sorry, DVA Duke energy within city owned property located at one one six zero 62nd Avenue, Northeast St. Petersburg authorizing the mayor or his designated to execute all documents necessary to effectuate this ordinance providing an effective date. The public hearing is also scheduled for October 17th and we do not have any cards on the side of approval. Okay. Okay. We have no further request to speak. It's a motion to cover a second. Can you please open the meeting for voting file and B two. Council members please cast your vote. Name that all present council members has voted. Can you please call in and act the vote. Madam chair, motion to approve agenda item G two passes unanimously with council members Montaneri and Gabbert being absent. Can you please read the title for D three and do joining us is our deputy board member, Scott Bolliard post ordinance number one one six eight V in ordered ordinance approving a vacation of a portion of the right right away on the south side of 34th Avenue north generally located at seven six three zero 34th Avenue north setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and providing for an effective date and the public hearing for this item is also on October 17th and we do have two cards. I didn't think we had a presentation. Yes, I do have a presentation prepared. Good afternoon council chair and council members. Yes, please. I'd like the presentation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'll need it on this one. For the record, Scott Bolliard with development review services. The request before you is to vacate a portion of the right of way on the south side of 34th Avenue north abutting 7630 34th Avenue north. The applicant's goal is to vacate the portion of right of way to provide parking for the restaurant located at 7630 34th Avenue north. The majority of the existing parking spaces for the restaurant are currently located within the public right of way. The area highlighted in yellow and is the approximate area of the right of way requested to be vacated. Staff's review of the request found that the vacation will not impair or deny access to any lot of record as the applicant owns the abutting property and that the request does not alter utilized travel patterns nor create a dead end right of way. This is the sketch of the right of way proposed to be vacated. The minimum required right of way width for 34th Ave is at this location is 50 feet. The sketch and description provided by the applicant shows that 25 feet of right of way will be retained from the center line of 34th Ave measured to the boundary of the proposed vacated right of way confirming that this requirement will be met. Here's a survey of the property showing parking spaces located on private property as well as within the right of way. The blue line on the survey indicates the property lines. This is the site plan provided by the applicant with the area requested to be vacated highlighted in yellow. The application was routed to city departments and private utility providers for review and comments. Engineering and water resources identified an existing six inch potable water main running along 34th Ave behind the roadway curb near the area requested to be vacated. They are requiring 20 feet from the back of the southern curb along 34th Ave North to be retained as right of way for sufficient space for the maintenance of the potable water main. Transportation reviewed the request and has no objections. Additionally, there were no letters of objection received from private utility providers. Staff has received one phone call throughout the process about the request. After informing the resident of the request, they had no comments or concerns. The red dash line on the site plan shows the approximate location of the 20 foot measurement from the back of curb. The area between the red dash line and back of curb is the area that engineering and water resources are requiring to be retained as right of way. If the request is modified to comply with their conditions, it will result in at least three to four parking spaces not being provided. Based on staff's calculations, the minimum required 16 parking spaces for the existing restaurant will still be able to be satisfied based on the engineering and water resources conditions. Administration is recommending denial of the request for the partial vacation of right away based on the request as proposed and the objections raised by engineering and water resources. If city council is inclined to support the vacation with the conditions provided by engineering and water resources requiring 20 feet from back of curb to be retained as public right of way, then staff recommends making a motion to proceed forward to the public hearing with the administration recommended draft ordinance provided as attachment fee. On September 4th, 2024, the DRC approved motions revising the conditions requiring compliance with engineering and water resources memorandums that require 20 feet from the back of curb to be retained as right of way to instead require that the applicant retain 20 feet from the back of curb as a public utility easement. The reasoning discussed by the DRC for the modified condition was that by dedicating that area as an easement, it will require a hard surface material to be installed for the parking spaces over the existing six inch potable water main, thereby providing better protection of the water main and additional parking on site for the restaurant which will reduce overflow parking extending into the nearby nearby neighborhood. This was compared to retaining the area over the water main as public right of way, which will require that area to be maintained with sod that may result in overflow parking for the restaurant occurring on top of the existing water main, thereby posing a greater risk of damage to the water main. The DRC voted to recommend approval of the request to city council with their revised conditions by a vote of six to one. If city council is inclined inclined to support the vacation with the revised conditions recommended by DRC requiring 20 feet from back of curve to be retained as an easement, then staff recommends making a motion to proceed forward to the public hearing with the DRC recommended draft ordinance provided as attachment D. This does conclude staff's presentation and if you have any questions I'll be more than happy to answer them. Yes we do. If I had to guess certainly. Dennis Lang and Benjamin Shirellis, please go to either podium. Either of them are here. Mm hmm. Really? Council Member Blur can go if that's okay chair. Okay. Council Member Blur? Oh, I was just gonna ask. It wasn't super clear from the presentation like how staff felt about the changes like. Yes. The staff and administration are recommending denial but if you want to proceed with the approval we're recommending moving forward with the conditions within the engineering and water resources memorandums which would require 20 feet from back of curve to be retained as right of way. That's what staff would recommend going forward with. Okay, so if we went forward but you would feel more comfortable with us not going forward is what I'm hearing. As proposed. As proposed. Well, as proposed, you know, if if it went forward and you approved it with with the administration recommended ordinance then they would have to revise the request basically that sketch and description that was shown on the slide they would need to revise that so that they are requesting less right of way to be vacated so that there is that 20 feet from back of curb retained as right of way. Yeah, but administration is comfortable with those conditions being at correct. Yes, we're comfortable with those conditions. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Sorry for the confusion. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's fine. I do think I got it and I am comfortable moving it forward since we will be able to have more discussion between now and then as well. I was really hoping the applicant would be here because during the DRC discussions they did indicate that if it went forward with the way city was requiring it that the restaurant would not be able to survive the model because they wouldn't have enough parking on site. Now, I'm just kind of paraphrasing what they said in the meetings. Okay. All right. Let's. Thank you. I'll listen now. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, after conversation, I had conversation with the owner of this property earlier this morning, and with the recommendations, they're willing to move forward what they don't want is denial because they what happens is, is if you could put up the photo of slide three, please. I just, I'll just give you the background of what's happening here because obviously we had the attorney go a little bit cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs earlier, or the architect, excuse me. So they want to put an awning on the building because they have outdoor seating. And in order to do that, they need, they need to vacate this right away. Okay. And so they, they want the awning more than they want the one parking space they're going to lose. So, uh, my, my only comment was this, this, I think because DRC just happened and the minutes weren't involved in this, this packet, this was, this one was confusing to get to where staff landed on this. I, I can appreciate that maybe when DRC was happening and they had to make the decision, the owners had to make the decision right there, and then they wouldn't support that. But without the DRC, the detailed DRC notes, this was really hard to figure out whether, cause I'm not a big proponent of going against what staff feels like. But then when you kind of dig down a little bit deeper, you go, okay, well, if we make these changes, how does staff feel about it? And that was a little unclear. So I'm glad that's why I kind of wanted to back up. Cause based on some of the reaction, it feels like we all felt that way a little bit. And so, um, I thank you for clarifying. I think this will be easier at the second public hearing. I'll move approval with DRC revised conditions of approval. Second thing that there's no further. We have a motion in the second or wait. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Are you voting on both of them? Because you indicated you were moving forward with the DRC recommended. If we move forward that, then they're basically taking away the options to change your mind at the next hearing. I believe there were two. So yes, the staff is not supporting the DRC recommended conditions. DRC recommended the easement and staff is recommending that the 20 foot be retained as right of way. It would be a partial vacation of right away either way. So that's why the title is changed, but there's two different options. There's retaining as an easement or retaining as right of way. I misunderstood. You too. I would draw the motion and make a motion for approval with the recommendations from attachment C. Did I get that one right? Isn't that what you said? I wrote it down. Yes, that is correct. It's the administration recommendation. Or should we just leave it and we can discuss at second hearing? Is that the best thing to do? Moment. Sorry. I thought I was making it easier. I made it more difficult. The only thing that's different are the conditions within the draft ordinances. So yes, if you vote to move forward with attachment C with the administration recommended conditions, then we will move forward with only that ordinance, which has the conditions in it, that they must comply with the engineering and water resources memorandums. If you went forward with the DRC recommended ordinance, the only condition in there is that they need to dedicate an easement in that area. Yeah. I misunderstood before. I'm going with attachment C with staff's recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Second. I have a question. I'm very confused what the motion is. So G3 has two different versions, but it's the same item, same number. So the request is for a partial vacation of the right of way. And the applicant wants the entire portion adjacent to their property to be vacated to them and only to retain an easement. The easement retention was suggested by DRC at that meeting last month. City staff is requesting that 20 feet remain as a right of way buffer. So they would still get a partial vacation of the right of way because I believe they're asking for a 50 foot vacation. But instead of 20 feet coming to the city as an easement, we want to retain that as right of way. And I think Mr. Preyman can explain why engineering made the comments they did. And we tried to explain that to DRC to the difference between retention as an easement or retention versus a right of way is the motion is to approve the version of the ordinance, which was exhibit C, because that includes the ordinance with the vacation, but subject to the staff engineering conditions. So it would be a vacation with the retention of the 20 foot as right of way. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now. Yeah, that's my fault. Sorry about that. All right. So we have a motion in a second on G3 with attachment C. Would you please go ahead and open the machine for voting? Council members, please pass your vote. Seeing that all present councilors have been so voted, can you please tally and announce the vote? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item G3 attachment C passes unanimously with Council Montaneri being absent. Thank you. Now we're going to go ahead and move on to G4. Mr. Bowling, you're still on. Read the title now. G4. Yes. Ordinance number 1169B. An ordinance approving a vacation of the 10 foot wide alley located between 141 7th Avenue South and 721 14th Street South setting forth conditions for the vacation to become effective and provide an effective date and the public hearing for this item is also on October 17th, 2024 and we do not have. And if this is straightforward, I move approval. Yeah. You can go anywhere on this one. I second. Hey. Seeing that we have a motion and it has been properly seconded by item G4, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, can you please catch the vote? Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please challenge and announce the vote? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item G4 passes unanimously with Council member Montaneri being absent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bullion. We got through. We got through. So now we're going to go ahead and go to new business and our next first item in business is H1 is referral to YFS. Council member Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. And this is follow up to our conversation a few weeks ago about two projects or proposals that have been advocated from the community. So we're respectfully requesting referral to the youth and family services committee for a presentation on the fund our future project aimed at directing funds toward youth initiatives and programming in child's park. Can I move? Second. I have a quick question. So when it says initiatives and programming, is it only for child's park or are we not going to review looking for initiative impact youth initiatives really well? I think that would be a great conversation to ask during the presentation because that's what we're looking to do is have them present on what it is that they actually want to get done. Because it says in child's park, like it's only limited to child's park. I know the focus is child's park, but I can't say exclusively. So again, what we're looking to do is have them present and then be able to. I'll support it as is, but I definitely want it to be rather than child's park. Thank you. Council member Drisco. Thank you. I actually did interpret it as being, uh, something that is, uh, for, uh, potentially for other areas, other neighborhoods, but, um, for this particular one, I think. And from what we heard, I think from many of the speakers during our first reading of the budget, um, that this is an area of focus and opportunity. So, um, when we, I really look forward to this discussion and perhaps seeing child's park as like the prototype for something that can be duplicated in other areas, um, to suit the needs of each individual neighborhood. So I'm very, very supportive of this and grateful that it was brought up. Now that we, it's been motioned and item H1. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members. Yes. The vote. Seeing that all present council members have voted, please file in and out to vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item H1 passes unanimously. With Council Member Montaneri being absent. Okay. Council Member Montaneri being absent. Okay. But wait, there's more respectfully requesting a referral to youth and family services committee for a presentation on the Bay Area dream defender save our streets proposal to share recommendations for programming responsive to the needs of child's park neighborhood residents. And I move approval. Second. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, just while we're all here. So it's easier to ask, are you looking to have these items come at the same time to YFS? Yes. Okay. Just clarity when we go for scheduling. Absolutely. Thank you. Now there's been motion and properly seconded of item H2. Can you please open the machine for voting? Now that all present council members have voted, can you please file in and out to vote? Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda item H2 passes unanimously with Council Member Montaneri being absent. Thank you. That's, that's common. You did that. Mom, Kid. My hon liter. It's the owner... So this is new business and we have public hearings that start at 6pm. We're going to go ahead and do certain dances for 15. All right. This is the start of the public hearing. this public hearing is on the final budget the final military and the budget appropriation ordinance fiscal year 2025 which has been amended for second reading to include i the intent of the request made by city council at the first public hearing and two administration's proposed changes since the first reading as outlined in amended g recap of changes this is also a public hearing on the proposed multi-year cip program for the city of st petersburg prior to public comment the first central issue discussed shall be the percentage increase in millage over the rollback rate necessary to fund the budget if any and the specific purposes for which ad valerian revenue tax revenues are being increased that issue will be discussed by the mayor and his staff after the title to the budget appropriation ordinance is red ordinance number 592 h an ordinance ordinance making appropriations for the fiscal year ending september 30 2025 making appropriations for the payment of the operating expenses of the city of st petersburg florida including its utilities and for the payment of principal and interest on revenue bonds and other obligations of the city of st petersburg florida making appropriations for the capital improvement program of the city of st petersburg florida making appropriations for the dependent special districts of the city of st petersburg florida adopting this appropriations ordinance as the budget for the city of st petersburg florida for the fiscal year ending september 30 2025 providing for related matters and providing an effective date and we do have three cards madam chair and joining us is the budget director elizabeth mezcal all right before we begin tonight um if anyone has specific questions or concerns regarding the assessed value of their property exemptions or classification related to your property or information on the trim notices tonight we have here with us kevin mckeon the deputy deputy of assessment administration for the pinellas county property appraiser's office if anyone would like to speak with him please follow him at this time and he will answer any questions also for those attending virtually please contact the pinellas county property appraiser's office at 727-464-3207 or through email at mike at pcpao.org so good evening and thank you chair and members of city council this evening is the second of two public hearings on the fiscal year 2020-2025 budget for the city of st petersburg florida statutes 200.065 also known as the truth and millage act requires a specific process for our discussion tonight and the order of this process is laid out in attachment a of the backup materials the city clerk has provided the second reading of the fy25 budget ordinance and in just a moment i will review with council and the public the proposed changes to the tentative fy25 budget that city council approved three weeks ago upon conclusion of the budget presentation we'll then hear from the public and after the public comment period and discussion and deliberation by city council you will be asked to take action on three items each of these actions will need to be done as a standalone motion the first is to adopt by resolution the final millage rate of 6.4525 for fy25 adopt the fy25 budget appropriation ordinance as the final budget and adopt by resolution of the the fy25 the 29 capital improvement program so under the trim statutes the first item of substance to be discussed is a percent increase if any and millage over the rollback rate for purposes of the fy25 budget the rollback rate is 6.0796 and is the millage rate that would generate roughly the same amount of ad valorem revenues in fy25 as the city received in fy24 under the trim statutes we're allowed to recognize ad valorem revenue associated with new taxable value added to the tax base so the rollback rate generates slightly higher revenues in fy25 than the city is scheduled to receive in fy24 the proposed fy25 millage rate is 6.4525 a reduction of 0.0150 mils from last year's millage rate and represents a 6.13 percent increase over the rollback rate the year-over-year increase in ad valorem revenue from fy24 to fy25 is 20.633 million the second step in the state required trim process is to discuss the reasons ad valorem taxes are being increased a major reason for the increase in the ad valorem revenue is to provide the resources needed for wage increases for all city employees including police and fire rescue the key areas of investment plan for fy25 are aligned with the mayor's five pillars for progress for the education and youth opportunities pillar there's funding to continue programs such as the mayor's future ready academy year-round youth employment programs youth development grants and literacy and steam programs under the equitable development arts and business opportunities pillar we look to fund the continuation of many of our economic and workforce development programs and arts programs while adding funding for new programming including a new city-wide workforce development program and the arts micro grant program under our neighborhood health and safety pillar we're continuing to fund neighborhood and public safety programs like call mayor's tree mini grants and adding funding for the safe summer safe neighborhood for all community impact and healthy neighborhood store programs for the housing opportunities for all pillar they'll be funding to continue our progress on the 10-year housing opportunities for all agenda and provide resources for social service programs the fy25 budget has funding for the continuation of the city employee housing citywide citywide rebates for rehab citywide tenant eviction programs and a funding for a new program to assist with code violations in our environmental environment infrastructure and resilience pillar the budget has funding for projects that protect our environment and improves our city's infrastructure the increase in avalorum tax is based on a 10.78 increase in 2024 property values over 2023 this chart shows a 10-year history of property tax revenues in relation to public safety costs you can see that in fy25 the avalorum revenues will cover all public safety costs for the city this slide illustrates the calculation of the millage rate for fy25 the first step in the calculation is to determine the value of one mill to do this we take the gross property value for the city and then multiply it by 96 percent which results in 33.851 billion in value for budgeting purposes we then divide