City Council Part 1 10-31-24 - Oct 31, 2024

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montanari, District 4, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Ritchie Floyd. Good morning, everyone. We will now call to order our October 31st Council Meeting, beginning with the roll call, please. Gabbard? Here. Montanari? Here. Kanowitz? Here. Nick Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Muhammad? Here. Floyd? Here. Curtis? Here. Thank you. Welcome back, everybody. We have had a time in the land, haven't we? And I'm just so glad to see all of you that are here, with everything that we've gone through, still know that we are a blessed city. And with that, I am going to ask for Pastor Chris Futch from our Savior Lutheran Church will please come and provide the invocation. Following that, we will have a moment of silence, and then we will remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone, please join me in standing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Father, let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we gather here this morning, we give thanks for your presence. We give thanks for your goodness. We give thanks for your forgiveness and mercy and grace that is freely given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, over these past few weeks, we as a city have faced challenges that are unlike anything we have ever experienced before. And because of these challenges, we know that the problems we face today are many, but we also know that you have equipped us to work together to find solutions to these problems. And so today, in this meeting and in future meetings, I pray that we as fellow residents of St. Petersburg would work together through these issues with both empathy and civility. I pray that you would bless our efforts as we restore and rebuild the Sunshine City. And I also pray that you would bless our leaders as they help guide us through all of these efforts. Lords, we know that serving as a leader is oftentimes an isolating and thankless vocation. As a leader, you're expected to have all the answers and solve all of the problems, oftentimes with very little encouragement and support. And so this morning, in light of the challenges that we face, I ask that you would strengthen and encourage the members of this council. Give them wisdom and support and peace and rest. Bless their families and their friends and their neighbors and all the people who love them and encourage them as they continue to serve on this council. This morning, we especially pray for Ed Montaneri, who has served on this council for the past nine years. We thank you for his leadership, his service, his wisdom, his integrity, and ultimately his faithfulness to serve you by serving all of us here in the great city of St. Petersburg. This morning, I ask that you would bless him in his future endeavors in public service. Strengthen him, guide him, protect him, encourage him, and remind him that you will continue to be with him all the days of his life. Bless our president and our Congress, bless our governor and our state representatives, bless our mayor and the city employees, bless our men and women who protect us from harm and danger every single day. We also ask that you would bless our families, our workers, our seniors, our veterans, our widows, our homeless, and all who call this city that you have established as their home. Lord, may each of us continue to help make St. Petersburg a community of progress for all residents each and every day. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who created us, the one who redeemed us, and the one who promises to be with us both now and forever. Amen. Amen. Please join me in a moment of silence. To the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. Pastor Fudge, such a mighty prayer. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much. Members, we have an agenda before us today with a request to add item F6A and B. Would that change? I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Ooh. We have a second. Madam Chair. Madam Chair. Oh, sorry. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you, Madam Chair. I pushed my button and then there was a motion, so legal I might need some guidance at this point. But the addition of item F6A and B, I would like to ask that that be deferred to our November 21st meeting. So since there's a motion, would that then be a deferral? Substitute motion. A substitute motion. Okay. So I'd like to make a substitute motion that we approve the agenda as is. Okay. As is. Okay. Thank you. So does the original motion and seconder accept that? Accept. Accept. Okay. Thank you. So now that we've had a... I don't. Wait. It wouldn't be the original. I made it. The substitute motion would need a second. Right. The motion, Earl. You made the motion. Has there been a second is the question? Yes. Second. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. We're there. I see names on the approval of the agenda. Council Member Gurders. Thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, no. Rob. That was Rob. I'm sorry. Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. Just want to comment on the motion on the table. Well, we certainly understand that City Council controls their own agenda. It's at your discretion on what you want to hear or not hear. Just so Council Members know, the reason we brought this forward is we are concerned about our insurance process at Tropicana Field. And delaying the vote could potentially compromise our insurance claim on the stadium would be our concern. So, I just want you to have that information as you decide whether or not you want to hear this on the agenda today. Thank you. All right. We've never had this much conversation on the agenda before, so we do appreciate that. Council Member Gabbard, I still see your name. Yeah, I thought it was at the bottom, but I guess I'll go ahead and go since everybody moved. So, the reason that I want to defer these items is, I guess there's a myriad of reasons. One, obviously, we have been through a lot in our city. This is our first Council meeting back, and we have a lot of information that we have had to absorb, yet we have not had time in the sunshine to discuss. This particular item and the large amount of investment that would be made in this item, I believe we needed more time to be able to review. I would have liked to have had a one-on-one with administration prior to this meeting. That did not happen. Then last evening, and possibly even this morning, we received a very large copy of a public records request that was done by Channel, I think it was Channel 10, and the St. Pete Catalyst around Tropicana Field. We have not had the opportunity to, I mean, I opened it and immediately closed it, because it is numerous files. We don't have enough information, in my opinion, to even have the discussion today on this item. So, I just, I feel like right here at the top of the meeting, we might as well just say, we're not ready to talk about this. We're not ready to vote on this. If you all decide otherwise, and we want to keep it on the agenda, I will be a no on that item today. I have toured Tropicana Field. I went, I saw it, I have seen the immense amount of damage that has happened to that building. So, I am well aware of where we are condition-wise, but we don't have the damage assessment. We don't have any information about the insurance claim. We don't have any information. So, I am not prepared today to even discuss it, more or less make a vote on it. And that's where I stand. Thank you. Council Member Flory. Oh, okay. I thought I'd put myself further down on the queue. Thank you, Council Member Gabbard. I feel similarly in that I don't feel confident. Removing it from the agenda was not something that I had had in mind. I figured we would get to that item and get into this conversation. But, you know, I have questions and, you know, I don't know if it's not going to be on the agenda, then they can wait till later. But, you know, I have questions about insurance. Like, what is the feasibility? What is a contingency plan for if we were to start to expend this money and then we get down the line and find out that the building's not salvageable? I don't know so many things right now. And I was hoping to have that conversation when this item came up. But if it's not coming up, I can wait till later. I think this is a little bit different of a tact than I was planning on taking. And so I'll just have to absorb this. But I look forward to hearing from everyone else. If I could, Chair, just respond to Councilmember Floyd. Obviously, we don't have every answer. But it was our hope and intention that we could answer some of these questions during the item. And then if Council's not satisfied at that point and you want to defer it, you could do it at that point without removing it from the agenda. But it's at your discretion. Thank you. Councilmember Hanowin. Thank you. And thank you, Councilmember Gabbard, for bringing up this issue so we can have this discussion. I think there are more questions than there are answers. And frankly, my issue with it is we have two agreements that are worth $6 million total. And why is that the only path forward right now? Why isn't there something that just takes care of whatever we need in the next five days to take care of the insurance issue? That's my issue. We have no information as to what we're going to do with the TROP. We don't know if it even makes sense to repair the TROP. And frankly, if you want City Council to vote on something like this, we should have more information. If it was something that just to keep us through the six days and make sure that we're complying with our insurance requirements regarding mitigating and all that, we can do that without having to have these items. That's my issue. So with that, I agree. I mean, we can have this conversation next week. You can do the mitigation that you need to this week and then have more information as to where we're going forward on this. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurders. Thank you, Madam Chair. It just seems to me we're having the discussion right now on approval of agenda. Why wouldn't we just discuss it? And then if we want to defer the item, later on we can. I think if we can get to a place that we can answer questions and everybody feels comfortable, then great. If not, then we defer. But I mean, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole, but it seems to me reading the current agreement and the need to make sure that we're able to make an insurance claim are certainly things that we should discuss. And I think we should do it sooner rather than later. So I prefer to have the discussion and then if we decide to defer, I'd prefer that option. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair. And I am going to remind Council that we do have another item that has to take place before our special guest actually has to leave this morning. So we've never had this much conversation on the approval of agenda. But I do want to use the best sense of our time this morning because you have a lot of FEMA questions and once he has to leave, he has to leave. So you can continue to have this conversation now and not get your FEMA update. So I'll leave it there. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I too was disappointed at the receiving this so late. It caused me to have a much later night than I even anticipated to get ready for today's meeting. I did have the opportunity or it was offered to speak with Beth Herondine about the item. I did not have an opportunity to do that because it was late before I could get started in reading it. Having said that, this administration does not have a pattern of throwing something this big at us at a late hour unless it's really important. This is critical. I would like to know if we could do it this way. I would like to start the discussion today. I think it's important that we start this discussion in the sunshine and have an opportunity for everyone to hear each other as well as the public hear us on where we're at with this right now because it is a very serious situation. And so I would like to at least begin the discussion today and then if we get to a point where we need to defer the actual vote until next week, I think that could be reasonable and I'd love input from the city administrator on whether November 7th, if that flexibility would be harmful to this particular situation. But I would like to at least begin the conversation today and let's see where it goes from here. Then we would have, if we decide today to defer it to next week, if that's not damaging us further, then we know we have that option. But I think that's the most practical way to go about this and I think it's the fairest way for the public to hear what's going on with this right now. So I'd love input from the city administrator. Yeah, I really appreciate your comments, council member. And I mean, we'd really like to hear from Blaise Mazzola, our insurance expert, and we were going to have him here today for the report to talk about any impacts that could happen from a delay. It's his advice to the administration that we need to act quickly to protect the building from further water intrusion, to maintain the adequacy of our insurance claim, and he can speak to that. So I don't know how that delay could potentially impact that claim if there was significant rain in the meantime that caused further damage. But we can certainly hear from Blaise or we could hear from him during the report item. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilman Mwohamed. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just briefly, I too really don't know what I don't know because I didn't have an opportunity to review it. And I was originally planning on just with the agenda approval, listening, hearing questions, but not knowing which way I was going to go with this thing. And so the motion to defer, I support that because I would like more time to be able to review it so that we can properly prepare. That was it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you. I'd like to have the discussion today and then make a decision during that discussion. Thank you. Okay. So currently we have a sub-motion on the floor to defer it. So do we vote on the sub-motion first if it fails? So can you please repeat the sub-motion? The motion is to defer agenda item F6A and B to the November 21st City Council meeting and approve the agenda without agenda item F6. And who motion? Councilmember Gabbert with a second from Councilmember Mohamed. Okay. So just for the record, I would like to talk about it today. I probably will defer it, but I at least want to talk about it. Chair, Blaise is here if you'd like to hear from Blaise. No, I'm trying to move forward. I'm trying to move forward. So we have a sub-motion on the floor. It's been motioned and properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, can you please cast your vote? Now that all present councilmembers have voted, can you please tallien and announce the votes? Madam Chair, a motion for the substitute motion fails four to four. Okay. Move approval of the agenda as proposed. Second. All right. So it's been properly motioned and been seconded to approve the agenda as presented. Can you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please cast your votes. Now that all present councilmembers have voted, can you please tallien and announce the votes? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes seven to one with Councilmember Mohamed voting no. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmembers, we now have a consent agenda before. As I entertain your motion for approval on the consent. Madam Chair, we have some speakers on that. We have speakers on that? Okay. You have cards. Please call the first two cards. The first two cards is Stephen Wright and Sylvia Wadi, I believe it is, Mune. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Stephen Wright. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Go ahead. Stephen Wright and Sylvia. Okay. Stephen is four and so is Sylvia. The next one is D'Amico. What are they for? Consent agenda. A whole thing? The consent agenda. Okay. Thank you. D'Amico, he's for the consent agenda as well. Is that it? I'm sorry. Are you saying Domenico? Yes. Domenico, I'm here to speak on consent agenda B item seven, not public comment. Okay. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead. Good morning. The item hasn't been brought up yet. I can speak about it now? Yes, you have three minutes. Okay. So I'm here to speak about consent agenda B item seven. It is a license, a lease for an empty city lot to be used for a ocean friendly garden. And also, sorry, I forgot to state my address. 670 10th Avenue South. So I am here on behalf of the historic Rosa Park Neighborhood Association. This empty lot has been a challenge for us for quite some time because it has essentially defaulted to become a dumping ground for trash, furniture, large items. We've gotten boilers dumped there, ovens, refrigerators. It's not only unsightly, it's unsafe. And it's a burden on our taxpayer money because the city ends up having to come and do a special collection for whoever anonymously dumped there. The solution we came up with is to build an ocean friendly garden. This is a win-win for not only our community, but for the city at large because ocean friendly gardens help mitigate algae blooms. And also it adds another public space for anybody in the city to be able to use. In my hand, I have a packet which has signatures for over half the neighborhood so far. We'll be applying for a neighborhood matching grant and using neighborhood association funds to build the ocean friendly garden. I really hope that you approve this license today. Our neighborhood is really excited about doing something positive and having some positive change in the neighborhood. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, council member Driscoll. Thank you. I just wanted to thank the Historic Roser Park Neighborhood Association for their work on this. It's incredible the way that you all band together, whether it's a project like this or going out to help other neighborhoods after hurricanes Helene and Milton, just to see how you can help. You are truly a group of servants to our city. You don't get the recognition that you deserve all the time. And so I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all you do, not just for Historic Roser Park, but for St. Petersburg. