City Council - Oct 08, 2026

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopley Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4, and Council Chair, Lissette Panowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr., and District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Ritchie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the October 8, 2026 City Council Meeting. Clerk, if I can please have a roll call. Gabbard? Here. Harding? Here. Hanowitz? Here. Rick Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Givens? Here. Floyd? Here. Gerdes? Here. Today we're going to have our invocation given by Reverend J.C. Pritchett II of the Interdenominational Ministerial Allegiance. Then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, if you can please stand. Good afternoon. Let's pray. God of the rain and rays, thunder and the lightning, God of today and tomorrow, remind us to be grateful for the things we can't control. God of administration and council, government and citizens, remind us of the responsibility we have for what we can control. We are grateful for a legislative body that includes a moment to recognize faith before movements of legislation. We pray that you guide these liberations with clarity, courage, creativity, and conviction. We pray, God, that you continue to protect us from storms and hurricanes, inflation, crime, and that you keep our first responders safe. That at the adjournment of today, that you are pleased with what has taken place on behalf of our residents. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the United States, to the Republic, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you, Reverend, for the beautiful invocation. Council members, we have an agenda before us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent. Thank you. Clerk, are there speakers for open forum? Yes, there is. May you please read the rules. If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing, quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with a clerk. Only the individuals wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you're speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum and when the item comes up on the agenda. Applause is not permitted except in connection with awards and presentations. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual 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 have reached the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments. The requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum. If my public comment is disrupted by the violation of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by email only. And I'll call the names. Thank you. The first two speakers is Riker Flannery and Andy Hale. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. You can go ahead and start. Good afternoon, members of the city council. I'm Riker Flannery. I'm a senior at St. P. High representing the Civic Engagement Club. And today I'm going to talk a little bit more about flawed cameras like we did last time. And last time we were here, when I mentioned flawed cameras last time, it was mostly about hypotheticals, you know, what can happen with the misuse of flawed cameras in our county and in our city. And today I'm here to talk about how that is no longer just a hypothetical, and even within our county this has taken place since the last time we were here. On September 30th, the sheriff of Seminole arrested two Pinellas County deputies accused of misusing law enforcement databases through FLOC. One allegedly accessed information about a 17-year-old girl, repeatedly showed up at her workplace and at her high school. Another allegedly searched law enforcement databases hundreds of times. Further, I'm a teenage driver. I have to drive to school. I have to drive to work. I have practices I drive to. There's a lot of places I have to drive. And every time I enter my car to drive, I'm tracked through the FLOC cameras and entered into the police database. No matter whether I'm doing something wrong or I'm just following all the laws, I'm entered into a police database every single time. And this raises a serious question. Why should NSC teenagers have their movements placed into a government surveillance database at all? After what just happened in our own county, I don't think that we should use FLOC cameras anymore, and I don't think that these safeguards that we have placed work. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. Good afternoon, members of the City Council. My name is Andy Heil. I'm 14 years old, and I'm a freshman representing St. P. High in our Civic Engagement Club. When I heard about the 17-year-old girl whose information was accessed by a Pinellas County deputy, I kept thinking about one thing. Who could be next? Could it be me? My friends? My little sister? One of your daughters? I'm 14 years old, and I'm going to be driving in this city in a few years. I go to school here. I have friends here. I have a life here. And I don't think I should have to wonder whether someone with access to a government surveillance system could use information about an innocent minor like me. We've been told that FLOC has safeguards, but these statements sound like they have only been told to placate the public. After what happened in our very own county, we cannot continue to blindly trust these so-called safeguards. We can't wait until something happens to me or another student my age to find out. Instead of putting me and my friends' privacy and safety at risk just to see whether the safeguards hold up, please, at the very least, pause this technology until there is concrete proof that it is secure, properly monitored, and cannot be misused. There shouldn't have to be victims before my privacy matters. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers. The next two speakers, the last two speakers, is Liam Oliver and Max McCann. Please go to either podium, state your name, address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address counsel. Hello, City Council. I'm Liam Oliver. I live in St. Petersburg. I go to St. Petersburg High. I'm the president of our Civic Engagement Club. And as you all have heard, we're really concerned, especially about FLOC cameras, but especially concerning the 17-year-old girl whose information was accessed through these databases. I think it's really important to point out that when questioned, his response was curiosity got the better of him. I'm 17 as well, and I'm really concerned about St. Petersburg sharing FLOC data with other law enforcement agencies. And I think this council should explain what access those agencies have and who is auditing their searches. Because another important thing to point out about this whole thing is that the media actually had to call attention to these cases. They weren't pointed out by the police department. They had to wait for an independent media source to reach out and tell them that. So obviously, these safeguards are not working. Florida law recognizes that children deserve special privacy protections. Florida statute 501.1735 specifically restricts certain online companies from collecting children's precise geolocation data. And also, the Parent Bill of Rights protects privacy of minors, as does privacy provision in the Florida Constitution. I don't understand why does Florida recognize the danger of collecting our children's locations, yet we allow funding surveillance system without publicly demonstrating how it protects minors. I have formally submitted a public ethics grievance to the city clerk over email PDF format concerning the mayor's and the city council's responsibility to respect minors from surveillance abuses. I understand the city has no established formal ethics grievance process for this kind of complaint, but I don't think that means that your ethical responsibility disappears. I'm going to ask you to suspend this program until an independent review determines whether its privacy safeguards actually work. And I think we all deserve to be able to move around our city freely. The girl targeted by that deputy was 17 years old. I don't understand why a 17-year-old should have to become a victim before we take these risks seriously. Thank you so much, and have a nice day. Thank you. Good afternoon. Max McCann, 2648 3rd Avenue South. I want to start by thanking council and the city for issuing the pedestrian safety proclamation today. This is an issue that's very near and dear to my heart and to the work that I do. And next, I want to ask that we follow up this proclamation with real action, and specifically better enforcement against reckless driving throughout the city and especially in our school zones. Y'all know we run this monthly bike-to-school event that goes down 22nd Street, and some of y'all, Council Member Floyd has joined us, Council Member Givens has joined us a whole bunch of times. Thanks for that. And you're all invited to this. It's usually on the first Friday of every month if there's school that day. But I'll tell you, we see drivers acting reckless in school zones every time we do this. And our law enforcement can only be out there so much, so we really need school zone safety cameras like a lot of other communities are using. Unlike flock cameras, they can't be used to store and track movement information on innocent citizens. They're very targeted, and they're a force multiplier for our law enforcement. Tampa's using them, Hillsboro, Temple Terrace is planning them, Orlando, Palm Beach County, Miami-Dade County, Cape Coral, Osceola County, Panama City, Broward County. All these communities are using this technology to keep their kids safe, and we're being left behind. We've had calls with Chief Holloway about this. He said he would have a pilot program up in January of this year. That didn't happen, and I don't know why we're not doing that. So I think that would be a great next step for us. Thanks again for doing the proclamation today. Thank you all. Bye-bye. Any more speakers? We do not have any other speakers. Thank you. We close open four. We'll move on to awards and presentations. D2 is the first presentation, which is the Fire Prevention Week proclamation. I believe it is going to be read by Fire Marshal Ian Womack, who is here. And for those that are here for that proclamation, they are welcome to join him at the podium. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair, Council. Thank you for having us again this year for our 2026 proclamation recognizing Fire Prevention Awareness Week. The proclamation says, whereas fire is a serious public safety concern, both locally and nationally, and homes are the locations where people are at the greatest risk from fire. And whereas most of the electronics used in homes daily, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, power tools, e-bikes, e-scooters, and toys are powered by lithium-ion batteries, which, if misused, damaged, or improperly charged, can overheat, start a fire, or explode. And whereas the National Fire Protection Association reports an increase in battery-related fires, underscoring the need for public education on the safe use of lithium-ion batteries. And whereas the way lithium-ion battery devices are charged can make a difference in helping prevent home fires, safe charging means making smart choices every time we plug in. And whereas safe charging includes using the cord and charger that came with your device or one approved by the manufacturer, charging on a hard, flat surface, watching for warning signs like devices that are very hot or start to swell, unplugging when fully charged, and charging larger devices like e-bikes outside and away from exits. And whereas St. Petersburg Fire Rescue remains dedicated to reducing the occurrence of fires through prevention, safety education, and community outreach. And whereas the 2026 Fire Prevention Week theme, Charge into Fire Safety, Safe Charging is a Superpower, serves to remind all residents that safe charging can help reduce the risk of fires in homes and communities. Therefore, I, Ian Womack, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim the week of October 4th through 10th, 2026, as Fire Prevention Awareness Week in our city, and urge all residents to check their homes for fire hazards, use safe practices, and to support the many public safety activities and efforts of St. Petersburg Fire Rescue. Thank you. Vice Chair Floyd. Thank you. First, I'll say it's cool to see you give the proclamation, so whoever's idea that was, I like that. Second, I just wanted to ask a question so that we could get information. Sorry to put you – I hope it's not putting you on the spot. You know, we have problems with people throwing away lithium batteries as well. Could you just give us some idea about how to get rid of your old lithium batteries if you want to do something like that? Yeah, whatever you do, don't throw them in the garbage. Yes. I've got one in my house that I've been like, I've got to get rid of this. I'm not throwing it into the garbage. Yeah, or the recycling. We've had some significant fires at recycling plants the last year related to improper disposal. So the easiest way is there's actually a website, batterynetwork.org, and you can locate where to dispose batteries anywhere in the city using that website. That website is also linked and included in the city's resources. So if you just simply go to the city's website, the waste wizard, type in batteries, you're going to get the options to select, and then it's going to take you to that website and show you all your drop-off locations. That is also included in the city's St. Pete Collects app as well. And I'll give you a cheat code. You can drop them off at any Home Depot and Lowe's to participate. That's usually where I go to. Thank you very much for that. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Givens. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much, Chief, Assistant Chief, all of you for the work that you do to keep our community safe. I know last year, around this time of year, we canvassed Child's Park, which is a high-risk area for home fires, and specifically the goal was to canvas to motivate residents to install these 10-year lithium batteries for smoke alarms. Do we have any update on whether or not that's going to happen again this year? Have we done that already? Do we plan to do that? Is that partnership with the Red Cross still there? Yeah, the partnership's still in place. That's a regular part of our activities. I don't know when our next canvas is scheduled, but we do do those a couple times a year as far as the large canvas. But we also have a program that is operational every day of the year, which is our Home Safe program, where residents can make a request either online or they call a standard number, 893-SAFE, and schedule. And a crew will go out and help walk through their home, install smoke alarms when they're needed. So we're actually installing alarms in the community throughout the year in addition to those standalone canvassing events. That's awesome news. And that number, again, was 893-SAFE, correct? Thank you. And I know, Chief, you'll let me know when the next canvas is. I look forward to joining you all. Thank you so much, Chair. We're asking, Mary, you're right. