City Council - Oct 16, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair Liseth Kanowitz, District 5, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Cory Gibbons, Jr. and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon. Welcome to October 16, 2025 City Council Meeting. Clerk, if you could please do a roll call. Gabbard. Here. Harding. Here. Kanowitz. Here. Figg Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Gibbons. Here. Lloyd. Here. Curtis. Here. Okay. Today we will have our invocation given by our own Council Member Figg Sanders and then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. If everybody would please join me in standing. Thank you. I'm going to ask everyone to go to the place where you find peace, where you find comfort, where you find solitude in a chaotic world, but more importantly, where you find comfort in knowing who you are and your purpose. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you with our heads bowed and our hearts humbled, knowing that we are in a period where we can accomplish nothing alone with the collaboration and the comfort of having each other. Lord, during this time, I am standing here in need of prayer, standing here in need of your graciousness, standing here in the need of your understanding, and I ask for the same peace and protection for my colleagues here on the dais and our city staff, our mayor's office, and those that saw it not robbery to want to provide as a public servant to the city of St. Petersburg. But God, I ask that you touch our hearts, follow us home, encompass the boundaries of our households, continue to touch and bless our families, continue to provide a guidance that we can understand individually as well as collectively. We are here to serve you, but we are also here to do what is right, to do what is just, to do what it would bring you so much praise to the blessings, so many blessings that we do not deserve, but we thank you for. We humbly come to you just to say thank you, Father, just to let you know that we are in your presence. We are cognizant of your place. We thank you. These blessings, we thank you for, and we ask that you continue to touch each and everyone in the sound of my voice. Let us all say in gratitude, amen. I pledge to leave the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Councilmember Fig Sanders, thank you so much for that wonderful invocation. Thank you. Okay, councilmembers, we have an agenda in front of us, including we have deleted F2, which was the Ed White Development Project. With that change, I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the agenda with the deletion of F2. Seeing as no other councilmembers wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Okay, we have a consent agenda. Clerk, do we have any cards on the consent agenda? We do not, chair. Okay, thank you. Councilmembers, we have a consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda. Seeing as no other councilmembers wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Okay, we're going to move right into open forum. Clerk, if you could please read the rules. If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual who wishes 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 or their government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you 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 violations of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by email only. And, Mr. Chair, we do have some speakers. Okay. Thank you. Let's call two at a time, please. The first two speakers is Dr. Perry Washington and Zendel Chlorin. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Professor Perry G. Washington. Look me out on the internet. P-E-R-R-Y space G space Washington space owner. I'm working right now. Dr. Washington, please give us your address. I'm working right now here, 165 50 North. Look me up and you'll see I'm a political activist. Dr. Washington, please give us your address or your cross streets. That's Main Street and first. There is no such thing. Look on the internet. You'll see Main Street exists in St. Petersburg, Florida. Look it up. Dr. Washington, please give us your real cross streets. I'm trying to be patient. What? I will tell me what rule or law says I have to give you that. It's when I gave you that there. Of the rules of open forum. They were read out loud. And you, I have told you many times I will not because I will not be assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan. Are you a member of the Klan? Dr. Washington. I have a warrant by the Ku Klux Klan on my life. Please give us your cross streets or I will have you removed for interrupting the decorum. Now, what do you want? I want your cross streets, please. And I'm going to tell you and you're not going to tell me, right? You're going to tell me. Central and first. Thank you, Dr. Washington. Look at your, look at your piece of paper with my name on it. I was arrested on my own property for stopping people and the police arrested me, violating my civil rights. I called the police to protect me and my property. They arrested me. Seven months down the line, it was dropped. They take it over. One of you called a city chief of police and tell him and investigate this incident. What are you doing to do that? One of you, District 7 Councilman, going to call me. You don't know your district, huh? Main Street was changed in 1920. The central. It remained Main Street outside of Peruvie, all white folks downtown. Ready? Yep. Thank you. I'm Zandara Flournoy. I've been here a couple of times before and I'm still having a problem with housing situation. I'm sorry. Could you please give us your address? Right now it's 5721, 77th Street North, Collins Park, Florida. I'm sorry. At this point, if you don't live in the city, you cannot speak during open forum. You have to live or work in the city to speak open. I also have an address at 2300, 33rd Street South. Perfect. Thank you very much, sir. 33-7-1-2. Thank you. All right. My thing is, I've been here speaking on this public housing and I find it unjustible that the city is wasting money on different things, but the homeless population, we're all riding by and looking at it. People living on bus stops, people in shelters, and all that. $1,600 a week staying in motels with their family. Kids not able to learn and function living in hotels. And I feel it needs to be, we got to go from the root up. And with Catholic charities, I understand, but it's a lot of Catholic charities. They're taking it underground. They're not doing for the people. They're taking the vulnerable people. Highland's hope and all that is deaths. The city sends fire trucks out there. Why is it not being documented how many times they come out there? It's been 28 deaths since April in those camps. And the city pays the bill for those fire trucks every time they leave out, correct? Why is it not being documented? Why is that not being investigated in it? They're vulnerable people. Everybody deserves a chance to live. They are on medications. They walk around like zombies out there, from camp to camp. And I'm a hometown boy, but I've been away 30 years. But I will fight for this city. We'll go in my grave fighting for the vulnerable people of this city without a cost. Like you opened your statement, and I told you last time, it's one nation, under God, individual, and justice for all, not for some, all. Everybody must have a consensus of living. You could be at your level, but some people are not at their level. You know, you can't just push people down in the ground. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Jason Matthews and David Huggleston. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address counsel. Good afternoon. My name is Jason Mathis, and I am the CEO of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. Our offices are located at 244 2nd Ave North in beautiful downtown St. Petersburg. I want to just start by saying thank you all for your service. I think I know you all well, and I can't come here and talk and not say thank you for everything that you do. You all serve our city really well, and you may not always agree on everything, but I know where your hearts are, and I know that you all care about this special place. I wanted to provide some context for the discussion about the ULI ASP proposal. You may have seen the Arc Ellison proposal for the historic gas plant already. I have seen it, and there are some really good ideas and a lot to like about the direction that they are going, and I want to be clear that I don't think the ULI proposal is intended to slow that down. In fact, the ULI concept predates this bid by several months. Lee Lowry, the executive director of ULI Tampa Bay, and I started talking about working with ULI's global thought leaders back in the spring and shared the idea with city administration. I think Council Member Gabbard was also working on a similar idea at the same time, and I want to thank her for her leadership on this issue. As background, ULI is the oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land-use experts in the world. This is a big project. It's an important project, and it would be worth including ULI as a resource, however you move forward. This process has clearly been full of lots of twists and turns, and I would not try to predict what will happen next or what you all will decide. If you decide that this isn't the right time to instigate a ULI-led planning process, I believe the ARC-Ellison team are hoping to work with ULI to refine and strengthen their proposal, no matter what, if you accept their unsolicited bid. I would encourage you, in any case, to think about using ULI, either formally or informally, as a resource, regardless of how the process unfolds. Thank you again. Thank you. Excuse me. Good afternoon. David Hugglestone, WJ Architects, 132 Mirror Lake Drive, and I also reside in Crescent Lake neighborhood. I'm here to speak on behalf of the ULI proposal as well. As local architects, we value the opportunity for local businesses, local businesses like ourselves, to participate in our community's development. We also see a tremendous value in the ARC-Ellison-Horris proposal, but do believe that we'll get a much better end product or end result if we engage the community and in a city-led process. A city-led process gives the city control over the development. It allows the opportunity for potentially parceling it up into smaller developments, which can potentially involve more local businesses, more employment of local residents. But again, back to the control of the development, a master development, and you're turning over the key to 86 acres of the city to one entity. And while the ARC-Ellison-Horris team is grounded in local business leadership and they could potentially do great things, maybe there's some way, as we just heard, that we can involve the ULI panels in the process of developing a smart development proposal for the city of St. Petersburg. So we're in support of some kind of a process like that that keeps the city in control of this development. That's all I have to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Jeff Davis and Chris Steinauker. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record, please. Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Davis. It's 7248 15th Court Northeast up in Harbor Isle. I want to open this up just saying thank you very much to the city council. I've been working with some of you for a long time, specifically on things like lake, algae, pollution, and all this. The city is a great city to live in, sanitation. Every department that I've ever had to touch has been fantastic, including the PD. This is a current social note that I'm making here. In our area, including Shore Acres, Edgemoor, all along 62nd Ave, Northeast, Canterbury, the middle school, and the Lutheran School, the technologies seem to get ahead of us a little bit because we have now roving groups of teens on electric dirt bikes running in and out of traffic, some of which have gotten to the point where they're vandals. They're destroying wildlife, torturing birds. They've had to be put down. The birds have, not the kids. I think the technology has gotten ahead of us a bit, and I know that I did speak to Councilman Harding, and I appreciate, Mike, everything you've done. It was very quick. The PD is all over this, but I think it's a bigger issue than that. And the reason I think it's a bigger issue than that is it comes down to parents having the means to provide children with a conveyance, a vehicle, that is faster than they ever thought, may not be compliant with type 1, type 2, type 3 state regulations on the road. Then it gets worse. Then you have the parents running non-street legal golf carts all over the sector, usually in and out of traffic, sometimes with kids on with no seat belts, and it's getting to the point where it's getting dangerous. I would say half of the nights of a week, roughly after dinner time, you will see groups of these kids with these electric dirt bikes going up and down 16th Street Northeast, drag racing, doing wheelies in traffic, and their parents are out there with the unregistered golf carts cheering them on. We need to do something about this. I think it's an awareness issue. It's not the fault of the police. It is not the fault of the City Council. But I think we need an awareness program to get the message out that you've got to be of a certain age, you've got to have a certain type of vehicle, because people are going to get hurt. Thank you for everything you've done for Harbor Oil. I appreciate it, and I appreciate it all. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Chris Donnecker, President and CEO of the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce, located at 102nd Avenue North. I want to remind us that we all stand on the shoulders of others who were in our positions before us, and they've all made great decisions because we all live here and we all say every good conversation starts with or ends with, I love St. Pete. So we are in that position now where we're standing on shoulders wondering what to do next. I do want to remind you of two things. First of all, tonight we celebrate 10 years of the St. Pete store. I hope you come by and appreciate that because that was you all, as a different city council, that gave us a seed money to start that program. And what we have done is put over a million dollars and 227 individual artists in our community by selling their artwork to our tourists instead of the stuff made in other countries or other places in this world. So you all made that decision. It was an awesome one. You also, about 10 or 12 years ago, made another decision, and that was to help us create a waterfront master plan using ULI and what Jason just talked about. So we paid for a ULI study back then to help us just identify all the different opinions we might have about what we do with our waterfront and then bring in other leaders from around the country who have waterfronts, who have understanding of mechanisms and projects and products that we can create. And I believe we did a great job getting our community to have a conversation that provided good data as well as good opportunities for thinking differently. And then it gave us the ability to create our waterfront master plan that we continue to work on and we continue to update. So when I hear about this ULI study about our area of the gas plant, I don't think that's a bad idea. I think it's an opportunity to, as what Jason and others have said, is Arc Ellison has put down the first proposal and there's a lot of great ideas on it. That doesn't mean there's not someone else that has some great ideas, too, or that things we can learn on together. And I know they can run in somewhat of a parallel universes. But I do believe, like, I still think I need to understand, like, hey, what happens next? And what do we want to do next? And what do we want this to really do for us? And what did we learn from getting the best master developer in Heinz and the Rays that walked away from us? What did we learn from that and what can we learn doing differently? What excited us about the development opportunities that we were giving the developer? What excited us about a city? And what did we hear from our constituents, our members, about what would they have liked to see different? This is that moment in time where I've got a second or two before we have to react to act accordingly, and I really believe it's with the right information that that kind of understand the resources creates a resilient community. You don't ask a community to be resilient by just saying, hang on, Kitty, Friday's coming. You help create a resilient city by bringing resources to them that they didn't even think of yet to allow us to consider broadening our opportunities as we go forward together. Thank you. Thank you. Last speaker is Ellie Hugh Bradboy. Please go to the podium, state your name and address for the record, sir. Thank you. My name is Ellie Hugh Bradboy. I reside at 144 23rd Avenue South St. Petersburg. I'm here concerning the agreement that you're being asked to approve between the city of St. Petersburg and Green Mills Holding LLC. Mr. Bradboy, that's a public hearing item, and I believe, does that need to wait? Report items. Okay. Okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure. Sorry, Mr. Bradboy. I didn't want to, I just wanted to make sure I was following the rules. I was hoping to be following the rules, too. I appreciate you having some patience with me. Thank you. Give me my seconds back. Okay. Thank you very much. Touche. I heard the prayer earlier when you guys started the meeting. This property on 22nd Street is a critical piece of property, one that I used to own, that I was not able to retain, but I was invited by the mayor and the staff to participate in the RFP. I was never told that that property could be leased at $100 a year. It had to be purchased. My agreement said it would be a purchase at $880,000, which was the appraised value of the land. Now, the land is critical to the growth of the future of the 22nd Street corridor. If this land now is going to be used for affordable housing rental, my proposal was home ownership and commercial development. This proposal that you're going to approve is rental property and commercial development. I don't think it's a superior proposal. We were never given an opportunity to talk with staff after the submission of the RFP. The results came out. We disagreed with it. But now it's on you guys. And I'm saying to you guys, this is not just a stamp again, stamp of everything. This will decline the commercial development of the 22nd Street area because the incomes of the new residents will not support the businesses that are there now. We believe that the income should be a mixed income environment, not just low income people, not just Section 8 families, but it should be middle income families, upper income families. The historic black community was a mixed income group. Now, if you just use it only as a dumping ground for low income projects, you know, we already have Jordan Park. You add this to it, you're killing the aspects of retail development in that area. I think the mayor does not understand this, but I hope that you as city council, you pleasure represent the whole city. If you do this in five years, I assure you, if you do this in five years, you'll have a crime problem so big in this city, you'll be coming back in here to me to figure out how you're going to solve the south side 22nd Street crime problem because people there don't have anything to lose. When you don't own anything, you don't have anything to lose. I believe ownership is the key to a revitalization of the community. Dumping it with more rental properties is not necessarily the key. That's my message. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sure no more speakers. Okay. Then we'll go ahead and close open forum, and we're going to move into new ordinances where we'll have E1. Clerk, could you please read the ordinance? Proposed ordinance number 622-H, an ordinance of the city of St. Petersburg, amending Chapter 12 of the city code to allow building official to waive certain fees for post-disaster emergency permits, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date. The public hearing for this item is November the 6th. Okay. And I think we have Don Tyre here. If council has any questions. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second on E1. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve Agenda Item E1 passes unanimously. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Don. All right. We're going to now move into reports, and our first report is a Great Explorations update. And I just wanted to give Councilmember Vice Chair Hanowitz an opportunity. I know this sits in your district, so Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you very much. Well, first of all, I am very pleased that we're going to have the Great Explorations 2024 and 2025 update here. I had spoken with Angeline a while back. We had met, talked about all the great things that Great Explorations is doing, and it was a good time to bring it before city council. And by the way, I reviewed the presentation. It's a fantastic presentation. So we have Beth here, and I believe you're going to introduce us, or are you doing the presentation? Oh, I'll leave that to Angeline. So Beth here, and you're managing director, city development administration. So thank you. Good afternoon, Vice Chair, Chair, members of city council. We are very pleased to bring you Great X's annual report. As many of you know, Great X was founded in 1986 and has been housed at the Sunken Gardens Complex since 2003. In addition to being a world-class, hands-on museum, Great Explorations has served as a licensed preschool since 2007 and offers educational programming for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Under the leadership of CEO Angeline Howell and her team, Great X became the first mid-sized children's museum, excuse me, children's museum in the United States to receive accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. And during her 12-year tenure, Ms. Howell and her team have also expanded the preschool to serve more than 100 students annually. They've launched STEAM learning, so science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. They've brought new exciting exhibits and activities to the museum, and they brought Morris the Explorasaurus to life. In addition to that, Ms. Howell works closely with enterprise facilities and events manager Sarah Carvales, who's also here today, and the Sunken Gardens team, to not only be a great tenant, but also a terrific partner. Great X and the Gardens have partnered on a number of events over the years, including the Great Extravaganza, Night at the Brewseum, Chemistry of Cocktails, the Flamingo Festival, and St. Pete Chamber of Commerce Community Connection events. And the preschool students visit the gardens each day, which is certainly a highlight for all involved, including our birds, who love when the kids come over. So with that, it is my pleasure to introduce Angeline Howell, a Chief Executive Officer for Great Explorations. Thank you. Welcome, welcome. Good afternoon. Thank you. Let me see if I can get that working. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you this afternoon and provide our annual update. Great Explorations has been serving our community for over 38 years. Our mission is to stimulate learning through creativity, play, and exploration. Throughout this report, I am excited to share with you not only our successes, but some of our plans for the future. There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. Over the past year, I am proud of how Great Explorations weathered the two major hurricanes that devastated our community. We truly were a resource for the children and families of St. Petersburg and beyond. Overall, this past year, we delivered $165,750 worth of in-kind services back to the residents of St. Petersburg. Okay. It's backwards. Got it. Our busy field trip season is typically in the spring and in the summer. And as you can see, last fiscal year, we hosted 31 free field trips to Title I schools. Among those schools, just to name a few, is Campbell Park, Blanton Elementary, Jamerson, Lakeview, Maximo. Again, just to name a few. Over the past couple of years, we have spent some time creating a position that solely does evaluation, research, and data analysis. This position has conducted numerous surveys, but just this last year, she spent some time evaluating our field trips and our partnerships with our schools. As you can see, 90 to 100% of our schools were pleased with the field trip overall and the educational content that was provided while they were there. Following the storms, as you can imagine, we had countless families who were impacted along with all of us. The request and the need for scholarships went through the roof. We are honored that we were able to offer 54 scholarships for educational opportunities to residents of St. Petersburg. As you may be aware, we have been impacted by the federal funding cuts, state cuts, and some of our local funding. We lost grants that have allowed us and our outreach teams to go into schools and into neighborhoods. However, at Grade X, we believe that there should be no barrier, that every child should have the opportunity to learn through hands-on education. This past year, we provided 87 community outreaches here in the city of St. Petersburg. Our survey showed that the majority of the activities were educational and fun for our children. And this is a list of our outreach programs. Again, it's not all of them, but we wanted to list out a bunch of what we offer throughout this year, not only here in St. Petersburg, but throughout Pinellas County. During our fiscal year, we provided 1,689 free admission and memberships to St. Petersburg residents. We truly wanted to be a place that families could come after the storms, they could take a deep breath, and they could allow their children an environment that was safe for them to play, learn, and have fun. One of our favorite things as an organization is being able to partner with other nonprofits. We know that together we can make a bigger impact. This year, we held 62 free museum rentals to area nonprofits. And this next slide, again, this is just to name a few of our partners and the organizations that use our facility free of charge. As mentioned earlier, we believe in no barriers. We have numerous programs that meet the needs of our community, and this is to name a couple not only on-site in the museum, but we are out in the communities, we are out in schools, and we want to make an impact. This past year, we installed many new experiences and hands-on exhibits. Many of you have attended our ribbon cuttings, and I appreciate and thank you for being there to support us. Great Explorations holds many accreditations. We belong to some of the top associations in the museum industry, and we continue to receive countless awards. So what's next? Great Explorations is growing, and our impact is not only felt here locally, but throughout the United States. As Beth mentioned, this past year, we earned a re-accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. This is the highest honor a museum can receive. Since February of 2014, we were known and became the very first mid-sized children's museum to earn this accreditation in the United States. We are held to the same quality of services and educational impact with museums such as the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and locally, the Dali. Our preschool is award-winning and has a 100% graduation rate, not to mention I have no less than 300 kids on my wait list today. We have been dedicating the past several years to bringing science back to St. Pete. For the past two and a half years, we have been working in close partnership with Pinellas County Schools, and we are now in all Pinellas County Middle Schools providing hands-on science, experimentation, and education. Their test scores have increased, and we're constantly talking to Pinellas County Schools as, what is next? Through the Association of Science and Technology Centers, Great Explorations holds Pinellas County designation for a science center. With that designation, we are looking for a building. Great Explorations wants to open a discovery center. A discovery center is where you take the concepts, the dynamic concepts of a science museum, and the hands-on education of a children's museum, and you merge them together. We want to open a discovery center to not only serve our young children in child development, but through adulthood, and educating every individual on learning through hands-on education, science, technology, engineering, art, and math. We're excited for what the future holds for Great Explorations, and we're excited for what the future holds for the city of St. Petersburg. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to be a partner of the city of St. Petersburg. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go back to Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you for that wonderful presentation. I just hope everyone sees what an amazing part of our community Great X is, because when you see the slides and you see all the partners that you work with and where you are throughout the community, because you may be in my district physically there, but your reach is throughout the city, and that is critical for everyone to understand. I will tell you my daughter is 10 now, and going on 11, she's almost aging out of the Great X-type activities, but I spent many hours when she was younger there and in Sunken Gardens, and it is a jewel in our city. I mean, if you want to leave a place with a smile, you go over there and see all the children having a great time, and it's a great place to escape the heat, both at Great X and in Sunken Gardens. So I just want everyone, if they haven't had an opportunity to go, and plus, talking about the new exhibits, the interactive exhibit, I'm on Tampa Bay Water. Tampa Bay Water partnered with Great X, and they have a fantastic exhibit showing how the wetlands filter water into our aquifer, and it is truly amazing. So that's another thing that I hope people have the opportunity to go see. You're always changing your exhibits. You're always trying to make it new. I know with Shirley Proctor-Poller, I sit on the board. You all have worked with Shirley Proctor-Poller Foundation. And so when I see the future plans of Great X, you always reach high. I love the fact that you all do continue reaching high. I love the idea of Discovery Center. I will note that for those who have attended the awards ceremonies for the city of St. Petersburg that are held there at the facility, parking is tight. Parking is very tight. And not just for the awards ceremony. It's because Sunken Gardens, Great X, you have the restaurant, everything there gets extremely busy. And so that is a challenge for you all in terms of finding a way to accommodate all the people that want to enjoy these great things that our city has to offer. But the other thing is, you know, when I think about the Discovery Center, there are things that, as a city, we can do and we can think about. And when we're talking about ULI and what can happen in 85 acres of land in downtown, imagine having a Discovery Center there. These are the type of things that, to me, make sense in the city that is growing. I love it in my district. I would be happy to share it with Council Member Driscoll. If it allows the Great X to grow and form a Discovery Center. I also love the fact that you're working on having an international conference, having the international conference here. And congratulations on the accreditation. That's huge. I'm just very thankful for all the work you and your team does. Sarah, thank you for being such a great partner with Great X and for doing such a great job also at Sunken Gardens and the team at Sunken Gardens. Like, y'all are just fantastic. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I am always amazed when I walk in to Great Explorations. And really because of a couple of different things. One, because whether my children are two or now eight, they're just as excited as they were when they were two, now that they're eight, and run in just like they were the first day they ran in to Great X, which is incredible. It's an incredible experience you can give, and I can't wait for them to continue to do that. But then also to continue to see how the museum morphs and continues to grow in its space. So happy to hear about growing out of its space. And I'm just so thankful we have such a cool thing in St. Pete, like Great X. And we're just so thankful to you for shepherding that. And I think you know you have all the support in the world from all of us up on here. So just thank you for everything you're doing. Can't wait for next year's update to see what else is going on. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, council members, we're going to move into F4, which is a presentation about Task Force Dagger. And we're joined today by a close friend of mine, Mark Stevens. And Mark's not going to do it, so I'm going to brag on Mark a little bit. He's going to yell at me afterwards. So just everybody know I'm putting my own life in my own hands by doing this. Mark has become a friend of mine. Our wives work together. And Mark is the chairman of the board of Task Force Dagger. And my wife and I have had the pleasure of attending some of their events and supporting some of their initiatives. And what they do, there are no words to explain what they do for people that have served our countries and their families. And so I just want to give you a little bit of Mark's background. And Mark, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I would honestly not, I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't talk about it. Mark spent over 21 years in Army Special Operations. His first assignments in the United States Army Special Forces in Okinawa, Japan, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Then later, he spent three quarters of his military career with the nation's special mission unit as a special operations operator in numerous positions. This is where it gets interesting. He had over 17 deployments. Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Task Force Sword, Operation Gothic Serpent, Operation Golden Pheasant. And there were multiple deployments to all of those operations. Mark's highest awards and decorations include the Silver Star, a Lesion of Merit, four Bronze Stars for Heroism in Combat, four Purple Hearts, Defense Meritorious Service Medal. He is also a recipient of the President's Volunteer Award. And in 2022, Mark was inducted into the U.S. SOCOM Commando Hall of Honor. Colleagues, we are in the presence of an American hero. Mark, you know I love you, and thank you so much for your service. But before we get to Councilmember Comments, thank you for everything you do after your service. And I know it's just a continuation of everything you gave for over 21 years to our country. And I love you, brother. I appreciate you for that. I do. Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Vice Chair, members, thank you for having me here today. I've never done anything like this before, but I do love sharing about this organization. And as he stated, I clearly, with four Purple Hearts, I'm the slow guy on the team. So when I retired, a lot of the things that are available today were not available when I got out. So I kind of experienced that transition and kind of had to learn on my own. And there were some challenges. And so that's kind of what brought me to this organization and the things it does. And I'm very honored to be able to share some of the things that we do as a core for the special operations community. Our department, all the services, everybody within that umbrella do amazing things. And everybody has a role to play. But I'm going to highlight special operations. The reason why I highlight them is because, known or unknown, they're always out there. They're in the fight before anybody knows about it. They're the first in, last out. So the impact of these things is felt more largely with that community, both the member who serves and the family. And I would say that the spouse, the kids, the family serve just like the member does. And so it's very important that there's organizations out there. And there are many. And there are some great organizations that do wonderful things. But the area that we focus on is probably one of the most difficult areas for these families that they face. And what we do is we bridge gaps. We bridge those gaps that the VA, the government, and their own personal insurance doesn't cover. And, unfortunately, there are gaps out there. And, you know, hopefully down the road, I would love to get worked out of a job, to be honest with you. But until that happens, there's a need for benevolent organizations of all types to do all kinds of things for people where those services aren't there yet. And so for us, we focus on three things. And the people that we focus on are ill-injured folks and their families that come to us with various needs. And we kind of break those needs out into a couple different categories. We have immediate needs, which are exactly what they sound like. Those one-off things that could be a financial burden that was unanticipated from a medical issue, something to do with, for example, wife has cancer, husband has to deploy. We need to bring mother-in-law to the house to watch the kids while he's deployed, take her to her anytime she's getting any kind of treatments. And we'll provide that stipend to help that family out so that she can be there to support while he's gone serving. And that goes both ways. It doesn't matter who the service person is. The other thing is our health initiatives. And since the recent 20-year conflict has ended, our soft folks, special operation folks, are still out there. And the needs have changed. So what was heavy immediate needs during the heavy fighting are now turned into health initiatives, which are, you know, we have an aging veteran community. We have a lot of things that are starting to surface that were unknowns before. And so we have a big, huge health pipeline that addresses that. We are not a provider. We're a facilitator. But we have incredible pipelines of care, and we work with all kinds of folks in the medical industry to get these folks the different cares that would address TBIs, traumatic brain injuries, PTS, heavy metal exposure, a number of things that can affect the family, which then ultimately can turn into substance abuses and things that come from that. So we have programs that address all these things. Lastly, we have something called rehabilitative adaptive events, and our signature event, which he's heard me speak a lot about, is down in Key West, and it's called Dagger Dive. And we use diving as a medium, but to these families, this might be what they interpret as a vacation, the first one they've had in 10 years as a family. And we love that they see it that way, but what's happening behind the scenes is they are getting counseling, they're receiving tools that they need to maintain family and marriage and those things that we just don't, we're not born with. When you get married, you may not have them, so it's nice to have a little bit of outside help. And an example of that is when you have an alpha personality deploys, and I'll use mom as an example, has to take over the household, she becomes the alpha. She's running the house, she's running the kids, she's handling everything. He gets back, now you have two alphas in the house. You probably have about 36 hours of detente, little peace, but then the friction starts to happen. And unless you have the tool set to navigate that, it can become a big stressor on the family. What we do is we use diving to kind of remedy that and allow that to reset that social dynamic within the family. And how do we do that? When you dive, you can't talk. You have to touch, and it's visual. So they're learning how to communicate in a completely different way, and they don't even realize it. We literally have couples arguing on the dive boat, going out, get in the water, dive, come out holding hands. And you say nothing, you just let it happen. It's an amazing program, an amazing process. One of the other things that we do under that same umbrella is uniquely the skill sets that come with these special operations folks. We're able to work directly with DPAA, Department of POW and MIA Accounting Agency, to work with them and let our folks get mission, purpose, and focus, because we get them in a suicidal spiral and put them to work on a real mission. And by working hand-in-hand and also with East Carolina University, we go diving in various parts of the world to help recover remains from previous conflicts. And so from a purpose standpoint, it's a game-changer for these folks, and that's another one of our big programs. And what's nice about that is that's something that we can fund through the government as we've developed a memorandum of agreement. And so when we go to our donors, I'm able to share this, but this isn't something we draw upon. We're actually able to cover these costs through this program because it's a real mission. And so I think that's, you know, these are the things that we focus on. We stay hyper-focused on them. I don't allow any mission creep. And what I mean by that, it's very easy in the benevolent world to kind of chase things and do things broadly but not well in a focused manner. So we stay on point in these areas, and I would say we're probably the best at what we do in those areas. But like they said before, in the benevolent space, I really like working with other great organizations. And I think you can get so much more done when you can share and from a cost standpoint or take these families from when I get them at the worst and I take them to their next step, you know, working with an organization that provides that next step and keep that positivity and that growth and that healing going. And so to me, it's very critical. And just a snapshot over the last couple of years, I mean, we're growing and growth for us isn't creating more bureaucracy and making the organization big and anything like that. I mean, I literally, I think my staff hates me because we run so thin and hard. And we clearly grow when we need to, but we are, you know, we're in the realm of doing about a million dollars plus in direct support now, which is huge. So you're talking hundreds of families, hundreds of individuals that need this treatment. And we do the immediate stuff and long-term stuff. So not only are we helping them, but we're also collecting data because I think where it's really important is to communicate that data back to the services or the different entities when the special operations command to say, this is what's happening to your people when they get out. Understand this. And maybe you can get in front of a problem and help them before they get out. And in the business case, when you look at that, that means these people are getting out of their service in a better place, which taxes the system less, VA being the big one. And so you've actually reduced the stress across the board, and the benefit is back to the individual and the family. So it's kind of a win-win proposition. So we fight very hard with that by submitting that data, and in turn, we've had treatments that probably started out viewed as kind of taboo are now covered by TRICARE because we were able to bring the visibility on the outcomes to the point that they would create their own tests and ultimately made these covered, which is a great burden off of a benevolent organization when I can point to insurance and have that process step in. So that's a little bit about us. And, again, we run lean and hard. You know, each year our overhead will change. But I will tell you, on average, you know, we've been as low as 3% overhead to, you know, 7% or 8% overhead. But that's a function of the year's, you know, fundraising and output. But, you know, it's incumbent upon me to ensure that this organization is transparent with any and everybody. You see what we do. You understand our mission. And I'm very adamant about with our donors, you know, they give us a gift. And I tell them what I'm going to do with it. And I have to be very clear and concise and transparent with them that I'm going to do exactly that. And that's how we operate. So I'd love to answer any questions. There's a lot to unpack. But I wanted to give you kind of an executive summary of what it is we do. And then ultimately, you know, if you ever had time, you can visit our website. And you can really see the impact from the individuals that are directly impacted in their own words and kind of understand how this has saved lives. And I'll leave one last thing. Just recently, on the 3rd of October, was the 32nd anniversary of the battle in Somalia. And I'm sure a lot of you, I was there. I was in that fight. I got wounded three times that day, which accounts for one of those Purple Hearts. And I lost mates. And unfortunately, years later, I lost more from suicide. And just last Sunday, I lost another one. And it just reinforces, one, why I do this, why we have to do this, and messaging. Because here's a guy that I would have never thought would have ever got to that place. But it's breaking that barrier of dignity and being vulnerable enough to reach out for help. Because we can have all the things in place. But I think until that first step is taken by these individuals, you don't even know what's going on for some of these people. And I know you've seen this in other ways and other people. And it's just, it's very important. So anyway, I cannot thank you enough for listening to me and learning a little bit about this foundation and things that we do. But if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Thank you so much, Mark. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you very much, Chair. And thank you, Mark, for being here today. I want to thank you so much for your service to our country. Thank you for your service to our service members and their families. We are indebted to you for all that you have done and all that you're doing. When you look at the direct impact that you have made, it's immeasurable. When you look at the indirect impact that you've made, it also is immeasurable. Because you can't really put a dollar amount or a value to the lives that you've saved. It's invaluable. So I just want to thank you so much for what you're doing. Because I don't think we give enough credit to those people who are willing to put their lives on the line. And I come from a long line of service members, so I'm grateful. And I just want to say, you know, a lot of people, they see the labor and the sacrifices that are made by those active duty service members. But a lot of times, it's the pain that you endure post-war and post-service. Those are the scars that don't always heal on their own. So I thank you for providing just a little bit of healing and a little bit of help. May God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And thank you so much for everything you do. Seriously, I did not know about your organization. Thank you, Chair, for bringing it to light. Hearing you speak about your pain and your losses, I mean, and you're here today to share your mission after you just lost another friend. So that doesn't go unnoticed and how your heart is in it. I did look up your website, and I want to, so I want to focus, there's the part where it says our why, and I know this is from the SOF truth, but it's, I want to say it out loud because I think it's important. Humans are more important than hardware. People, not equipment, make the critical difference. The right people, highly trained and working as a team, will accomplish the mission with the equipment available. On the other hand, the best equipment in the world cannot compensate for the lack of the right people. You are the right person for what you do and for your people. Thank you. And I'm very grateful that we have you in our community. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That was the point of today. I really wanted to highlight what's happening in our community for those who really, really, really deserve it and being done by, and I don't use the word lightly, being done by our heroes. And so, Mark, thank you so much for coming in and being vulnerable and sharing the story and sharing the mission, man. I'm so thankful. Can't wait to have you again in the future to get an update. And hopefully, you know, the county and some other municipalities in the state see this and they have you do the same things because we need to be shouting this from the rooftops, the work that you're doing, man. I'm just so thankful for you, I'm just so thankful for you, for your friendship, and I got your back, buddy. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much for your time. I appreciate you. Thanks, Mark. Okay, Councilmembers, we're going to move to F5, which is a presentation on some arts funding. This was pulled by Vice Chair Hanowitz, so I'm going to turn it over to Vice Chair Hanowitz as a good news item. Thank you, Chair. Well, I am fortunate enough to be the City Councilmember that sits on the Arts Advisory Committee, and they do such great work every year. And every year I'm amazed at how detail-oriented, tenacious, I mean, they go through, whether it's the criteria, the grants, I can't express enough how appreciative I am of each and every member of the Arts Advisory Committee and their expertise. A lot of times we get things here at City Council, and you hear, oh, the Arts Advisory Committee, not everybody knows who's on it, but these are true experts in their fields who are donating their time to the city to provide important service. So I want to publicly thank them. Thank you, Celeste. Thank you, Tracy. I don't know. So I saw George, the Vice Chair George, come in. He's back there. I'm sure Celeste will introduce him. Was Erica able to make it? Erica's not able to join us. The Chair, Erica Sutherland, she is amazing and fantastic. So I will turn it over to Celeste, but I just can't thank the work that you all do on this every year. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chair Gerdes and members of City Council. I am pleased to report on the City of the Arts grants, why St. Pete should be your next cultural destination, sunshine, sand, and a seriously creative scene on Florida's West Coast. And I shared with Administrator Gerdes while I was waiting, and I think I'll share it with City Council. This quote came from Fuse Magazine in 2025. It is an international luxury travel magazine out of Great Britain that publishes four issues a year, and we made it. A little bit about the Arts Advisory Committee. This committee is made up of working individuals in the arts and cultural environment. They are highly engaged and active, and we represent a cross-section of the arts, the literary arts, the performing arts, the visual arts, and arts administration. A huge thank you to each of them, because not only do they also score the City of the Arts grants, they also score the Level Up grants. So they are a hard-working committee, and no one could speak on how much work they do than a member of the committee. So now I'll ask Jorge Vidal, pleased to come up. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Florida Craft Art. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Jorge Vidal. I'm the proud CEO of Florida Craft Art, and also the Vice Chair of the Arts Advisory Committee. It has been a real pleasure serving on this committee. First of all, I just have to thank Celeste Davis and Tracy Kennard for their work. It's been an exciting year for us, especially since we developed the Level Up grants, which really has broadened our scope in what we can do for the city. And I'm just going to share a few thoughts of what my experiences have been, and why I take on this responsibility of reading grants. Spending my entire summer, it wasn't really actually that bad this year, only because of the systems that Celeste and Tracy put in place. But it is a lot of work, but it's a proud that I'm proud to do, and I also think that it's very important for our city, and something that I've never really considered a burden. For me, it's an opportunity to give back to the city where I grew up, and one that I continue to care deeply about. And I believe my fellow commission members feel the same way. You sense it in the room when we're all working on these projects together. I have lived in St. Petersburg for most of my life, and apart from a stretch in New York City, where my expectations for cultural life expanded considerably, it was this city's creative energy, which I've always acknowledged, even before I left for New York, and its cultural growth that brought me back, and has kept me here. Reading the applications offers me a meaningful window into the creativity and commitment of our local arts community. Each year, I'm inspired by the range of proposals from small emerging groups with bold new ideas to establish organizations that continue to evolve and innovate and reach new audiences. I want to thank the council for their support of the arts, their commitment across scales and disciplines. We're supporting large museums here, and we're supporting organizations that even I haven't heard about. It's what keeps St. Petersburg's cultural life vibrant, inclusive, and vital to the spirit of the city. So I thank you all for doing the hard work that you all do. Thank you. You're welcome. And I want to talk a little bit about what happens should city council approve the grants. It's an economic impact on the city. From the cultural action plan, the AEP-6 calculator suggests that over $103 million come into the economy through arts and culture in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg's arts organizations are vital contributors to our city's economic vitality. Not only provide direct support and opportunities for individual artists, but also drive significant local spending through exhibitions, performances, and festivals that attract residents and visitors alike. Their creative output fuels tourism, strengthens our city's brand, and sustains a vital cultural economy that extends throughout our community and beyond. So it's not just the grants. It is you are supporting the economy of the city should you approve. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz. And I just wanted to share with city council, if you look at the material, I mean, there are 36 organizations throughout the city that are getting these monies. They go through a rigorous process, as the vice chair has mentioned, and let me tell you, Jorge, thank you for all the work that you do and for what you contribute, because what I think sometimes you don't see outside of those meetings is the knowledge and expertise that you all apply to each one of these applications. And I'm there sometimes, and I'm learning, and I don't know the details that you all know about every type of, whether it's performance art or visual arts, you know, all the different types of areas that you focus on. And then you try to approach it in a very thoughtful and equitable manner in terms of providing these organizations the support that they need and making sure that the money goes to organizations that can use it, that, you know, the purpose is outlined properly. And I will tell you, they're fantastic stewards of the city's money. I can't imagine, when we're talking about level up grants, which are small dollar bounce, they go into detail in terms of making sure that those grant applications meet the criteria. So, again, thank you for the work, and, you know, maybe in the future, hopefully we have a little bit more money for the grants themselves, because once they go through the process, when you're outside the process, there's no vetting. There is vetting here. Organizations that don't go through the process don't get vetted. These get vetted by experts in the field. So I want everyone to understand that. They're always very conscious of what they're doing with the money. So with that, I move approval. Second. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair, and I'll be brief, but thank you for pulling this from consent so that we could talk about it today. I had the pleasure of serving my first four years as the city council member on this committee, and 36 grant applications with how in-depth they are, the deliberation that happens, the presentations. The work in this committee is huge, but the impact, to your point, Celeste, is even bigger. So I just want to thank everybody that sits on the committee. You know, this work is tireless, and you all do it with such vigor and very excited to do it. That was always something that was so surprising to me. I've never had, like, a moment where there were so many people so happy to do that much work. But really, the impact shows. So I just want to thank you. Thank you for your leadership, and I'm very happy to support this today. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you, and thank you, Vice Chair Hanois, for pulling this item. It is just incredible to see this work that is done for these organizations. And when you look at this list, a good number, if not most, of the organizations on this list were also on the list of the funding that was cut by the state last year. Yes. That city council and the administration worked together to help cover for that, and those organizations continue to thrive, not just because of the support of the city, from the support of the community, and from the dedication of people like those who serve on this board, who, over all the work that they do on this, it's not the only thing that they do, especially for the arts. This is the kind of stuff that gives me that confidence when I talk about our city of the arts, when I talk about the arts as an economic driver for our city, when I talk about how we need to support artists and organizations that support our local artists. We get it. And I am grateful for the cooperation and the partnership that brought more funding into the arts in general. And that I didn't even have to ask for it again for this year, for this fiscal year. We did it. And the mayor and the administration found a way to continue to add money to that so that we can make things like this happen. It is, when you look at the individual amounts, it doesn't, it may not sound like a whole lot to an individual, but for these organizations, it really helps to take their work, make their work happen, and take it further. So I really hope that as the year goes on, I would love to hear back from some of the recipients throughout the year. Have them come and tell us what this means to them, what they're able to do because of this. Because I want to make sure that it's well known how this type of funding can affect our creative class, our creative economy in our city. Will do. I think that's a great idea. Thank you. Okay, good. And I do look forward to looking for ways to do even more by continuing our discussion on the Artist Sustainability Fund that I've brought forward, and that will be in next week's Economic and Workforce Development Committee meeting. So this kind of rolls right into that. And together we can keep doing more for our artists. But I do thank you and Tracy and Vice Chair Hanowitz and everyone who contributed to making this happen. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz, thanks for pulling this also. Thank you for your service on this committee. Thank you to all the committee members and to Celeste and all the team. Just very thankful for this. Happy to celebrate it today. Okay. We've got a motion and a second on F5. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F5 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. We're going to move into F6. And F6 is a GMP proposal for the Sunshine Center. This was pulled by Council Member Harding. Council Member Harding, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you being here today. I am late to the game. I know there have been, in years past, there have been lots of discussions about the senior center, especially since council was housed there for a little while. And I really just wanted to get a sense for that's a big air conditioning. What's left? What have we done so far? Not just air conditioning, but the condition of the building. Sure, certainly. Raul Quintana, city engineer in Capital Improvements. And Rick Graff with the Parks and Recreation Department here as well. His department administers the building, so he'll have a little bit more in-depth knowledge of what's been done. This particular project is the award of the replacement of the air conditioning system. It's about 20 separate individual mechanical equipment pieces, both rooftop units. It's all a DX split system. It's 18 years old. It's well past its life. We've been working on this for quite some time. The plan is to replace it in kind. We understood early on that this facility is dated, and it could be discussions for possible replacements. So what we decided to do was to try to replace it in kind, give it another 15 years. The system is very much needed. It's air quality issues, upgrading the outside air to provide for the facility. So that's this project. It's an award to Biltner, our construction manager. He's been working with us throughout pre-construction. Everything's ready to go. There's about a 12-week lead time to get the equipment, and we're looking at doing the work between the months of February and June. As far as the facility and the plans, I think I'd kind of turn it over to Rick to discuss a little bit about what's some of the repairs that have been done in the facility. Rick? Good afternoon, Council. Rick Kraft, Parks and Recreation Department, Recreation Programming Superintendent. Thank you, Councilmember Harding. Yes, the Sunshine Center is at the end of its life or near it, and we recognize that. I know when you all were there, we ran into some issues there, and we do with a lot of our buildings. And we've repaired all those, but to answer your question about historical maintenance, you know, I can say that probably over the last 10 years or so, we've spent almost $400,000 in repairs to the Sunshine Center. And that goes to carpeting, drywall repair, roof repairs, you know, pressure washing. We've done, we had to do some HVAC repairs back. We had some mold in the building, which kind of prompted this whole thing. We did some mold remediation, did some temporary HVAC fixes to keep the moist air out and get some drier air in. But that's the study that kind of prompted this action that we're here today to replace the HVAC system. Thank you, sir. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Harding, for pulling this item. I'm very glad any time we talk about our Sunshine Senior Center. It is, I think, one of the best jewels in our entire portfolio of assets. But to your point, Rick, it is at the end of its useful life. And so while I certainly support the item before us today, I really want to get us to a place where we're having a much bigger conversation about the Sunshine Center. And this is something I know pretty much everyone on this dais cares about. And we want to see some action moving forward. When Councilmember Montaneri left the dais, I inherited his new business item on the PS&I referral. I was very happy to take it, a little jealous I didn't have it from day one. So that was filed in May, May 6th of 2021. Administration, I would love to see if it would be possible, depending on how the PS&I agenda is currently. I know, you know, we're coming down to the end of the year. But even if at the beginning of next year we could expedite a conversation around this, I know it came up in our budget, talking about how it's part of our long-term penny funds. You know, we talked about grade X and what maybe that might look like at the historic gas plant someday. What about a reimagined senior center with housing above at the site? I mean, we have a unique opportunity here to really move something that could make this a state-of-the-art, world-class facility for our seniors. And so we need to kind of get on it. So, administration, I'll leave it to you to kind of answer the question. But if we were prepared for PS&I at the beginning of the year to have a conversation, would administration be prepared to talk about it? I appreciate that, Councilmember. And absolutely, we'd like to have that discussion. We can talk about, you know, some of kind of a standard process that would be more penny involved. We can talk about some alternative ideas related to maybe some creative alternatives at the current location or maybe the historic gas plant. So, yeah, we're happy to have that conversation. Fantastic. Well, I will look forward to it. So, we have our chair now, who I can see is nodding. And hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. And so I'm very happy to support this today. And thank you, Rick and Raul, for the work that you've done to try to keep the center viable for as long as possible. Thank you both. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair. It's funny that you mentioned that because I was looking at the PSI list and I was like, wow, this is from 2021. But, again, it's like sometimes things are just sitting there for whatever reason. And so I'm glad that you brought it up. And now that we have some direction, I can put it on in terms of getting it moved at the beginning of the year. I don't know which month or whatever. We don't have a December meetings. And we have the bond conversation coming up in November. So I have to see what else we got. But it will be happening sooner rather than later. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Motion. Move approval. Move approval. Just got a motion. Second. Got a motion and a second on F6. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously. Okay. Thanks, team. We're going to move into new business for this afternoon. G1, this is my item. Respectfully requesting a referral to the Public Services and Infrastructure Committee meeting for an update on the license agreement with St. Petersburg Lawn Bowling Club. If you remember, this is just a placeholder to make sure that we get an update and entertain a motion for approval. Approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on G1. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously. Okay. Now we're on to G2. Council member Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Respectfully requesting a referral to the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee or other relevant committee for discussion regarding the Urban Land Institute ULI Tampa Bay Advisory Services Program and a proposal to study the historic gas plant site and the best uses for future development in alignment with the goals of the city of St. Petersburg. And I so move. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. We'll go to Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you, Chair. This is for the administration. In the open forum earlier in the meeting, Jason Mathis had spoken and he, I just made a note that he mentioned that the administration was already working on something like that. And I just wanted to get some clarification from you on that. To my knowledge, we're not in discussions with ULI right now. If this goes to committee, we're happy to have the discussion. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Harding. Thank you, Chair. In support, and thank you, Councilmember Gabbard. But this piece of property has been looked at pretty heavily. Is there anything, and I wouldn't know who to ask, but I would imagine studies like this possibly, not by ULI, but we've had studies like this done. Are they available or do they exist? Chair, if I may? Absolutely. Go ahead, Councilmember Gabbard. So we do have Lee Lowry here from ULI if anyone has any questions, but I would just state, you know, from my own perspective, you know, being here through all of the reiterations of what we've done in the last eight years or so, we don't have a study like this. And what makes this different is that this is an unbiased professional experience from individuals who have done these sort of projects all across the country. They know what works for equitable economic development and a catalyst to really create sustainable development in very large tracts of land across the country. So we don't have anything like that. We don't have any sort of guiding document, in my opinion, that really helps city council as we are working with administration to negotiate through any sort of deal that may come with a master plan developer. We don't have anything to even really help us be able to look and say, do we believe that it's even right to go with a master plan developer? And so that's really what this is. This is not to, you know, put to side anything that may be before the administration at this point. This is to really give city council some guidance as it pertains to what is the best use of this property and how can we really get the biggest return on our investment? We've had a lot of developers come to us with their own plans, which, quite frankly, any time a developer comes to you, it is based upon the yield that they're going to make on the property. I believe that this is an important step forward to making sure that we have voices at the table who have that experience but have no skin in the game. They're not here to make money off of this property. They are here to give us guidance so that we make sure we make the best deal, the best negotiation possible for the residents of the city of St. Petersburg. So that is the tool that I'm trying to bring to city council. And, you know, I will leave that there because you do still have the floor, but I do have pushed my button because I do have some information for Councilmember Dreskel on her question. Thank you for that. And I am in favor, Councilmember Gabbard, and my question was more about is there anything else to add to it? Is there anything we've done in the past that was going on during Ray's Heinz that may also augment or supplement? So ULI Tampa Bay will look at everything that has been done to this point. They'll do the past, present, and future, and that will all be taken into consideration. Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Okay, so the question that came about, you know, this kind of being brought to administration. So I had started on this probably maybe about six months or so ago. Time gets away from us on the dais. But I had actually, all of us, I believe, had meetings with the mayor and with Rob and with Doyle immediately after the Heinz-Rays deal canceled. And one of the things I brought up in that meeting was really my encouragement for us to take a beat, take a moment, and bring in a third party because I feel like even in those moments especially, we're all so close to it. We really need somebody to come in and give us some guidance about what those next steps should be. And then from there, the actual ULI presentation and proposal was given to administration sometime in the summer. And it just didn't move forward for whatever reason. I can't explain why. But I was continuing to, you know, kind of look at ways that we could do this. And then it has also been provided to ARC, Ellison, and Horst. And they had looked at it as well. It is my preference for city council to have this conversation in a committee meeting to discuss city council and administration really being the drivers of this study. And also working with the partnership, the chamber, and other organizations to come up with a creative funding model. It's a pretty inexpensive study. It's only about $135,000. But I want this to be a collaborative opportunity for our community. So we're looking for others to kind of come to the table with some funding to help pay for it so that not all of the burden of that would be on the city. And that was given to the administration in a proposal as well. So when, if this passes today, which I hope it does, when we have that conversation, I'll bring that information with me as well to that presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Fix-Sanders. Thank you. And as always, you know, I'm always willing to talk about, just talk about it, because we do often, sometimes we'll leave things on the table. And I'm on the same mindset as Councilmember Harding. When we say get the feedback, we just took the descendants of the gas plant through an extensive, extensive, extensive period of what they want to see on that particular site. So I love the fact that we can have the conversation. I don't have a problem with having the conversation. I'm definitely going to support having the conversation to see what we could gain from it, but I'll leave it there. There's a lot that I could say about it, but I will always entertain a conversation, because I do want to see what we could possibly gain from this. And although the dollar amount was $130,000, we sit here and talk about $10,000, $15,000 that could help other organizations. So just $130,000 is not just a little bit of money with so many studies that we've already done. So I'm definitely going to support it, because I always support having a conversation just in case we miss something in another endeavor. But there are going to be a couple of other questions that I'm sure during the committee conversation that I'm hoping that we can have and that we'll be able to get from administration on this. So with that, thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Anwes. Thank you, Chair. And just because we're having this conversation in the sunshine, we talked about potentially what's going to happen with the gas plant site, at least my conversation with the administration after the Rays-Hines deal just didn't go forward. The first thing that I want to see is what do we need as a city to provide services from that site, whether it's the residents of the gas plant, whether it's any resident of the city, as a council member, whenever I hear, we don't have land, we don't have this, and we have like 85 acres in downtown, we may need a new fire station. That historic, the plant never had anything for services. We're going to have more people in our city. I think of station four and how they're limited in size. I do want to have a real understanding of if you're going forward with development. And I know it's just like not the exciting stuff because it's not, you know, like the Barbie Dreamhouse or, you know, a stadium or whatever. But it's the basics, and we have to figure out the basics first before we make decisions on other things. And that's my perspective. I wanted every council member to hear it coming from me. I don't have like, okay, I want X amount of housing, X amount of this, X amount of that. I don't think you get to that conversation until you have an understanding of what we need as a city first before because we have limited land in our city. And so I think it's really important for us to have. So I'm supportive because we need to have kind of a conversation about some of these basic things. And obviously with administration and in partnership with administration, kind of have an understanding. So an understanding that, by the way, whatever proposal has to come from administration, but at least we have it in an open meeting. We have those conversations. So that's it, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. I thank you. I thought there was one, but we talked. I'm sorry. I just asked. I got a no. I'm sorry. My bad. Okay. We can make mistakes. We can make mistakes. I'll move it twice, Chair. There was no judgment there. No judgment. No judgment. You just tried to move us along. It was. All right. We have a motion and a second to G2. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G2 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. We're going to move into G3. I am respectfully requesting a referral to the Youth and Family Services Committee for an update on youth programs, including internal initiatives and external partnerships. The update should include a breakdown of funding allocated to each program, an overview of how funds are used, and any relevant updates from external partners on the impact and progress of the youth-focused initiatives. And I'd entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on G3. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G3 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. All right. Now we're going to move into council committee reports. Vice Chair Hanowich on H1. Respectfully requesting city council approval of a motion to move the referral item regarding the City of St. Petersburg 2025 community survey from the Public Services and Infrastructure Committee referral list to the committee of the whole referral list. And it's, I think, scheduled for the 16th. And I still move. Second. We move quickly around here. You know, I try to be efficient. Yes. We have a motion and a second on H1. Is it H1A or is it H1? Oh, yeah, it is A. H1A. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H1A passes unanimously. Okay. We're going to go to H2. Council member Floyd. Thank you. I am respectfully requesting approval of a motion to make the affordability period for both rehabilitation and reconstruction one year for owner occupants and 10 years for landlords. I'll move approval. Second. I just have one quick question. Yeah. Should there be on what we're changing? Yeah. I started to say like this. We probably need some more detail. Yeah. Can we do that here? Is that okay? Yeah. All right. I'd add that this is about, oh goodness, I need to make sure I get the verbiage correct. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. CDBGDR. So, there's an amendment to your motion. Do we have a second? Who had the second? I have a second. You're good? Are you okay with the amendment? Okay. Okay. Just making sure. Yep. Discount double check. They just checked one off in the bingo box on the aides office. Use discount double check. All right. We have a motion and a second on H2A. Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H2A as amended passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for making that change, Council Member Floyd. Okay. We'll move on to H3. I am respectfully requesting City Council approval of the Budget, Finance, and Taxation Committee's recommendation to perform a management evaluation of the billing and collections department for the fiscal year 2026. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. I'll go to Council Member Floyd. Thanks. I couldn't make it to the meeting. Just wanted to thank you all for the decision you came to. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. All right. We have a motion and a second on H3A. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H3A passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. We're going to go to H4. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. And after reading this action, Jackie, should I add in town before interlocal agreement? You can. I mean, I think. Make it clearer. It can't hurt. It's not necessary, but for clarification. Yes, for clarification. Okay. I respectfully request City Council approval of a motion to ask administration to begin dialogue with the county on modifying the in-town interlocal agreement and the plan with the intent being to shorten the length of the in-town interlocal agreement's existence. And I so move. Second. We have a... Oh, Council Member Floyd. Excuse me. Real quick. I just wanted to say to administration, since this is about specifically like dialogue with the county, we'd love if you could just let us know like when that begins and keep us updated as to how it's going. Absolutely. Will do, Council Member. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion and a second on H-4A. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all President and Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H-4A passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Now we're going to move into legal resolution approving the retention of Bryant Miller Olive as Special Public Finance Legal Counsel related to a bond referendum and judicial validation. Jackie, I'll turn it over to you. We pretty much took it out of a while. So Council has, and administration have been talking about the potential for a general obligation bond, which would require a referendum. This is what the process we typically go forward with BMO when we have a specialized retention of this nature to not to exceed amount of $40,000. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on I-1. Seeing as no Council Members wishes to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Council Member Driscoll. Oh, who's right? Seeing as we have, all votes are accounted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I-1 passes unanimously. Okay. Council Members, we're at our stopping point. And so we will come back for CRA and for public hearings at 5.01 p.m. City Council is in recess. Thank you. Council back to order. We are going to recess as City Council and convene as the CRA, and we're going to take up CRA2. And we are joined by Aaron Fish. And Aaron, we'll turn it over to you. Good afternoon, Council Chair, Vice Chair, members of Council. Aaron Fish, Real Estate and Property Management Director. Before you this afternoon to present a ground lease and development agreement on city-owned property on 22nd Street South. This is a mixed-use development to be performed by Green Mills Holdings, LLC. This is on city property that includes three contiguous parcels on 22nd Street South, Zone Corridor, Commercial Traditional. This property is on the east side, or excuse me, the west side of 22nd Street South, South of 9th Avenue South. In August of 2024, the city issued an RFP for the purpose of soliciting proposals from interested developers for the development of a mixed-use project to include affordable housing and retail commercial uses. In conjunction with this RFP, the city did issue a 30-day notice to the public of its intent to dispose of the property in accordance with CRA guidelines. Upon the expiration of the RFP in November of 24, the city did receive proposals from Green Mills Group, Tall Cotton, and Alexander Goshen Good Van Slyke Architecture. After reviewing the proposals, the mayor selected the proposals submitted by Green Mills Group for the development of the property. Upon selecting the proposal from Green Mills, city staff commenced negotiations of the terms and conditions of a ground lease and development agreement. These conditions included a 99-year ground lease for the development of a mixed-use project to include 54 affordable residential apartment units and approximately 2,500 square feet of ground floor retail. Green Mills shall pay annual rent in the amount of $100 plus applicable taxes. And with that, Green Mills shall owe the city a lease payment of $885,000 as evidenced by a promissory note. That payment can be deferred until the expiration of the affordability period upon which time the city would have the option to forgive the note. The effective date of the agreement is the date that the parties enter into the agreement with the commencement date occurring 36 months thereafter when Green Mills secures all the funding commitments necessary for the development. Green Mills shall submit site plans for city approval within six months from the effective date. Within 24 months from the effective date, Green Mills shall submit a comprehensive building permit package. 36 months from the effective date, Green Mills shall commence construction of the development. And within 60 months from the effective date, Green Mills shall obtain certificates of occupancy for the development. The city shall record a restrictive covenant on the property, limiting the rental rates for the housing units to an average annual income of not more than 80% of the AMI. And Green Mills may rent the housing units at lower AMI levels, including 9 units rented at 30% or below, 30 units rented at 60 AMI or below, with 3 units rented at 70% AMI and below, and 12 units rented at 80% AMI and below. The initial unit mix for the housing includes 15 studios, 36 one-bedroom units, and 3 two-bedroom units. Real estate and property management did get an appraisal for this property in March of 2024, which indicated an estimated market value of $885,000. The lease structure enables the city to retain ownership of the property, and it ensures long-term affordable housing opportunities for the community. As part of the CRA plan, this is consistent in which the city shall utilize the Land Disposition Authority of Florida's Community Redevelopment Act to purchase residential property and convey to housing developers for less than fair value to lower development costs. And maintain a regularly market and inventory of land in the South St. Petersburg CRA that is available for development of housing. And the city will continue to purchase land and vacant boarded housing and pursue residential development opportunities with for-profit and non-profit developers. This proposed mixed-use development is consistent with the CRA plan by providing new affordable housing construction and by providing new retail space on a commercial corridor. And that concludes the presentation and open it up for questions. Okay. Thanks, Erin. Let's go to public comment. Ray Tampa, please go to the podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address Council. I don't think Mr. Tampa is still with us. Okay. He's against. Okay. Any other cards? That's it. Okay. Council Member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Erin, thanks for your work. We received some – well, I did, and I think it went to Council. We received some feedback about the – Oh, yes, ma'am. About the – I've got to take my medicine. Hold on one second. About the feedback – or about the companies that were involved in the RFP. And can you take us through just a high level of how that process works? Sure. We have Mr. Corbett here this afternoon who can allude. Good afternoon. City Council, James Corbett, City Development Administrator. Council Member Harding, so with this RFP, as Erin mentioned, we opened it up for proposals. We did receive three proposals, one being the Green Mills proposal, one from Goshen GVSA, and then a third proposal from Tall Cotton. At that time, we evaluated the proposals, and we provided the strengths and weaknesses to Mayor Welch to make the selection. Just to kind of give you an idea or flavor of the proposals, Green Mills had the largest number of units at 54. The next was Goshen, which was 22 units, and Tall Cotton had the lowest number of units at 18. Green Mills and Goshen, both of theirs, their proposals included rental units, where Tall Cotton was for sale. Green Mills' proposal included 100% of the units at 80% of AMI or less. Comparatively, Tall Cotton, their proposal provided half of the units, which would have been nine at 80% and nine at 120%. Also, we looked at the experience from the various groups. Green Mills has other projects here in St. Petersburg, comparable, where they've completed. Looking at the other ones, Tall Cotton, for example, because it was brought up earlier today, most of their experience was related to remodeling existing structures. They didn't have any examples of where they had done new construction on development like this. So, by providing the strengths and weaknesses, it was clear to us, based on experience and the nature of the development, that Green Mills was the preferred option, and as such, selected by Mayor Roach. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you very much, Chair. I appreciate it. I did have a question. How did we come to the decision that we would go with rental units versus single-family homes? Again, we looked at the proposals that were before us. The proposal that had four-sale was only 18 units, and it was a combination of half at 80%, half at 120. We also looked at what was already there. So, if you look, this particular project is bookmarked to the north or bookended by the north and the south by two projects that were already going to be for sale. As you know, the city of St. Petersburg is going to have 24 townhomes on deuces that will be ready next year. And then if you go to 18th Avenue to the south, Habitat is doing two developments, which are also for sale. So, we felt like this would be a good mix to include some rental property with those other two developments already in the works that were for sale. I appreciate it. Well, I think we know for sure when you drive around St. Petersburg, there is no shortage of rental units. But what we do see a shortage of, I think, is the single-family homes that are attainable for those who live in south St. Petersburg, specifically those who reside within the south St. Pete CRA. So, just full disclosure, Mr. Corbett, I did receive a lot of feedback from my constituents. This is my district. And it was more so in opposition than in support or in favor of this project. I am very familiar with Green Mills. I love the Burlington Avenue project. But my concern is that we offer one developer an option that was not allotted to another developer. Can you talk about something that was mentioned earlier? It was brought up that there was an option, I guess, to lease for one developer versus another developer who was told that he had to, I guess, outright purchase that? Yeah, that's not true, Council Member. The RFP was issued. Everybody received the same information. The opportunity to respond in the manner in which they responded was equal. No one was provided any information or direction different than the other. It's all spelled out and advertised. So, that information was all publicly available. I appreciate that, Mr. Corbett. Thank you for stating that for the record. And then, just lastly, thank you, Council Member Harding, for asking about the RFP selection process because that was something that I was curious about. I brought this up before. I think there needs to be a little bit more clarity for us Council Members and also more transparency for the public. When these RFPs come about, a lot of people wonder, how are these, the awardees selected? So, I just want to, you know, be as clear and as transparent as possible to the public who wonder how we make these decisions. So, again, I just thank you for stating that earlier. But, lastly, it was also brought up by a business owner there, the Catalyst, in Sid's Caribbean Restaurant that operate right there up the corner of 9th Avenue in the Deuces. Apparently, they've been utilizing this property for parking. Have we had any conversations with those businesses, specifically those two, about some temporary alternatives? I know that there are some projects that are happening along the Deuces, specifically the Manhattan Casino, that might require additional parking. So, I'm just thinking as we make upgrades along the Deuces Corridor, is there parking that we can expect in the future? We are looking at alternatives for additional parking immediately to the north of this site. There is a lot that's faking. It was previously used when Manhattan was open for parking. We're looking to do some improvements there to make sure that it's safe and compliant. But, as I'm sure council realizes, this particular lot is not intended or set aside for parking for that business or any. So, if it were to be developed, it's not, I mean, it was never allocated for any other business for parking. But we are working to identify other areas for parking. Right, and just for clarity, I'm not looking for any special treatment for any specific business. I'm just thinking, again, with renovations that are happening at the Manhattan Casino, additional businesses that we want to bring to the Deuces Corridor, and hopefully more patrons, we're anticipating there may be more traffic. And so, with that, I'm just hoping that we'll be able to accommodate those people who are not traveling by foot or by bicycle, those vehicles that are coming to the area. So, I just, again, it's not for any special accommodation, but it's just planning for the future, for the traffic that might be coming to that area. So, thank you for making that known. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Erin, for the presentation. Just going along those same lines about the purchase versus rental, when I heard that earlier during open forum, I wasn't sure if it was referencing in the RFP if the land was specified for purchase versus lease or if the development was to be designated for homes to be purchased versus rented. Yeah, neither designation was in the RFP, whether, I mean, the proposers or the respondents had the opportunity to make an offer to purchase or lease the land, and they had an opportunity to make the development for sale or for rent. It was not prescribed in the RFP. Okay, great. So, you really just left it open and left it flexible for the best plans to be submitted. Yes, ma'am. Right, okay. Tell me about the, there's a plan for a first floor commercial. Was that, is there any detail on that? I know this is early in the process. Like, this is, like, the step one for approvals, which is the CRA compatibility. That includes not just housing, but also economic opportunity. Is there anything that you can share with us about what is planned for that? And will that, too, be offered at below market rates? So, we have Manny here from Green Mills. I'm going to defer to him in the agreement. It doesn't specify that. It basically just says there would be 2,500 square feet of retail. But, Manny, if you want to add some context to the retail. Hello, Manny Diaz from Green Mills Group. Yes, so it's going to be up to 2,500 square feet, possibly two to three retail bays. We have identified Green House Group as someone we want to work with to be able to fill these spaces at an affordable rent to minority-owned business people. And, you know, through the research I've done, Green House seems to be a great candidate to help fill that need for us. So, we'll be working a little closely with them. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. I wanted to make sure that the affordability factor extended also to our entrepreneurs as well as residents. Okay, great. And then I'm glad that the parking issue was brought up because this is an area, especially with the park that we have there now on the corner, there is more and more activation in this area all the time, which is what we want. But like with any neighborhood that sees more activity, you see more cars. And I'm hoping that we will be mindful of that as things move forward. I see this as inspiring more development opportunities in the area. So, we're going to have to create that balance and try to get ahead of it before it starts to actually stifle the activity because of the parking challenges. So, I appreciate that that's being taken into consideration as a big-picture item. All right. That's all I have for now. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I have a quick question. Do we expect a financial ask for gap financing later on down the road? We do not expect a financial ask for gap financing. Part of the way the deal is structured, which is why the $885,000 comes in at the end as a promissory notice, that the city would look at that as the city's contribution toward the development. Okay. All right. That's $885,000 across 54 units is a great deal for us. For 99 years. Yeah, for 99 years. Yeah, that's as good as it gets, really, for us sitting up here doing this kind of project. Okay. You know, and the only other thing I'll say is there's been a conversation around homeownership, and I think there's opportunities in the area. I understand the concern. But when you look at the area holistically, I think this makes sense. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you. Again, thank you for all the questions of my colleagues, because they really did clear some of the things going on. But I just wanted to go back and have some conversation in remembrance of a lot of times we were adamant that we were, well, Deborah, was over 120% AMI. And when were we going to get 80% and 60% and 30% AMI? And now we have an opportunity to do just that. My granddaughter lives right behind where this building is going. So I am a true proponent of subsidized housing. Everyone that lives in subsidized housing is not riddled with crime. And so it's in their backyard. When we look at rentals versus housing, everyone doesn't want to be homeowners. We're trying to house people immediately, the sooner the better. So I do appreciate that we do have the bookends of home ownership options. But I'm more on the side of getting people in homes, rather their rental. They need somewhere to go. And if we have as a city to provide the opportunity to do so with 54 units, what was proposed earlier I'm sure would have been a fantastic project as well. But if I'm looking at the numbers and the fastest turnaround to house our constituents, I am truly there, especially with some of the rebirth and regrowth of 22nd Street. That's generally how it happens. You know, you have a place that sits stagnant, and people have the opportunity to do something with it until somebody else does something with it. Then all of a sudden it becomes a priority for someone else when that area has sat there for a while. So with that being said, I don't know if we need a motion, but I'll move approval on this. But thank you, Chair, for the opportunity. Thank you. Council Member Goward. Thank you, Chair. And James and Aaron, can you just talk a little bit about the assignability clauses that are in the contract, just for transparency purposes so that everyone understands how an assignability from the operator might work? Sure, sure. So with tax credit-funded deals, there needs to be an entity that is created specifically for the development. So the way the assignability works in this agreement is that the developer of Green Mills is permitted to create that entity and assign the development to that specific entity. But otherwise, they are not allowed to assign without specific. Now, to back up, the mayor does have to approve that assignment, but any additional assignment other than that is not permitted. Okay, so I just want to be crystal clear. So when they do an assignment for the entity for the tax credit purposes, the mayor is allowed to sign that. But if there would be, let's say, for instance, there's some sort of default and they have to assign because they go bankrupt or something like that, that comes to city council for approval. Okay, I just wanted to be crystal clear about how all of that worked. So, okay, very good. And the repayment on that affordability, again, is the 99 years. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. There is one, just one additional thing that I wanted to add before we move forward with a vote. I do want to thank the administration for selecting Green Mills, and I want to thank Green Mills for continuing to believe in St. Petersburg and to believe that there is a way to provide quality, affordable housing for our residents. The Burlington's are such a prime example of that, and that has made me a true believer in this particular developer. The people who, if you go to one of the Burlington's and see, it does not, you walk in and you feel like people might be paying an arm and a leg to live there. It's beautiful. It's well-constructed. It's quality residential. And the people, this is even more important, the people are very positive about it. They're very happy. There's a focus there for seniors, and we know that as we move forward, we're going to need to ensure that we're providing more and more options for seniors to live and thrive in St. Petersburg, and Green Mills has shown how that can happen. Now there's this opportunity to provide families with affordable housing in a wonderful historic part of our city where you probably could fetch much higher rents with that type of quality. But this is giving 54 families, 54 families an opportunity to live in a setting that is positive, that is safe, that is stable, and then below that, giving entrepreneurs an opportunity to find their way and thrive as well. So that's why I'm very supportive of this. That's why I'm always perking up whenever I see that Green Mills has submitted a proposal for something. You guys have shown, you have shown, that not only can you finish what you start, but you do it well, and you make people happy once they do move in. So thank you. Thank you very much for those kind words. Yeah, we don't believe there should be a difference between market rate or affordable, just because someone's paying an affordable rent doesn't mean there needs to be a lack of conditions or anything like that. So yeah, we do believe there should be no difference. And this project specifically, Heritage Grove, that we're speaking about today, we have realized the cultural and historic impacts of this project and have been taken into account into the design, the interior design. How we approach this project will be fully backed up by the historic impact of it in the heritage area. So yeah, I'm very passionate about this project. I'm looking forward to getting it done. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what it means to be a thoughtful developer. You're aware of the neighborhoods and the communities that you are creating housing in. And I appreciate that. And I hope you'll continue to believe in St. Petersburg as we move forward. All right. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. Almost forgot to ask, and that's actually a perfect segue, so I'm glad that I waited. So will there be any preference given whenever the units are built and, you know, the list opens up for people to come for any preference for current CRA residents to be able to give priority on those rental units? Because this is something just for background. I've asked about this before. I asked about it last time with the last Habitat deal that we approved, which you mentioned earlier on the corridor. So I'm just curious if there's any opportunity for current CRA residents to be able to have preference, at least a certain percentage of the units. What I can't speak to is that when marketing the – we typically do it six months before we CEO the project. Yeah. All the marketing is done locally, and the objective is to fill the building with people who are from that area. Okay. That is the goal. That is always the goal. It's not until many months later, if we're not able to achieve that, which I highly doubt because of the need for affordable, we start to make that circle wider and wider. Okay. Very good. And I'm glad that – For 54 units, I'm sure we're going to rent that up very quickly with the locals. Right. Yeah, and I wanted to bring it up because I think it does align with a lot of our priorities and goals around housing to make sure that we're creating spaces where people who already live in these communities can continue to thrive and can continue to afford to live there. So it's always very important to me whenever we are giving an asset or we're giving funds that we try to directly link that to the residents who are – we need to serve in that part of our community. So – okay. Very good. We'll look to hear more as you get closer to completion, and hopefully we'll have all 54 that are residents that are already living in the CRA. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second on CRA 2. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item CRA 2 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. We're going to adjourn as the CRA and reconvene as the city council. We're going to take up report item F3. And – Second. We have a motion and a second. Let's go to public comment. We have – We have a car for it. Okay. Yep, go ahead. Jerome King, please go to the podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Welcome. Hello, everybody. My name is Jerome King. I live at 4546 10th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida, 337-11. And I'm here to just address a couple of concerns centered around this apartment development. And that there are – it's a total of 54 apartments for affordable housing. But the higher we get up the scale of the AMI, the further we'll get away from the target residents who really need affordable housing. And so the further you get from the 30% or below, you really start to come out of the pocket of people who truly cannot afford housing in its current state. It's a well-known fact that St. Pete is unique because in Pinellas County, it's the largest concentration of African descent people that live here. And for many reasons, that may be the location where the AMI may drop significantly low. So allocating nine units for 30% or below is making a very small window for people who truly need it, especially with the effects of the hurricane and all of the displacement that's going on. And so I know sometimes you have to make difficult decisions, and nine units is better than no units. So I get that. But as we go up, the 60%, there's 30 units, and it's 60% or below. But it's 30% or below, so in between 60 and 30, you have 30% where it will eat up those 30 units where it should be appropriated to the people who truly need it, which would be the 30% or below. So when you get to 70%, they only give 30 units or below, with the idea that people who are below 70 will also be able to make, be able to take advantage of it. I just think that the way that it's put together, if possible, maybe you could reallocate or ask for more housing for people who are 30% or below. It is in District 7, which is a very high concentration of people who may not be able to afford, and having new folks come in, it only deepens the disparity that these people are going through. So I just want you guys to look at it. Yeah, it's a great deal. It was only three people who decided to take advantage of even billing here. So I get all of that. But maybe a conversation can be had, because 30 units at 60% is taking a lot of people out of the way, and a lot of folks that really need it won't. Housing has a long waiting list. Affordable housing itself has a long waiting list. So I just think we have to be realistic. People in your district are living under 30% AMI, all right? And they're staying with other people. They're doing the best they can. So anything you guys could do to up that number would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, no more cards. Vice Chair Hanowitz. Thank you. Can someone from administration just please address his concerns, if Amy's around or someone that just can explain, to package these type of deals, for banks to lend money, they come up with numbers to be able to finance such a deal. And it's not a simple process. And it's very rare that you get even the numbers that low, and they're very difficult. And it doesn't have to be a long thing, but, Amy, you're the expert. Council Member Hanowitz, staff were trying to tell me what you were saying while you were saying it. So can you please repeat the question? No, just based on the question, you know, and you've explained it many times at committee meetings and city council in terms of you have to make the deal pencil in and how difficult it is to get the units that you want. Sometimes you want units at a lower, you know, 30% or 60%. But the banks can't lend, they have to make the numbers work. Right. And we've had those conversations many times with different deals. And it's just, I guess, if you can give the, you know, the simple dummies 101 type version at this late hour of it. Yeah, I mean, I think every deal is different, right? And so it depends on whether it's housing affordability for rental or if it's home ownership. You know, certainly we're always looking to get the lowest units possible. But in order to provide those lower 30% AMI units, oftentimes we have to see the higher units. It really depends on the funding source that's being utilized and what those AMIs look like. Because when you talk about the higher units, they're basically subsidizing the lower units. Because somebody's paying for it. Correct. And so for you to have units at a lower cost, somebody has to be bearing that cost. And that's why the money, I mean, and you still have money coming in from different sources. Correct. I mean, sometimes, you know, vouchers are another strategy for how you can subsidize those units. But without vouchers, you're usually using the higher AMI units to help subsidize those lower AMI units. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just had one question. It's probably, to be honest with you, it's probably for James or for Green Mills. And I was going to bring it up in the CRA, but I didn't think it was part of the CRA conversation. So I understand, I think, the contract was built with the, like, 36 months go to have the funding amounts and just the timeline of getting this shovel in the ground and opening doors. Can you talk about, like, I'm assuming this is not your goal timeline. It just seems like we've built in some flexibility here to make sure that it gets done. But I'd love to just, this is probably more for Green Mills. Like, my guess is you want to open the doors faster than what this is talking about. Can you just talk to that real quick? Of course, yes. Yeah, our goal would be to get it done as quickly as possible. But, again, that revolves around the tax credit. The tax credits. You know, we're going to be submitting at the end of this month this property for sale. So we're going to be doing everything we can to be able to achieve tax credits on this. But, again, it is up to the tax credit selections. And, James, my guess is we're trying to give them two opportunities to apply for that. Is that the reason for the somewhat lengthy? Rick, so the time we're putting in is, like, before they're in default of some of the provisions. So we want to give them ample opportunity with the understanding that they're at the mercy of, you know, some of the tax credit opportunities. I just wanted to make sure, one, that I was understanding it, and, two, that it was said out loud. Because it seems like a long timeline. But the opportunity to be able to apply twice is obviously important just because of how important the tax credits are. And all those timelines are the latest. Right. They can certainly be earlier. Right. This is the absolute latest. Great. The goal, let's say, if we win the sale and we can get maybe some additional funding, we could close on a 4% bond, which is pretty much on our timeline. So that is the goal. We want to chase a 4% bond so that we don't have to be at the will of, let's say, the 9% tax credit rounds and stuff like that, which is very competitive. With a 4% bond, that's the goal here. It's going to close quickly. Great. Thank you. Thank you for helping spell that out. Okay. That's really all I had, Vice Chair. Thanks for the question. I was going to go there if nobody else did. So thanks for bringing that up. Okay. We have F3. Council members, I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. There already was. We did? Oh, then I apologize. Oh, it was right off the bat. I'm sorry. You're right. We have a motion and a second for F3, seeing as no other council members wishing to speak. That's twice I've screwed up today. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Not that anybody's got it. Please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tell me to announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Not that anybody's counted. All right. We're going to move into our public hearing items. And we have J1 and J2, which I think we can take together. Move for approval. J1, J2. Second. We have a motion on J1 and J2. Seeing as no council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tell me to announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda items J1 and J2 passes unanimously. Thanks, Joe. Okay. Now we are going to move into J3. This is a quasi-judicial item. And I'll turn it over to staff. Thank you. Welcome. Hi. Good afternoon. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, the ordinance title. Thank you. Can you please read the ordinance? There's three. Proposed ordinance number 764-L. An ordinance amending the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. By changing the future land use map designations for two parcels totaling 17.25 acres located at 3200 34th Street South from Institutional I to Plan Redevelopment Commercial PR-C, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof, and providing for an effective date. Okay. Thank you. Could we also swear on all the speakers, please? Okay. Anyone speaking on this case, stand up and raise your hand. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Okay. Turn it over to you, Britton. Thank you. Sure. Good afternoon. Britton Wilson, city planner, presenting an amendment to the future land use map initiated by the Coulter Group for the 17-acre St. Pete College Allstate Campus site located at 3200 34th Street South, which is currently under contract for sale. Here is the surrounding uses, starting on the top right, is the Aldi Shopping Center, followed by the Sur Club Apartments with a self-storage facility, then the Subject Allstate Center St. Pete College Campus, followed by a senior living facility, and then on the west side of 34th Street South is a Wawa, the Walmart Super Center, and then the Skytown Mixed Use Development that is under construction, and then the Bayview Animal Hospitals further to the north. This is a future land use map showing the subject site as designated institutional, where this land use designation is limited in application to only those parcels utilized for government, hospital, religious, or educational uses. So being that the current college educational use is going away due to the sale of the property, the Planned Redevelopment Commercial, or PRC, land use is being proposed to be consistent with the surrounding PRC land use and the Skyway Marina District Activity Center overlay. So again, this is a future land use map, but zoomed out to show the extent of the Skyway Marina District Activity Center overlay, and to show that the majority of the overlay parcels are also designated Planned Redevelopment Commercial. This is a zoning map showing the subject site and the surrounding lots as zoned Retail Center, or RC1, which will remain as no change to the zoning is proposed. And this slide shows the current mixed-use development potential for the RC1 with Activity Center overlay, which will remain unchanged at 45 dwelling units per acre with a 1.12 FAR. And as noted in the staff report, the proposed amendments are consistent with many policies of the comprehensive plan, such as supporting high-density mixed-use development in activity centers supported by mass transit and is compatible and consistent with the surrounding area. And with that, staff recommends a finding of consistency with a comprehensive plan and recommends approval of the proposed future land use map amendment, as it allows for redevelopment of land located within an activity center supported by transit, which is consistent with the surrounding neighborhood's land use and zoning pattern. And that concludes my presentation, and I believe the applicant also has a presentation. Okay, great. Go ahead. You have 10 minutes. Good evening. For the record, Kevin Reale, 4444th Street South. I actually live just near this. My presentation is pretty duplicative, so really it's there in case there are questions to answer, so I won't take the council through that. I will point out, you know, usually when you see these types of requests, you have a zoning and a future land use or just a zoning. This is a little different because the zoning is already set up for the Skyway Myrna district, and we just have to request the change to that public future land use. Once the sale of the college property happens, it has to change to something, and what we're proposing is exactly in line with the rest of the Marina district in that area. So, to spare the council going through the exact same presentation that you just heard from staff, I have some slides to answer questions that there are any, and we're here to answer questions for our council. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And there's no registered opponent, correct? Okay. Okay. So, now we'll go into public comment. Do we have any cards? We have one card. Okay. Rachel Kennard, please go to the podium, state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Rachel Kennard, and I am a public policy and administration student at St. Petersburg College. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. As a student studying public policy, I reviewed ordinance 764-L, which would change the future land map designation for approximately seven anchors at 3234th Street South from institutional to plan redevelopment commercial. From a policy standpoint, this change supports controlled economic growth and aligns with the Skyway Marina District's long-term redevelopment vision. The plan redevelopment commercial designation allows for greater flexibility in how the land can be used, encouraging business activation, job opportunities, and redevelopization of underused land without disrupting the character already planned for the district. As a future policymaker, I see this as an example of responsible land use and strategic planning. Instead of leaving the property limited under institutional designation, this ordinance opens the door for intentional redevelopment. That reflects the goals the community has agreed upon. Based on my understanding of redevelopment and planning and community policy, I support the approval of this ordinance. It represents forward-thinking development, promotes economic opportunity, and supports the continued growth of the Skyway Marina District. As a younger resident and a student preparing to enter public service, it is aspiring to see city leadership planning, not just for today, but for the future of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Derek, if you're listening, you might want to get her resume. Okay, we're going to go into cross-examination. Staff, any cross? City waves. Applicant? We wave. Any closing remarks? Waves, thank you. Okay. All right, we're going to go into an executive session. Councilmember Fig Sanders. Thank you. Tell me her first name again. Rachel. Rachel. Rachel, I just want to say, great job. You did a phenomenal job. Thank you. Thank you. You should be proud that you are a student graduating from there, and that was a wonderful presentation. Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you very much, Chair. And, Rachel, you stole all of my comments, so ditto. That's all I want to say. I'm so excited to see this, but as you said, and I can only, you know, repeat what you said, it's all about the future of economic development, right? And I think that's what this does, is it opens the doors for, you know, future jobs and future economic development that will help small business owners. And I think that's what this site was created to do, really create future policymakers like yourself, future entrepreneurs, and a future for St. Pete that we can be proud of. So thank you for being a part of that. I appreciate you showing up. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay, Councilmembers, J3. Motion. A move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second on J3. Seeing as no other Councilmembers wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Councilmembers have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J3 passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you, everybody. All right. Open forum. Any speakers? Mr. Chair, we don't have any speakers. Okay. We'll close open forum, and we'll go into announcements. Councilmembers, any announcements? Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. So I wanted just to bring to City Council's attention. So last week there was a motion made to move the conversation regarding the flags to a committee of the whole. And I wanted just to bring to everyone's attention that we do still have on the HOUT referral list a discussion regarding the prohibition of street murals and potential alternatives for public art and placemaking opportunities. And so I feel like I wanted to bring it up because I wasn't here to finish the conversation last week. I would have brought it up then, so my apologies. But I feel like this all kind of goes together. And, you know, we've got the survey results. I'd love to have a conversation about the survey results. I really just feel like at this point it makes the most sense to me if we have a conversation as a body today about moving that HOUT referral item to the Cal, combining it all, and having a comprehensive conversation, which was the goal of the new business item to begin with. So I wanted to bring that up, curious what everybody else thinks. Jackie, if you want to, you know, give some input as to kind of how, you know, maybe I can make a motion about that. But I just really want to make sure that we're all kind of having the same conversation in concert and not leaving things on a referral list that are unnecessary. So, Council Member, you could make a motion to that effect during announcements. There's nothing that would preclude that. Okay, so I would make a motion that we move the HOUT item to the Cal taking place next week. Second. I'll just quickly comment, and if you could clear the board just so we have people who want to talk on this item real quickly, and then we'll bring Council Member Givens back just in case somebody pops in. I think the intention from the very beginning was to have a comprehensive conversation. I'm happy to add it to make it official, but I'll let Administrator Gerdes chime in. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, just from a staff perspective, I would just like to have some clarity on what Council is expecting. What we were planning to do at the Cal was to bring Council the feedback that we received from the community outreach that we did. And then we have kind of a list of some potential suggestions that we think we could go forward with. And then to ask Council for your feedback on those, but also to add and to suggest other suggestions to represent our values like we discussed through symbols and art. And so that's what we were planning to bring next week. It's not a long presentation, but it has that information in it. We thought it would be a lot of discussion. Okay. Which is, I think, what we talked about last week. And so that was my expectation. Again, I'm happy to officially put it all together. It sounds like that's everything you're looking for. Absolutely. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we all level set. Council Member Givens, do you want to speak on this item? No. Okay. Council Member Driscoll? Thank you. The item from last week went to a committee of the whole meeting because it came here, because the intention was to have everyone talk about it together. So I want that to stay at the Cal. I believe that the item that is in HLUT is, it's really all about the same thing. And so moving that to the Cal, that really should be an everybody discussion too. So rather than having two different meetings about the same thing, I think it does make sense to have all of it as long as it's in the Cal. And the chair of HLUT might want to weigh in or say if that, I don't know what the committee chair's work has been on creating the agendas and working the agendas. We all, all of us who have been the chair of a committee understand that there's, there are wheels in motion all the time. So if there's not anything that would prevent this, I think it would be fine. I'll just say quickly. No, this is fine. We already are full in HLUT till the beginning of next year. I think that's, it sounds like you're, what you're mentioning is the intent of what Council Member Gabbard's saying. So I'm, I'm, I think this is appropriate. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. All right. Great. We have a motion and a second on moving the item from HLUT to the Cal and combining with last week's motion. However, we're wording that. Yes. Yeah. However, Council Member Gabbard put it up. Yeah. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak on this item, Clerk, please open the machine for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, the motion made by Council Member Gabbard passes unanimously. That's how I would have repeated it too. Okay. We're going to go to, yeah. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. Amazing how fast things move when it's something you want to talk about, huh? Nice. So the St. Pete Fire Rescue Department will be having 100 firehouse at 2800 30th Avenue North Fire Station Number 10 on Saturday. And that will be from 530 to 9 p.m. And there will also be the rescheduled 727 Drone Day show celebration at Spa Beach from 730 to 930. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Yeah. Looking forward to both. I know my kids are already yelling at me about both. So thank you, Council Member Gibbons, for bringing both of those up. So just quickly before we adjourn, because I don't get to poke at Janie very often, but today is Boss's Day. And although she's not technically our boss, she is our den mother. And the legislative aides just wanted to say a very public thank you for all Janie does in our office. I would echo that in spades. Yeah. Happy Boss's Day, Janie. Thank you for always taking care of us. We love you very much. Okay. If there's nothing else for the good of the order, City Council is adjourned. Thank you, everybody.