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We have a consensus. Move for approval. Second. Thank you. Now there's been motion and properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, can you please cast your votes? Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the vote? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Madam Chair, Deborah Fick-Sanderson. We are during our awards and presentations moment right now where we are going to pay homage and respect to our outgoing council member, Council Member Ed Martin-Ering. And because of a time constraint, I know everyone wants to show him and tell him how much we love him. But when council members begin to speak, I'm going to ask you to take three minutes. But, because we have it at the end of the meeting during the announcement, so we can just show him, shower him with so much love. But it gives me so much honor and pleasure to provide this Distinguished Service Award from the City of St. Petersburg presented to, come on down, Ed. The Honorable Council Member Ed Martin-Ering, who has been a member of the City Council since 2016 to 2024. He served as Vice Chair of City Council for 2019, and he was Chair twice, 2020 and 2021. So, in recognition of your outstanding leadership in scholarly advocacy for responsive government that has reflected honor and integrity on the Office of City Council and the City of St. Petersburg, Florida. This is really spiffy, isn't it? Nice. So, also, you all know that he was a pilot, military, and he has his wings. And this is also another presentation from Council, and it states, never let the things you can't do stop you from doing what you can. A quote from Ronald Reagan. And it is from our hearts. Thank you so much. And we're going to give you an opportunity to give you three minutes. No, I'm going to. Oh, yeah, we got. But wait. Our Mayor, Mayor Ken of Tewel. Madam Chair, City Council, members of our St. Pete team and community. It's truly an honor to be here today to celebrate a true public servant whose work has been instrumental in St. Petersburg for many years, Council Member Ed Montaneri. Council Member Montaneri joined the City Council in 2015, and since then, he's taken on some of the most essential roles a leader could take on, including serving as Chair of the City Council. He's focused on economic and workforce development efforts, infrastructure, public services, fiscal oversight. I don't know where I'm going to get my millage decrease from when you're gone. Council Member Montaneri has always shown up for our city time and time again with a clear sense of purpose to serve and to lead in a manner that builds consensus and makes a positive impact. Now, we know Council Member Montaneri, and you know he's passionate about St. Pete. He's raised his children, been an active member of his church, our Saver Lutheran Church, and the entire community. And what's always impressed me is his love for our city is reflected in his decision and his approach. Now, beyond his community work, Ed is also passionate about aviation, as the Chair said, a topic that Ed and I have discussed many, many times passionately and found consensus on. I want to thank you for this conversation. He's a commercial airline pilot, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, instructor, and air operations officer. This experience has given him a unique perspective on leadership, precision, and service, and he brought that focus and dedication to city council, and because of that, our city is stronger because of your service and leadership. So today, we honor that legacy of service by presenting Council Member Montaneri with the key to our city. Wow, what an honor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chair Fig Sanders. I want to, I've got just a few remarks. I want to thank everybody that's here. I want to, first of all, thank my pastor, Pastor Futch, for being here. I know a lot of people in the city of St. Petersburg are going through a hard time right now. I'm one of those people that's been affected by the flood. And my pastor has been with me all along the way. We've had some great conversations, and he's just, he's passionate about this city, and the invocation today was just very, very special. I'd like to recognize some of my family that's here. First, my mother. My mother raised five kids in three foreign countries and around the United States, and she did it with fear, joking, sarcasm, and making sure that we stayed in line. And, Mom, you've been such an inspiration to me. My brother, Sean, and his wife, Teresa, are here. My brother, Tim, and his wife, Cheryl, are also here. And my niece's fiancé, Isaac Mecklen, is here, too. So thank you to my family for being here today. We do have a few elected officials. I want to thank Circuit Court Judge Pam Campbell, who swore me in and then swore me in for vice chair and chair of city council several times. Thank you for being here. Commissioner, County Commissioner Dave Eggers. Commissioner Eggers was here when I got sworn in back in 2016. And we have former city council member Charlie Curtis. Charlie, thank you for being here. You've been a great member and partner on city council with me. So Ben Franklin once said, the first mistake that people make in public service is going into it. Public service, I have a disagreement with Mr. Franklin on this. Public service, to me, it's just been an honor of a lifetime to be able to serve on the St. Petersburg City Council with such fine people over nine years. Things in our city just don't happen. It takes a vision. It takes passion, and it takes energy to get things done. And there's always bumps in the road. There's always people that don't agree with the positions that you take. But if you have a clear vision and you know you're on the right track, you can get some really big things done. And I've been able to work together with people, and everything's a team effort when it comes to getting things done in our city. I got started with the Albert Woodard Airport, and that was controversial at the time. We got some big things done out there, including a new terminal, a new control tower. We were able to make a property line adjustment to allow the Dolly Museum to be built where it is. We also were able to build a new waterfront park, Albert Woodard Park, which is our waterfront park system is the pride of St. Petersburg. Then along the way, working with the mayors and city council members, building police stations, fire stations, and other critical infrastructure has been a key component of what I've been trying to do. Attracting businesses and doing other things has always been just a priority for me. I've been able to work with some very wonderful people over my nine years in office and before I came into office. And I wanted to thank a few of the groups that I've been working with. And I want to start off with the organization within the city that I spend the most time on the phone on. And it's been called the best law firm in the city of St. Petersburg, and that's our legal department. Our legal department is just outstanding. And I want to thank them for everything you've done to help me and help city council get through some very challenging legal issues before the city. Our police department is the best police department in the country. It really is. Chief Holloway, you've transformed our police department. And thank you for your strong leadership of our police department. And Chief Watts, I see you here. Congratulations on your new position. Our fire department is second to none. Thank you for your leadership. Our community enrichment department, I see Mike Jeffery standing here. Mike, it's been a pleasure working with you. Like I said before, we have over 160 parks in the city of St. Petersburg. And it's unique within cities in Florida. And people move to St. Petersburg because of our quality of life. And your department has just been fantastic when it comes to making quality of life improvements to our city. Our housing and neighborhood services department, Amy Foster, is just an amazing person that gets things done on the housing front in the city. James Corbett in city development knows how to attract the businesses and retain businesses here in our city. And we need that to have a strong business focus in the city of St. Petersburg. I was visited earlier this morning by Tom Green. Tom and I, when I first came on as a city council member, I figured if I could figure out the budget and finances, I can figure out everything else with the city. Tom and I have worked together on some very big financial challenges that the city has had. And I'm very thankful for that work. And then, Rob, as city administrator, you've been great. You've been great through some very difficult times. And I know the city is going to get through this period that we're in right now. And the city of St. Petersburg is going to be, we're going to build it back a lot better than it was. And we've got some challenges ahead. But I'm totally optimistic we're going to achieve greatness in our city. And then, Mayor, thank you for your leadership, and you've been great to work with. And then every city council member, you all bring a unique perspective to our city. You have your own area of expertise, and it's just been a pleasure working over the years with very dedicated, very loyal, and very hardworking people that care passionately about our city. And then I want to especially recognize my legislative aide, Tricia Terry. Tricia puts up with a lot. I don't know how she does it. But she, I have a very aggressive agenda, and Tricia works extremely hard to kind of stay in front of me. Anybody that's seen my binders and paperwork, Tricia puts all of that stuff together, organizes it. And I could be kind of demanding sometimes going, like, I need my notes from a meeting, like, that was three years ago. And it's on a yellow piece of paper, and three minutes later she has it in her hand. And Tricia, you've been just an amazing person to work with, and I've been blessed to work with you. So thank you. Thank you very much. So I know that the city's best days are ahead of it. And I really am proud to be able to have served as a city council member here in the city that I love. And I've been blessed to have a great family, great friends, and great people to work with to make sure that St. Petersburg's on a path for greatness for decades to come. Thank you very much. Thank you. Seeing no buttons pushed, we're going to wait to give him... No. Okay. Sorry, I thought we were doing public comments. Well, no, there wasn't any out there. So, Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I hope Council Member Montaneri will stay at the podium. I like this. So, the first time I sat down with Council Member Montaneri was when I was running for city council for the first time. And as anyone who has done the same can tell you, he will show you his big red binder with the agenda and everything that you have to do to get ready for a city council member. So, when I got elected and I was doing my orientation, I asked the administrator, so, when do I get the big red binder? And they were like, what are you? Oh, that's Ed. He has the red one. Of course he does. So, you know, I made a couple of requests. And for the first council meeting, I said, look, Ed, I got a binder, too, and mine's blue. And a great friendship was born. Ed, Ed, you're, the years, the seven years that I've had the pleasure of working with you have been just incredible. Because your guidance, your leadership, all that I've learned from you along the way is something that, I mean, you just possess this talent and this knowledge that you don't find every day. You are a very special kind of public servant that started before you were on city council, and I know it's going to continue far beyond this day when you finish your term. Everywhere you look, for the rest of your life, all around our city, everywhere you go, you'll be able to point to things and say, I helped make that happen. Whether it's Albert Whitted Airport and that park, other park improvements, the amount of trees that we have and that we're going to have continuing to come to increase our canopy, giving our police department a state-of-the-art place, not only to work, but also to train the support that you've given to all of our first responders. I mean, the list goes on and on. One can only hope to serve our city the way that you have, and I thank you for that guidance. For us, it has been just an honor for me to call you my colleague, but it's even a greater honor that I'll always be able to call you my friend. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, dear. Well, I can't believe this day has come. I've been dreading this. It's been only two and a half years since we've served together, and honestly, I feel like I've known you for a lifetime. What people don't know about Council Member Montaneri, and I'm going to say Ed, is he has such a great sense of humor. He is so funny, and he can take a joke. And so you see him, and you're so eloquent in the meetings, and you're so proper and professional, but I can bust his chops about anything, about his binder. And by the way, he only prints on one side. He's bigger than ours. I told him, it's not the size of the binder that shows how prepared you are for meetings. But I will tell you, you know, it's whether it's busting the chops on the binders or the sticky notes, I'm glad you acknowledge in a public meeting that you take up the most time from the legal department. As a matter of fact, I said, if they would bill by the hour, you would definitely be ahead, and they'd be making a ton of money. So, but all joking aside, you know, we politically do not see eye to eye on many issues, and on big issues, we haven't seen politically eye to eye. But I will tell you that you have never been disrespectful, attacked me personally. We have had our issues and battled out on facts, and you've done that with everyone here on City Council and everyone that you've dealt with. You know, you've been on the minority on City Council for a while, and you've learned how to work with all of us. And even though we may not agree, you've always found the time to agree with us, even on issues that sometimes you may not agree with. So, I appreciate that. It's something that we need more of in this country. We need the parties to actually talk to each other, and we've been able to have that friendship. So, I think it's really important to have those conversations with people you don't agree with sometimes and see their point of view. It doesn't mean that you're going to agree with them at the end, but talk about it. And so, I'm going to miss that, and I'm going to miss you. Thank you so much for your service to our city. Thank you. Council Member Fleury. Thank you. I'm just going to tell a quick little story. Council Member Driscoll made me think of it. I met Council Member Montaneri when I got elected. We sat down. We had lunch. We went and got Thai food right around the corner. And, like, one of the first things he said to me was, oh, so you know my son-in-law, Kyle Bennett is his name. And I was like, Kyle Bennett from Fort Walton Beach, Florida, that I went to high school with? Like, and I'm still to this day a little shocked at it and how it's a small world. I mean, I grew up in the panhandle and went to high school and college with your son-in-law. And that immediately, like, sparked a strange connection that continued a little bit on the dais as well where just randomly when you wouldn't think so, because I also consider myself a fiscal conservative, just slightly differently than I think you do. And we just randomly, like, were in sync occasionally. And so I think it started with finding out that we had an interesting connection at the beginning. And then that manifested itself a few times here and there, and it was really interesting. And I enjoyed working with you. And I know I'm going to pay extra special attention to a lot of our infrastructure projects and whatnot when you're not here because I'm going to feel like, oh, Ed's not here to look at it in as much depth. I need to make sure I know what's going on. And so your absence will cause, I think, all of us a little bit more work. But I always appreciated it. You know, we make decisions up here based off of when we're looking at a topic. We go, oh, I know this council member is going to have looked at this in depth, and I'm going to be able to learn a lot from their questions and whatnot. And you've definitely filled that hole in a lot of ways on a lot of topics. So I appreciated it, and I enjoyed it, and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the future. Thank you. Before I go to Vice Chair Gerdes, I'm going to ask the pleasure of the final three speakers if you would still like to speak. Mr. Kevin Guthrie from our Executive Director wanted to provide an update. He has to plane the cash. He leaves in 15 minutes. So do you want to continue to make your comments, or would you like to get the update from Mr. Guthrie, your choice? Because I don't think Ed is going anywhere. Are we going to resume immediately after that and have a public comment for Council Member Montaneri? Yes, yes. I just want to give Mr. Guthrie an opportunity. As much as I want that update, Chair, I also do not want to take away from Council Member Montaneri. Gotcha. So we'll go to that and immediately come back. Okay. You okay with that, Council Member? Can we get 15 minutes? Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Council Member Montaneri is still serving the city. Thank you for taking this pause. Incredibly important as we move forward with recovery, our partnerships with FEMA and with the Florida Department of Emergency Management, we do have Director Kevin Guthrie here. He is working recovery in 22 counties across our state, and it's important as we move into recovery that we have a firm partnership. We'll announce some other things that we're working with them on for next month, but now given he has a plane to catch, Director Guthrie, thank you for joining us. Please welcome him. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council, for having me, and I'm sorry that I had to interrupt that moment for you, Council Member. Very quickly, I want to just take a few minutes and just applaud you on your efforts of getting debris cleaned up. Definitely, St. Pete is leading the way on getting that done, cutting through red tape and just saying, look, we're going to do the right thing by our residents and getting that stuff done. We're going to do everything in our power. You are, and when I say you, as a city, inclusive of Pinellas County, you have qualified for a high impact waiver that came out two days ago from FEMA, which should you allow you a little wiggle room on getting that reimbursed through FEMA. I know that you made decisions that were not based on reimbursement, and I applaud you guys for doing so, and again, just acting on behalf of the residents. So that's the first thing. You are a high impact area as designated by the FEMA for your debris to include your waterway debris. We are going to leave behind, and I know I've talked to Amber about this. We are going to leave behind a recovery specialist and a mitigation specialist. I think they're actually already here in county, if I'm not mistaken. We did that at the Pinellas County EOC the other day, but we will leave you technical assistance folks on the ground, representative of the state of Florida, to help you navigate the situation that you're going to go through over the next several years. And I think that if there's one thing that I say, I want people to understand over the next several years. I was meeting with representative across this morning out on the sidewalk, talking through a couple of things. Debris, I think we need to all set an expectation, and I asked her to please amplify my message. Residents of St. Pete, residents of Vanellas County, we are doing something in this disaster that is unprecedented. The governor has issued an executive order asking states and cities and counties to pick up debris 24-7. You guys are doing that. And again, thank you for doing that. The reason we're trying to do that is because FEMA is covering everything at 100% reimbursement. So again, the financial backing is there from the federal government. We're managing this in approach to try to get everything done. But let me just set some things in perspective. City of Fort Myers, it took us just shy of one year, 11 months, to get all of the debris picked up in Fort Myers Beach. Now, two different disasters. We had boats and shrimp trawlers and things like that sitting up on roadways that had to literally be cut in half, cut in thirds, and hauled out. We don't have quite that here, but we've got a lot of construction and demolition debris. There is a lot of what we call muck and guts that are coming out of houses and going to the street curb. Residents, please be patient with us. We did Hurricane Ian at Fort Myers Beach in less than 12 months. That's the fastest debris pickup ever in the history of the state of Florida. And we're trying to set a new precedent of doing it in 90 days. That's going to take the cooperation of not just local government, state government, federal government, who have all stepped up to do what they can do. Your local government is doing that. But it's also going to take the patience of residents. I ask, and I ask Representative Crosses this morning, please, residents, give us 90 days. I'm going to give you a date certain. That is January the 11th. If on January the 11th we don't have it picked up, then feel free to ring all of our offices and start complaining that we didn't meet our date. But we're giving you a date out there. Midnight on January the 11th. Certainly go to sleep and start calling us at 7 a.m. the next morning. All right? But just please give us the 90 days, January 11th, to get that done. So that's the first thing. The second thing is housing. We have a number of housing programs that have been turned on by the federal government. Their two programs are called, they refer to as TSA, and that does not stand for Transportation Security Administration. That stands for Transitional Sheltering Assistance. These are hotels that the federal government will pay the bill at for your residents and your constituents to go to and stay in while we figure out what's going on with their house. There's that program. There's also called the Direct Housing Program that has just been turned on about 48 hours ago. That program is going to take a solid 30 to 45 days to get up off the ground and running. Now, people can go to TSA. They can go to the hotels while we're waiting on how is the program going to run. And I say how is the program going to run. Pinellas County, and more specifically St. Pete, is a very, very difficult, complex housing mission. A lot of your residents live in high rises. I can't put travel trailers in the parking lot. That's just not going to work. So we've got to figure that out together. So do we focus on what's referred to as group sites? Well, the one thing they're not making anymore is property. And I think as I talked to Pinellas County that you guys are more than 100% built out. So where are we going to put group sites? So this is going to be complicated. It's going to be complex. But again, between local government, county government, state and federal government, we can work all things out. We'll figure that out. It's probably going to be that travel trailers is not the right thing for the city of St. Pete, and maybe even more so the Pinellas County. And it's going to be more of a hoteling situation. And those hoteling situations may go on for long periods of time. Again, be patient. Because that means maybe some conferences don't come to the convention center because we are housing our residents. And I say our residents because they live in the state of Florida. They're your residents or our residents. So how do we work through that from an economic situation as we – I know you guys depend on conferences and things like that to roll through your city and your county. But again, we can work those things together. The housing program for FEMA is 18 months. All right? It is 18 months. That clock is starting to tick already. If homeowners do not – and we have extended that program, and when I say we, the federal government has extended that program. But there is an expectation as I talk to your residents through you today. And that is homeowners need to take an active part, not a passive part. They need to take an active part in their own recovery. When the federal government comes in, regardless of who's in the administration 18 months from now, when they come in, they're going to say, what have you done to help yourself and help us work your case? And we do have case management on an individual basis. And if the person has done nothing to help themselves in their recovery, then they are not going to get extended. However, we could go right now to Fort Myers Beach, where people are actively working their recovery that have been extended to 30 months. So that can happen, but we need the residents to be an active part of their recovery. So that's that message that I would give you to your residents through you. Now, the last thing I'm going to give to you all that will help me and will help the federal government and FEMA. I think you've heard me talk very, very positively of FEMA. I have not come up here and said anything negative about them. They are a partner. They are a critical partner to us getting things done. We in Florida believe in a strong, federally supported, state-managed, locally executed approach. You guys are locally executing at a very high level, and thank you for that. We will manage the programs that come into the state of Florida from FEMA. That is our role. That is our responsibility. My job is to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with our stakeholders for a more resilient Florida. That's our mission statement. But that really encompasses what my role is to do, which is communicate, coordinate, collaborate these programs for you to locally execute on and be successful at. The federal government is to give us basically, I hate to say it out loud, but they would say the same thing, we're here to financially support you through this disaster, which they are doing. So, housing, more so the 50% rule. The 50% rule applies to any substantially damaged structure. And if by local, municipal, not state, not federal, local municipal code, that dwelling reaches the 50% rule, which is it's deemed to be 50% damaged, then it must come into compliance with local and state building codes. That is the only piece that FEMA requires. But who sets that 50%? It is the city council. It is a county commission if there's applicable county housing, or not housing, but building codes. Obviously, the Florida building code is in there, but every county in the state of Florida has adopted the Florida building code. Most cities have adopted the Florida building code and then built off of that. Here's what you cannot do as a city. And if the attorney's in here, I'm going to try not to give legal advice, but I'm just going to say here's what you cannot do. The rules that were in effect, municipal ordinance-wise, on the day of disaster, on the day of landfall, are the rules that you must go by. The city of Cape Coral and a couple of other cities will tell you, don't do what they did. They changed their policy after the fact. You cannot do that. They had to put Pandora back in the box. Every one of you up here is going to want to do what is absolutely best for your constituents, and you should. We all should. But at the end of the day, we have to follow the rules that are set forth on the day of the disaster because the rules that we have in our ordinances were there for the day of the disaster. So, for example, Cape Coral wanted to change it from, I think it was a property appraised value that was on their books and their ordinance to the fair market value plus 20%. You cannot do that. If that was not in your ordinance on the day of disaster, you cannot go and change the rules. It's the rules that were in effect on the day of disaster. So, I would ask you as a city council, please adhere. I think your attorney would probably tell you the same thing. Please adhere to the ordinances that were in place of the day of disaster. I will wrap up this presentation with we, the state of Florida, are here. I am here. I am now a resident of Pinellas County. I've been here for, Grant, about two weeks now, give or take. And I'm probably going to be, I was in Fort Myers Beach for 77 days. I spent all but Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there. I will be here in Pinellas County footprint. As the mayor said, we have 22 counties declared for individual assistance in this disaster. I have 55 counties declared for individual assistance through four disasters in just this fiscal year. And I have 65 out of 67 counties declared for public assistance through four disasters this year. So, we are stretched thin. But I am here in Pinellas County. This is where I'm going to be making my home for the next 30, 45 days or as long as it needs to be. But we are here with you to help manage this process and help get you through it. Again, thank you, Chairman. Thank you for the ability to come and present today. If you ever need me to come back, County Administrator or City Administrator or Mayor, I'm more than happy to do that. Thank you. I do have one Council Member that would like to have a question. Council Member Gabbard. Thank you. And thank you, Director Guthrie, for being here with us today. So, just one follow-up question to your presentation. You mentioned that, you know, people have to be showing that they are actively participating in their own recovery. Can you give us some examples of what that is? Sure. So, let's say, for example, somebody falls in that 50% fold. And they're going to have to rebuild their home or elevate their home, whatever that's going to be. What we want to see them do is not wait on local government to solve their problem, not wait on state government to solve their problem. What are you doing as a homeowner? Are you trying to find a contractor? Are you trying to find the financial means to do that? If you don't have the financial means, have you gone to the Small Business Administration and applied for up to a $500,000 loan where the first 12 months of that loan are deferred? You don't have to start paying that loan back until the 366th day. The interest rate on a SBA loan today is, I believe, 2.37%. Did you know that you could roll your mortgage into that SBA disaster loan and maybe save some points on your mortgage in the future? These are things that we want to see them doing and actively getting the information, making application, doing the things that they need to do from a local level. I gave a representative across a stat this morning. And, again, I think we just need to set expectations. The average payout from FEMA is about $5,000 per household. If they get the maximum grant, there's two different verticals that they can get a maximum grant. That maximum grant is somewhere in the $37,000, $38,000 range. Put those two numbers together, that is your maximum grant. It's about $80,000. People are not going to be able to rebuild their home on $80,000. So what can we do, especially since the average payout from FEMA is $5,000, what are we going to be able to do? I'm going to be able to come back here in the near future and make some announcements on some creative situations and creative grant programs that we're going to be doing for the first time ever in the state of Florida in conjunction with the governor's office and the legislature. I can't get any further ahead of the governor than that. But we are looking forward to turning on a lot of money and a lot of programs that are going to help homeowners elevate and reconstruct their houses in this footprint. So more to come on that. Thank you, Madam Chair. So thank you so much for your presentation. And we know that you are tight on time this morning, but I thought it was important for our constituents and our council members to hear your presentation before you had to leave. So I thank you for that, Mayor. We're going to go ahead and continue with our hugs to Council Member Montaneri, and we'll resume the report after that, if that's okay with you. Thank you, and have a safe trip, Mr. Guthrie. All right, Council Member, you have to go back to the podium so we can finish. Go back over. Push your button. I don't know who it is. All righty. Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've said it many times before, but this council, over the last nine years, benefited from your value system, Council Member Montaneri. You know, when other council members were talking about their stories of first meeting you, I don't think it's a coincidence that most of them are pretty similar. Lunch. You know, I do remember walking in these halls a couple years before running and quickly meeting you, but when I reached out, it was automatic. You said yes. I would echo what Council Member Hanowitz said, which we need more of that. We need more of an open door, an open hand, a big hug. And you have given that to council over the last nine years. You've given it to this city for, we won't put a number on it. And just personally, and I'll have more joking comments at the end, because I know there's public comment, and I don't want them to have to wait. But personally, I just want to thank you for being my friend, for being my colleague, for being a mentor. You know, first year on BF&T was significantly easier for me. And I'd like to think I'm pretty good at math, because you were there. And because of, and I think I told you this as I was sitting from June 10th, it was easy to remember because it's my birthday, the day that I certified to run till that next January. I think I only missed one council meeting and watching, but you have a knack for asking questions that I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to, but you want it said out loud because people need to hear the answer. And that is critically important. It's critically important not to just sit back, not push your button, not ask a question, because you already know the answer, but there's 280,000 people that might not. And so, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, this is from Copley Gerdes, not Councilman Gerdes, for just being an amazing Bergian, and even more so, an amazing human being. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Romano. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm glad that we went back to it while your family is still here, because, I mean, everyone has said everything about the actual service, the time you have given. You were born into service, let's be honest. So, we can go on and on for days about that. But what I wanted to make sure I said was a special thank you to your mother, because I've met your mother a few times over the years. She's a kind woman, but just what a remarkable woman who raised a family who really commits their life to service. So, I just want to thank you, and thank you for being here to support him yet again. We've seen you in these chambers many times over the years, but someone like Ed does not come from someone who is not remarkable. So, thank you for what you have done for our city as well. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Mohammed. Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, would like to just thank you for your service to our city, and I recall my meeting you, this is how I remember it, anyway. We were doing a campaign called the New Deal for St. Pete, a community-led agenda, points of progress that was developed by residents, and we were meeting with every council member to talk about the agenda, talk about the points of progress, and I just remember the early days of organizing that, and they was, you know, how you map the room, and it's like, okay, well, you know you got this one, you know you have this one. We don't know about this guy here. And the guy who we didn't know about was Councilmember Montaneri, and some were saying we shouldn't meet with you at all because you didn't vote with us on anything at that point in my organizing career. But we were different, and we said, no, we're going to meet with everybody and hear them out, and I'm so happy that we did because there were questions that you asked about certain points of progress that we didn't consider, and we thought about it in a way that made us to go back and rework them and make them better. And that's what my experience has been with you. Even if we don't agree, you always have a perspective or an insight that can help us be better, and I've come to appreciate that. So that was my first thing. And then fast forward to being appointed and becoming a council member and serving on this side of the table, an interaction that we had in a committee meeting helped shape the way that I would approach everything going forward. And it was during a report, a number was given, and it was given verbally, and then after that, you gave another number. And I said, well, and then it was my turn to speak, and I'm like, well, I don't know where he got that number from, but here's the number. And then in your rebuttal, you said, well, I got the number because I did the math. And I said, oh, boy. That's how this works. And that was my experience with you teaching me in real time to trust but verify, because what was stated by the presenter was, you know, more favorable than what I wanted to hear. But the actual math that you did showed the reality of what we were voting on, what we were dealing with. And I learned at that moment that people will come with all kinds of presentations, but you have to do the other step. You have to do the double click and really get down to the nuts and bolts. And that was a lesson that I'll always keep with me, and I appreciate you for teaching me that in real time in that moment. And thank you for the things that you've done and the service that you've given to our city. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you. I'm going to be the last to speak. And, Councilmember Montenari, I met you before I ran for office. And the one common thread that was always said about you is your belief. And I think that's what's attached to us, is that our belief, our faith, our honor in doing what was right. And then after I was elected, you know, I would come and see you. But the two things that stood out to me, and I'm going to make this quick, is that I don't care where we were, inside, outside, rainy, shine, your head on a suit. You wore a suit. I'm like, does this man ever dress down? You always wore a suit. A suit is hot. If you'd put on some sandals. First. We'll talk about it later. You always wore a suit. And to me, that stood out with a definite indication of your high standards, your impeccability of wanting to do things in proper and in order. And then the other thing that always stood out to me, other than meetings, were your baby trees. I teased you all the time. You all call it a red manual. If you all have ever seen Council Member Montaneri's binders, not one, he'll have one this high on the dais and about three or four more this high on the floor. And I would always tease him about his baby trees. But that just goes back to the point that Council Member Mohamed made is that he always did the work, paid attention to the detail, wanting to ask those questions that you already knew the answer to, which a lot of us still do that. But you brought a different perspective, which is what I always say about this dais. All eight of us have different perspectives. We have different lived experiences. All of our opinions are valued and valuable. And I just want to let you know, I don't think we're going to find anybody else on Council that wears a suit everywhere they go. And there will never, ever be another Ed Montaneri to introduce things that we never thought about. Stand firm. Because you stood firm. Even if you knew you were going to be the only vote, you stood firm. You knew it, but you were not going to change your conviction. And I appreciate you for that, because that just shows why we are all here. It definitely takes a certain level of leadership. And I think if you can serve another nine years, if you could, you probably would. You probably would. So thank you, Council Member Montaneri. And thank you for allowing us to take that pause, because I was not going to get away from your praise. But I wanted to make sure our constituents got that valuable information from Mr. Guthrie before he had to leave, because we hadn't met in quite a long time. And I knew you wanted to hear that as well. I know you will when it comes down to information. So thank you for allowing us to take that pause. But more importantly, thank you so much for nine years of service and continued service that I know that you will continue to give. Thank you so much. All right, moving right along. We will now have open forum. I didn't see any public comment. Do we have any? There's none on the screen. Members that want to speak, they did not time to speak. Good luck stopping it. Madam Chair, is there a public comment? We're going to let you have public comment. I always thought that. Name an address. How long have you been waiting to do that? He's using my three minutes as well. No, he's not. Go for it. I always thought that a human being who strapped their rear end to a Pratt & Whitney jet engine that put out 29,000 pounds of thrust, reached speeds in excess of Mach 2, and carried 7,000 pounds of fuel on an airframe that had 11 points of rockets, missiles, bombs, whatever you wanted to carry. That human being was either absolutely insane or remarkably courageous. And you made two or three absolutely insane votes while we were working together. But you're 99.9% remarkably courageous, Ed Montaneric. You are. And after that career of strapping your butt to that airframe designed to carry 9 Gs, you became a commercial airline pilot where you were responsible for 250, 300, 350 soles getting from one place to another. And before you sat in that seat, you'd walk around the plane and you'd kick the tires and you'd pull on the flaps and you'd look at the frame and make sure everything was good to go. And that's why I call you the captain. The letter I left you when I turned out, that's what you do with the city of St. Petersburg. 265,000 souls that you know you're responsible for, and every day you kick the tires, you pull on the flaps, you check the frame, you make sure that what can be right is right. And you trust the legal department, you trust Parks and Rec, you trust housing, you trust all those good people that come to work every day and wear the same badge as you. You trust them, but you also verify. And because of your work, you're leaving her far better than you found her. And that's all we can ask. I know that you're remarkably courageous because of your work on Albert Whitted, your work on the pier, your work on the raise, all very, very, very tough things. You did the work, you made a decision, you stuck to your guns. St. Petersburg is a far better city because of your nine years, Ed Montaneri. Charlie Gerdes, personally, is very grateful. And because I've walked your walk, because I've walked in your shoes, I can say this. The entire city of St. Petersburg, every single person, is grateful for your service. And I'm going to make sure they all know about it for a long time. Mostly, God bless you and your family, and I'm proud to be a friend. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. We're going to go ahead and resume with our reports, item F3. Oh, it has the report before open form. So we're going to go ahead and resume with the report, please. Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity. I'll be brief as I introduce Amber. But just to set us in a frame of mind, it was 28 days ago, on October 3rd, that we presented our post-Helene update. Six days later, Hurricane Milton presented us with a challenge like we've never faced collectively before. And I know you join me in thanking our St. Pete team, our residents, our community organizations, and partners for preparing us for another record storm, saving lives, and now our focus on recovery in this new reality. We talked about partnerships, and Director Guthrie talked about our upcoming work. I wanted to announce that on November 13th, did we settle on that date, Doyle, November 13th? On November 13th, we will host Together St. Pete, a hurricane recovery and resource meeting for the entire community with our partners from FEMA, from the Florida Department of Emergency Management, with our local partners, to provide information to our community about permitting, rebuilding, financial assistance options, recovery, supports, and the path forward for our entire community. And working through these partnerships, I'm convinced we will face these challenges and conquer these challenges together. And so now we'll move on into our report out post-Hurricane Milton. And Amber? Good morning. Good morning. As always, a pleasure to be with you this morning. But we have to stop meeting like this. All right. I wanted to start off with a quick thank you, really, for the partnership. When we have any disaster, much less two disasters, you know, within a couple weeks of each other, it really highlights the importance of partnership and collaboration and communication. And having Director Guthrie here this morning with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and speaking of his close partnership with FEMA, it really highlights the importance of that collaboration and that partnership. And I'll say, you know, through these two disasters, more than any time in my career, I've seen that collaboration happen. And that really, that true desire to help each other along. So that's been a wonderful experience. And I don't think that we could respond as a city without that close partnership. So I just wanted to say thank you to Director Guthrie and to FEMA and to our partners at the county level for that great collaboration. Because as I go through some of my slides this morning, a lot of that, you know, the support that we received in St. Petersburg and the response and the recovery that we're able to do is through those partnerships and that close networking with those partners. So with that, I like to do my storm report outs. We'll start kind of pre-storm, during-storm, and post-storm. For this one, it was a little different because while we were preparing for Milton, we were also still actively responding and recovering from Helene. So when we look at our normal city-wide storm preparedness protocols, it was that plus some. And it looked a little different. So it caused us to have to switch gears a little and think outside the box and enact some of those just-in-time preparedness pieces. That's also a just-in-time recovery piece. So two of those things I just wanted to highlight quickly was the Hometown Haulers program and the new debris management site. And I'm not going to go into too many details just because our administrators, my colleagues, will be coming up after my presentation to go through some of these more specifically. But the Hometown Haulers program is where the city worked with local haulers, really a grassroots effort to help clear storm debris in our hardest-hit neighborhoods. So as you know from Helene, we had a lot of that, the debris on the roads, the piles, right, the flood piles. And we were expecting more storm surge to come through with Milton with a high wind. And so, you know, in the best of times, it takes a long time to clean up debris. And in this situation, we had a few days to get as much as possible. So administration really, you know, buckled down and thought through the process and implemented this Hometown Recovery Haulers program, which, you know, helped fill that gap. And it also, you know, pumped some support into, you know, our local economy. And it really helped us fill that vital need when time was really at the essence. And with that, also in the debris conversation was we needed that place to take the extra debris. For folks who wanted, who could clear out their own debris, where could they take it? So within 24 hours of identifying a potential site, it was permitted up running staff to receive that debris. So those were all, you know, kind of that blurred line between Helene Recovery and Milton Preparedness. Also ahead of the storm, Pinellas County issued mandatory evacuations for level A and B zones. Whenever there's a mandatory evacuation, that also sparks our special needs evacuation program with the fire department. So we put up some stats there. 877 phone calls were made to registered participants of this program. Of those 877, we went out and we picked up 157 of them and transported them to the local shelter. And with those 157, also 47 of their pets. And county-wide, there were 13 emergency shelters that were opened. We talked about partnerships early with the county and the state. You'll hear me say WebEOC, or I'm sure you've heard WebEOC a lot. And that's that mechanism through which we request and receive support. So as I talk about mutual aid teams later or, you know, the generators or the Tiger Dams that I'll talk about here in a second, those are all things that's requested through that WebEOC platform that then goes to logistics at the county and the state level to fulfill those. And we put in dozens, if not hundreds, of these WebEOC requests for support. And it's magic how quick it's coordinated and we get those resources back down to us. And then the Tiger Dams were installed at Northeast and the Southwest Water Reclamation Facility, as well as the Station 85. And again, that's just that protective barrier that kind of builds an extra wall around that critical infrastructure. So when we get that water rise that we were expecting, it helps hold off the bulk of that surge from that critical infrastructure. Our EOC activation timeline, this one also looks a little different because we have overlapping periods. So on September 24th, we went into a partial emergency operations center activation for Hurricane Helene, which transitioned to a full EOC activation on September 26th. And then we were back into a partial activation during recovery for Helene, which then turned into a partial activation for Hurricane Milton, which turned into a full activation for Hurricane Milton October 9th. And then on October 14th through today, we're back into a partial EOC activation, managing recovery for both of these storms. We had a lot of storm impacts, and I'm going to focus more on the direct weather type impacts, and then we'll get more into details about some of the other impacts citywide. But, you know, this really was two record-breaking storms, right? We had record-breaking surge with Helene, and now we have record-breaking rain and wind with Milton. So it really was the one-two punch that together provided a worst-case scenario for St. Petersburg. So Hurricane Milton passed about—the center of the eye passed about 30 miles south of the tip of St. Petersburg. That northern eye wall was very close to St. Pete. I mean, I just want to talk about that for a second. We've said before that where the eye of that storm goes really matters. You know, initially we were expected 10 to 15 feet of potential storm surge, and then it went, I believe, from 8 to 12 feet projected, and that really is based on where that eye goes. So if the eye of that storm goes over St. Petersburg or north, that's when we get that onshore wind, which pushes the storm surge in. We were fortunate enough that it went south of us, so we got that negative storm surge. Unfortunately for us, the north side of that storm was where the heaviest rain was. So you'll see that we had the highest rainfall observed in St. Petersburg was just over 20 inches of rain. According to the National Weather Service, Albert Whitted Airport recorded 18.88 inches, which is about three times the previous one-day total of 6.93 inches in 2001. That blows my mind. And if you remember, we just had record-breaking rainfall, I feel like, just a couple months ago with Debbie. So we're a year of breaking records, unfortunately, not the good kind. But these are significant. And in addition to the rain, we had the highest winds we've seen in a long time. So we sustained just above 65 miles per hour winds, which, note, that's still only tropical storm force winds sustained. That's not even reaching hurricane force yet. But the gusts in this storm were phenomenal. I mean, they were catastrophic to people. So we saw gusts as high as 101 miles per hour over at Albert Whitted. Because of the high winds, widespread damage. Whereas more of a water event, storm surge event, is very localized to where that storm surge goes, when we have these high wind events, it affects everyone. So we had widespread power outages. At one point, we had about 400,000 homes countywide. Widespread traffic light outages, which is just over 200 in the city. Significant damage to public infrastructure. If we include the potential damages or the damages at Tropicana Field, it's just over $75 million. Without those, it's about $27 million. So vast damages to our public infrastructure. And then significant damage to our private property. So this is the results of our residential damage assessment. The teams went out. So when it says total properties assessed, these are the ones that were assessed with damage. So we looked at well more than the 4,904. But we found that this number of properties had some sort of damage on them. Of that 4,904, 65 were considered destroyed. 769 were major. 