this amount by 1 000 and gives us the value of one mill as 33.851 million the second step is to look at our fy25 general fund requirement of 393.595 million and net out the other sources of revenue other than ad valorem which is 175 million to arrive at the amount of required ad valorem taxes at 218.424 million the third and final step is divide this required ad valorem tax amount of 218.4 million which shows as b on the slide by the value of one mill which is a on the slide and to arrive at the 6.4525 mills required and again this is a millage rate decrease of 0.0150 mills from fy24 this next slide illustrates a typical tax bill for a resident of the city of st petersburg the city of st petersburg makes up approximately 30 percent of this homeowner's tax bill or a total tax bill of 30 cents for every ad valorem tax dollar paid by the property owner the school system with its two components of their tax bill makes up 35 percent and pinellas county makes up 22 percent the balance of the 12 is made up of the various other taxing authorities like ems swift mud and the health department we'll now move into a discussion of changes to the fy25 budget since city council approved the tentative budget three weeks ago at the first public hearing this information is included in more detail in attachment b recap of changes and there has been only one change since the tentative budget was approved this changes in the peer operating funds budget and is a reduction in budget in the amount of 300 000 for the peers fifth anniversary celebration events in this next section we'll give a quick overview of the fy25 budget using tables charts and graphs these tables are included in the fy25 budget and brief which has been posted on the city's website the total operating revenue budget for the city is 908.869 million charges for services make up the largest revenue category at 390 million or 42.9 percent followed by taxes at 288.1 million or 31.7 percent the fy25 operating budget for the city is 901.9 million and is about 9.5 percent higher than the fy24 operating budget the water resources operating fund increased by 9.6 percent from fy24 from 202.4 million to 221.9 million and the general fund budget and reserves increased by 8.2 percent or 3.646 million to 300 394.5 million the total general fund revenue budget is 330 393.595 million and the general fund revenue comes from of various sources as illustrated on this chart on this chart the largest single source of revenues are taxes which includes the ad valorem property taxes and this amount is 288.123 million or 73.2 percent of the revenue budget and intergovernmental revenues which include the half cent sales tax is the second largest at 11.2 percent or 44.116 million the total general fund expenditure budget for fy25 is 393.595 million the city's general fund is categorized into six administrations the single largest general fund investment made by the city is in public safety at 52.7 percent and public safety includes both police and fire rescue departments the general government administration makes up the next largest category at 19.8 percent and some of the departments included in this administration are budget finance legal and human resources and the third largest general fund investment is in our quality of life type programming provided by community enrichment administration at 16.8 percent and includes parks and recreation department and libraries this chart shows the general fund budget broken out by expenditure type the single largest expenditure category for the general fund is wages and benefits at 261.825 million or 66.5 percent of the total general fund budget services and commodities make up the next largest category at 20.9 percent or 82.3 million bfy 25 cip includes a total of 198.467 million in capital projects water resources projects account for the largest part or 120.58 million or 60.76 penny for pinellas projects account for the next largest category just under 40 million in projects and 20 percent of the budget the total for our five-year cip plan is 993.853 million this slide shows the fund balance commitment categories that council will need to reaffirm these or other categories when the budget is adopted however the amounts to be set aside in each category are not determined until the fy 24 fiscal year is closed and we have year-end actual results at that time we'll have a better idea of how much fund balance is available to allocate to each category and the commitment categories can then be funded as part of the year-end cleanup in november we do have a new commitment category included in this year's budget ordinance it's a measure of financial assurance from the city to the u.s army of core of engineering and as a commitment in lieu of a performance bond for the construction of the seagrass mitigation bank so in closing i'd like to mention that information on the city's fy 25 budget is available on the city's website and i'd also like to take a moment to thank the budget team for their hard work and for all the department personnel throughout the city that work and provide assistance throughout the budget process thank you chair and council members this is the beginning of the public the general public shall be allowed to speak and ask questions prior to the announcement of the minor military and final budget license yes ma'am first two speakers madam chair and please go to either podium nathan tupassant and lama ala hassan please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council hi my name is nathan tupassant my address is 502nd street south and i'm here today to talk on behalf of the fund our futures program as well as the dream defenders campaign when it comes to what we're seeking to achieve through the fund our futures we're looking to create high quality accessible after-school programs for the youth and child's part something that will provide opportunities that he can bring with them the various skills professions but also brings opportunity back to the area in addition to that these skills may include things like a boost in grades mentorship and career readiness skills but overall i just want to say thank y'all for your consideration throughout this process and to also look to the dream defenders campaign scene as it seeks to achieve a lot of the well-needed reform within these high impact areas i yield the rest of my time thank you very much um my name is lamal hassan uh i live um key 5011 starfish um and i am a part of the bay area dream defenders as nathan so eloquently started talking about the two campaigns that we have the saber streets from doom defenders and fund our futures and the importance of um having those as part of the budget and just i know last time uh we did not have an opportunity to respond after the fact so i wanted to kind of clarify some of the things that we had in terms of the timeline so after the last budget meeting back in april uh we met with uh miss lisa to talk about the current initiative and ways that we can also incorporate these initiatives to address to be proactive about addressing um the issues within our communities the program that is currently available which i don't remember what it's called off the top of my head um is reactive it only comes into effect after youth have been arrested so we think it's crucial to be proactive and that's where we think the funds need to be spent uh so we did meet up with miss lisa and we did try to meet up with the mayor's office and we were not able to get a meeting with anybody uh so when we came in here to the first review um there were some questions from the mayor's office of why did we not hear about this and i want to clarify that it was shared uh and everyone here should have also gotten an email from us with the proposal uh we have not heard any feedback yet if we did and we missed it please let us know we just got one confirmation that it was there and so um i'm hoping that this does make it onto the agenda for the uh youth and family services committee that's coming up and what i want to spend the rest of my time talking about is hoping that y'all also reflect on the budget um especially after the devastating effects of hurricane helene uh we saw absolutely atrocious conditions um people lost homes peoples uh we there were some lives lost in the tampa bay area as well um it was absolutely terrible uh and i think that just goes to show how we cannot wait for the next devastating hurricane to hit our communities we have to take our budget and think of it very seriously and start to apply the infrastructure today because we did not have that going into this there was not support coming from the city of saint pete to help folks evacuate there was some support after the fact whether it was free food or free laundry which is great but people lost their homes um people were stranded i for me it was my friends from uh organizations like the mutual aid disaster relief that were first boots on the ground they were in there before some folks from the city and so it's the fact that community members were able to get there and provide the necessary support to help feed give water and the necessary medical equipment that folks but yeah just consider her next speaker madam chair beau macy please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council and i have no other cards after that never mind what was that i need to say again sorry thank you beau macy uh 2420 8th avenue north st p florida 33713 oh okay hello my name is beau macy i'm an organizer with the local tampa bay area dream defenders it has been my privilege to work alongside my peers to get this program in front of you for the simple fact that our youth deserve a chance to grow without fearing um for their lives because of gun violence our community's safety and security must be a tantamount priority to our leaders but when dream defenders talk to local residents about what it was that would make them feel safer for the threat of gun violence for themselves and for their children the overwhelming response was not increased police presence and it was not increased arrest instead what we heard most of all was that there was a lack of youth and young adult programming in their communities without a place for young people in saint petersburg to go and without often stable affordable housing to depend on they often turned to the streets and then to unaddressed violence what youth need is an opportunity to engage and programming around saint pete in a safe and fun way and the fund our future program assists with this we must be there for our youth by allowing accessible affordable programs and to do that the city must be ready to actually invest into these youth excuse me into these youth programs otherwise we condemn our children and young adults and neighborhoods the same ongoing violence without any substantial solutions only a series of arrests and large gaps in our communities that cannot sustain a city we have lost too many to gun violence in our streets recently and over time and we cannot pretend that it's enough to remove bad actors without addressing underlying needs as a voter i am listening thank you next speaker madam chair is your donna smola please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council hi my name is your donna smola um i live at 2000 gandy boulevard apartment 5 north um saint petersburg florida 33702 um like a lot of my colleagues here today um we're also speaking out in support of the save our streets proposal that we have sent um here i'm representing as a dream defender member i'm also representing as a saint pete resident um who have lived here for about four years now um and i know that this is a topic that we've discussed um throughout various city council meetings over the past year um but just wanted to again echo of the details in our proposals and the purpose of the proposal is to really be proactive and to share the support some of the comments that we have gotten from people in child's park and in areas surrounding um is a lack of accessibility people who are working multiple jobs or people who don't have transportation so we could use some of that funding for more advertisement for maybe a small bus to be able