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. I will say I was curious. We have some young people here in the audience, and all our younger generations, they probably all have a lithium battery an arm's length away from them. So I was wondering in terms of, like, education, because you have, like, toys, all these things that children and kids are around, scooters, you name it, what are we doing with schools to make sure they have fact sheets and all that so parents and everyone are aware about the disposal and the dangers of lithium batteries? Yeah, our community risk reduction team, public outreach team, is extremely active in the schools as well. Good. And all of this is a regular part of our messaging. You're tied into our socials. You're going to see that regular messaging on our socials. We're partnering with the PSDA for this month. So their buses as well, their info screens, are going to have messaging on safe charging practices. So in schools, in the public eye, we're trying to keep the message as forefront as possible because it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Everybody at this point interacts with lithium-ion batteries, and themselves are not inherently unsafe as long as you follow good charging practices, you use the manufacturer items. We recommend that you don't keep an item plugged in once it's done charging. Go ahead and unplug it. Larger items, I want to note, we recommend you charge those outside of the home. A challenge in the city that we get questions a lot in apartments and condos is, where do I put my e-scooter? I don't have a garage. I don't have anywhere outside to charge it. And in there, we would recommend that you only charge it when you're home, right? And then when it's done charging, you unplug it. And when you go to sleep at night where you can't attend to it, put it somewhere in the home where it's not where you sleep. Don't keep it in your bedroom. And don't put it between your room and your path of egress outside. So, you know, shutting it in a bathroom is a good idea. If you've got a balcony, put it out in a balcony. Some standard practices like that can protect against the risk associated with letters. Those are helpful tips. Is there anything that you see often that we haven't covered today that you wish people would know about? And they should stop doing? The disposal thing is a big one. The disposal is a big one. Okay. The disposal thing is a big piece. And another big challenge is the purveyance of easy access to aftermarket chargers and aftermarket batteries. So I'm guilty of it myself, right? My cell phone charger quits working. I just go on Amazon. I find a pretty color I like and I buy it. Well, if that device isn't perfectly calibrated with the calibration of the battery for how far to energize it, when to stop energizing it, you can overcharge the device. And you may not know in that moment that you've damaged the cells that then start a slow process that leads to another process of thermal runaway. And once that starts, there's no stopping that battery from initiating a fire event. So the key is be disciplined about if you have to replace a charger for a device, replace it with original manufacturer equipment, better safe than sorry. You know, if you can't find a new charger, then, you know, maybe a new device or a new toy. And then keep those things out of places that you sleep. Don't allow them to charge unattended. Don't keep them, you know, your tools in your garage, right? We've seen quite a few fires where battery-powered DeWalt's and Ryobis, you know, they're just left on chargers in a garage, right? So, you know, be disciplined about taking those items off of chargers when they're all done charging. Thank you. Well, we've made that mistake, too. We bought aftermarket chargers, and all of a sudden you touch it, it's hot, or the phone's hot, and you don't realize that's what's happening. So thank you for that. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for reading the proclamation. That was a treat. And for this excellent information that you're sharing with us today, and also how people can learn more. You've got folks with you. I was just wondering if you would like to take a moment to introduce everyone so that they can properly be recognized by the room. I appreciate that. Yeah, I did want to make sure we recognize the effort that goes into prevention. So I have with me our Fire Rescue Chief, Keith Watts, Deputy Chief, Brett Siskowski, Administrative Chief, Travis Kontaskus, Rescue Chief, Lindsay Judah. And we have our Community Risk Reduction folks in the back here, Lana and Alexis, our Finance Manager, Kim. We can't put any fires out or prevent them without money. So she's a big part. Our Emergency Manager, Amber, as well. So I also want to thank, too, the rest of the team that's not here. Our primary mission at the fire department is to never have to come to your response. So if we never run another 911 call again, we're happy. So prevention is our primary mission. And everybody participates in that. In the Prevention Division, we've got a team of fire codes inspectors. We're getting ready to expand that to 10 and from 8. Thank you very much. We've got fire plans examiners that review every plan for commercial build in the city to ensure it's fire code compliant and then go out and do field inspections to make sure it's being built according to that approved fire code compliant design. We've got fire investigators that get to root cause issues, help identify things we need to focus on, like battery fires. We've got public educators. And then the whole organization supports these efforts. Our uniformed personnel, our firefighters and paramedics, are out in the community regularly doing prevention messaging, doing risk reduction work. All of that is a collective effort of the organization. So they're really everybody's key to the success of the prevention mission. Okay. Thank you. Last thing to mention, because it's hot off the press, typically this is the last point I would highlight is our block party, our annual block party, which was scheduled for this Saturday at Fossil Park. But unfortunately, due to impending inclement weather, we're going to have to cancel that event. So we're saddened about that, but it'll give everybody a chance to stay safe and hopefully well-prepared. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Do you have anything else? Okay. I want to make sure. Okay. Thank you. Next up, we have D3. This is a First Responders Day proclamation. I believe our mayor is going to give this proclamation. Madam Chair, good afternoon. Madam Chair, council, members of our city team, and all members of our community, thank you for the great job you do. We've talked about St. Pete Fire and Rescue. I also want to recognize Chief Holloway and members of the St. Pete Police Department. We have first responders who really set the standard for public service in America, and this is an opportunity to recognize them. And so I am proclaiming Wednesday, October 28, 2026 is First Responders Day. And Madam Chair, we spoke with your team earlier. The reason we made that really quick is because we have an emerging issue with Hurricane Esaias, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. We had an emergency policy group meeting at 1 o'clock, and we thought we'd use this five minutes instead of reading the proclamation just to give everybody an update on the potential impacts. Nothing like Helene two years ago, but still, we do have some potential impacts we'd like to share with you in advance of some communications that will be going out later today. So Amber Boulding, our emergency management manager, will take it from here. Amber. Thank you. Good afternoon. And it's never fun to deliver storm news in the middle of all these great proclamations, so I appreciate it. As Mayor said, we have Hurricane Esaias right now. So there's actually two different events that we're dealing with at the same time. As you know, we've had this heavy rain the last several days. That's a separate system than the hurricane that we're monitoring. So we're going to continue to have that heavy rainfall today through the weekend. We already have saturated grounds. We're going to see an additional two to four inches throughout the weekend, isolated totals up to six inches possible. And then we have the hurricane that we're monitoring currently at a cat one, set to make landfall towards the Florida panhandle, kind of that Florida-Alabama line. And so with that, it is set to stay well west of St. Pete, so I know a lot of eyes are on it. You know, a lot of us the last few years have been through a lot with hurricanes, so I know a lot of eyes are there, and we're worried about the storm surge. So hopefully I can deliver some good news, but also to keep everybody kind of on top of their preparedness game. So it will stay well to our west, but we are going to see higher than usual tides. So one to three feet above normal could affect low-lying streets, low-lying neighborhoods. Coastal advisory is in effect. We're looking to see that highest water overnight Friday into Saturday with high tide at around 2 a.m. Again, one to three feet. It's important to note that this is not a Halim. It's not an Adalia. It's not even an Ada. Those are all names that I've seen thrown around on social media, and this is the type of water that we could get. But that's not the indication that we're getting from the National Hurricane Center. So again, one to three feet above normal. That's enough to kind of inundate our roads. So we want to get the message out there. Please don't drive through flooded roads. We have our new legislation that's out about not creating that wake when you're driving through. So we're going to have law enforcement out there, and a lot of these folks standing around me making sure that we're out trying to keep people safe. But we really want our residents to understand we need your help to make sure everybody stays safe. Just a quick update on what the city's doing. So citywide, we're putting out messaging regarding the city actions on social media. We have had to cancel several city events have been canceled due to the inclement weather expected. The city will be sending an Everbridge notification to residents with this latest weather update, and again, reminding them to not drive through flooded roads and not create those wakes that could then push the water up into homes. Our PublixWorks teams have placed, well, they have permanent pumps located in low-lying neighborhoods, and they're deploying six additional pumps to shore acres to help mitigate flooding. Those teams are clearing grates and ensuring the drainage is clear and lowering lake levels in Lake McGorry and Riviera Bay. And just a reminder about sandbag operations. We have that site open daily, Monday through Friday, and then on certain Saturdays. So it will be open tomorrow, 7 to 3.30, as well as Saturday, 7 to 3.30, at the Stormwater Pavement and Traffic Operations Building at 1744 9th Avenue North. Fire Rescue will be staffing their three high-water vehicles, which will be at Station 7, which is Fossil Park, Station 8, Lake McGorry, and Station 9, which is over in Pasadena. And I think it's worth noting that we've also deployed 20 firefighters with Florida Task Force 3 up to the panhandle to assist with their response, as well. And just out of an abundance of caution, extra forestry teams will be active this weekend to address any debris within the streets and to keep roadways clear. And that is the update I have for you. Thank you. When you mentioned the Everbridge alerts, are those, do you sign up for those alerts? So those are opt-in. So the Everbridge system is the same as the Alert Pinellas system. Right. And it has two functions. So there's an opt-in function that we can send to those that opt-in. Then they have the reverse 911 function, where we can force push notifications to all cell phones within a certain geographic area. So we tend to save those alerts for kind of life safety issues. So the alert that we'll be sending today will be for all of the opt-in users within City of St. Petersburg. Okay. I just wanted to see if there is a place they can sign up or people can sign up for the alerts. It's through Alert Pinellas. Through Alert Pinellas, and then they'll get it. That's correct. Just to make sure that PSA is out there. Great question. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you for the update and for everything you do. And let's pray for everyone that is in the path of the storm. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next up, we have D4, which is the Legacy 6 Proclamation. Huh? I think, were they skipping reading the proclamation? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're good. I just want to make sure, because that's what I heard and I was being asked. So I just want to check. We're good. Okay. Next up, we have D4, Legacy 6 Proclamation and Chief Watts. And the Legacy 6, whoever's here for that, can join the chief at the podium. So you're welcome to stand, if you can stand, and join the chief at the podium. Thank you. And I believe there is a video. Yes. Thank you. All right. Long time no see. Yeah, it's been a few minutes. We've got to be friends with everybody. What if you want to know if I had any problems on the job. That they all, you know, with strength and grace, we're king of them. What year did your father start with St. Pete Fire Rescue? I retired as a firefighter, and I spent 32 years on the St. Petersburg Fire Department. What was it like joining the fire department during that time? Challenging at best. Challenging at best. I had problems at every station I went to. I couldn't get a passing grade until I got to Station 2. Then I got Excel. We had a lot of prejudice, I guess. I worked out of the original Station 1, which was Duke Cadillac downtown, when that was a fire station. And I would go up to go to bed at night. Then we had open dorms. There were no cubicles. It would just be a row of beds. And wherever I made my bed up to go to bed, when I got ready to go up to go to bed, everyone else would move their beds to the other side of the dormitory. Or when I ate, whatever dishes I ate out of that night, instead of washing, they would throw them in the garbage. Simply because a black man ate off the dishes, and they wouldn't do that. Once I put my food down inside eating, they left. But then two times in a row, uh-uh. Third time, they left, they sat right there. We all went through the same, and what he went through, and Floor went through, all of them through the same thing. I never ran into any jokes, but I can't say that about the officers, the lieutenant, the captain, district chief. I didn't get along with all of them. And I just followed all the instructions, and I figured it would be easier if you do. And that's what I did. My father never complained about anything, or, you know, but I am aware, you know, some of the things that they all went through. Say everybody's watching TV together, and then he walks in, everybody leaves. Or, you know, everyone's eating. He comes in to sit down and eat, everybody leaves. Like, that sort of thing would happen. My father was Eugene Curry. I think it was more important that he never really wanted to share that stuff with me. And I don't know if he was doing it to kind of shield me from the traumatic stuff he saw or even some of his experiences. I thought it was just, for him, it was easier for him to just, like, not share that part of his life with me. I do remember him coming home and just looking drained. And some of his bad habits would be directly because of the job. Is there an accomplishment or a moment that you're most proud of? Yes. The water rescue. The female was in a bubble. She was trapped. And I swam in, and I didn't have a clue how to get this person out of this car. So I turned away from her, and I said, God, you're going to have to help me with this one. And instantly, he gave me the formula to get her out of the car. Probably being promoted to a lieutenant, I didn't realize it. It still wasn't not that big of a deal now to me. I just, you know, it was just something I did. We didn't do it for any accolades, any recognition. We just did it. People will change. And I made a lot of friends on the fire department. I had a lot of rough times. But for every rough time I had, I had 50 good ones. You always had one or two at each station. It was good. A lot of old people ain't bad. You had a few good ones. I mean, you see that right now. The 12th Street, the 12th Street and 18th something happened. But it was that day. They said, look at that black firefighter. Kind of rose up a little bit. They recognized me. But that's a good feeling. From the first day to my last day on the job, the white guys on the job, I never had a problem with it, with them. If they didn't too much like me because of my skin, they never showed it. You know, I do want to thank all of them for opening the door, you know, for other young men and women to