2,411 minor. And 1,659 affected. And this is just Hurricane Milton's. Does not include Hurricane Helene numbers. All right. For our initial response, really public safety is initial priority in any response. This is pretty impressive numbers here for mutual aid. So, again, when we talk about those partnerships between the county and the state and the federal government, this is what comes out of those partnerships is support and help when we need it the most. So with mutual aid, we had seven urban search and rescue or USAR teams. That brought in about 438 personnel to help us assess our city and make sure that the public was safe. So they assessed over 43,000 structures. Water resources team came in to assist with facility repairs. We had the Florida National Guard helping us with our cut and toss. So that's making sure our streets are clear so residents and first response vehicles can get through. Florida Department of Transportation assisted with our traffic signals and the road assessments and repairs. And that's still ongoing. Damage assessment teams went out. Street teams went out as they normally do post-storm. Again, this is more of a unique situation. So there were more challenges. And, you know, on top of the folks that, you know, were a victim of Milton, you know, we were still also assessing those that were victims of Helene as well. Portable generators delivered to sewer lift stations lacking power to make sure we got the public work system back up and running. And police and traffic ops worked together to assess and secure those 211 impacts, our impacted signalized intersections. Recovery operations. We're going to talk a lot about what recovery looks like and what the city has done. So I'm not going to get too into the weeds on this. I just wanted to highlight all the things that have been ongoing since Helene started. It's been nonstop work to help our residents and help fill their need. You know, when we talk about response and recovery, those aren't too finite, you know, start and end times. You know, initial response is automatically running into initial recovery. What does that look like to helping residents get back on their feet, which is going to run into more of that mid- to long-term recovery, you know, when we talk about debris and disaster recovery centers and things like that. So initial response will run into immediate recovery. Those overlap. And immediate recovery will overlap with long-term recovery. So right now we're somewhere kind of in the middle of all of those. It's very fluid. So as the administrators come up next, they're going to talk through those things, whether it's, you know, the response period leading into recovery or as we look more towards the long-term recovery as Director Guthrie was speaking about. So with that, I will turn it over to Administrator Tankersley. Thank you, Amber. Again, this is Claude Tankersley, Public Works Administrator. I want to talk about the initial response for Public Works, and we'll start with wastewater. So Hurricane Milton was predicted to be the triple threat of wind, rain, and storm surge. It was predicted to make landfall in the Tampa Bay region. City administration and staff began preparing for the hurricane on Saturday, October 5th, when it was still only Tropical Depression 14. The city's utilities immediately began acquiring additional backup generators for the plants and lift stations. Due to the threat of the storm surge, we installed tiger dams around critical components of the Northeast sewer plant, the Southwest sewer plant, and lift station 85. Staff spent five days installing storm shutters on windows, checking the functions of pumps, controls, valves, blowers, and other equipment. They elevated anything that was not bolted down to protect it against the storm surge inundation. As the storm approached during the week, we monitored the National Weather Service advisories for changes to the storm's track, size, and strength. The predictions of storm surge kept getting worse. On October 6th, the surge was predicted to be 9 to 11 feet. The next day, 8 to 12 feet. The next day, 10 to 15 feet. Only hours before landfall, the National Weather Service was still predicting an 8 to 12-foot surge for Tampa Bay, enough to put the Northeast and Southwest sewer plants under many feet of water. Both the Northeast and Southwest sewer plants are in evacuation zone A. Days after mandatory evacuation was ordered for zone A, our staff continued to work on site to prepare the plants to minimize the damage if the expected storm surge and high winds materialized. As Hurricane Milton actually approached landfall, it was still a Cat 3 storm, and the winds began to rise to tropical storm force speeds. The window to safely evacuate the staff from the two plants was quickly approaching. At approximately 6 p.m. on October 9th, the staff de-energized the plants and evacuated to safety under escort of the St. Pete Fire and Rescue. By de-energizing the plants when threatened with storm surge, the chances for permanent damage to electrical equipment and motors from contact with saltwater surge is greatly reduced. Recovery time after the storm is also greatly reduced, increasing the chances of getting the plants back online quickly. After evacuating, plant staff caught a few hours of sleep as they waited until Milton's winds dropped low enough to safely return to the plants. They began mobilizing to roll out at 3 a.m., traveling through dark streets littered with downed trees and power lines. They arrived at the plants around 4 a.m., approximately 10 hours after they evacuated, to begin the process of assessing damage and restarting the plants. St. Pete was lucky that the predicted storm surge did not materialize, although the winds and the rains did, which caused problems of their own. Returning staff found the two plants to be relatively unharmed. An inspection of the plants showed no evidence of sewer overflows at the facilities. By 8 a.m. October 10th, 14 hours after staff evacuated, the southwest plant was back online, running on backup generators. By 2 p.m. that day, 19 hours after staff evacuated, the northeast plant was back online, also running on backup generators. The northwest sewer plant remained online and running throughout the storm as it is at an elevation of 24 feet and in evacuation zone E. While there were no sewer spills at the plants, the collection system was inundated with 18 to 20 inches of water, which is the equivalent to the rainfall totals of two months. The months of July and August are highest months of rain. We got July and August worth of rain in about six hours, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. the next day. The goal for our collection system is to be able to handle seven inches of rain without surcharging our manholes, resulting in sanitary sewer overflows. However, Milton's 18 to 20 inches of rain resulted in flash floods, standing water, and super-saturated soils that caused inflow and infiltration to surcharge our system for several days, most likely through shallow private laterals and open clean-outs. This resulted in approximately 5.9 million gallons of sanitary sewer overflows from 56 manholes throughout the system due to Hurricane Milton. On the water side, since 1986, St. Petersburg has been awarded the Tree City USA Award, celebrating 36 consecutive years of work and commitment for environmental protection. However, trees, tree roots, and hurricane winds can cause havoc on buried utilities. Hurricane Milton's 100-mile-per-hour winds uprooted thousands of trees across the city on both public and private property. As these trees toppled over, many of them ripped through water mains and service lines. Over 50 water mains were broken, and staff responded to over 500 service calls for leaking water service lines. These are those 3-quarter-inch to 1-inch diameter pipes that connect meters to customers. The combined impact of these breaks is functionally equivalent to a catastrophic rupture of a 3-foot-diameter transmission line. Think of a geyser shooting 13,000 gallons of water per minute, dozens of feet, into the air. That nightmare scenario of a catastrophic geyser of water is what our utilities staff initially thought had happened. Monitoring the flows and pressures in the distribution system as the winds ramped up to hurricane strength, staff noticed a sudden spike in the flows. The suddenness of this spike suggested a single catastrophic break. The water plant and high-service pump stations began pumping more water into the distribution system, trying to maintain pressures while keeping up with the water losses. Staff knew that it would be at least 6 to 8 hours before the winds died down enough to begin looking for the suspected large-diameter pipe break. It soon became apparent that the 800,000 gallons per hour of loss of water would soon deplete the emergency reserves of water stored in the system's ground storage tanks. Tampa Bay water was struggling on their own with power and generator issues due to the storm. So therefore, staff calculated that we would run out of water within 4 to 5 hours. The city faced a water system crisis that no one can remember ever happening before. Given the real risk of running out of water, staff recommended and I approved shutting down the system at midnight with the hope that we would be able to quickly recover once the leak was found and isolated. The city immediately began messaging our customers through alert Pinellas texts, reverse 911, notifications to water bill subscribers, city website, city social media, and news and media stories. In addition, city staff immediately started calling hospitals and other critical customers to give them a warning. As soon as we felt it was safe, staff ventured out into the dark streets looking for the large geyser that we feared was the culprit. Dodging trees and downed power lines in the dark, we drove to the locations of known large-diameter pipes. Not finding the large catastrophic pipe break that we feared and noticing the large number of trees that were toppled, we soon realized that instead of one large leak, we were likely dealing with smaller leaks scattered throughout the city. Knowing that there are over 900 miles of streets within St. Petersburg, we knew that we needed more eyes on the ground looking for water bubbling up in those streets. So our St. Pete Police Department joined the search, sending out over 100 officers in the dark to assist us in our search. Between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. we had found enough leaks that our water losses started dropping. We slowly began repressurizing the system, which helped us find even more leaks that we could isolate. By noon on October 10th, 12 hours after shutting the system down, we were able to fully pressurize the system. Customers began calling us to tell us that their showers were now working. Because the system had sustained so many water main breaks and had lost pressure, there was the potential for biological contamination of water in the system. We immediately instituted a precautionary boil water notice until we could test the water quality throughout the system. We aggressively flushed the system on Thursday afternoon and all day Friday to improve the chances that any potential biological contamination was flushed out. Beginning on Saturday, we took water quality samples at over 180 locations throughout the distribution system. It takes approximately 16 to 18 hours for the results of those water quality samples to become available. A few locations did require resampling on Sunday, but by Monday morning we confirmed that all samples came back clear. We were able to lift the boil water notice on Monday morning four days after Hurricane Helene. For context, this was the first time that anyone could remember requiring a system-wide boil water notice for the city of St. Petersburg, but we were not alone. According to the Florida Department of Health website, approximately 238 boil water notices were issued across 26 Florida counties after Milton. Most of those taking anywhere from 4 to 12 days to rescind. My report was basically on the initial recovery. I'm now going to turn it over to our other administrators, starting with James Corbett, our city development administrator, who will now begin the discussion on long-term recovery from Hurricane Milton. Thank you very much. Good morning. James Corbett, city development administrator. What I'd first like to go over is just some of the facilities within CDA. So generally speaking, most of our enterprise facilities made it through Hurricane Milton with relatively minor damage. There were two facilities that had the most damage, and that was Albert Whitted Airport and Tropicana Field. I did previously provide a memo to council with some more detail on other facilities, but I'll touch on Albert Whitted and Tropicana Field this morning. So Albert Whitted Airport suffered significant building damage, including the loss of the T-hangers of Buildings 5, 6, and 9. That resulted in the loss of 32 aircraft storage units. Approximately 10 aircraft sustained direct damage of varying degrees. However, many of the airplanes left the airport before landfall. Other airport buildings sustained less significant damage, including roof damage and water intrusion. The tower did not suffer any damage, and the airport did reopen general aviation operations about two and a half days after landfall. Additionally, the storm surge from Helene damaged the airfield lighting systems, the vehicle gate operations, and the shoreline erosion caused interior flooding on the tenant spaces. The next item that I want to talk about is Tropicana Field, and it was discussed earlier today. There will also be an item on the agenda to discuss some of the mitigation efforts. But Hurricane Milton forced winds blew much of the fabric off of Tropicana Field that allowed water to enter into the facility. I would like to make it clear, and I'm pleased to say that there was no one occupying the stadium at the time other than a few security. So those cots that were there, they were set up for recovery workers, but they were not occupied at the time of landfall. Risk management alerted our insurance provider immediately following the storm and did an additional walkthrough with city development and raised staff the Saturday following the hurricane. There was significant water intrusion in the field, the seating bowl, as well as the office areas that overlooked the field. The city hired Global Rope Access to remove the damaged roof material, and we've been soliciting proposals for remediation work. Blaze Mazzola worked with our insurance adjuster, walked with our insurance adjuster throughout the site, and the adjusting firm brought in EFI Global to perform moisture mapping throughout the stadium. At the same time, our engineering department brought in Hennessy Construction to do a facility assessment that would include structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. This assessment is still underway, and we expect to have the report by the end of the week. That report will include estimates to replace the roof, repair and place damaged systems as needed, and the report that you would be hearing today is really related to remediation and mitigation work as it relates to preventing additional water intrusion into the stadium. I'll go over the tower cranes briefly. I know that we have a new business item that's going to be presented by a council member. I just want to give you a brief update on the tower cranes because I know that this was something that was highly covered. During the 2011 session, the Florida legislature passed a bill relating to the regulation of hoisting equipment using construction demolition that included tower cranes. The bill specifically stated that this section preempts any local act, law, ordinance, or regulation, including but not limited to a local building code or building permit requirement of a county, municipality, or political subdivision, which pertains to the regulation of hoisting equipment and persons operating the equipment in the state. So working within those limitations, the building department does provide a weather preparedness checklist to all construction contractors and post those checklists at all active construction sites. This happened prior to Hurricane Milton and also happened prior to Hurricane Helene. When the city was informed that one of the cranes was several, but one particular we were concerned about, one site could not be dismantled before landfall. The administration took proactive steps to issue a public safety advisory to all potentially impacted buildings. And I just want to stop and say that I'm very proud of my team for going the extra measure to take the time. We mapped out the area and we went door to door posting the notifications and notify anyone that we could meet with personally about the risk. To my knowledge, I think we were the only city that did this. Obviously, it turned out to be the right move based on what happened. After the crane fell, the work has been coordinated with the building owner and a developer. While we have no authority beyond this, it's typically a permitting role. The crane has been removed from the Times Building and the crane that's in the street is being removed at this point. And then there will be repair to the road. So next, I'd like to talk about just our plan going forward as we move into recovery. So our staff is adhering to the FEMA and state guidelines to address flood and structural wind damage for both Hurricanes Helene and Milton. There are properties, as Amber mentioned earlier, that are earlier that have been considered destroyed. And under FEMA guidelines, those properties will be marked unsafe. And the staff will notify the property owners. For properties that can be repaired, the city has waived permit fees for the next six months. And we've sent out, we will, we stood up a website yesterday. It's stpete.org slash rule 49. Additionally, there will be a notice going out on Monday. But some of the information that we will be communicating is that property owners must obtain permit in flood hazard areas. And these permits factor into our rating with the National Flood Insurance Program and influence the rates that our residents pay for flood insurance. We are working to inform all residents and businesses that are impacted by FEMA's 49% rule, where the repairs that exceed the 49% of the pre-damaged market value would trigger FEMA compliance measures. Additionally, we are seeking additional inspectors from the state to conduct the substantial damage determinations. That should be happening in the near future, as well as the notifications. In addition to the website, there will be a letter going out on Monday to notify all residents and business owners in the special flood hazard area. There will be a virtual meeting that we will be holding next week. And as Mayor Welch mentioned, there will be an in-person meeting held on November 13th. Part of the things that we want to make clear is the importance of complying with the 49% rule. The options if a property is deemed to be substantially damaged are basically three. One, elevate the structure to meet the floodplain standards, relocate the structure outside the floodplain, or demolish the structure. Some of the things that we've heard and what we already know, my team is very prepared and in addition to working with codes, it's going to be really important that we make sure that all properties that sustain damage in the special flood has an area obtained permit. So we'll be working with codes compliance to ensure that there aren't any unauthorized or unpermitted work. And then as I mentioned before, there are pretty significant consequences to noncompliance, which would include the impact on our CRS rating and potentially losing future FEMA aid and future events. The website there is listed that I mentioned that went live yesterday. And then the last thing that I want to talk about is something that I'm also proud of. This was something that happened in a very short amount of time. There was a conversation that happened on an EOC call about what we could do. And within 24 hours, Brian Caper and his team stood up this program. This was launched on October 7th. And this basically was an effort to do whatever we could to pick up some of the debris that was on the roads from Hurricane Helene in anticipation of Hurricane Milton. So the program was pretty simple. We were paying local businesses and those who had trucks or other means to haul items, $300 per load, to pick up debris from areas that we designated and take them to the debris management site that was also stood up in a very short