to gather kids just making sure that preventative programs are accessible to people who want them and that they know that it exists um and also i wanted to mention um that um as lemma had mentioned uh we would love to meet with anyone on city council who is interested in hearing more from us um and we've extended those meeting requests so we hope to hear from you guys soon in the next coming weeks um and i also wanted to mention that we've shared our program with other chapters in other cities in florida and there is an appetite for uh preventative youth program measures across the state of florida and it would be really great for the city of saint pete to uh be a beacon in florida and to show um a representation of what that could look like um and so that we can get more investment in youth programs um all across the state um and then lastly i just wanted to uh mention that we understand that there's a committee meeting happening in the next couple of weeks uh with the yfs committee um and we hope it gets added on the agenda and would love to meet with anyone for any questions beforehand thank you the comment portion of this hearing is now closed now we'll have council member montaneri thank you chair uh let me uh start by thanking uh liz and her team for all the hard work uh uh putting putting this together as uh uh the public knows the uh budget is the uh the most important thing that uh city council does and uh we start the process with a a meeting of uh city council priorities when it comes comes to the budget uh i wanted just to review just my my thinking when it comes to the budget uh i always start off a budget priority uh my my budget priorities with a miller's rate reduction so i'm glad we were able to do that and then uh i want to make sure that uh our our reserves are adequate adequately funded and i always uh want to to put a million dollars in the economic stability fund and uh i was glad we were able to get that done too because that economic stability fund is there for just this case that we're facing right now after a major hurricane we were we were briefed earlier in the meeting today uh about almost 11 000 homes uh that were flooded in the city of saint petersburg including 146 homes that were destroyed uh that's going to have an effect on our tax base and uh uh i want to make sure that we are uh always thinking about uh uh our our being fiscally prudent when it comes to uh making sure we can we can fund our our government my my next set of priorities is public safety making sure our police and fire departments are funded and then everything else that i that i put forward uh is all infrastructure and uh i'm glad that we've been able to increase in a lot of areas of our our budget uh the infrastructure infrastructure spending and then the last thing i i put in is i always want to make sure that we plant trees in our city because trees affect our quality of life and i always put uh i always want to put money in the budget to plant a thousand trees uh a year um so uh i was glad to see that uh on on the the peer operating uh line item that we reduced that by three hundred thousand that was uh allocated for the drone show and for the people in the audience and the people at home uh the city had set aside seven hundred and twenty five thousand dollars uh for the five uh five year anniversary of the pier which i thought was uh not necessary uh and that was before the the the hurricane and uh i made a motion to just line that uh item out and um didn't get support for that so i'm i'm glad we we uh got a reduction of three hundred thousand uh a few weeks ago i requested some detail uh of a breakdown of the cost of the the pier celebration uh we still have uh 50 uh we still have three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars if you set aside a hundred thousand dollars for the fireworks demonstration for the fourth of july and other celebrations which i don't want to touch but we still have three hundred twenty five thousand dollars which i would like to see moved into uh our community enrichment uh department uh i i know that our parks uh have been hit hard and uh a lot of infrastructure relating to our parks have been hurt by this storm so i'm going to go and make a motion to allocate three hundred twenty five thousand dollars from the peer operating fund uh to the community enrichment uh i'm sure i'm gonna sound like a broken record like like last time i apologize so the script your council member you can certainly make that um motion it's slightly out of order just based on this very rigid um script we have to follow to uh align with far to statutes so now we're on seven so all of these things can be discussed the actual motions to amend the budget appropriations ordinance should happen down in step 11 on attachment a so anything is fair game for discussion but the reason for this is that of course if anything came up in discussion that would cause a millage rate change that's the reason for the discussion now but um assuming that is not not the case obviously in this situation the announcement of the final millage and some other things should happen before you actually get to the formal uh motion to amend okay well thank you thank you for for that um i will uh wait until we get to step 11 and and make my motion and i'll yield the floor thank you chair thank you thank you here and jackie thank you um for giving us that update again this is such a very tedious exact process that we have to follow um and so the conversation i'm going to have is not about amending the budget but i am going to be discussing what i mentioned earlier today about providing um the high water vehicles to the fire department um during the storm i went to station four and i had a conversation at the fire station kitchen table with the people that are on the ground that are going and responding to all the calls um of people that are stuck that can't get out um and not just with one shift i had it with various shifts and there was a consistent request for a high water vehicle um and it was it's something that i think we really need to take into consideration to do there should not be a situation where you have people that are being saved in neighborhoods elderly woman being put in a storm water truck that are made to carry sand and not people that's what was going on and my request is for three hundred thousand dollars um for a purchasing a high water vehicle i spoke with administration they can move money from the supplemental appropriation from they could do a supplemental appropriation from the unappropriated balance of the equipment replacement fund so they can put this so they can get the appropriate vehicles so when these things happen and it doesn't have to be by the way a hurricane or the level of water that we saw this could be the flooding that happened september 5th or whatever where they go out and they have the ability with these trucks to have for people that are disabled to get them in there so that makes a huge difference in terms of saving people so based on the conversations i've had that's what i am going to ask for um if administration wants to chime in on this and if there are any other questions i'd be happy to answer them um but i think it's really important because it's like needing a generator during a storm it's better when you have the generator there than trying to get it during the storm you're not going to get it and trying to borrow something from another department so i think it's something that we need thank you thank you council member thank you chair if i could just comment on that um obviously we understand everybody wants to support our first responders right now especially with the storm uh that we've had we do think consideration of high water vehicles is appropriate we would prefer however to maybe go to a committee meeting show you the equipment we have now talk about it see if this is the best use of the funds or if there's some other thing that maybe would be of better use for first responders so you know certainly the appropriation is at your discretion we can't appropriate funding from the equipment vehicle fund if you prefer to do that and you would like to do that but we would prefer to talk about it in committee and and and i appreciate that and and i had that in that conversation with administration my concern is when i spoke to people who are actually doing this on the ground they've been needing this for a long time and it's hasn't happened and so we had a storm they had to save people and use stormwater trucks and not have the appropriate equipment and if you're going to get something this is the time to do it and frankly when we go look at the study that we just did of management for the fire department you will see some of the comments that are in there in terms of not getting the appropriate equipment so i think it's pretty apparent that given the situation and given the feedback more than ever this is a time where we should be given the equipment and not to just set it for another committee meeting um i can't imagine they can't use a 300 000 piece of equipment to save people out of floodwaters so thank you thank you and thank you liz for the presentation and all that you and your team have done to get us to this point um regarding the reduction of the allocation for the peers five-year anniversary um so it was a 300 000 reduction what where was where did that go so it goes to the peers fund balance the peer operating fund it's a separate fund from the general fund okay so it still stays with the peer right and we have um council member hanowitz had the uh request for the high water vehicle um which is that amount and i'm sorry council member montaneri had asked for um some funding for our parks and i didn't catch what that amount was and also are we talking about using the three hundred thousand dollar reduction to go towards something or are we talking about um taking an additional taking additional funds from the remaining 425 000 which personally i i still think is a lot um i i would love an answer from council member montaneri if you don't mind sure uh yes i i wanted to reduce the the expenditure down to just a hundred thousand dollars just for fireworks for for the peer celebration uh we we received a memo on september the 14th from administration and uh they've got a hundred thousand dollars for fireworks for the fourth of july and other uh celebrations uh so but there's a an additional three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars okay so then we still have the three hundred thousand that would go to the pier yeah it it would go to the peers fund balance it wouldn't be available in the general fund for other expenditures like parks and rec um we do have step separate funds for certain reasons the revenue goes in um and it has to be used for certain things right and there is it is a subsidized fund but because looking at for future years there we're required to keep a certain amount in the peer operating fund balance and uh we a lot of the stuff we're using this year is kind of a one-time use of fund balance so to keep the subsidy down in future years we wouldn't want to reduce a subsidy in fy25 so anything that would be reducing that peer anniversary would stay within the peer operating fund balance and wouldn't be available for any general fund type activities chair if we could at any time you deem appropriate of course we're concerned about the parks as well but we do have some significant funding coming from previous storms reimbursement and if council members would like to hear from administrator jeffries on the money that we are expecting for parks we can provide that information thank you i would like to hear more about that as i'm thinking of these different proposals and ideas um because i know that um our parks department uh doesn't have like this big fat budget anyway and they do a lot with a little as it is and i know that there are still um issues from the storm a year ago that haven't that haven't been fixed yet or trees that have not been replaced yet things like that so they're starting to get to where they're falling behind and i i don't want that to happen um we always need to