come through St. Pete Fire Rescue. Like, it's crazy to think that, you know, I mean, it wasn't so long ago. They made history, you know, and we're all still here. You know, I hope everybody, you know, understands that they really, truly paved the way. My father being recognized as a Legacy Six, I feel it's surreal. If it wasn't for his sacrifices, I wouldn't be on this job if it wasn't for him. I think he'd be happy, overwhelmed, just as I am with the importance of it. And if this helps by any means, getting somebody else motivated to do this career, whatever aspirations they have, if this is that stepping stone, then I'm all for it. Stanton B. Singletary. Riley Preston Floyd. Edward W. Utley. Will it be Barnes, Jr.? Sinekenji Sultane. I'm the daughter of retired Fire Captain Alfonso Brown, Sr. Captain Devin Curry. My father was Eugene Curry, and he's a part of the Legacy Six. Good afternoon. Not sure I'm going to make it through this, but I'll try. Stan Singletary. I've gotten to know Stan over the, since I've been here about eight years, and know the Legacy Six and many others, but particularly the Legacy Six, the ones that I've gotten the chance to know are very humble, very humble. They don't ask for recognition. They don't look, you know, to be recognized. But it is worthy of me, actually, to be here standing before you because I stand on the shoulders of members of the Legacy Six. Good afternoon, Chair, Council, guests, mayor, and administration. On June 29th, St. Petersburg Fire Rescue honored the Legacy Six. We have invited them, their families, and colleagues here today to commend, remember, and celebrate their contributions to our beloved city. They represent the best of us. I have invited them to join me in reading of this proclamation. Whereas, in the early 1970s, Captain Alfonso Brown Sr., Lieutenant Willie Barnes, Lieutenant Riley Preston Floyd, Firefighter Eugene Curry, Firefighter Stan Singletary, and Firefighter Ed Utley broke racial barriers when they became the first black firefighters to serve with the City of St. Petersburg Fire Department, now known as St. Petersburg Fire Rescue. And, whereas, the City of St. Petersburg also recognizes the leadership of Henry Hank Ashwood Sr. in mentoring and recruiting of law enforcement officers, including members of the Legacy Six. And, whereas, despite the challenges encountered, the Legacy Six answered the call to serve their community with courage, professionalism, determination, and an unwavering commitment to protecting the lives and property of the people of St. Petersburg. And, whereas, together, the Legacy Six dedicated more than 180 years of combined service to the City of St. Petersburg community, leaving an enduring example of leadership, sacrifice, perseverance, and commitment to others. And, whereas, the City of St. Petersburg Fire Rescue recognized that understanding and honoring our shared history strengthens our community and helps build a future where every individual has the opportunity to serve, lead, and contribute. And, now, therefore, I, Keith R. Watts, Fire Rescue Chief for the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby recognize and honor in the City of St. Petersburg, and urge all residents to join the City in honoring their courage, service, perseverance, and legacy. Thank you. Is there anyone that wishes to speak on behalf of Legacy Six? I just want to give you the opportunity, just in case. But, if you can stay there for a minute, I believe some council members have. You don't have to speak, but you don't have to speak, but the council members want to share some words with you. Council Member Givens. Thank you. I can say Mr. Singletary is a man of few words, a humble man, but a man of few words. And so, we just want to say thank you to you, to the Ashwood family, to all of the Legacy Six, and to you, Chief Watts. Thank you for this recognition. I've always been a firm believer in giving a person their flowers while they can smell them. So, I certainly want to let you know, Mr. Singletary, we are indebted to you and to your service. You blaze trails that so many of us have followed, and we just want you to know that we're grateful. Your service and the service of the other Legacy Six members is to be commended 180 years of combined service of this city. That is something that should be celebrated. And so, I just want you to know we are grateful, we are thankful, and we will forever celebrate and honor you and your legacy. And I just want to know, how did y'all put those helmets over those afros? Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you. You know, as I sit here and I watch the video, and I can't fathom, can't even imagine, what it would have been like to have put your life on the line in public safety, to save some of the same people that didn't give you the respect that you deserved. And yet and still, you showed up each and every day. And so, for that, we say thank you for the pioneers, because, again, how appropriate it is for the city of St. Petersburg to also have its first African-American fire and rescue chief here during my time, when I can actually see that and be grateful for the history it was made. I am the first African-American to represent my district. So there are a lot of firsts that we've seen, but there's nothing could compare to the trails that you've paved for us. And, again, we thank you. To your families, we thank you. To the Ashwood family, we thank you. And, again, the flowers that we are presenting to you today does not go lightly, because we are in a trying time, y'all, where we're going to have to continue to tell the story, remember our story, because we are here and we're not going anywhere. And that history needs to continue to be told over and over again. And, as I say, firsts, there are a lot of firsts that we've witnessed, and we need to continue to witness those firsts and celebrate those firsts. And, again, Chief Watts, thank you for bringing this proclamation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Floyd. Thank you. Thank you for the proclamation, Chief, and thank you to the Legacy Six and their families for everything that they've been through to make our city a better place. I actually have a question. Where can we get the video to share? Is there a longer version? Are there different versions? I would love to be able to share that with people. We will share it with Council. Okay, cool. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think this is an important thing for everyone in our city to see, and so I'd love to be able to share it with people. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And I want to also thank you, Mr. Singletary, and your family and all the families of the Legacy Six, the Legacy Six, for opening doors. You started opening doors in the 1970s. Doors still need to be opened for many others, and you left a legacy that has opened doors for people that never thought that they could go through those doors. There was a time where there weren't women in the fire service, too, and there are other groups that probably are not represented. So it all builds on each other, and I hope that we don't forget that. What you did at that moment, you probably didn't realize the impact that it had, not just on you and those around you and your community, but it went through the community in different ways and to different groups, and so I just want to let you know, as a first Latina here in the city of St. Petersburg that's on city council, thank you, because it takes people to open doors for others, so those doors should continue to be open. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Next up, we have D5, and it is National Cooperative Month Proclamation. It's going to be given by Council Member Gabbard, so if there is anyone here present and would like to join Council Member Gabbard, you're welcome to do so at the podium. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm excited to present this proclamation today for a movement that I have been so proud to champion from day one here at City Hall. National Cooperative Month celebrates the power of community and the power of our community to be able to solve some of our most difficult challenges. Throughout history, cooperatives have filled a role around labor and worker cooperatives, business and retail, housing, finance, agriculture, and food insecurity. And it is a model for community empowerment that dates back to the 1700s in the United States. And so today, I am joined by Erica Hardison, where, there she is, chair of One Community Grocery Co-op, and Scott Callison, way back there in the back, come on up, Scott, from Lake Michigan Credit Union, and I want to thank the mayor for the opportunity to present this. And the proclamation reads, National Cooperative Month, which is observed each October, provides an opportunity to recognize the contributions of cooperatives and celebrate the members, employees, volunteers, and leaders who sustain them. And whereas, cooperative business in St. Petersburg and across the nation contributes significantly to local economic resilience by keeping wealth within the community, creating quality jobs, and reinvesting in neighborhood development. And whereas, cooperatives operate in a democratic model that empowers worker owners, producers, and consumers, fostering civic engagement, equity, and social well-being, while addressing critical community needs through collaboration. And whereas, profits generated by a cooperative are either returned to its members or reinvested in the cooperative, helping to keep the economic benefits of local enterprise within the community. And whereas, cooperative businesses contribute to resilient and sustainable communities by fostering local ownership, economic participation, and long-term investment. Now, therefore, I, Council Member Brandy Gabbard, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, the Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim October 2026 as National Cooperative Month in St. Petersburg, and encourage residents to learn about, support, and participate in cooperative enterprises. Council Member Floyd. Oh? Oh, I'm sorry. Somebody is talking. If we could, I would love for Erica and Scott to both share a few words. That's good. Good afternoon, City Council members, Mayor, and fellow residents. On behalf of One Community Grocery Co-op, thank you for recognizing October as National Co-op Month here in the City of St. Petersburg. National Co-op Month is more than a celebration of a business model. It is a celebration of people, shared power, economic democracy, and the belief that we are stronger together. Cooperatives are built on a simple yet powerful principle. The people who use and benefit from the business should have a voice and a stake in its ownership. And that's especially important here in South St. Petersburg. For far too long, our community has experienced the consequences of food insecurity, where access to fresh, healthy, affordable food has been limited, and residents have had little say in the economic decisions that shape their neighborhoods. At One Community Grocery Co-op, we are working to change that. We are not simply building a grocery store. We are building community wealth, creating opportunities for local farmers and entrepreneurs, and ensuring that residents are not just consumers in their community, but they are owners of its future. Because ownership matters, and every new member, owner brings us one step closer to making that vision a reality. The proclamation is meaningful because it recognizes that cooperatives are not just an alternative way of doing business. They are a powerful tool for building a more just, resilient, and self-determined St. Petersburg. So as we celebrate National Co-op Month, I invite our city leaders, businesses, and neighbors to do more than recognize cooperatives. Support them. Invest in them. Become a member owner. Help build an economy where prosperity is shared. Because the future of St. Petersburg should not simply be built for its residents, but it should be built by its residents and owned by its residents. Thank you, and happy National Co-op Month. I should have let you speak last. I just want to mention that there are seven cooperative principles that are international principles that all true cooperatives stand on. The sixth principle is cooperation among cooperatives. There are financial cooperatives, better known as credit unions. There are all sorts of different cooperative institutions in this nation, in this world, and they serve an important role. So I would encourage all of you to study them, look at them, figure out why they're important and why member-owned organizations are truly perhaps one of the most democratic organizations and examples of that that I've seen in my 20 years working in the cooperative space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your work in the community and for your advocacy in the community. I'll leave it to Vice Chair Floyd since I present the next one. We're going to thank you all. We're going to go on to Item D6, Domestic Violence Awareness Month Proclamation given by Chair Hanowitz. And if you're here for this, you can join Chair Hanowitz at the podium. Thank you. For those from Casa that are here for this proclamation, as those that have seen me present this proclamation in the past, I've shared, you know, before I was a city council member many years ago, I was a prosecutor here in Pinellas County. I was a federal prosecutor. When you are a prosecutor in Pinellas County, it's a rite of passage when you're a young prosecutor and you're doing misdemeanors, you have the options of going and doing domestic court and traffic court. And those are two paths you can take. I took going into the domestic court path because I knew how important it was to victims of crime to make sure that they are represented. I will tell you that when you think about that space and the ecosystem that works in that space, I was just one small part of that system. You think about domestic violence, they're the crimes that are reported and the crimes that are not reported. And some things that may not meet the level of what a statute labels as a crime to be prosecuted. And these good folks deal with all of that and try to help these victims to get them to a better place. They're difficult cases because of the subject matter that you're talking about. It's a very vulnerable space. A lot of times you can see some of the worst cases out there and you will have victims that will not cooperate because of what they're dealing with and the fear that they have in their lives. And it not just affects them, it affects their families, the children, everyone around them. I still to this day, and I did sex crimes, I did child abuse cases, some of the worst stuff that you can imagine. When you go before a jury and you're going to try a case and you have a panel of jurors and you're questioning them and you ask them can you be fair and impartial and there's always somebody that may raise a hand and say, come up to the bench to the judge and the attorneys and say, I can't try this case because I've been a victim of, you know, violence, I've been abused, I know someone who's been abused. The amount of times that happen is shocking. And there wasn't one case like that that I went to the level of going to trial that you wouldn't have something like that happen. So when you look around you in this room, I guarantee you there's probably someone in here that has faced situations that you can't imagine. And so we have to be constantly aware of that. So I value the work that is done in this space, the work that CASA does. I think we all need to be vigilant of this and spread the word. So I am honored to read this proclamation. Whereas each October we come together as a community to observe Domestic Violence Awareness Month, recognizing the profound impact domestic violence has on individuals, families, businesses, and society. Whereas domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over their intimate partner. And whereas domestic violence is a pervasive issue that affects millions, regardless of age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status, and it requires our collective commitment to raise awareness, provide support, and seek justice for victims. And whereas we honor the strength and resilience of survivors and acknowledge the tireless efforts of organizations and advocates who work to end domestic violence and provide safety and support for those affected. And whereas the City of St. Petersburg supports organizations that provide resources, safety, and advocacy to domestic violence survivors and their children. Now, therefore, I, Sherylissette Hanowitz, on behalf of Kenneth T. Walsh, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim October 2026 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and urge all citizens to actively participate in scheduled activities and programs sponsored by local agencies to work towards the elimination of personal and institutional violence against all people. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you so much, Council, for recognizing October as official Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Despite its prevalence in our communities, domestic violence remains one of the least visible crimes, shrouded in secrecy and often behind closed doors. In 2024, St. Petersburg Police Department recorded 1,863 domestic violence offenses. As the chair was talking about, very few incidences are actually reported. National statistics show us 70% of domestic violence is never reported to law enforcement. So if we use that statistic, that means more than 6,200 people were affected by domestic violence. That's roughly 17 people every single day just here in St. Petersburg. A recent national study found that 61% of women report experiencing domestic violence at some point in their life. This coming year, CASA will celebrate our 50th anniversary in this community. And I'm going to take a minute just to toot our own horn. We operate the only Family Justice City Center in the state of Florida. Right here in St. Petersburg. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, this is the best way to serve survivors of domestic violence. We are the only one until Orlando opens up their center in a year or two. St. Petersburg can tout the only one in the state of Florida. Our shelter is significantly larger than most domestic violence centers throughout the state of Florida. Every single night, we safely house almost 100 women, children, dogs, cats, men, people who are affected by domestic violence. Last year, we opened the CASA Victims Rights Law Center. I don't know if you knew about that. It's exciting. It's exciting. Broadening our legal services from just providing injunction for protection assistance to now including family, housing, and employment law for survivors of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault, and more. Everything that CASA does is free and confidential. Every year, we serve more than 3,000 people. We also invest heavily in prevention. We know that men who witness domestic violence as children are 60% more likely to ultimately abuse their partners later in life. We also know that they're more likely to commit mass murders, sexual assault, and more. We help children build a very different path. As we recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I have one final request. And it's please follow us on social media, at Casa Pinellas, and share our information widely. Chair has talked about people who are affected. I guarantee every single person in this room knows someone who is experiencing violence at home. The information you share can save their life and provide resources that they might not otherwise know about. So please thank you. Appreciate the attention on domestic violence and for all you do to support our services. Thank you. With us here today, we do have CASA team members. We have fellow advocates in the community doing really great work. And we have survivors of domestic violence joining us. Thank you. We have a few council members. Council Member Givens, if you'd like to say. Thank you, Vice Chair. And thank you, Chair Hanowitz, for bringing this forward. Lariana, Ms. Pat, Ms. Ruthie, Ruth, all of you. Thank you for what you do. Had the opportunity to be with some of you this past weekend at Fifth Avenue, Miss Ari Lee, Fifth Avenue Church of Christ, for your domestic violence awareness event. And let me just tell you that it left a mark on my heart. I just want to say thank you for allowing victims to share space. Thank you so much. The Silhouettes exhibit telling the story of how domestic violence has impacted our own community right here in our own backyard. Ms. Ruthie, your daughter's life was not lost in vain because you are keeping her legacy and her memory alive. And I know she would be proud. And so I just want to say you all have allowed it okay for victims not to suffer in silence. It's okay to say, hey, I've been abused or I know someone who's been abused. And so, as you said, each one of us in here have been either directly or indirectly affected by domestic violence in some way or another. And it knows no bounds, knows no limits. And so I just thank CASA and our community partners, the St. Pete Police Department, for standing with victims. You know, whether it's in a courtroom or sitting on their couch in their living room, you're present and your presence makes a difference. So thank you and God bless you. Thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Chair, for reading the proclamation and to all of you for being here today and for all that you do. It's great to have you in here so that we can remind everyone of just how big this problem really is, but then also the strength of your organization and what you are doing to help and prevent every single day. You are true heroes, and I just admire you so much. So thank you for all that you're doing. I know that this is also, excuse me, I know that this topic is also something that Chief Holloway is passionate about, and he's in the room. And I know that, Chief, you have been a great partner to this organization and others, and I want to thank you and just express my gratitude. Just one of the reasons that we absolutely love you as our police chief, but, you know, this one hits home for a lot of people, and you get it. And I know that you're there for victims, survivors, and those who are trying to help them, and you're standing side by side with them every day. And I just really appreciate the attention that you've given to this. There could be people out there probably saying, how can I help? Of course, donations, monetary donations, but with the shelters, with the work that you're doing, if someone wanted to gather some things to bring to you that people really need right now, what are you looking for? We are looking for everything. When people are in shelter, it is their home away from home. So everything that you use at home, we supply at our shelter. Formula, diapers, food, sheets, stuffed animals for children who are coming into shelter. So we rely on donations like that every single day. Our campuses are in downtown St. Pete. You can bring them by at any point in time. We have Amazon wish lists. There's all sorts of ways that you can assist. I will also say CASA has an upcoming scavenger hunt, November 7th. And this is a fun way in downtown St. Pete for people to become more educated about domestic violence. It's a scary subject, one that's hard to communicate. And so we try and provide the broader community with an interactive way to learn about domestic violence, how to recognize it, how to help. And so I encourage you to go to our website, casaponales.org, to learn more about how you can get involved with contributions, joining the scavenger hunt, or there's a plethora of ways that you can assist. That's great. That's great. I know a lot of people want to help, so I wanted to make sure you had a chance to get that out there. And finally, I just, I wanted to thank you for considering pets in these situations. I've learned a lot about how some people won't leave because they can't take the dog with them. And that means a lot to me personally. So thank you for handling that. And if I can just comment on that, we've just tightened injunction for protection laws in Florida that do include now using the pet as leverage in a relationship. So we're making some good progress at the state level. Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, thank you. And thank you for considering the whole family, all kinds of family members, when helping those who are in this situation. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you for bringing up the fact that you're continuing to make the laws stronger because they need to get stronger and stronger. The fact that somebody will use a pet against someone to keep them in a violent relationship is just unbelievable. But that's the type of people that are committing these crimes. Correct. And just one more point on that. Less than 3% of domestic violence organizations across the nation have a pet kennel. So we're one of the very few that recognize and invest in that. Thank you. And one other way they can donate is you have the thrift shop. It's very easy for someone to drive to their car right behind your store at the thrift shop and put your stuff in there and donate to your thrift shop. And you're open on Saturdays too, right? Saturdays and Sundays. Look at that. Saturday and Sunday. And we are expanding our footprint. So. Right. Saturday and Sunday from 9 to 4 p.m. It's open. So there's no excuse that somebody needs to donate and you have to clear out things at the house, clothes, and all the items that you mentioned that people can use. You can pick things from there that you can give to people in your shelters and also sell things at the store, right? And I'm also going to advocate at some really great shopping. And really great shopping. Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies. Next up, we have D7, and it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month Proclamation. And this is going to be given by Council Member Gertes. Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues. I'd invite our health care partners that are here to join me at the podium. We have representation from all three of our major health care partners, BayCare, Orlando Health, and HCA. And so very thankful for them joining me today. Six years ago today, I was having lunch at Ferg's. I know, big surprise that Gertes having lunch at Ferg's. But I was having lunch at Ferg's. I was bringing some other financial advisors, some younger guys I was mentoring to lunch. We were kind of talking over the business. Occasionally during lunch, you get a call from your wife. I took it. She was in tears. I immediately put the phone down, drove to her office, and found out the news my wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Six years ago today. It changed our lives. It changed my kids' lives. It continues to change our life. The good news of that is that the people behind me care deeply about changing the trajectory of that. So that you're going to hear some of the stats in a minute when I read this proclamation. So these numbers continue to change in the way that they should. And so there's a lot of stories to this. And if my wife is listening, she knows she is the hero of this story. She continued to be a mom. She continued to be an amazing leader at her office. She continued to put up with me, which is the most staggering part. And she continues to do that today. That's just one of the people that get diagnosed with this brutal disease. And so not only is she the hero of my story, the people behind me that we are talking about, they are the heroes of our community doing the work that makes sure that women like my wife and some men get the care they need to when they get the worst news of their life. And so I can speak from experience as my wife got first class care from each of the institutions behind me, St. Anthony's, Bayfront, and St. Pete General. She had some sort of care at each one of those. And that's the care being provided here in our community that is changing the lives from people diagnosed with breast cancer. And so, before I read this, I want to thank you. Thank you for being miracle workers every day. Thank you for doing the work of keeping my wife safe and healthy so I get to wake up tomorrow and kiss her goodbye. Because that's the best part of my day is when I wake up and I get to see her next to me. And you make that happen. And so, it's my honor to read the proclamation. Whereas, one in eight women in America and one in 833 American men will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives, or one person every two minutes. And whereas, breast cancer touches so many lives in our city and our county, from our loved ones and friends to our neighbors and coworkers who have survived or lost their lives to breast cancer. And whereas, thanks to earlier detection and better treatments, mortality rates for breast cancer have decreased in the last decade. And whereas, affordable access to screenings and early detection for all women is an essential component in the fight against breast cancer. Whereas, the state of Florida recognized the need to provide uninsured, low-income women ages 50 to 64 with access to life-saving cancer screenings, such as mammography and cervical cancer screenings through its Breast and Cervical Cancer Program, or BCCP. And whereas, the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County's BCCP performs life-saving screenings yearly and has been recognized as one of the state's top programs. And whereas, we stand with our mothers, our daughters, our grandmothers, our sisters, and friends, and supporting their struggles after a breast cancer diagnosis, as well as recognizing the miracle worker doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals whose care and dedication give hope to those living with breast cancer. Now, therefore, I, Council Member Copley Gerdes, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim October 2026 as Breast Cancer Awareness Month throughout this city. And I urge all residents to educate themselves on prevention and treatment options of this devastating disease. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Mari Elliott. I'm the new CEO at St. Pete HCA Florida Health Care Hospital. And as the Councilman mentioned, breast cancer really does touch nearly every family in the state of Florida. And in particular, in Pinellas, it's actually a higher prevalence over the rest of the state. And so for us, it's really essential that screening is of paramount importance in this community. Daily, we make sure we have mammo services. We have phenomenal breast surgeons. We have survivorship councils. All the things to really wrap patients and the families within Pinellas around breast cancer prevention and breast cancer survival. And so what I ask today is that you all go home and you remind your loved ones to make sure they get their mammo if they have not done it in the month of October in 2026. Thank you. Council Member Faye Sanders. Are you done? Are you done? Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this. And it is always encouraging to hear of the survivors of breast cancer, but it doesn't negate the fact that it still happens. So there are some names that I want to call because I want to speak their names as survivors. Ms. Arthurine Williams, Judge Patrice Moore, Tiesha Scantling, Monica Perry, Carolyn Thomas, and I did have a friend to come, Paula Chalmers. But I'm happy to announce the survival of my mommy, Bessie Mae Campbell, who survived breast cancer. And she was surrounded, as you say, Council Member Gurdis, by family and friends, which really made a difference. But what was even more important is that we had all of those services right here locally in the city of St. Petersburg that saved their lives. And so for me, October will always be a month that will be celebrated, that will be remembered, that will be encouraged to, yes, please get your mammograms, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure that you take care of those needs. But, again, I want to thank those that provide those services, but more importantly, I want to continue to pray for our survivors, those that are going through it, those that are dealing with it. Because, you know, we've had some that have had repeat occurrences, and it never gets easier. And it doesn't weigh more so on the patient themselves than it does the family because you feel so helpless. It's like, what can we do, and how can we do it? But, again, I just wanted to acknowledge this month. I want to thank the awareness that we are continuing to give to October's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So thank you, Council Member Gurdis. Thank you. So since we're talking about breast cancer, and we have some doctors here, the screening that people should be doing, if we can give some information in terms of what should, I mean, the average, I know as soon as a woman turns 40, you should be going at least every two years. If you don't have any history, if you have history, you should do it more. But I just want to put out there, I mean, at least for me, I do it every two years. If I have to go more, if the doctor tells me, I do it. But, I mean, you have to meet with your doctor, make sure you're getting the screening as recommended. And, honestly, before age 40, if anyone notices a lump, they need to go see a doctor. So I just want to make sure that information is out there, because I think the most important thing is early detection, right, and that increases the survival rates. So thank you for the miracle workers and for doing the work that you do in this space and for getting the message out there. And, Council Member Gurdis, you know, every year when you say this, I mean, I have to hold back how I feel, because I know, Cecily, I know what you've gone through. And, you know, we really appreciate you sharing the story with us and with our community. So thank you. Thank you, everyone. Council Member Fick Sanders. I would be remiss if I did not recognize one of our own who is standing in a different position, Ryan, our legislative aide, who is actually doing some very important work. And I want to thank you. You've made a major move in what you're doing. But, again, I have to recognize the fact that we lost a phenomenal young man here at City Hall. But what you are doing now is valuable and is priceless. And I thank you for that, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Next item up is D8, which is the National Pedestrian Safety Month proclamation. I believe there are some people here for that. You can join Vice Chair Floyd at the podium for the presentation of the proclamation. You're pretty tall. Okay. While everyone's joining, I'll just say a couple of things. We've had some very strong presentations today, very intense. And I'm going to try to do both sides of this one. So first, yeah, we're going to start like that as well. Well, this is a proclamation that's really important to me and one that I think if you've seen my advocacy on this issue, you'll know that that's the case. And I'll just tell you a little bit why. I've had multiple family members hit by vehicles as pedestrians, including one of my cousins, who's one of my best friends, and my wife. And so I've had near misses myself. And so I think that we have basically an epidemic of this in our community and in our country and in our world. And so I think it's really important that we advocate for it. And the flip side of that, though, is that I think we've been making great progress in our city recently. I think that we've done a very good job of showing a path forward, specifically for our region, really. I think we hear a lot about our region and how our region handles traffic crashes and pedestrian safety. Our region handles it poorly. But I do think that if you dig into the numbers and you see what's going on in the city of St. Petersburg, we've started to make some headway in a positive direction. And so I wanted to uplift that message before I read the proclamation. So I'll get started. Whereas walking is a healthy, sustainable, and accessible mode of transportation that supports community well-being, physical activity, and a reduced environmental impact. And whereas a safe and welcoming environment for walking improves public health, strengthens neighborhoods, and supports local businesses, which advances the goals of key pillars for progress, including neighborhood health and safety and environment, infrastructure and resilience. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg is committed to safe, accessible streets that encourage residents and visitors of all ages and abilities to walk, which helps meet the goals of safety, public health, quality of life, access to jobs, economic development, in keeping with the city's ongoing efforts to build a more walkable and multimodal transportation network. And whereas pedestrian safety remains a critical concern nationally, with data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing that 7,080 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in 2024, a death roughly every 74 minutes, and more than 71,000 pedestrians were injured. And whereas while fatal pedestrian crashes are trending higher nationally, St. Petersburg fatalities are trending lower, as evidenced by Smart Growth America recently reporting, a national increase of 45% from 2014 to 2024, while St. Petersburg experienced a 54% decrease in the same comparison. And whereas the city remains committed to investments in infrastructure, education, and enforcement, and will not be satisfied until the pedestrian death rate is zero. And whereas all roadway users share responsibility for pedestrian safety, and drivers must remain vigilant, particularly at crosswalks and intersections, marked or unmarked, and maintain safe speeds, as even small increases in vehicle speed significantly elevate the risk of severe injury or death. And whereas the city recognizes and thanks the community organizations, advocates, and city staff, who work to promote pedestrian safety, and encourage walking as a mode of both transportation and recreation. Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Richie Floyd, on behalf of Kenneth C. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim October 2026 as National Pedestrian Safety Month in the City of St. Petersburg, and urge all residents, businesses, and visitors to embrace the benefits of walking, practice safe habits on our streets, and work together to build a safer, more walkable community for all. Thank you. Good afternoon, Council. Evan Morey, Director of Transportation and Parking Management. I'd like to thank Mayor Welch for signing the proclamation, bringing higher awareness to the importance of pedestrian safety in St. Petersburg, and Council Vice Chair Floyd for presenting the proclamation today. I also appreciate several residents, supporters who came out today, took time to be here with us. I'd like to recognize Elizabeth Staten and Elena Grundy with the Transportation Department, who are here today. Also, I'd like to recognize the Assistant Chief Judah with the St. Pete Fire Rescue Department is here today. She serves on our Complete Streets Committee. And the Fire Department does have a big part in helping educate the public about the importance of roadway safety. And they're also the ones who respond and make sure that those who do end up getting injured on our roadway get excellent care and have the best outcomes possible. Likewise, I'd like to thank the St. Pete Police Department, who's here today. Major Bush is here with them. She's in charge of the traffic unit, or above the traffic unit, as well as Melissa Maling. She's our Police Crossing Guard Supervisor. Sergeant Vickers and Lieutenant Levy are people we work with often. And all the officers in that unit are especially effective as an education. They can educate the public in ways that fire rescue and transportation can't, if you know what I mean. So besides what they do every day, whenever we identify a problem location, they're always willing to help with the education and enforcement. We're just likely to make the biggest difference. Next, I'd like to invite St. Pete resident Paul Kurtz to say a few words. Paul is one of the longest-serving members of the Mayor's Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. And you've seen him here before at council meetings, speaking and advocating for enhanced mobility and safety before for all of our roadways. He's a great community partner, an effective champion for safety. I'm glad he volunteered to say a few words today. So, Paul, please. Good afternoon, Paul. Good afternoon. Thank you, Evan. Thank you to the city for the proclamation. As Evan mentioned, I have been involved with the Mayor's Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee over the last four administrations, actually. So it's been a while. I'm humbled here to say a few words on behalf of some other colleagues and friends and organizations that support pedestrian and bicycle safety, including some friends and colleagues from Activate St. Pete. I'm also a member. Safety, I've said before, is probably the number one job of the city. And the proclamation really is a vital step in acknowledging the safety of our most vulnerable road users. And it's an urgent priority. The city is a vibrant, beautiful, active place. And being able to walk, roll, bike should not be a privilege. It should be a fundamental right. And no matter how we travel, at the end of the day, we're all pedestrians. Well, I'd like to also start by recognizing what our city is doing right, because there's been a lot of things. Council Member Floyd alluded to them. Evan has as well. Eight years ago, we started with our Complete Streets Plan. That really moved the city towards designing streets for all road users, for people, not just vehicles. That's an important step. Later this year, the Complete Streets Plan will be updated, rather, with a renewed focus on safety. We're going to call it the Safe Streets Plan. It's a few years late coming, but that's a conversation for another time. We're happy to see that it is coming. Also happy to report that the Sidewalk Master Plan has some good legs now. And that, through the good fortune, the Council has authorized additional funding for sidewalks, and particularly the Sidewalk Master Plan for this year. So we're very pleased about that. That's the nice progress. Crossings are something that are also important. I think everybody knows now what the red flashing beacons mean. They're called RRFBs, but they're kind of ubiquitous around the city. And maybe 10 years ago, there were maybe a couple in town, maybe one on 22nd Street. No one knew what to do with it. There's 22nd Avenue, excuse me. But now people seem to kind of know what they are and actually stop for them. So that's good progress. That's good progress for safety. One of the other good pieces of progress that the city's made is focusing in on the high-injury networks. The South St. Pete CRE Mobility Study was just completed, and we're looking at those high-injury networks, especially MLK South, and we look forward to seeing some of those get implemented in the near future. Funding has always been a key. You've probably heard me talk about that too many times. You probably don't want to hear me talk about it again. But the good news is that the city, the mayor, the administration, the council have identified and recognized this and approved additional funding for these resources. We now have another funding mechanism for this, so kudos to the city for that. But not everything costs money. There are programs that don't cost money. Not everything has a cost. So one of the things I would encourage the city to take a closer look at is one that's been mentioned previously. It's a tool that we haven't explored fully. Three years ago, the state passed legislation allowing for automated speed detection systems in school zone. Two years ago, myself and some colleagues, as Max mentioned, approached the chief and suggested that the city explore this a little bit further, and, well, here we are two years later. Well, we understand that implementation requires careful consideration of cost, enforcement, technology, privacy. We've heard about privacy a lot today, so that's an important consideration, and appropriate locations for these. Our peers in Tampa, Orlando, have strategically located these, and the numbers are promising. So I urge the council to look more closely at this program. The city can use the cameras to identify vehicles only going 10 miles an hour over. That's not something that anyone, I think, would argue with. And it's essentially a revenue-neutral program, so it's really no cost to the taxpayers. So I would love to see the city explore that program a little bit further. But let's celebrate the city's significant investments in pedestrian safety improvements. Those investments matter. But let's also not forget that we have had a high percentage and high number of pedestrians killed, in fact, 107 over the last 10 years. The trend is in the right direction, as the data has borne out, but we don't want to rest until that number gets to zero. Zero is the target. So remember, however you travel, at the end of the day, we're all pedestrians. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair Floyd, for bringing this forward. And thanks to each of you for all that you do in your work, even you, Evan, because we couldn't do what we do without you. I certainly appreciate the statistics that were brought forward. It is nice to know that we are on this downward trend, which means that we're taking steps in the right direction. But as you said, Paul, we've got further to go. Because even though we've decreased that number by 54%, none of us are going to be happy until we see injuries and fatalities at zero. Let's flatline that. Thank you again, Max Palmetto Park, Activate St. Pete, for always being willing to invite me to be a part of your bike-to-school events. I love those. And other council members are invited, too. So feel free to join us. There's plenty of room on the road. But speaking of school zones and roads, thank you, Max, for always championing those school zone safety cams. That fight, don't give it up. We are fighting right there with you. And speaking of school zone safety, I have to shout out our amazing school, Crossing Guards. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So Evan Morey knows I've mentioned this. I have had this discussion before. We had, when I was the president of Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association, there were some traffic deaths that happened during that time. Back in 2019, there was a pedestrian that was killed in the crosswalk that goes to Sunken Gardens. I don't know if you all remember that. We have the bicyclist that was killed by rolling oats. That happened also. And, you know, I actually sent an email detailing, and at that time I sent it to our reps at the state level. You know, a lot of money goes into the effort of improving design, enforcement, education, but there is no serious penalty for drivers who kill pedestrians. It took mothers against drunk drivers to give the DUI statute teeth. That took a lot of time. The reason for that is because our vehicular homicide statute requires recklessness, and a lot of times you can't prove recklessness in those scenarios. And so I am throwing this out there so you all know your advocates in this space. This is not something city council can do because this is at the state level. But look, in Massachusetts, they have a misdemeanor homicide by motor vehicle. They have that in Massachusetts. That is just another tool in the toolbox because then basically it gives people the knowledge that I do something that's careless and I kill someone, there is going to be a serious penalty. That person that killed that woman by sunken gardens got a failure to yield the right-of-way citation. It wasn't even a misdemeanor. So I'm throwing that out there for the advocates because the reality is in that space, I think there probably is something that can be done to put some more penalties in some more teeth. If it doesn't happen here, it happens at the state level. But thank you all for the hard work that you do and for bringing the advocacy for the pedestrians and making sure that our streets are safer. So thank you. Okay. Next up, we have D1, and this is the Student Ambassador Program Student's Presentation. I believe Dave Thompson is here, and you will provide the short introduction. Thank you. Good afternoon, Council Members. Twice in one day. I'm the luckiest guy in St. Pete. So today I had the privilege of bringing to you our student ambassadors who traveled to Takamatsu, Japan this year. As you all know, and we were able to restart the program with city council support after the pandemic, we send three students from St. Pete High Schools to Takamatsu truly as ambassadors to represent our longest-standing Sister City relationship. And as part of that program, they give to you, Council, an update on their experience and share what they learned in Takamatsu. So it's my great privilege to introduce Ella Brigham, Elise Chandler, and Coldlanders, our 2026 student ambassadors, for their presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you. Good afternoon, City Council. Thank you for having us. And before we get started, we wanted to first introduce ourselves. I'm Elise. Good afternoon, Council. I'm Cole Anders. Good afternoon. I'm Ella. And we had some thank yous. So first of all, to the St. Petersburg, so to SPFs, the St. Petersburg Folk Fair Society, we wanted to thank the Executive Director, Stephanie Chill, who did a ton of the behind-the-scenes work for this program. On the city side of things, we really wanted to thank David Thompson and for all of his work that he did. He really helped us out a lot. And even though they aren't here to hear it, we really want to thank the city officials and host families in Takamatsu who make this exchange possible every year. So first we're going to give a brief student introduction. So hi, my name's Elise. I'm a senior at St. Petersburg High School's IB program. I've lived in St. Pete my entire life with my family. And it's just some little facts about me, some hobbies. I love learning new languages. I love running, cross-country, and track and field. I love playing music. I play a couple different instruments. And I love traveling. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about my experience in the program. So I first participated in this program actually as a middle schooler. I attended Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School. And we've made a video to send to our sister city middle school in Takamatsu, Japan. And we even received a reply video back. And I was very touched by the experience from a young age. Especially, I was touched by the English that was spoken by the middle schoolers in Takamatsu, 12, 13-year-olds who were speaking English more or less as fluently as I did. I speak some Spanish at home and in school. But obviously, Japanese or English going from either of those languages is way harder. And when I heard about the high school program at a young age, I was touched. I knew that I wanted to do it. And I decided that my way into the program would be learning Japanese. So this year marks five years consecutively of studying Japanese for me. And so Takamatsu was a really life-changing experience for me. Because it allowed me to participate in an immersion. And I learned so much from the people around me on the trip. And the memories that I made I'm going to keep with me for the rest of my life. And the language skills that I picked up. I'm Cole again. I'm also a senior in the IB program at St. Petersburg High School, like Elise. I really like to travel. That's something my parents have given me the opportunity to do from a very young age. And I'm also an amateur photographer. Lots of my photos are featured on these slides. And I dabble in studying ancient history from time to time. My experience in Japan was amazing. The experience was definitely different than anything I've ever had here. But there's nothing that I would have changed about it. In Japan, we did go around less with the kids, given they were still in school. But our chaperones, Suzuki-san and Besho-san, were super friendly, super accommodating. And by the end, we talked to them about everything. They did what they could to make anything happen during our free time. If we wanted to go to the store, if we wanted to get ice cream, go to malls. And that really meant a lot to us. So as someone interested in ancient history, this was a great experience. And lots of our itinerary was going to gardens. I visited shrines with my host family, Shuma, and castles with his parents. And that was super interesting to see and allowed me to explore a massive interest of mine and kind of learn the intentionality behind lots of the structures there and see what it all meant. Hi again. I'm Ella. I'm a senior at Northeast High School. And I've lived in St. Pete my entire life. I'm interested in many things, such as art, photography, and fashion. I'm part of my school's journalism and yearbook club, and I'm captain of the track and field team. Outside of school, I enjoy hanging out with my friends and volunteering and staying active. From my experience, I wrote a little bit. I originally heard about the trip to Takamatsu through a family friend and a previous participant as well. She brought up how it was an amazing and eye-opening trip, and I was urged to apply by her. I was nervous at first because of my minimal travel experience. But in the end, I decided to apply, and looking back on it now, I'm very glad that I did. During my time in Japan, I was treated with such extreme amounts of kindness, and today I will highlight my memories made in Japan. Thank you. So now we have some food highlights for you guys to enjoy. So we all love Japanese food, and it definitely held a special significance for all of us in Takamatsu. And we have all these photos or meals that we ate on the trip, and we all have a special significance. So not only was the food delicious, but it meant something to us. For me, food's been a way for me to practice vocabulary and share about American culture in a casual way. When we had the opportunity to attend a Japanese high school for two days, I participated in the cooking club there. The bottom right photo is a photo of me with my club members as they taught me how to cook a traditional Japanese sweet. And it was an opportunity for me to practice the language in a way that I had never had an experience with before. That's not something you find in a textbook. And it became a way for me to talk about what we eat at home, too. Like, in our cooking club, we put red sweet beans on it. And I was like, oh, we never eat this at home. I shared with them the kind of stuff we have, you know. They don't have quite as many colorful sweets, too. So I talked about the food dyes we have over here, too. It was a great way to exchange culture. Out of all the places I've visited, Japan has some of the best food. And one of the things that makes it so special is the way that it's presented. As shown in most of the photos, it's presented in a small dish style. So you have rice in a bowl, you have protein in a bowl, and then other side dishes. And this is just different from America. Normally, we put everything in one big plate, even family-style meals. They're not so much set style. They're more different dishes all together. And that honestly makes the meal so much more enjoyable. At least over there, it made it go a lot, made it stretch out, and it made the conversations better. So I was able to ask the chaperones what this food was and kind of talk to them about each individual item instead of just guessing. For me, food was a very big connector for me and my host family. I think one of my favorite memories with my host family was walking around the grocery stores in Japan and pointing out if there were similar items that we had here in America. So my host sister would point out an item, and I'd be like, oh, we have that, or oh, we don't have that. And it was just a very fun way to connect with her and her family. Okay. And then now we're going to talk about our homestay siblings and our individual experiences with them a little bit. So for me, my homestay sister's name was Rico. Rico and I hit it off from the very beginning. By the time I actually landed in Japan, we had been messaging each other, calling daily, and despite only knowing each other for like a month or two now, I genuinely would say I'd call Rico one of my best friends. In Japan, she acted as a tutor, friend, and guide through any and all stressful situations. Even though I was looking for a language immersion, none of her family speaking English was a difficult situation. The trip wasn't perfect. There were definitely hard times just like there were good times. So I really relied on her, but she never minded, and she went out of her way to make sure all my dreams came true when I was in Japan. A little personal anecdote was when we were on the phone for one of the first times, she asked what I wanted to do in Japan. And I told her, I want to buy a kimono. And she just started laughing. And she was like, Elise, a kimono, that's going to cost you $3,000. And it's like five pieces. You're going to sweat so much. I was like, okay, maybe not a kimono. So even though I couldn't wear a kimono, that photo in the bottom right is really special to me because I'm wearing a yukata, which is the summer version. Rico took me on a train to Okayama, the neighboring prefecture, like pretty much a different state for them. And she took me to a yukata rental place for the day where we got to dress up, and then we walked around a traditional town. She completely surprised me. So anything I mentioned I wanted to do or try, she made it happen. She was like my partner in crime. And on all of our late-night adventures, because in Japan, it is safe for two teenage girls to walk around the streets at night a little bit different. She was my partner. We went on all kinds of 7-Eleven runs exploring. And I genuinely miss her every single day. My homestay sister was Kakone, and I adore her and her family very much. I learned so much from her with my time with her in Japan, and me and her connected immediately. I think the first portion of getting off the plane and everything was very nerve-wracking, but me and her connected. Just our car ride from the airport to her home. One of my best memories with Kakone and her family was the night that I introduced them to Just Dance. We stayed up till 1 a.m. dancing around the living room. After tying ourselves out, we sat on the couch and took turns playing our favorite songs. In the end, music was also a huge connector for me and her family. And a couple days into the trip, while at the mall, my family, my host family, surprised me with a yukata as well. The next day, I was given the chance to wear it out, and we got all dressed up and traveled hours to a beautiful onsen. The yukata they gifted me is a symbol of the love and respect I have for my host family, and I will never forget how special they made me feel. So my experience, there's honestly way too much to talk about, so I will keep it brief. I was the only student lucky enough to have both a homestay sibling and a different sibling that came back. So I got two different experiences. And at Shuma's, food was definitely a big connector. Most of my photos I have are around the table with his family or eating food out. And that meant a lot to me. So you can never miss a family meal in the Sata K household. And all of our conversations happened before or after meals, where I shared photos about my life, and they shared photos about theirs, or even their school test grades. We cooked clean, and I went to the store with his family every time, where they would get me a new, different, fun drink to try, and keep it stocked in their house in case I liked it. And eventually, we definitely grew closer. But coming back here, I didn't have Shuma. Shohei came back, and that was a challenge. Shohei was different than Shuma. And I had to learn how to adapt to that. And one of the things that helped me and Shohei grow closer were walks together around the city. There's so many fun things to share about St. Pete, especially involving this program downtown. There's the pelican statue and different pieces of artworks that I actually wrote a presentation on to give to them there. And I showed them all around those. And even squirrels. They don't have squirrels in Japan. So Shohei would see one, point it out every time, and go to take a photo. And I really enjoyed those little walks with him, and that was how we grew closer together. So hosting was super fun and definitely something that I will cherish forever. Okay, now we're each going to talk about the program's impact and how we all believe it impacted us personally. So I'm going to talk about cultural awareness. I believe it's essential to continue this program with Takamatsu Japan because of the shared understanding that it creates. So on the American side of the program, Rico had the opportunity to meet my family, my friends, neighbors, and countless St. Pete citizens who wanted to ask Rico questions, who she wanted to greet, who she got closer with. And in Japan, I think it's just as important to promote cultural understanding of St. Pete, Florida, and the U.S. as a whole. So there's an unfortunate stereotype that I'm sure we're all aware of that permeates our country of the ugly American, someone who isn't able to appreciate a culture outside of their own. Some of my favorite moments on the trip were when I felt like I could break that stereotype, when I finished my city council presentation in Japanese, and I could see how happy they were to receive a presentation from an American in their language, when I could talk to my classmates at school, when I could say, oh, I love that song. I listen to that song all the time, and they're like, what? It was really fun to connect with people in a way that they didn't know an American could connect with them. Demonstrating the cultural diversity present in St. Pete and the open-mindedness of our citizens is essential to this program, and doing that for the residents of our sister city was a truly special experience. Outside of all the amazing photos that I got to take on the trip, I think character building was definitely the biggest highlight for me. So as high schoolers, we are incredibly lucky to have been given the chance to participate in such a program, and it definitely wasn't easy to earn our spot. We had countless interviews and essays to write, and those were a part of this program that contributed just as much to the character building as our time there. So this program is huge for character building. There were two main aspects of it that it helped me with, and those were the ability to adapt and be comfortable in new situations and building my communication skills. So Japan is different from the U.S., and we had to take that in stride. We had to adapt to going to school there, living with our host family, and just interacting with all the different citizens in the city. Obviously, they don't speak English, so that was something we had to kind of use translators for or just learn the new words ourselves. And on top of that, because the language is completely different, communication took various forms. Part of that was our body language and also just how we looked and presented ourselves to other people. So eye contact was huge. Using our hands to point at things or just to express, like, our emotions was definitely big. And I brought that all back here to the different clubs that I run at school. I'm able to recruit more members this year because I've learned how to communicate with people that I wasn't originally familiar with. And I would like to talk about personal development. The program has allowed me to experience something I would have never been able to on my own. Being able to travel to another country at such a young age is so beneficial and eye-opening. And I was given the opportunity to be part of another culture and become independent and make new connections that will last a lifetime. I am beyond grateful. Thank you, Austin. Thank you for listening to our presentation. And thank you again to Stephanie and David for making it all possible, and the city as well, and the mayor in his office. But thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Congratulations to the three of you. What a neat program. First, Cole and Elise, do you all know Maddie Harding? Yes. Let's just say it was just the 35 of us just friends hanging out. And her dad wasn't here. We don't know who that guy is. Anything you want to tell us about her? Anything? Just anything? Nothing for the city record. Anyway. Smart girl. Smart girl. I like what you did there. That's right. Congratulations. First off, you got the opportunity because of who you are. And I don't mean that from the point of selection. I mean that from the point of you selecting the program. And these are the kind of standout things that the three of you are going to do going forward. And I can tell you that I, we don't normally speak for each other. That's not the way it works up here, but I'm going to try it one time. I think you'll find that all of us up here are extremely proud of you. And we're proud of the fact that you went and you represented the city of St. Petersburg, and then you represented the city of St. Petersburg here. I'm glad you had the chance for the experience, but I'm more glad after listening to you that these are the emissaries that we have out talking to people about our city. So congratulations, and thank you for going. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. Yokoso and konnichiwa. I had the opportunity, as you've heard before, of traveling to Takamatsu and representing this city as a student ambassador in 2008. And that was the honor of a lifetime. I think it was you, Ella, who said it. I would have never been able to travel overseas, this little boy from South St. Pete, because I couldn't afford it, for one. But I also didn't really know there was a world beyond St. Pete, because I had never really been. And that was a cultural experience in itself. It really exposed me to a world beyond that, which I had known for 17 years. And I want you to know that you all are equipped, and you are prepared, and you are ready to lead. Because that's what Japan does to you. It builds you. You said it yourself, Cole. It creates leaders. That professional development that you get, that cultural competency that is developed, that is something that you can carry for your whole life. And those skills are transferable, regardless of what field you decide to go into. Life is all about adapting, as you said, and learning to assimilate. Because you're going to meet people from all different walks of life, all different cultures, everywhere that you go. And it's about learning how to live amongst them in peace. And so, again, congratulations. Thank you all for representing St. Petersburg so well. And Domo Arigato. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Before you go, I'm going to echo my colleagues' comments and congratulate you first for choosing to be an ambassador and then getting selected to be an ambassador and ably representing the city of St. Petersburg and really trying to go further than that, try to shatter the stereotypes of Americans in Japan. So that's something that we have to be thankful for and showing that we are curious, right? We do want to learn about other cultures, learn the language, adjust. And so I'm curious, and I want to hear from you all, when you started the program and you were selected, did you have an opportunity to talk to other students before who had gone through the program? And then the other question I have for you is, are you going to pay it forward and pass on your knowledge to those children in the future who are thinking about becoming student ambassadors? So whoever wants to answer. So the person that introduced me actually was Ava right here. Get closer to the microphone so we can hear you. Sorry about that. You're fine. She had an amazing time in Japan and she told me all about it. And so every time that I went over and hung out with her, it was her and her mom that would always tell me about it. And they were like, Ellie, you should really do this program. And so I'm really grateful that she really encouraged me to do it because she knows me and she knows that I am a very nervous person. So even standing up here right now is something that I am very proud of myself for doing. And so even traveling to another country, again, something I'm extremely proud of myself for doing on my own and with these two amazing students as well. I have already talked to my journalism teacher about putting an ad in our school newspaper for this program because I would love to see some of my younger friends doing this program. Even some of them asked me about my trip. I was like, oh, what grade are you going into? Because I do have just a variety of friends, and sometimes I get their ages mixed up and their grades. So I asked some of my younger friends, I was like, oh, well, if you're going into your senior year this summer, after your junior year, you should really do this program. And so if they've shown interest, I have informed them and told them about it. And then just to add on to what Ella already said, she's got a great connection and a great story that she just shared about her involvement in the program. As far as paying it forward, I can speak, I think, collectively when I say we all plan on paying it forward, and we're all excited to give back just like the past student ambassadors gave to us. And one thing that we're really excited to help with too is the etiquette trainings that we had to go through, etiquette language. And one thing I care very deeply about is seeing other kids who are excited to learn Japanese, even though maybe it's not the most practical. I do a similar thing with Spanish at my school. I love seeing citizens in St. Pete, kids in St. Pete who want to learn other languages, and I'm so happy when I get a chance to practice with them, to mentor them, to spread that kind of excitement and that really special skill of being able to connect with somebody in a personal way. And it's something that I can't wait to pay forward to with the next group of student ambassadors. Thank you. So that made my heart smile. That's what we want. We clearly picked the right ambassadors for our city, and the fact that you're going to find the next ambassadors to continue to spread the message of the city of St. Petersburg and then come back and tell us what their experience was. That's exactly what we want from the program, and you've done a fantastic job. So thank you very much. Okay. The next presentation is the Sacred Lands Preservation Education presentation. I believe, Council Member Gerdes, this was your item. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Yeah, there's obviously been a lot of talk about this piece of property over the last couple of months, and so just wanted to invite David Anderson to give us just a brief update. I'm going to bury the lead. There's some fun stuff happening there. There's continuously fun stuff happening there, but even more so coming up. And so just very excited for everything that's going on at this site. It's just a lot of cool stuff, and I thought it was time for an update. So, David, thank you so much for joining us and looking forward to this update. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councilman Gerdes, and thank you to all the city council members for giving me some time today. I appreciate you representing all the wonderful districts of St. Petersburg, and I'm a proud St. Petersburg resident. I have what I consider a huge announcement, and that is that the Smithsonian is coming to St. Petersburg. Sacred Lands Preservation and Education is receiving a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., called Americans. It will be at our site for eight weeks from February 13, 2027 until April 10, 2027. And for those who have not heard of Sacred Lands Preservation and Education, I am the board president. My name is David Anderson, and it's a property, a historic property in St. Pete representing ancient history like Cole's interested in. It goes back 1,000 years, and so a lot of folks don't realize St. Pete has 1,000 years of history, but it certainly does. I'm a member of the Anderson family, and we've stewarded this private property at the Jungle Prada site since 1940. The Jungle Prada site is on the National Register of Historic Places as a 20-acre site that was part of a Native American Tokabaga village for 600 years, from 1,000 A.D. to about 1,600 A.D. And on my slide in the bottom right is an artist conception by an artist named Mack Perry of the village. The portion outlined is my family's property, the property we know as Sacred Lands. It contains the plaza and the main midden, and the plaza was like the town square for the village. The main midden is what I call the best-preserved Native American shell mound on the entire Gulf Coast of Florida, and I feel quite confident in that. It is 900 feet long, 300 feet wide, 23 feet above the average high tide, and it is covered in tens of thousands of ancient lightning whelk and horse conch shells, as well as fragments of shell pottery. There have been several archaeological digs over the years at the site, most recently in the 1990s, with people from the Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society, as well as AWARE, the Alliance for Whedon Island Archaeological Research and Education. A lot of the artifacts are being kept and studied at the lab at Whedon Island currently. The picture on the top right is what the mound looks like today. The shells you see are there. They weren't brought by my family. They're 500 to 1,000 years old. They were food. They were tools for the Tokabaga Indians, and many of the shells that were used for tools are still clearly intact as such on the surface at the Jungle Prada site. It's also the purported landing site of the 1528 Narvaez expedition, who there is great evidence for. I'm sure you've heard this at previous council member meetings as well, from my colleague Jim McDougald, but there's a lot of evidence that suggests that it was the landing took place at Upper Boca Siega Bay at a Tokabaga village, and that matches the description for our site completely. And no matter what, we think of Panfilo Narvaez as a human being, the conquistador. Along with the expedition were Estevanico, who was the first known person of African descent to explore what is now the United States. He was from Morocco. And, in fact, just the national attention our site is capable of getting to suggest that I've had the consul general from Morocco in New York City come to visit because he wanted to see the place where Estevanico first set foot in the United States. And the epic story of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who landed in St. Petersburg and, along with three other survivors, walked from St. Petersburg, Florida, all the way to the Pacific coast of Mexico over eight years, is considered the first overland exploration of what is now the United States by Europeans in history. And it started here in our city. The Jungle Prada site is also heavily involved in 1920s West St. Pete history. The Jungle Prada building is the namesake. It was built in 1924 and named Jungle Prado originally, after the Paseo del Prado in Havana, Cuba. It was a shopping mall back in the 1920s, according to Walter Fuller, the first modern strip mall in St. Petersburg. And there really was a speakeasy there called the Gangplank. Walter Fuller wrote about that in his book, St. Petersburg and its People by Walter P. Fuller, which came out one year before Walter Fuller died. So it was sort of his tell-all book. And he admits to accepting a large shipment of whiskey and selling it in teacups at the Gangplank speakeasy. Although evidence that Al Capone was there is scant to non-existent. So I don't have any proof that Al Capone ever visited, but I have pretty good evidence that Babe Ruth and some very famous jazz musicians came to play at the speakeasy. And this property has been stewarded and preserved by my family since 1940, the Anderson family. And in 2001, my parents, my mother sitting here, started Sacred Lands Preservation and Education as a way to enlist the public in helping to preserve the property and also to share it with the public and help cover the cost of wear and tear from visitation to the site and managing the mound. We're still happy to accept lots of visits from archaeologists and other dignitaries who want to come visit the site. What we do there is I do guided history tours five days a week. In 2017, I started a small LLC registered with the city of St. Pete called Discover Florida Tours. So I consider myself the tour partner of Sacred Lands, but I offer guided history tours. We have school groups visiting. The fourth graders are learning about Tokabaga Indians in public school now, so we get fourth grade visits to the mound. I've had several of the local schools come to visit. We do have an archaeological museum with some artifacts from the site. We lost our original museum display cases during Hurricane Helene. We managed to salvage the artifacts, have them professionally cleaned by the archaeologists at Whedon Island, and we were given some glass display cases from the Duncan McClellan Glass Studio to show the artifacts, but we were back online showing artifacts. We just installed a native plant garden with a grant from Florida Humanities and the Mosaic Corporation. We installed an indigenous people's garden with plants that were food, medicine, or shelter for Native Americans, and we had an opening event on August 1st of this year, 2026. So the picture in the top right is Dr. Anna Dixon, an anthropologist from USF who was one of our three speakers at the opening of the indigenous people's garden. On the bottom left is Dennis Harrison who every November presents the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Thanksgiving address at our site. That's going to be a really interesting ceremony we have coming up in November. The piece of pottery is one of our display cases. That's one of the nicest pieces of pottery that we've recovered from the site that's on display. And then on the bottom right is one of the school groups that I've led there. And I do want to say while I'm speaking that we have an event coming up for Original Nations Day, which is just this coming Monday, and I will be giving a free tour of the archaeological site for anyone interested in coming to visit on Monday in the evening. I think we've got that set for 6, 6, 630. So we all have ongoing events, but the thing I'm here to tell you about today, to talk to you all about today that I'm so excited for, is called the Americans Exhibit. And it is offered through a program called Museums on Main Street from the Smithsonian, which is meant to take Smithsonian-quality museum exhibits to smaller communities or underserved communities. St. Petersburg is a big city, but we are a relatively small organization preserving what I consider to be a very important historic site. And so thankfully, the Smithsonian recognized that, as did Florida Humanities. And so we got a grant from those two organizations to host this exhibit and offer programming around it. So it will be arriving in early February, and we'll be setting it up. And not to cut to the end, but we will be having a VIP, like sneak preview the night before it opens to the public, and you're all invited to come check out the exhibit a night early to see what it looks like. I'm very excited about it. There's just a few things I wanted to note about it. One, I suppose, is that the Native Americans that we have at our site, or that existed at our site that built the mounds, we call the Tokabaga. And today, we only have two federally recognized Indian tribes in Florida. We have the Seminole tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee tribe of Indians of Florida, and those are the two. And they may have descended from the Tokabaga, but the Tokabaga were the people living here when those Europeans landed. So when the