amount of time. We did this not knowing if this would be FEMA reimbursable, but we thought it was the right thing to do. So there will be a report later today to talk a little bit more about that. But this was one of the programs that we stood up in anticipation of this unique situation of having one storm and then another storm coming in. We signed up 100 haulers. That was our goal. And to date, we verified nearly 5,000 hauls that were done through this program. So with that, I'll turn it over to Amy Foster to give another report. Good morning, Council. I'm here to share a little bit more about what we've done to care for our citizens during this time. And I was reluctant to put together this slide because inevitably we're going to leave off somebody. I have to tell you one of the most heartwarming things about the challenges we've faced is all of the folks who have stood ready to help our citizens. But this is just a little word cloud of some of those folks who've been very involved. And we'll talk a little bit more about some of these, particularly as it relates to our community feedings. But, you know, there's lots of folks who have done things that are not named here as well. Wanted to mention Story 727 who gave out food almost every single night. Our neighborhood associations are key when it comes to our residents. Historic Kenwood Neighborhood Association, among many things, became a strike team for the city. So whenever something was needed, they would show up with SUVs and trucks. They would pick up and deliver supplies door-to-door for elderly residents. They would bring food to residents as needed. They stayed on call and immediately mobilized any time we had a need. Riviera Bay Neighborhood Association set up a command center at the vice president's house. They kept an evolving list of elderly folks in need. They would receive volunteers, provide supplies, and send volunteers on to the next house with specific to-do lists. This was incredibly meaningful because having that infrastructure set up to receive volunteers is so important. Harbordale and Bartlett Park had chat groups, shared resources and information they would find. They'd also go door-to-door at times to check on their residents. The Foundation for Healthy St. Pete was proactive in getting resources to churches and others. Shore Acres Neighborhood Association kept a list of residents who needed help. They've set up a relief grill and other things. They certainly have been through this before, so they're a little more sophisticated in their operations. We had many churches get involved, Pasadena Community Church, City on a Hill Church, Bethel Community Baptist, The Gathering Church, Mount Zion Human Services, Greater Mount Zion. USF had comfort stations. They also hosted the Trunker Treat yesterday, so those that have been impacted had a safe place for their children to celebrate Halloween. Here's a little more information about our community feedings. As you know, in blue skies, we have food insecurity issues in our city, and so on gray sky days, that becomes even harder. Some of these numbers just blow me away. World Central Kitchen provided more than 73,000 meals, and some of this continues to be ongoing. The city organized and paid food trucks. Those trucks produced more than 9,000 meals for our residents. We had eight emergency food distributions through Feeding, Tampa Bay, and Salvation Army has been steady. They've been at their location in District 8, but they've also been at Enoch Davis providing both lunch and dinner. And I kept thinking every day as I'd get a report about how many people who were coming in to the multi-agency resource center, I kept thinking those feeding numbers would go down, right, as people went back to work, as people went back to school. But those numbers at Enoch Davis have remained stable every single day since Helene. And so we thank our partners for being there for our residents. So something that was a little bit new to me and my team this time around was in the past, we've never really needed to do those WebEOC mission requests. And, boy, did I learn a lot about how quickly those resources flow, but also how challenging it is to receive the resources when you get a call at 10 o'clock on a Friday night and they say, where do you want it? We've got dehumidifiers, we've got fans, we've got battery packs. Our consolidated warehouse and partners like the St. Pete Free Clinic were so generous to us providing space on a moment's notice for those items to come in. And then I know some of you even saw our Tom Green driving a box truck to help get those pallets of resources out to all of our comfort stations. So every department was involved in this, codes, the in-team, parks and recreation. We also did street teams, as we talked about earlier, more than 20,000 doors were knocked with flyers and information, hugs when residents needed them. Follow-up. So at the door, if we knew that a resident needed help with housing or maybe they had medication and they needed ice and we needed to come back and bring ice, they would enter that into a form. There was a triage team back at the Municipal Service Center who then took that information and followed up with our residents, whether it was bringing the bag of ice, bringing food. We heard about one family who had taken in 15 people who needed fans to provide comfort. And so, you know, that would come in on a jot form. Somebody would go purchase a fan, drop that fan off at the person's home. Comfort stations were not new. That's something we've done in a variety of storms, but we had more than 8,000 touch points, whether that was through food, our supply distribution, or people coming in that needed to charge their phone. And then the multi-agency resource center at ENOC, there's been more than 1,200 people that, and these are old numbers, these are last week's numbers, that have come through, whether they needed to see the area agency on aging or they needed to see the Department of Commerce, they were receiving something from Salvation Army, they went to the DMV, or they were there to see FEMA. More than 1,200 touch points have happened there. When we saw that there weren't as many FEMA representatives as maybe our residents might need, especially in an area that we were meeting more and more folks who would say, I haven't had electricity since Helene, my home is destroyed, we stood up staff to put computers in ENOC Davis and help folks apply for FEMA so that they didn't need to go all the way to the disaster recovery center at Largo. And then when we recognized that there may be a need to talk to somebody face-to-face, Evan and the Department of Transportation helped us get a shuttle with PSTA to provide a shuttle service to get people up to Largo. Some of the things that the housing subcenter has been busy with, and this is, I think, the first time in the city's history that the housing subcenter has had to be stood up. More than 32 people were provided temporary shelter assistance. This was before TSA was turned on by FEMA. So, you know, we believe very strongly that we stand in the gap whenever a resource isn't available, and then when that resource becomes available, we stand down. And so while we were waiting for TSA and non-congregate sheltering to be turned on, we were finding hotels. People were calling hotels every single day to ensure that our residents weren't homeless. We had more than 126 requests come in from the street teams on that form, so those folks were all called. Case-managed triage figured out how we could help them. We've had more than 23 referrals to the end team and codes for tree removal tarps and cleanup requests. You know, going inside the home, crossing the threshold is not normally something that the end team does, but we did that in this scenario. to help our elderly residents who needed it a little bit more. We've had at least 12 of those residents who are possibly eligible for the new gap assistance program that you recently approved with dollars that we repurposed. We've been working with the Bay Area Apartment Association on putting together an apartment fair for our tenants. There is also a link that has all of the vacancies that they have available and the specials that are being run, so we are helping residents know about those apartments that have vacancies. If you've looked at that list, there are not many, and so as Director Guthrie spoke earlier, the housing situation here is going to be a unique challenge for us. We've already started planning what our disaster housing recovery program will look like. We have spoken to Fort Myers and Lee County and folks who've been through this before to find out what worked for them, what the challenges were, what that should look like. I think we have future conversations that need to happen with this City Council. We have programs that we run in housing every single day, and we can pivot to all of the things you see here. They're allowable by ship. We applied for waivers to be able to do that, but if we want to pivot to this, that's not with new dollars, so that means we stop all of our down payment assistance and all of the rehabilitation programs that we're currently running, so those are tough decisions that we want you to help weigh in on and decide what the future direction of this should look like. There will be disaster recovery funds that will come into the community, but that will be months from now, and so right now, we continue to run the programs that we've run in the past while people learn what their insurance programs can do for them and what FEMA can do for them, but we will be ready to turn on these programs in short order. So that you're aware, every other municipality in the county has stopped running their regular housing programs. While they are thinking about what they're going to do in this area, we are trying to work through the applications for down payment assistance and other things that were in process when Helene came while we do this as well. So we're, you know, it's challenging. There's only so many people and so many resources, but we're trying to do a little bit of both. We also stood up between Helene and Milton, the We Are St. Pete Fund. I'm happy to report that there's more than $800,000 in that fund right now. I know many of you, as well as others, we get requests from media on a regular basis. You know, when will this fund be available? And so I want to level set about that just a little bit, that we have been steadfast in our conversations with the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, with our local foundations, Pinellas Community Foundation, Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, with communities who've gone through this before. And every single person we've talked to has given us the advice that we need to be focused on mid- to long-term recovery, that most communities deploy 90% of their money immediately, and then there's nothing there when people get the no from their insurance, when they get the no from FEMA, and they have nowhere else to go. And so we are working through ideas. We believe that we will do some rapid resolution funding with a small pot that prevents homelessness. Unfortunately, post-Milton, we've had to post hundreds and hundreds of apartment units as unfit, unsafe. And so when we're at the door of an apartment unit and somebody says, well, I have somewhere I can go, but I need help renting a truck, if that's something we can do quickly, we'd like to be able to help with that. But if we opened an application for everybody today, even with $100,000, at $2,500 a person, we'd help less than 40 people, and the need is much larger than that. And so all of the advice we're getting, again, is to think about it as a funnel. Insurance first, FEMA second, and then other community funds coming in after that. So we're having conversations. I think we'll have some kind of rapid resolution that we'll do, and then we'll have some longer-term conversations as well. Maybe some of the housing programs that we turn on that SHIP allows us to fund under 80% AMI. We can use the We Are St. Pete Fund to fund homeowners between 80% and some other AMI. We believe you should be a part of that conversation and help provide that direction to us for your residents based on what you're hearing and seeing in the street. But we're also continuing to raise funds for this fund every single day. So we hope that we will break a million dollars minimally with this fund. So we'll have those conversations in the future, but help will be on the way. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Jeffress, who's going to talk to you about the Community Enrichment Administration. Good morning. Thank you, Amy. I appreciate that. It's great to be standing before each of you again. It's refreshing. Another sign of normalcy happening. Council Member Montaneri, I would be remiss if I didn't thank you for your service. It has sincerely been a pleasure. Your legacy will be extremely strong and look forward to working with you into the future. All right. So we, most of you know that in Community Enrichment, we are responsible for a lot of different things. Pre-storm, we prepare all of our facilities. We make sure that we have secured our facilities so that we can minimize damage as much as possible. During the storm, we pre-position at all of the fire stations and at all of the hospitals. We are responsible with our heavy equipment to provide first push. So as soon as we're able to get out into the street, we're able to clear the streets to make sure that the first responders can make their service runs and service their calls as needed. 7 o'clock a.m. immediately after the storm, we had staff that were out pushing the roads. I did have a picture. We couldn't find it, but I had a picture of a front-end loader with Parks and Rec staff running in front of a fire truck. And I thought, that's exactly the way that this is supposed to work. So we continue for the first 72 hours to work on what we call first push. Basically, we are just cutting and pushing the debris to the side, making sure that we work on our primary roads first and that we then transition to our secondary roads. And then we transition into the neighborhoods and then we transition into the alleys. That's the process. We were watching the forecast like everyone else was. And I'll use Amber's Web EOC term again. We realized that this was going to be a significant wind event for St. Petersburg. Before the storm even hit us, we put in a request through Web EOC to have cut and toss teams come in and to be pre-positioned to help the Parks and Rec staff. We also tagged our colleagues in sanitation and in stormwater to be poised to help us with the cut and toss as well. I'm happy to report that all three of those teams worked extremely well together and really got our streets flowing and got the traffic back up and running as quickly as we could. We also, we got several responses from our Web EOC request. We had the Florida National Guard who was here ready to go. We also had a National Guard from Louisiana that showed up. And as Council Member Foster, that's a blast from the past. As Administrator Foster said, when you put in the request, you never know when they're going to show up. They showed up at our offices at 8 p.m. one night saying, we're here. We're ready to go. Where do you want us to head out? So the response was fantastic. At the same time, we also had staff that was going out and was doing assessment of all of our facilities. As we reported for Helene, we did have some significant damage through that storm. So we wanted to get eyes on our property, our amenities, to kind of give an idea of where we were at. I do want to take an opportunity to thank all of the Parks and Rec staff. Again, they came to work. They checked their properties. They made sure that we were able to open comfort stations. They made sure that we were able to respond. They made sure that we knew which facilities. I was getting hourly updates as to which facilities had power, which facilities, you know, had water, sewer issues. And it was significant. And we wanted to make sure that we were able to provide Administrator Foster with the right information as to where she could stand up our comfort stations. Here on the slide before you, we have just kind of a brief listing of what we experienced as a department. Our athletic facilities, we got hit with some minor damage over a large number of our facilities, our baseball, our softball fields. We lost many dugouts. We lost many shade structures that were over our playgrounds. You'll see that spread out throughout the entire city. Happy to report that all of those facilities are playable and they're open for use. So they may not look exactly the same as they did pre-storms, but they are available and they are ready to be utilized by the public. From a child care standpoint, again, I think one of the things that Mayor and Administrator Gerdes really pushed was to make sure that we were providing child care as soon as it was safe and as soon as we could create that additional level of normalcy that we were all seeking and that the community was seeking. So at most of our rec centers, at all the rec centers that had power and had water, we were able to open up the Monday and Tuesday when the schools were still closed. So we provided that child care for anybody that was already in our system. If the facility that you were originally registered at was not available, so for instance, Shore Acres was one of the last facilities to get power and one of the last facilities to get water, we were able to absorb those children, those participants, elementary and middle, into some of our other rec centers. So again, even if your facility wasn't open, we still looked for a creative way to serve that need. Do have to report that Lake Vista is one of the facilities that received significant flooding. We had ServPro out the following day doing a complete mitigation. We did have raw sewage in the building and we did have flooding that flowed in from the lake that is behind the building. Our goal and what I hope is a reasonable goal, we've been working with engineering and the rest of Claude's staff, our goal is to open that facility for summer play camp. But as you can imagine, I've been out there multiple times. the basketball court is completely gone, looked more like a skate park when the water hit that hardwood and we also had to cut the drywall in almost the entire building to make sure that we were returning it to proper usable condition. Again, happy to note the teams on the recreation side of the house got very creative and