make sure that we're taking care of our parks you know so administrator gerda since you um asked the question in regards to that um i do know and i'm looking at the script that we're following and i don't want to try to mute council members request in regards to amendments on the budget so what we're going to do is follow the process either the motion fails or it passes i haven't requested an amendment i'm asking for information no i was talking about council member modernary so stay over there and i'm over here so if you want to go ahead and have that piece because i heard what your request was and i heard what jackie um actually recommended as far as getting to number 11 for him to make that motion for that amendment but i've also heard your request but if council member modernary wants to make that um that amendment request i'm going to allow him to do that so i did hear you thank you for that offer um but i am going to continue to let the council members as well as council member hannowitz um with your amendment request so provide the information at any time okay okay thank thank you so much for that okay council member driscoe i needed to thank you i'd like to hear from mr jeffries please is he still in the room good evening um mike jeffries i'm the community enrichment administrator um as council member driscoll uh did mention we did have some damage that we were able to file with fema on the waterfront um our waterfront park system uh we had sawed and a number of trees that were damaged by the salt water that came over the seawall and didn't flush out happy to report that um we have received word that we're receiving about five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars um to restore the sod and the trees that are there on the waterfront so and i know that we've shared with some of you offline that we are having some drainage issues um in the flora wiley or rouse uh area and we are working with engineering and stormwater to figure out is there an infrastructure issue um that's causing the the um the flooding of the water to not recede um candidly we we don't want to replace the sod until we get that problem solved first uh so that's our first priority and we've been working with um administrator tanker sleaze uh teams uh to figure out what the the overall solution is so um about five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars coming for sod and trees from the previous storm we did um we did suffer some damages as did a lot of the other departments here during this most recent uh storm and as we will as we always have we will file those uh claims either uh through fema um or in some cases through our insurance as well because of the the size uh the the amount of the damage that's occurred okay is there um i'm thinking about the fact that we have several playgrounds that are closed right now and it says until further notice um is that are are the playgrounds damaged to the point where they're included in that request and you feel confident about getting the funding because that is not cheap so the playgrounds are part of this most recent storm and what we had happen is we had um some of the subsurfaces uh took on water and actually um swelled and caused issues with the playground uh the playgrounds and so we are working with our vendors now to get those um to get those repaired our goal is to not have any playgrounds offline obviously um but again that is something that ultimately we would um hopefully get reimbursement from uh from fema for the storm okay but to answer your question i think this might be what you're getting at um we are not planning to leave those playgrounds offline waiting for the fema reimbursement because we all know that that could take a significant amount of time um we will repair do whatever we need to we have um certified playground inspectors on staff that are um candidly right now working on cleaning up debris and getting some of that going on for us so um we will shift their task um now that we have the contractor here in town and we will start to inspect those playgrounds and and tighten those up as best we can we're hoping that some of the playgrounds um and some of the damage that we've experienced in the department is minor enough that we can either fix in-house or through blankets um mayor welch and administrator uh girdus has given us the direction to get that done with our blankets um we certainly want our amenities back online as quickly as possible thanks we do too thank you very much for that information helpful as i can consider what's being proposed here um we received an email um on september 30th um with some uh answers to some questions from a council member and um i wanted to go back to our uh the funding for literacy and stem programs um in the body of the email that we received from liz um it states that for that programming the four hundred thousand dollars that is allocated the last time we had a committee of the whole meeting a hundred thousand dollars of that was going to be allocated for the clan bayou marine education center um in this and then the rest of it was undecided since we had some back and forth and didn't really come to a specific conclusion on that and i know that there's ongoing conversations with different organizations under this umbrella i thought that the 400 000 would be allocated with our specific um allocation for clan bayou and then the rest to be decided but in this email um it appears that all of the money has now been allocated and clan bayou is not mentioned um in this email um in this email so i need to know about that um it was originally 500 000 and so we moved 100 000 specifically to clan bayou so it's separate so this is the remainder the 400 000 okay the rest of this um you know there was um a really good conversation in that committee meeting um regarding um regarding our literacy programs and two organizations in particular um the uh phyllis wheatley rice re-campaign which had been funded in 20 uh 2024 and then um there was some talk about um the great work that's being done by the shirley proctor puller foundation and in this email um it indicates that 250 000 from the 400 000 will be allocated to the shirley proctor puller foundation and um we had we had not really discussed that so that came as a surprise to me because we did seem a little bit divided on how that money should be spent there's another 86 000 for um literacy and and steam community grants that would be open to local non-profits and then 64 000 for a future careers focused residential summer camp in partnership with usf st petersburg campus that is currently in development that sounds intriguing to me um i would like to to learn more um i i just i just want to confirm i mean two out of the three are under a hundred thousand dollars and so i appreciate being informed of how um of how part of that is is being planned to be spent but the 250 000 um any agreement that we have with the shirley proctor puller foundation or any other organization would have to be brought to city council as an agreement that we would need to vote on correct thank you i'm disappointed given my my vocal support for literacy literacy programs and funding for that um that i have have not had any kind of um i haven't been informed at all of any talks with any organization um other than the phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign um this is this is a a large amount of funding it is a a fantastic opportunity but we're going to have to continue this discussion on this because it's it's too much money and it's too important of a topic for us to just whip it from one organization to another without any real explanation to city council we're trying to make an investment here and it can't be like a one one and done one year at a time switching it from one to another um we have to let some of these things take root so that our children in our community can learn to read that's all i have right now thank you vice chair gertz uh thank you madam chair um i'll just comment on two of the things that have been talked about real quick so i just want to make sure i understand the council member handle it's you're you're talking about using unappropriated fund balance in the equipment replacement fund for the high water vehicles did i get that right that's what tom suggested the best the cleanest way to do it and that it was there yeah yeah so i i agree that that's the cleanest way to do it and and i i want to have this conversation my my issue if that's what you want to call it is that one i don't even know what we would be buying for three hundred thousand dollars what kind of truck where from how long would it take to get here is one what we need nine what we need uh so i i struggle with that because i'd i'd rather have all the info at our hands and would prefer a especially if we're going to do it unappropriated fund balance because you can do it right there we could do it relatively quickly uh i don't know that i'll be bf and i mean i'm bf and t chair for the next three months i'm certainly happy to try to get this at bf and t if you wanted it there or if you wanted it in psni obviously you could handle that but i would much prefer that conversation in a committee and then quickly bring it to council to make sure that it's the right vehicle and the right amount of vehicles especially with again i agree that the unappropriated fund balance is the way to go there i i've been a vocal proponent of using those fund balances rather than trying to to move money around and so that's that's my struggle there it's that's a better word struggle that's my struggle there and so i just i just wanted to communicate that i i would i would be hard pressed to vote yes for that today but i am i would love to have that conversation to make sure that we are prepared and we get them quickly i just would love to understand it the the whole way um the the peer conversation i just i just want to offer a different lens so having sat on tdc for the last two years the biggest driver of the tdc and i know it's not our huge worry but we have to think about this from a full full-blown county economy has been our beaches they're not going to be used here anytime soon the biggest driver to visitation is downtown st petersburg outside of our beaches it's it's usually number three or number four when it comes to to bed tax dollars when you look at a visit st pete clearwater ad it almost certainly has the pier on there and in a time where we are going to need visitation out of outside of the beaches i am struggling to take money away from one of the things that drives people downtown and has them stay there just not only from county-wide economy but from ours and so especially for a slow season and so that's the first one so i i would i would just ask that we look through that lens that we we need to be thinking about this way more macro especially after what just happened the second is is there there is money allocated in there for local artists to perform at the pier and we just made an unappropriated fund balance for for local artists i wouldn't want to offset that by taking that away and so i'm really struggling with both of these i get it we want to be fiscally responsible i want to do that but right now the pier and our museums are our visitation and when you're talking about our hotels our hospitality our restaurants our bars we're going to need people to visit here yeah there's lots of residents that go too but you know they they need our visitors and the pier is one of the biggest things that does that along with our museums and our art scene and so i'm i'm just not i right now i i was a proponent of leaving it at 7 25 i'm i'll support it at the 4 25 but i i will not i won't support a motion that that goes down any further plus it's just going to sit in the fund balance so we might as well try to get people to visit the pier so we continue to have a strong economy because we know you you said it earlier council member montanary and i agree with you that the housing values are going to be affected so you know i i would hate to two prong that um so anyway that's where i'm at on those two liz the team i'm i'm always so appreciative of all the