Spanish arrived, they wrote down there were Colusa people in southwest Florida, and Tequesta, and Jega, and Miami, and Matacombe. In the central Florida were the Ocalae and the Tamuqua. In the Panhandle were the Apalachee, and around Tampa Bay were the Tokabaga. So ours is a Tokabaga site. The Museums on Main Street is a national touring exhibit, so it's not just Florida-specific. It covers the Native American experience from a national perspective. So there's panels on the Trail of Tears, on Pocahontas, on the First Thanksgiving, on the Battle of Little Bighorn, and a big display on how Native American culture is all over our culture, but yet we don't always recognize that these are still modern people who still currently exist. And so their descendants are still with us. So we are inviting members of the Seminole Tribe and the Miccosukee Tribe to come be part of our presentations during the exhibit, and we'll be doing something called Smithsonian Sundays. So every Sunday during the exhibit, we'll have a presentation or something on offer for the public involving some of our friends with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and also some archaeological guest speakers as well, and it will be free for members of the St. Petersburg public to come and visit on Sundays. There will be a tour option for the archaeological site, but the exhibit will be free for everybody on Sundays. We're calling that Smithsonian Sundays. And so I feel like my job as the director of Sacred Lands is to take this national touring exhibit and apply it to our local community here in St. Petersburg and to incorporate our local tribes of Indians. And to that effect, the Seminoles have given us like some materials to hand out at the site during the exhibit. And I hope you'll stay tuned for all the programming that we have planned around the exhibit, which will open for the general public on February the 13th. And again, it'll be free on Sundays. By the way, that's me in the picture setting it up at the first location. It should just about be leaving the Amelia Island History Museum on Fernandina Beach. That was the first stop for the exhibit. It's going from there to the Clewiston Historical Society to Fort Myers and then to Sacred Lands Preservation in St. Petersburg. And finally, this is my last slide, I think. Yeah, you're invited. So City Council VIP opening event. Smithsonian Sunday will be free admission. They'll be programming for kids and adults. In addition to the Smithsonian Sundays, I will be asking school groups if they want to come for free as well and see the exhibit. So anytime there is a group that wants to see the exhibit, I will try to facilitate that at no charge. So I will still be offering my guided history tours, but for this exhibit, the time it's here, that will be a free thing to come and do. And just big thanks to the Miccosuppie Tribe of Indians of Florida for helping us. Big thanks to Florida Humanities for the Museums on Main Street program. We're going to do a lot of orientations around it, and I'm just super excited to present to City Council that the Americans is coming, the Smithsonian is coming to St. Petersburg, and we're really proud to be able to host them, and I hope that you'll all come check out the exhibit while it's here in town. I think that's it. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't think I should read it because it's not part of the... Should I read it? Is it short? If you can go to the podium, please. Yeah, I can read it or you can read it, but... But here's the... I don't... Hold on a second. The problem is... It might be wrong. Let me double check. Yeah. Is it the proclamation from the mayor? Is it from the mayor? Yeah. It is from the mayor. The mayor... Council member would need to read it on his behalf. Yeah, so... Okay. Well, our plan was to read it at the original Nations Day event we're having, but... Yeah. It sounds like maybe there is a plan to do this, at another time. We can take and do another time. Yeah. Thank you. That's fine. Thank you. But thank you for issuing the proclamation to the mayor, and thank you to City Council for facilitating that. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much for the work that you do. Clearly a coup for the west side of St. Petersburg to have a traveling museum, specifically the Smithsonian, going and doing their exhibit over there from February 13th through April 10th, 1700 Park Street, correct? Yeah, that's the parking address. Our family home is 1620 Park Street, but the parking address is at the Jungle Prada de Narvaez City Park, and on that map I showed, part of the historic site is on the public city park, and then it's also on our adjoining private property as well, so we will be inviting people onto our property, but the parking address is the Jungle Prada de Narvaez, 1700 Park Street North, correct? Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, David. Okay. So next up, we have a legal item. I won a resolution approving the settlement of the lawsuit, Greg Lanning v. City of St. Petersburg, and we have Mr. McCollum here, who has been patiently waiting. Thank you, counsel. Good evening, everybody. I'm here tonight on a proposed settlement on a workers' compensation washout settlement. It is a settlement involving a former fire safety training chief by the name of Gregory Lanning, who retired from the city back in 2009. This is, as many of you are familiar, this is a cardiac presumption case, which is a benefit afforded to first responders. The short version of this is that the future medicals for Mr. Lanning exceed $80,000, and the estimated permanent total disability is well in excess of $450,000, for a rather significant exposure. Working with outside counsel, this is a case we've been trying to resolve for a number of years. We ended up with a settlement of $115,000 pending counsel approval, and we're seeking your approval here today. Move approval. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and ask to vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for your work on this. Appreciate it. As always. Next up, we have G-1. It's a referral to BFNT. That's Council Member Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm respectfully requesting a referral to the Budget, Finance, and Taxation Committee, or other relevant committee for a discussion on the cost set for the sidewalk payment in lieu program, and I'll move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Open. Nobody voted yet. It's not. It's still on the last item. It's stuck. There you go. No? Not. No one. Still stuck. We can do a roll call. There you go. Oh, there it goes. Council members, please enter your votes. Sit out. Present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G-1 passes unanimously. Next up, we have G-2. It's a referral to HLUT. And this is Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. Just a little back story on this. After what's going on with the Morgan, I've had some conversations with the St. Pete Tenants Union, a couple of other organizations and constituents in my district who have concerns about code violations on properties as well as being able to access an active listing of housing that is habitable within the city of St. Petersburg. And so what we're looking to do with this new business item is to have a discussion around rental listings for the city, looking at possibly expanding our code violation search database that's online to also include what Jacksonville does, which is code violations and evictions. And after having conversations with legal and Administrator Foster, it seems that this is something that is legally permissible. And it's a timely conversation because per Administrator Foster, this is something that they're working on anyway. So I feel that this is the right time to bring this conversation forward. So that is why I'm bringing this up. So without further ado, forgive me, I'm sorry, I didn't have it. Respectfully requesting referral to the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee or other relevant committee for a discussion on the establishment of a voluntary rental registry listing property owners, rental rates, and availability. And with that, I move to approval. A motion to second. Vice Chair Floyd. Thank you. And we did, but so I just want to say thank you for the context and know that we've already been still looking forward to it. I can't remember when it was. It was multiple years ago. I assume 22. 22. Yeah, okay. So it was like, yeah. Your first year. Yeah, my first year, so that's why I don't remember. But yeah, it was a tricky conversation, so I look forward to what you bring. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter the motion, seeing that all present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally now to vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Next up, we have open forum. Are there any speakers? We have no and none on Zoom. Okay, we close open forum, and now we go to announcements. I actually have a question for either Vice Chair Floyd or the Chair of hers. I had a meeting with Sierra Club, and they mentioned the potential of next meeting bringing something the same day to the meeting. And so I want to make sure we're on the same page, because if something like that is happening, I want to give everyone the opportunity. First of all, I want to understand where you all stand on it. And I also want to give the opportunity for everyone, because I don't like last-minute things coming that may catch people, you know, by surprise, especially if they can prepare for it. So that's the reason why I'm bringing it up in the sunshine. So, okay. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you. So, I had a meeting with Claude and Maven earlier this week to look at what we were going to bring forward for the continuation of the items last time. And it is their intention. I don't think we have it yet. I met with Millicent earlier today, but it is their intention to bring a couple of resolutions forward, one concerning the nature in all policies is what they're looking at, and then the other is for two committees. And so pending those resolutions, being in draft form in the backup for the committee's consideration, because those are kind of time-sensitive with the referendum ballot question coming up, we would like to, if those pass committee, as written, with very little edits, to be able to bring those upstairs same day. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Vice Chair Floyd. I think Council Member Gabbard pretty much covered it. I mean, I'll give you this. When advocates have come to me and asked for this kind of thing to be done, I've given them exactly what I think the hurdles they'll have to overcome are. Yeah. And, you know, it's my item, but this is up to the chair of the committee and the chair of City Council, and that's what I've told them. So if it's something people feel comfortable with, sure. But if it's not, I think that's been communicated clearly as well. Okay. I just wanted to make sure, because I know, I think they were making their rounds, and I want to first put City Council on notice as to this happening, because it's next week, and I want to see how you all felt about it. I'm flexible about it, but I want to give Council Members the ability to either know that that's coming, if they want to go to the HERS meeting to watch it, if they want to make sure they review the materials, if they want to watch the meeting. But it's something that I thought would be important, because what happens sometimes is we don't know this is happening until the day it happens, and we don't have time to prepare, and sometimes only the people in the committee may know. And so I think the more time that we have to think about it, I understand there's, you know, obviously the vote in November and all that, and that's what kind of is playing into this. So I'm flexible with it, but I wanted to make sure I heard from both of you and from other committee members and let other Council Members know that are not on the committee that this is kind of happening if they haven't had that conversation with Sierra Club. So Council Member Fig Sanders. So thank you. Quick question, and thank you for bringing that up, Chair, because I did see where that was happening, and I wasn't sure. I think I understand the sensitivity of the turnaround time, but based on conversations that they may be having with individual Council Members, now I'm not sure, because I'm not on hers. So I'm not really sure what our conversations would be, since we won't be able to speak to members of Sierra Club between hers and Council Meeting, what may possibly change from those Council meetings. So I'll have to be one of those, one of the ones that actually watch hers. So I guess it really isn't really prudent for me to have a lot of conversations beforehand. But, okay, thank you. I mean, it's better than finding out the details. So I thought that I'd bring it up. They brought it to my attention because I'm Chair, and I thought it would be prudent to make sure that I brought it to the whole of City Council as early as I could, which is this meeting, because I don't know how that's going to turn out in HLUT. So, okay. Is HLUT or hers? I mean, sorry, hers. Sorry, hers. We were talking about HLUT. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Council Member Gabbard. I just want to be very clear. As the Chair of hers, I have made zero promises to anyone what is coming upstairs and when it's coming, if it even passes committee, right? Because these are, there's three resolutions potentially, one of which I have seen a draft of. I haven't even seen all three of them as the Chair yet. And I know that City Council needs its process to be able to really dig into those things and make sure that they are something worthy of bringing up here at this point. So, full disclosure, there are no promises, but I will say that staff is working very hard to make sure they bring something forward, and it's my hopes that it is something that we find as the committee that has value to go ahead and move forward. But time will tell. Well, Council Member Gabbard, you know, you mentioned that. I can, I will share that when I had the meeting. I was very surprised at the speed of all the things that were happening or they're trying to get happen. And considering that we have, there are lots of moving parts and there's language and what's going to be decided. So, that's why I know HRS has to figure out what's happening. I'm not presupposing anything, but I also wanted to make sure that we all kind of knew this because I don't know what's going to happen on Thursday. So, I want to be fair to everyone. And I don't know how I am going to, you know, I don't, we don't have the documents. We don't, we don't know what has been decided. So, I'm not saying we're promising anything or anybody saying anything, but it's, this is just for regular, just everyone's knowledge. Council Member Gerdes. Okay. I hope we added context to, you know, they're, at this point, it's just kind of like FYI, and then we'll see how this all plays out. Okay, great. I don't see anyone else wanting to speak. Thank you all for a wonderful meeting. Oh, yeah. Meeting? That's right. Rays? Well, I mean. I should have. You're right. I mean, Council Member Gerdes, I'll leave this to you. How about that? I am sorry. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, I guess, thank you, Madam Chair. Part, the baseball player in me doesn't want to put the cart before the horse. But, obviously, a big series win for the Rays against the New York Yankees, finishing out the series last night in New York. I stayed up too late watching the game. But they will play Game 1 ALCS here in St. Petersburg on Monday night. Game 1? Game 1 and 2? I'm not sure if they've scheduled one yet. Yeah. Or two, I mean. But Monday night ALCS, and we'll see who we play. We'll either play the Guardians or the White Sox. Either one of them. Come get it. Amen. So, raise it up. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, thank you. Well, thank you, everyone. Meetings adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.