even if you are a participant at Lake Vista, we still found spots for you at other locations and what we did is we made sure that we took those children and we transported them with children that are going to the same schools and we sent them to three other rec centers, Child's Park, Frank Pierce, and Thomas Jet Jackson. So again, we were able to serve that need, which I'm very proud of the staff for being able to come up with that. Next, I'd like to report a little bit about parks. So most of our parks, Administrator Tankersley shared that we have thousands of trees down. I've got a thousand trees down in parks alone and we haven't tackled those yet. We've been working on the public areas first and we had four parks that were hit the hardest. All of our parks are currently open, but the parks that were hit the hardest were Maximo, Boyd Hill, Lake McGorry Picnic Park, and Del Homes. In Boyd Hill alone, we estimate that we have 600 trees down in the preserve. We've been able to open most of the trails. As a matter of fact, we're having a Halloween event there this afternoon, all in an effort to return back to normal life as quickly as we can. A couple of other facilities that I've, oh, let me get back to playgrounds. We do have 11 playgrounds that are closed. Most of the playgrounds that are closed, it's due to the subsurface, it's due to the padding and the turf. If that gets flooded, it seems to, it lifted and it really destroyed some of the surfacing and we'll have to go in and tighten that up. So again, I know that many of you were very interested in seeing those playgrounds returned to service as quickly as possible and we were working with our vendors to get timelines on that. We did have two that were minor damages. That would be Live Oak and Westminster. I won't spend the time going over all the playgrounds that are closed. It's on our website. Happy to chat with any of you offline should you like that information. When it comes to other facilities or other leased facilities that receive damage that I want to share with the group and again, we're working with risk management, we're working with Claude's teams to figure out how to best move forward. But in brief, the shuffleboard club had damage to the grandstand out there. So that's something that we'll be talking more about. The garden club was flooded during Helene and received significant water damage during or wind damage during Milton. The USF Clam Bayou, the boathouse, extreme damage to the boathouse and to the dock out there at the Clam Bayou property. The Pasadena Card Club unfortunately had a tree fall right into the middle of it, a huge hole into that property and a significant water damage and flood damage in that facility as well. The tennis center had numerous lights that fell down so working on some solutions there. I mentioned Lake Vista already and then the three boat ramps that we had damaged during Helene, they received more damage during Milton. We've got Maximo. Maximo is partially open but we do have a couple of the gangways that are lifted and so we've closed those ramps off. We are working with the state for marine debris and we've given them an area that we've kind of fenced off so that we're working to get derelict boats and whatnot off of, out of parkland and out of our waterways so trying to be a good partner there. And then Jungle Prada, same thing with some of the gangways, that is partially opened and then Bay Vista. Bay Vista is the only boat ramp we have that is completely closed. Bay Vista actually, the framework for the ramp itself shifted so we're seeing maximum damage out of that property. And then the facility that's last but not least is the Treasure Island Beach Concession. So that building is almost a total loss. So we're working with engineering, we've spent some time out there. We have that area completely closed off. That playground is completely eroded and will need to be fully replaced. The building is, you know, took on a lot of water damage, a lot of sand, and a lot of wind damage. So stay tuned on kind of what that looks like moving forward. Let's see. All right. So before I get into debris, I want to chat a little bit about trees. So again, we talked about first push, we talked about cut and toss, we talked about everybody kind of all hands on deck to do that. I want to give you some statistics that really are kind of staggering, really. Trees in right-of-ways, roads and sidewalks, we've had over 2,000 reported to us. We have solved 900 of those. So we're still working through those. We're getting support from Crowder as well, Crowder Golf, our debris team. Trees and alleys, and I know Administrator Foster's team in sanitation has really been tackling these primarily to be able to service their customers, their residential customers. We have a total of 517 were reported for trees and alleys. And then as far as phone calls that my office has received for trees and debris, we've received over 600 phone calls looking for service for both of those topics. That's the other thing that I wanted to share with the group. I know I've talked to all of you, but for those watching, the Leisure Services Administration Building also flooded out. So we are working through those details. The county is being a great partner. There is a potential property that we're looking to lease from them that we could move our offices temporarily so that we could restore the drywall, carpeting, and whatnot over at Leisure Services. So debris. Want to get into some information on debris. Want to share with staff, with the council where we're at right now. I just pulled up our map. We are currently at 372,000 cubic yards. I did ask the professor in the group, I asked Administrator Tankersley, how can I describe that? And we were at 370 when I asked you, so we've got to add a floor or two. But Claude indicated that the best visual would be a building that is the size of a football field that is 20 stories tall. That's the amount of debris that we've removed so far. We are estimating that we will hit 1 million cubic yards by the time this is all said and done. I know that Tom Green will discuss some of the finances, but this really is a major undertaking. We believe that this storm, as we're poised right now, will run us between $80 and $100 million to remove the debris from the right-of-way. I want to share a little bit about our partners and, again, want to thank the many partners that we have. We have partners at the state level. I really appreciated Director Gunthery's comments about us leading the way on debris. I'm getting those calls from other cities and other counties now asking how in the heck did we get so much cleared and, again, fully realizing that we're not there yet and that there's more work to be done. I understand the frustration that residents feel. I understand that it's a trigger and that it's a constant reminder of the damage that's occurred by seeing the debris out in your front yard. I will tell you that for the first time ever, my parents' home flooded out. So I'm living it firsthand and understand fully the trauma that is associated with debris. As far as debris goes, we immediately, after Helene, activated our debris contractor and monitoring firm. And I know I've talked to each and every one of you about debris. It is a cumbersome process. We would love for it to be easier to navigate. FEMA cuts the check for the debris removal, so we have to follow the FEMA guidelines, and they are numerous. I know Councilmember Gerdes and I spent some time out at some different locations, as I've spent time with many of you, and it really is shocking the amount of steps that are involved. I'll give you one example. I got a call from Councilmember Gerdes wanting to know why all the trucks were lined up by Azalea Park and why they weren't out in the community. This was immediately after Milton hit. And I said, oh, that's easy. Those are the trucks that were here for Helene that had already been measured and laser measured and certified by FEMA. They have to be re-measured, re-certified for the Milton event. So that's just a taste of what we have to go through to get the debris removed from the street. Every debris pile, every cut and toss location has to have both Crowder, our debris monitor, our debris company, and Tetra Tech, which is our FEMA-approved monitor to make sure that we're doing the work where we said we were doing the work. We did hear the community's request to have a map to show the progress that was going on out in the community. We worked with Tetra Tech and stood that map up early on after the storm. We had tested it again and again and unfortunately, when it was rolled out, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. St. Pete pushed their servers over the edge. So I know many of you experienced yourself and got complaints that the map was up and then it wasn't working. It was giving errors. We then worked, Doyle worked feverishly with Tetra Tech overnight to get a new map created that's just for St. Pete and that's what we've been using since the errors started to show. So the map that's out there now, that has been very solid. I'm on it hourly and I've not received any errors and know that it's giving the detail. I do think it's also important to share with the community. I know I've had this conversation with each and every one of you. The dots that are on the map, the cubic yards that's being shown on the map, those are in no way controlled by the city of St. Pete. That's not my map. I have no access to add a dot. I have no access to change the figures. That information, that map is controlled by Tetra Tech, which is our FEMA monitoring company. They go out and they geolocate every debris pile they pick up. They also mark every time that there's any type of service provided debris-related, cut and toss, debris-related that Crowder does. That is all handled by someone who is completely separate from the city and completely separate from Crowder Golf. The dots also are only showing activity. They are not showing completion. They are not showing homes that have been completely cleared. I know there's been some confusion with that. What we are seeing out in the field, and as a matter of fact, Councilmember Montaneri and I were out in Northeast Park, and as sure as we were there, we saw the claw truck go through, picked up a few yards, cleaned up a few yards, and as we were there, we saw more debris coming back out to the curb line. So we're seeing that people have more than is just on the right-of-way currently. So I think that it's important to note that that is just a log of activity. We have talked about this multiple times, even during the Helene report out, but our strategy for Milton is to use the sanitation zone maps. That's where we send Crowder to go out. They work those zones and then spread out, all while making sure that we're covering two key components. We want to make sure that we're present in the areas that received significant flooding, but we also want to make sure that we're making progress in each and every one of your districts, and that's something that we've really held Crowder to. We've held their feet to the fire, and that is something that Barb and I are checking every day to make sure that we're seeing progress. Clearly, we cannot be everywhere all at once. It's estimated that there's 90,000 residential parcels in St. Pete. We're a 60-square-mile city. I will tell you that the response that we have gotten from Crowder is absolutely unbelievable. As we sit here right now today, we have 38 doubles trucks that are out in our community. I have never, this is my 30th year, this is probably the 12th storm that I've helped with on debris, and to have that many units out in the community is absolutely astonishing. We have four HHW trucks, which is the hazardous household waste, so your chemicals, your paint. We have 11 trucks that are doing C&D haul-out. We have five trucks that are doing a vegetative haul-out. We have eight bucket trucks and cut teams that are helping us clear those trees that are in the alleys or in the streets still. We have three trucks that are doing white goods. Those are your appliances. The reason we only have three is because we find that the scrappers really kind of gather those for the value of the metal. And then we have three e-waste trucks that are out in the community right now. One of the things that I want to share, debris is such an important issue to council and to the mayor and to Administrator Gerdes that there are really three administrations that are working on debris at this point. And I think that's important to note. There's no other recovery effort that we're working on that crosses over three administrations. I handle the debris that's out in the right-of-way. I work with the contractor. Councilmember, or geez, I did it again. Administrator Foster, she is handling the DMS sites and she's handling the sanitation component. And then Administrator Corbett worked tirelessly to get the hometown haulers up and running. The numbers that I shared, the 372, that does not include any debris that was removed by the hometown haulers. That does not include any of the debris that's been removed by the 60 city trucks that are out working in the community. And it does not include any of the debris that is being brought to any of the landfills or Raytheon by either private haulers or the residents themselves. So we know that number is much larger. A couple of other quick things that I want to share. Currently, we have three DMS locations. Those are debris management sites. Those have to be permitted and approved by the state. We have one that, the first one that we stood up is Commerce Park. The second one that we are using is the Raytheon property. That's unique. We've split that property in half. The front half is for private haulers and for residents. The back half is for Crowder exclusively and is monitored. And then we just two days ago stood up an additional location in Councilmember Driscoll's area, the Coquina Key Plaza. We are working on a fourth location. We were working very hard to try to get Derby Lane. We've been unsuccessful at that location. We desperately need something in the northeast. We are working with Duke, our partners with Duke. There's property, the Bartow property plant or power plant. We're looking to see if we can utilize some space there. So we're trying to be as creative as we can to find a fourth DMS location. As you can imagine, when you're looking at a location like Riviera Bay, if the drivers are spending 45 minutes each way to go to Raytheon, it's fewer hours they're on the road. So we are desperately looking. I will tell you all now, we have never done this, but it's something that we need to talk about into the future. We may need to stand a DMS up in a park property if we can't find something in northeast. I want to be as efficient as I can in that quadrant. So that's something that we're turning over every leaf right now to figure out how to best work through those details. Mayor and Doyle have both called Duke. They're working with us best they can. There's some limitations on that property and again, we're still working through some of those details. That is all that I have for debris and I think next I will turn it over to Aliza. Thank you. Good morning. The information that I'm sharing reflects numbers from both hurricanes. So September 23 to October 20, right before Helene and right after Milton due to the fact that communications information was not part of the previous report given on Helene. So just some general statements and then we can flip over to the first slide. Oh, yes. Oh, or I can. See? Thank you. Okay. So just want to mention that during partial and full activations, the communications team has to remain fluid, flexible, and responsive. We're a tight-knit group comprised of those who are stationed at the EOC and working remotely and our communications efforts are, they're robust and they're inclusive of the police department, fire rescue, city marketing, and mayor's communications. We act in concert and we communicate quickly after consensus of the executive policy group, ensuring we are sharing accurate information in a timely manner. So here, we're showing here during emergency notification protocols how we are communicating something like the boil water alert. It's through a platform called Everbridge, which is made up of alert Pinellas texts and emails if you have opted into that system, reverse 911 emergency notification, notifications to water bill subscribers, and of course, our city website, social media platforms, and news and media stories. And just a little bit more information about that, sewer plant notices were targeted to those in the affected areas. The boil water notice and the lifting of the boil water notice was sent to everyone. And then we also sent boil water notices when it was lifted to Gulfport, South Pasadena, and Lealman. So these are lots of different numbers, different web addresses, but just want to show you the breadth and depth of what happens before, during, and after storms. So this shows our public relations efforts via press releases, press conferences that resulted in numerous news stories, social media, website traffic, and printed collateral. The police department and the fire department also had their own social media efforts. And so in addition to the hundreds of social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, and X, we also put together 18 explainer videos. Some of you have even done some of those yourselves outside of emergencies, and including one we just filmed today about the 49% rule. So our community and engagement team, I also want to mention, and our faith liaison highlighted our efforts to their smaller networks to help us spread the word. So every time we were doing something, they were sending individual emails. They were also on text duty, hearing from various faith leaders and community leaders about what was happening in real time. And so some of our more popular webpages obviously have been slash hurricane, slash recovery. Mike was just up here talking about debris, slash debris is very popular. And then I know that slash rule 49 will be the next one. And I want to take this moment to offer thanks to our communications team, thanks to the communicators, thanks to those who engage with the community, because members of our team were, as many have stated already, were also affected personally. And so we're just a sampling of our staff citywide who were impacted by the storms but continue to do their jobs. And so very proud to be part of that effort. And so just here, obviously all the