work um this year i think more so this in the last the three of these i've done this is more curveballs than we normally have and you know that's our prerogative and and that's how it works but i'm just appreciative of the entire team and all the work that you guys have done thank you so much much and uh i'll leave it there i'm out i'm sure thank you council member hanowitz thank you and and and thank you council members for your feedback here here's the thing we have money that's sitting all over the place all the time that we roll over from budget to budget okay we just had a storm we know what the effects are and i heard from rank and file about equipment that they need i just can't ignore that i just can't go check up on them see how they're doing and then i hear not just from one shift because when i went i was going to offer food but they were already cooking brunch so they invited me to brunch so then i had to go the next day to take them food so i heard from different people and it was three times that i went and it was and i was it was consistent so to me you don't lose anything by putting that money there with uh it's three hundred thousand dollars for equipment there they're gonna use they are gonna use the list of their needs is so high they are gonna use it and i just for me when you hear from when we see the management study and you hear well they've been asking for things all the time it just doesn't happen i just fear that we're gonna push it off and it's not gonna happen and that to me just shows that we listen to them it's three hundred thousand dollars and by the way this is a group of people that does this type of work they're the ones that do it they do the specialized work they don't just do it in my district they do it throughout they're the team that does this so when you hear from the people that do it i don't know that's that's why i feel that we should do that and i'm sure that those in administration and and um the chiefs can have a discussion as to what the appropriate uh equipment is and they can come back to city council and do a nice presentation about the equipment that they that they're gonna obtain with it and but they're gonna get their equipment so that's my thoughts on it and why i feel so strongly about it because it it is hard for me to go there and see that and know what they went through and hear the stories and then say well well we just have to figure out you know what exact equipment you need before we appropriate the money i just want them to have the money thank you you tell some member flory thank you um i failed to write down a note as to why i put myself on because my computer died so uh uh but i i'll comment on the two things that have been most discussed um first uh i wanted to thank council member girdus vice chair girdus for uh explaining your position on the pier because um it's similar how i'm feeling uh we had a discussion this morning about economic impact in the city and uh i think that our public goods and services are what really makes our city and so i've been supportive of uh the peers celebration although i was open to a discussion about you know what was on there and uh is it excessive uh and i feel like there's been a compromise met right now but to say we're not going to invest in the thing that uh is driving uh one of the things that drives the most tourism into our county um it doesn't sit well with me right now especially when we do other economic development things whose outcomes are less certain and uh less direct and so um that's where i'm at with the pier uh and i also agree that it would be great to have a discussion about the needs and whatnot for the um high water vehicle and heavy equipment in general but um i hear council member hanowitz i think she's made a good argument and so um i don't see a reason why we can't appropriate it and then later have a discussion as well um but uh i do think that as of today like if there was a motion uh for that i would be supportive um i think when you have big things happen like a storm you have an opportunity to really like assess priorities right away and uh i feel like that's this falls into that category and um you know and is and could really could only be positive i mean if not perfect maybe it's not perfect but it it's not going to be negative so um i appreciate the perspective that was brought forward and i'll leave it there thank you chair councilman rott nearing thank you um so on on the pier uh i just reviewed the uh page 110 of the budget uh and uh i i know we're we had a subsidy the subsidy is about a million and a half dollars uh a year so liz's explanation of reducing the five-year anniversary i i i get that we're still going to be subsidizing the pier um and vice chair girdus i understand what you're what you're saying it's my point is it's not like we're we're going to shut down the pier or not promote the pier or anything like that it just seems to me especially when this when i when i saw this in the first place seven hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for a five that five-year anniversary of the pier i think most people wouldn't even know that you know we have a five-year anniversary of the pier uh now people would you know with all the things going on there they would figure it out after after a while but it just seems to me like an ex an excessive amount of spending especially on a facility that we've been subsidizing um i do have to say uh council member hanowitz brings up a very good point earlier today we heard about a rescue of people at the northeast water treatment facility uh in in in a vehicle that apparently got stuck and and then they had to be rescued from the from the rescue so council member hanowitz brings up a very good point uh when it comes to uh uh allocating funds from the uh equipment and area replacement fund for a a high uh high water uh vehicle which i you know fire station 12 is in my city council district there's a lot of rescues going go that go go on at shore acres uh all the time and that equipment at fire station 12 has to be moved uh out of there uh so um and and then just reviewing my priorities when it comes to the budget when it comes to spending public safety always comes first and this thing seems like a need that we've heard time and time again uh uh over the years so um my my position is based on council member hanowitz's uh discussion on this high water vehicle uh like i'm thinking that that may be the direction that we should go thank you council member gabbert thank you madam chair um so i'll start with the peer operating budget and the peer celebration so council member girders you bring up a great point because one of the things that i think most of us have heard uh you know on social media people have reached out to us is the concern from our business community about the impacts of this storm and the rhetoric that will go on out there that panellas county is not open for business right and the business community is very concerned about that well as we continue to assist residents um on the ground level it's kind of like now we bring our heads up and we start to look at the trickle that will happen throughout our community based upon this disaster because this is going to take months and months and months to heal and so i love the perspective that you brought to the conversation because then it triggered those conversations that i've had with the business community and i have to think about what the impact of come to saint pete in july we are open for business we are here come spend your money come and support our business community i can see that being the message and i'm glad that it's not 750 000 anymore i never wanted it to be 750 000 but i think when you look at from the memo what is outlined what is going to be done i think with what council member girders has shared i can support where we are at this point with this money because i can see it being another layer of response to the storm so i'm there now on the high water vehicle council member hanowitz thank you for going to see our first responders thank you and thank you for not just going once thank you for going numerous times and for listening to them um i don't know that 350 000 is the right number i don't know much about these vehicles to council member girders's point i don't know how many we need um i am always going to support adding additional resources especially in our districts where like life is on the line um my only concern is what else would we be taking that money away from that potentially we have already looked at that we also need because the need for our fleet and all of our departments is great so could i don't know someone come and speak i don't know who would be the appropriate person i mean one thing i would comment on that is again the administration completely supports the first responders and we've provided a pathway through the resolution to do this if city council wants to do this but we've been in recovery for the past week we haven't had a chance to take a breath and think about this you heard chief kvasif say this morning we lost 14 police vehicles which is equipment replacement we lost generators you know we just think it would be good to maybe just take a second think about what the best investment is maybe go to a committee but if you feel this is this is what you want to do and it's important for you to do this tonight we understand and we've provided you a pathway understood i mean when it comes to our budget i've got a meeting going on right now of 300 people or so for riviera bay and they are wanting council members and city people to be there and and we can't because we're here doing our budget right and so everything i have thought about regarding the budget for the last week has been how do we utilize our budget to better respond to what people need and quite frankly what they are going to need in fy 2025 there's going to be a lot i mean i've got a list that i had kind of thought of as well that i could have brought here today as two but i didn't and now we're kind of looking at these things and going okay well what about this and what about that well what about our permitting department what about our floodplain coordinator and our floodplain manager department and the staffing that they are going to need i mean we could sit here and start talking about putting that kind of money as a knee-jerk reaction into staffing in that department to make sure that they can fill that resident need but i don't believe here in this moment to rob's point that that is the most prudent thing to do with any of the response i think we all need to take a breath and a beat for a minute and then we need to have these conversations swiftly in our committee process and find where we need to fill holes in our budget where we have money that we can do that to make the biggest impact going forward i want our first responders to have everything they need but i also want other departments to have what they need because our residents need so much going forward and maybe i'll eat these words about a high water vehicle i pray to god that i don't in the next month and a half of storm season but today my greatest concern is how we move forward and how we have a budget that we can move forward in every department that we are going to need resources so for me i'm just really on the fence about this high water vehicle 350 000 because i want us to look at it 300 in such a much bigger broader than just one particular vehicle and i hope that that is clear to administration that i'm asking that when we can have a breath and we can have a break that we really come back to council sooner rather than later in bf and t and have these kind of conversations we'd love to talk okay thank you madam chair council member jisco thank you um i agree on the high water vehicle i think we do need to talk about it i think we will find the money um once we figure that out um council member hanowitz you've started the conversation and you're hearing the support for it so i know we can find the money but i think it's important that we make a statement tonight that something like this um a high water vehicle replacing 14 um police vehicles these things are more important to us than a party so i think it's i think we do need to move the money um even if it's a more general allocation than specifically for a high water vehicle um i'd like some guidance from the administration on what that maybe could look like so so the money is moved and no one will be able to say that we approved 425 thousand dollars for a party when we've got all of these needs going on then we have the conversation about how we make everything happen i hope i hope that that could be enough um i i'd love some input yeah it are you talking about if we again if we if we reduce the funding in the peer fund it'll stay in the peer fund's balance it's not available for other activities we could do we could fund all these we have all the other funds have target fund balances that are there to support all these needs that we have so you know there's going to be discussions for the next couple months on needs that pop up and they're all in different funds and these funds we have specific target balances so that we can cover these so when they come up we can uh appropriate them and we do have you know every council meeting is a chance to change the budget um also at cleanup we can do additional um supplementals at that time to the fy25 budget you know specifically for some of these needs um but you know there there's other ways to fund it besides reducing the peer fund because you know looking at the five-year plan you know i think we would need to keep in there we're going to have to increase the subsidy in the next couple years to keep the required amount in the peer operating fund right but the original proposal was to blow it all on a party so i think what liz is saying is that you could make a motion to reduce that expenditure to zero but we can't move that money out of the peer fund we'd have to put it into the fund we can't move it to another expenditure so what was being taken away was it just like the a general increase like with many other departments and that was just how it was that was what was decided was we'll spend that additional funding on a party so the in the current year there was a bunch of um non-recurring expenses that were able to um but those in the upcoming years the recurring expenses will increase the revenue is not increasing so then the subsidy goes up so if we leave if we have this opportunity and we don't have those non-recurring expenses this year the recommendation would be to leave it in the fund balance so that we can keep the subsidy close to that 1.5 and not have it escalate as the costs in the fund escalate in future years okay i understand i understand i think i think you've heard us that that there are some of us who do not want all of this money spent on on the five-year anniversary um i do uh have great respect for the point that um we need to look at shining brighter to make sure that we are um that everyone knows that we're open for business and i i think that's where our um our marketing team will be very helpful and improvements that are already planned for the peer are going to be very helpful as well as far as capital improvements and um all of that so so um so council member hanowitz i i hope that we will have um a discussion that you bring forward for everyone and just know that the funding is going to be there when it's time and i'll i'll i'll support um whatever is brought forward regarding that today whether it's for um some kind of an allocation or um if you if you decide to take a different approach but i'll be supportive and i know that um this administration knows how to find money when they need it so you can be assured that it'll be covered thank you councilman muhammad thank you uh just wanted to chime in really quick on the two things so i'm definitely supportive of the um high water vehicle um and either way we decide to do it i'm supportive so whether we do the allocation today um or take our time and be more strategic with how we approach it which i would prefer honestly but i'm okay either way but i would prefer to have that complete assessment um not do the knee-jerk reaction really look at um what's really needed and what would be more strategic for how we do it including the high water vehicles hearing about police vehicles that were lost and then other needs that uh may have been identified during this process um so that would be my preference but again either way it goes i'm supportive um and then with the peer funds uh i too had an issue with the amount of funding and how significant that was um i do see the compromise it looks like the drone show has been removed also hearing that um or reading that sponsorships are being sought for to help even with the other costs that have been allocated and um so i'm okay with the compromise i would be supportive of of that considering the economic impact and knowing that it is a driver to bring people to the city and um so i would support that and then lastly um the in the vein of strategic investments i wasn't really impressed with what i saw with the literacy stem allocations um and so i would like to at some point better understand the strategy behind it because now it looks like we're just taking money from one pocket and putting it in any other and i just don't understand the rationale behind it and so i would like to to know like how did we get to 250 000 for phyllis we i mean not for phyllis we leave one for shirley proctor and like how did we get to that number with that organization and then what was kind of the strategic significance of that shift thank you constant person carl lavender interim chief equity officer for the city of st petersburg and um want to thank the council for your ongoing concern and question regarding how we're allocating or recommending an allocation when it comes to the literacy support in the in the budget the 250 000 was the amount of money that the phyllis we leave group did receive in fiscal 24 uh 23 24 and so we're just moving that same number over to this year's operating it's a recommendation we realize that the process will include a full presentation the case will be made that the administration is very much committed to literacy i think we need to move that conversation out of the deficit language because it really is we really truly are committed it is the right provider for the right thing to do is the current conversation going from a campaign which the weekly group did say they are a campaign into a program where the outcomes and the impact are aligned very specifically with moving the needle on literacy and learning to read we have more capacity with the we with the proctor puller foundation uh we see ourselves moving deeper into what we call a critical deliteracy curriculum which we can design inside the proctor team uh away from awareness campaign so we we see a real value in this uh dr um brown is here to elaborate even more if you want but it really is a move from where we were and what the administration did support in a campaign to the results of a campaign going deeper into the life of the child and to read thank you for that you're more than welcome no i appreciate it because really the piece that you like the hook for me was when you talked when you mentioned going from campaign to programming because they were very explicit that the phillis weekly rise to read is a campaign um the going from 250 to zero is concerning because again as a campaign one of the objectives of the campaign is to work with program providers to create a strategy and so i'm just a little concerned that now we're not going to fund the strategy development and jump right into okay here's a literacy partner they're doing work let's fund them as opposed to like taking a moment to to really work with the group who we funded to the tune of you know 250 000 to develop a strategy to say okay what is the strategy where did we land and then working with them to make sure that the resources that we're dispersing will get us the impact that we want based upon the community feedback for the record we did offer them fifty thousand dollars to continue one strategic piece of their work which was the navigators okay and connecting the community to the proper literacy program would have played a role but they declined the request because what they believe they have was a model campaign and that model fully funded at 250 what was necessary we're now moving that into program as you know and we did offer fifty thousand dollars to continue the navigators inside this ship but that request was declined thank you you're more than welcome sir yes sir thank you madam chair thank you uh seeing no further requests to speak i'll go ahead and give my input on this before we move forward so as far as the peer operating budget um i too am okay with what's being presented here today vice chair girders made a very valid point um because i tried to get out on the beach to see what was there and there's not much um the the flux is going to be toward the east coast of the city of st petersburg as far as our economic um gains are going to be so i do appreciate that look at it and and then i wouldn't call the fifth anniversary of the pier party a party is for someone hosted and you gain nothing from it but coming and doing whatever but the city and the businesses the restaurants all of those other organizations that are at the pier are going to benefit from all of those um dollars that will be spent at the celebration so it is an attractor so i do um appreciate the administration's compromise with that 725 was a lot and now taking it down i do i would definitely support that the high water vehicles um i i solely believe in i'd rather have it and not need it than it needed and not have it um i i support the fact that if that's something that could save a life if we can find 300 300 000 for a campaign i think we should we could be able to find some dollars to save lives um and i understand um council member hanowitz's response when she said they've been waiting and they've been waiting and they've been waiting and we've been here for a while and we know how that how that works so i would support however we would need to supply that vehicle to the fire department now grant you i i too would like to know how much a true vehicle would cost and what that looks like i don't know where the 300 000 came from i don't know how it was estimated estimated what that looks like but i will definitely support providing um the equipment needed for that because if nothing else debbie taught us waters rise fast something else happened hurricane helene right behind us has given us that's one that's two is it's going to happen again it's not if when it will happen again and we've we we know that so i would prefer to provide um um our first responders with the the tools that they need um again with the the the literacy campaign i'm i'm all about our children knowing how to read and in going from campaign to program when you look at the vast difference and i agree someone you have to start somewhere and i look at where some of the other programs have had to start and they have built upon that foundation to surely partner puller started somewhere and she has the stats it has to the the data it has the captured audience um and it is truly making a difference if you have not visited and seen that program in action um i really recommend that you do so and it is admirable of what they have done in regards to partnerships they've also built partnerships for that program so all of their their funding for that was not coming out of one basket and so they have built a collaboration throughout the city um to help our young people and and um again when it comes down to wanting to see a difference wanting to measure impact i would support um the surely proctor puller program hands down because i've seen that they they haven't relied on just one source of funding they've made it happen they and they've been doing it for a while so um i do support that so with that being said i see council member council member hanowitz has a comment and that would be but let me ask a question before you speak to legal so i know that you you spoke that we are now going to leave um council comments and since we see we may have some amendments when we get down to 11 do i still go to number 10 first yeah correct chair now you can continue this discussion as long as you want it's just the formality of the motion so nothing prevents other council members for from continuing this discussion if council member hanowitz has a follow-up comment that's completely in order based based on the script what will come after this after you finish this discussion is steps 9 and 10 which are just related to the millage and you'll be down in 11a and that's when you would be able to make any motions that you would like to amend the ordinance my recommendation would be if you if any of those motions pass and there is such an amendment like you know any ordinance we want you to see exact things in front of you especially for this so typically when this has happened in the past or be a brief recess if the motions passed so that liz and tom could make any changes and you'd actually be able to see where the numbers change to make sure there's no confusion when you get to step 11b and actually adopt the budget as amended okay sounds good council member hanowitz thank you and chair to your question in terms of how that number came up in a conversation with tom we talked about what the cost would be of that vehicle and last time he thought it was 250 i looked up an article that tarpon springs last year right after hurricane nadalia had a meeting to discuss purchasing the same thing and getting those vehicles so the 300 000 came up because of the difference in cost but but communities such as ours they go through the hurricane they don't have and they realize that they need it so that's where the number came from from a conversation with tom and i was trying to be very cognizant of not asking for something in terms of the money that was outrageous or you know trying to narrow it down as much as possible i think tom you have a copy of the resolution maybe if if we can just give it to them so they can see it um by the time we get to number 11 and um sure if i could liz just a second chair if i if i could i just i need to say for the record for people who are watching uh we certainly understand if you want to purchase another high water vehicle but we just had a major storm surge i need to say that there was no instance where somebody was stranded in water and we didn't have a high water vehicle or a boat to go to them so we do have high water vehicles we do have boats we understand you may want to purchase an additional special specialty high water vehicle but i need the public to understand that people were not stranded because we did not have high water water vehicle and and what they were saying is they didn't have the right equipment for the circumstances they were using some storm water trucks okay that were rusted bringing on an 80 year old woman or whoever you're bringing on these vehicles are equipped for people with disabilities and all that that's all they nobody made a comment as to that people were not rescued or anything but having the equipment the point was made about having the appropriate equipment that they needed and that just came from rank and file i didn't i didn't i didn't you know i appreciate them in terms of what they do because i'm not the one that's doing the saving lives they're the ones that are out there so i'm just getting what they gave me and what they needed i appreciate your comments i just want to be clear on the record i believe there were potential insinuations made and i need it to be clear okay and thank you i'm sorry are you yeah and thank you so much for that um administrative girders and so i think i've i heard an overall um consensus of liking to have additional conversation because again um and if it was implied that we were not able to help anyone at any time trust and believe that was not the case i think the argument that's being made here is if we needed it and that they've asked for would we be um willing as a council to provide that and so i i don't want anyone to um think that any council member implied that our um first responders were not equipped to provide adequate service because they did a fantastic job um that we've already come to a conclusion in regards to their ability and what and how they performed um throughout this the question that i do have and i think amber is gone and i and i think this is why i really want to have more conversation about this high water vehicle because we had storm surge this was the first time ever and and we're going to experience flooding again but i want to know what the difference is between the access that we have now to the height or surge of water that that vehicle will be required to access and so i would really like to have a little bit more conversation about the the high water vehicle personally um so that we can get more details about it but again i think it is something very important for us to consider because if they need it they need it i just don't understand what that need looks like vice chair girdus thank you madam chair um i'm assuming this is fiscal year 25 because technically we're in fiscal year 25 even though we haven't adopted 25 this is kind of back to our point earlier where it's like we're in a little bit of no man's land well actually procedurally what we'd like to do with this resolution is go ahead and pass the budget first and then pass this resolution separately after so it wouldn't involve any change of the ordinance 25 yes okay all right um i'm i'm going to make one more comment about the high water vehicle i'm if you make a motion for this resolution i'm going to support it but i can't help but think this happening this quickly without all the information normally this would be something you would be against but because it's the firefighters and first responders and are in the storm yeah yeah in the storm i and i'm not i'm that's not judgmental please know that it's just it's the circumstance that's the reason i don't that i didn't like it that's fair i totally support i want to make it very clear that those those men and women are doing things that i don't raise my hand to do and so uh i completely understand that they are they're doing the hero work by the way just to offset just so i saw our storm water and sanitation and parks and wreck when they're out in the beginning of it they're just as much first responders during these things and i just that had to be said out loud but so i i'm i'm i'm supportive of this but i i would have been disappointed in myself had i not brought up this is just not something i think a lot of us like to do and the circumstances so if this happens again we cannot use this as the outlier okay that's all i had thank you very much and i appreciate it councilmember handles thank you the final millage rate for the city of st petersburg is 6.4525 mills which is a 6.13 6.13 percent increase over the rollback rate of 6.076 mills did i read it wrong 6.0796 mills i'm sorry y'all my eyes are going crazy right now mills the approved resolution setting the final millage rate this must be done before adopting the final budget and must have a separate vote so now we're looking at the resolution for adopting the final millage rate so i will move approval resolution adopting the proposed millage rate second final excuse me second okay so we're at e5a having a motion have been properly and seconded can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes thing that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes motion to approve agenda item e5a passes six to two with council members floyd and muhammad voting no council members driscoll fick sanders gabbert girders henowitz and martinelli voting yes anything so now to adopt the final budget now we're in 11b right unless if there are any motions to amend the the budget that would be in 11a if there are and they would be voted on separately if there are no such motions then you move to uh 11b okay councilmember martineering thank you i'm gonna i'm gonna move uh reduction of 325 000 from the uh peer uh operating fund second okay so we have pardon me you're gonna remove or reduce reduce i'm well isn't it the same thing i guess i have a question uh we reduce the allocation of the peer operating fund by 320. everyone clear on the motion and and that's to reduce the uh just want to use the language that's in the budget to reduce the uh the amount for the fifth anniversary celebration it'll be a hundred thousand up everyone clear on the motion all right there's been motion and properly seconded can you please open the machine for voting seconded okay okay council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to reduce peer funding fails three to five with council members driscoll panowitz and montaneri voting yes council members rick sanders floyd gabbert girdus and mahomet voting no now do i go to b since there seems to be no other motion okay so move approval to adopt the final budget second we have a second oh okay e5b can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes thing that all council members have voted for e5b can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item e5b passes unanimously now we're moving to e5c move approval of the resolution adopting the multi-year cip program for the city of st piersburg thank you second who second okay so now that we have a motion that's been properly seconded for e5c can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing that all present council members have um cast their votes can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e5c passes unanimously thank you and then i have my motion for that because this is the time you told me i should do it one one more oh i'm sorry did i miss the publicly announced i was getting ready to one more one more okay yep okay go ahead i'm sure public hearing on the budget the military and the budget appropriations ordinance and the multi-year cip program is now closed okay so now you're done with the budget and now would be the time if you chose to move approval of the resolution can i make a comment you can now you can pretty much okay if you're back to your normal system i just make sure what system we're in well first of all i want to thank everyone for for for the discussion on it um the reality is and i typically don't do it and you're right council members i don't but you know what during a storm i went and i sat down with them and that was the request and it's hard for me to ignore and i can't go back and say we can't do this now and so we will have the discussion as to the type of vehicle and all these things and all the concerns but i think it's appropriate right now given the condition of of where we're at and what they told me to to go forward on it so so i appreciate everyone's concerns but i do think that we can address some of that afterwards if there are issues that come up you know we will address that so with that said i would move approval of uh the resolution uh proving a supplemental appropriation the amount of 300 000 from the unappropriated balance of the equipment replacement fund to the fleet management department fleet mechanical divisions um for the purchase of high water vehicles second now that we have a motion that's been properly second for e5b can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the vote madam chair motion to approve a gen item e5d passes unanimously all right well now we will move to open forum do we have any cards no man okay any announcements any anybody want to say anything special other than the fact that again i am um vice chair girdus thank you madam chair uh this weekend is administrator foster's birthday i'm sorry run away did she go running for the halls good to say happy birthday and uh and and selfishly just so i can play this back for her tomorrow uh it was my daughter's seventh birthday yesterday uh we certainly she got enough happy birthdays yesterday but uh i just wanted to tell her happy birthday and that i love her so we'll sing happy birthday for uh administrator for amy foster happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear amy happy birthday to you thank you madam chair we are adjourned i'm not going anywhere