other parented collateral that also helped to aid Administrator Foster and others who needed door hangers, who needed flyers. and so much of this is happening literally on the fly just based on the needs that community leaders, faith leaders ask us, how can we help, how can we help elevate the messages they're trying to get out, the concerns they have for their members, those in their congregations. Hey, we need your assistance and our teams are doing what they can despite their personal experiences. So I'll just end on saying we are very proud of our ability to be fluid, flexible, and responsive, and there's always room for improvement. Thank you. Oh, and I will turn it over to the most exciting part of this presentation, which is Tom Green, our Assistant City Administrator. Tom. Thank you, Elisa. Good morning, Council. It is still morning, yes. Good morning, Madam Chair and City Council. I've got, I know we've been through a lot this morning with a lot of information. I've got four or five slides that I will go through pretty quickly and then we'll turn it over to questions. But I did just want to say a couple of things. You know, Administrator Foster mentioned that I drove a box truck, which was a lot of fun. I could not operate a pallet jack to save my life. I'll just admit that. But, you know, it's very rewarding to be working with this team of professionals throughout our organization to deliver service to our community. And that's what all of us collectively are here for and I'm just happy to be part of the overall team, including City Council. So there, like I mentioned, there are four or five things. I want to touch on insurance. I want to touch on a couple of quick FEMA updates. I want to talk about some contracts that we entered into during the two disasters. And then I'm going to touch on some fees that we're currently waiving. So that's kind of just a setup. And first, a quick overview of insurance. And I know we'll be talking about this when those other two items come up. So I'll keep this brief. But as Mr. Corbett talked about a little bit in his slides, we've had insurance adjusters out at various facilities around the city, including Tropicana Field. Blaze Mazzola and his team are working with those adjusters, making sure that we're providing all the information and so forth. We have started the claims process, so that is underway. And as we are discovering more damage, we continue to report that updated damage to the insurers. Next, I want to talk a little bit about FEMA. And everybody knows that this is a cumbersome process, but I'm here to tell you that the FEMA folks, the state of Florida folks, the county folks, have been extremely helpful. And I'll hit on a couple of these bullet points, but we've already finished or submitted our application for public assistance for both Helene and for Milton. We've engaged Thompson Consulting with, I think, we've provided each council member with a copy of that letter agreement. We have also met earlier this week with our program delivery managers, PDMG, I always get that acronym messed up, earlier this week. And I did want to spend just a second on this FROC process. Over a year ago, Amber, Boreana, various departments across the organization went through a state process that's referred to as FROC, which kind of offers us an opportunity to get pre-authorized for certain expenditures so that if an event happens, we can submit on a timely basis and real-time projects for funding. And so we went through that process and that is helping us, and I want to show you just a minute here or on the next slide, the expedited projects that we've already filed and submitted as of yesterday. So when Administrator Jeffries was talking about the forecast of debris hauling, we have already submitted an expedited project for both Milton and Hurricane Helene, and the total of those two combined is about $74.1 million. Once we get that, and that's an estimate of those two projects, and when we ultimately get the obligation on the far right column, you'll see the amounts. They will fund about exactly 50% of what we've estimated to be the expense. So once we get those two projects obligated, which could be today, it could happen while we're standing in this meeting. I know that Boreana was just showing me that there's the process it's got to go through, and it's already at our representatives in Washington, D.C., so our two senators and our member of Congress. So once they've all seen that, I think the approvals will come likely today on the debris hauling. And let me just be Captain Obvious on this to explain what that means. If we get that $37 million obligation, those are resources we can draw now to pay for the expenses that we are incurring with, as Mr. Jeffries talked about, Crowder Golf and Tetra Tech. So that means $37 million does not have to be outlaid by the city of St. Petersburg. Those resources will remain in our general fund or in our funds, so we don't have to lay out that capital. In previous storms, we had always pre-funded or advanced that and sought reimbursement. Under this scenario, the expedited project, we're able to get an obligation and be able to draw on those resources in real time. So that is a huge development, and as I explained a minute ago, FEMA has been outstanding. The state of Florida has been outstanding, and they're really helping us a lot through these processes. And then we've also filed the other, or we will submit very soon, the Hurricane Helene estimated labor and equipment in the amount of $5.6 million. We're anticipating filing that early next week, and that will reimburse us for expenses during the storm of Helene. Yesterday, I believe, we sent to council a memo that outlined all of these agreements that we've entered into. Within the general fund, there are 15, totaling about $1.4 million, and that memo provided a little more detail on each of these. I will point out that two of those agreements are not likely to have any real expenditures on them, so it'll probably be just slightly less than a million dollars in the general fund. And I should point out that these agreements are also not to exceed amounts for each of them, but that was part of our obligation when we enter into agreements either through the declared disaster or through our emergency procurement code. We have to make council aware of that at the next meeting. So some of these, I think two of these we reported on in Helene, but the balance of these are newer since the Milton report. I want to touch really quickly on the suspension of various fees around utilities and others. So since Helene hit, we have not been locking off customers who are delinquent in payments. We are not collecting late fees with respect to utility accounts. We're not collecting, when we send out a notice that a customer is delinquent, that typically is accompanied by a $4 fee, we're not charging those fees. We've also suspended penalty related to business taxes, and we've suspended the filing of liens for like lock clearing and so forth. Additionally, the initial goal is to get through the balance of this calendar year and then reevaluate and see where we are, but that is kind of the timeline that we're expecting to waive all these late fees and lock-offs. Additionally, some of you who served while COVID was happening, we had language on the utility bills that said, if you're experiencing difficulty, please contact customer service and billing and collections. We can negotiate payment plans to help customers who are experiencing difficulties with those payments. And I'll just remind you that during that time, we were extending 12-month, 18-month payment plans to customers to help them recover. And I think that might be the last slide, so thank you very much and we collectively are here to answer any questions that council has. Thank you. Do we have any public comment on this item? Madam Chair, William Kilgore, step up to the podium, state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address council. Hi, everybody. William Kilgore, 2550 28th Avenue North. Thanks, Chair. So, yeah, I'm just here to speak. I had sent out an email. I'm not standing up. I'll hunch down. I had sent out an email yesterday just about a couple of things. There's so much going on. You all have a ton on your plate, a lot of important things, so believe me. You know, one thing that's really been bothering me, I was hoping somebody could clarify. You know, there were two deaths tied to Hurricane Milton. One was like a medical-related death. The other was somebody was apparently found in a park of a storm-related death, and that was Campbell Park, according to the St. Pete Catalyst. I had tried to do a records request last week to get more information about it with the police department. The request was denied. Pretty much our concern was the housing status of the individual. We don't know, but that was pretty much my question, and they wouldn't, they said they couldn't answer. The reason I'm bringing this up is because after the storm, you know, we had spoken with several homeless residents who did not manage to make it into shelter. They rode out the storm in the elements. One woman I spoke with personally said she was out in the elements, had to retreat to a port-a-potty, you know, in the middle of the storm, in the peak. Really horrible situation for this woman, and I know this had been an issue. I think during, it was either Idalia or Ian, I think the Times had reported on, they had interviewed some homeless folks who had ridden out the storm, you know, and so we're really concerned, you know, with the city's response, you know, in dealing with that, but we really want to know, I don't know if there's Chief Holloway's here or somebody that can, you know, kind of answer that, but, you know, we have climate change, more frequent storms. We're talking about things like infrastructure and climate resiliency. I think housing has to be at the top of the list of that conversation as well and making sure that we're able to guarantee safe, comfortable, dignified housing for people, not just, you know, cramming people into shelters, you know, homeless shelters and things like that, but getting everybody housed, you know, as the climate changes, as things change, I think it's an opportunity for us to improve, not just, you know, our infrastructure and things like that, but for the quality of life for all of our residents. So, thank you all very much. Before we go to the next speaker, is there anyone from the administration would like to answer the question? I can't answer the status of the individual that would be for the Chief to answer, but I can let Council know that prior to every storm, we conduct street teams prior to the storm. In the past, that has just been Helen Rimes' department, which is herself, Shawnee Sarita, and April White. For these two storms, we had all of codes as well as neighborhood relations and that team going to places where people are often unhoused to let them know about the dangers and give them information on shelters, so much so that in the past, we used to just say, go to any PSTA bus and you can get on it and it'll take you to shelter, but we knew that so many people were without power and phones. We printed out flyers giving people the information about those shelters, which caused a little bit of hullabaloo with the county because they don't always open all their shelters at the same time, but we knew that that was going to be really important and so we swelled that group this time and had more than 50 people on the streets talking to our unhoused individuals asking them to go to shelter. Thank you, Administrator Foster. Keep following? Madam Chair, Councilmembers, in reference to the homeless person or the homeless person that was killed during the storm, that's still an ongoing investigation once that report is opened and it's more you're welcome to have it. Thank you so much for that response. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try to be brief, but I do have several questions on some just kind of specific topics. so I want to start, I guess, on James' portion, city development and asking about the slide that talks about the 49% rule. I am not going to dig into this today. Obviously, for my district, I've done just some rough math and it's looking like about 30% of the total properties do reside in my district that were affected by both of the storms. So this is obviously an issue, especially considering the fact that my district lies completely in the special high hazard area. So I'm going to start here. I have three very specific questions. The first one about the new Rule 49 website that came out last night. So immediately after that came out, I started getting questions, of course, from residents that are affected. and when you look at the website, on your PowerPoint slide, it very clearly says address flood and structural wind damage. When you look at the website, the first thing that it goes into, storm damage, and then it talks about that a permit is required for all work to repair your home if you have sustained flood damage. This is the confusion because there are people, when you look at the Helene map and you look at the Melton map, there are people in my district who they didn't flood. Maybe their neighbors flooded, but they didn't flood. But then they got wind damage. They look at this website, it says flood damage. So now you have a confusion for people and they think, well, I didn't get flood damage, right? I got wind damage. Doesn't say on this website anything about wind damage. What is our messaging? And you have mentioned that there is this letter that is going out tomorrow. Counsel, to my knowledge, has not seen that letter yet. And so my concern is if it mirrors this language, we are going to have added confusion and you're going to have people doing work that may or may not be permitted in those places and then we're going to have a trickle down effect from there. So I need some clarity for my residents. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question. The letter is scheduled to go out on Monday, but I'll be happy to share that letter with all of counsel today. And I want to clarify with Liz before I answer this because I don't answer this incorrectly. The damage in a special flood hazard zone, is it only flood damage or is it flood and wind damage? Because I don't want to answer this publicly incorrectly. Thank you. Good morning. I am the floodplain manager, Hannah Rebholz. So damage or no damage, if your home or business is located in a special flood hazard area, you need a permit for everything. Now that we're in a storm season and you have damage from wind or flood, you need a permit to repair that. The types of repair differ if you need a permit from flood hazard area to non-flood hazard area. What needs a permit is more strict in a flood hazard area, but most of the non-flood hazard area that got hit with wind damage is roof, is windows, or exterior, that all does need a permit, whether you're post-storm or before storm. So all damage needs a permit, it's just special flood hazard has more restrictions on what needs a permit. Flooring is a big difference between non-flood hazard and flood hazard. So there's differences, nuances like that that FEMA puts on special flood hazard area. And Madam Chair, if I may, I have a new business item later for us to hopefully take this entire conversation to housing next week. I'm not looking for the intricacies of it all because I fully understand how complicated this is. What I'm looking for today is a commitment that we will communicate thoroughly and clearly to our residents. And this is a huge red flag in communication. So I'm just asking respectfully that we really review every single thing we're sending out so that residents can comply because I understand the importance of this but this right here to me is a huge blind spot that is going to cause a lot of red flags for people down the road. Yes. So the website rolled out last night and we already have tweaks to it. We wanted to get information out as quickly as possible and when that happens there's going to be changes that that we adapt to. So there will be changes we already had a list last night that we wanted to change after it rolled out. So it is it is adapting to what we're seeing. And then I just have one final question on this. Is a permit for storm damage in the coastal high hazard or special flood hazard area is that an all-in-one permit or if they have electric, plumbing, drywall are those different permits? No. So the city of St. Petersburg is a one permit system. So you will pull a permit for all of the damage you have. You will pull a permit for flood damage and if the week later you had your roof blow off you will pull a permit for all of that work on one. It is a one permit system. That's good news. Yes. You can apply for if you want to get your power on now and you don't have someone to come fix your walls you can do that but you have to add to that permit the work. You can't keep pulling different permits. Does that make sense? So you'll come back in and add that work to that scope. Very good. All right. Well I'll save the rest of my questions on Rule 49 and all of the stuff for hopefully what will be a very robust committee meeting next week. But James I do have a quick question for you on Hometown Haulers. For your second question I will say we are absolutely committed to getting the message out as clearly as possible. I agree that it's important that people understand what's ahead of them so we will review that. I'm learning a lot about the 49% rule myself but we will absolutely make sure that we review that site and make sure everything is clear and accurate. Thank you. I appreciate that. So just a quick question on Hometown Haulers. You said there's a report later so maybe you're going to cover this then. If so just stop me. But I'm just curious if you can give us either now or later the total number of cubic yards and the final cost numbers on that. We will not be providing the total number of cubic yards. The unique thing about Hometown Haulers because it was stood up in essentially an emergency situation is we were paying for a haul whether you had a Ford F-150 or you had a large trailer and there was no one measuring the debris. We have pictures of the debris when it's picked up and when it's dropped off but we don't have what Mike was talking about earlier with the FEMA process there is a measurement of the truck. It's very precise. That did not take place with the Hometown Haulers for us to be able to stand it up quickly. We will be providing the number of halls and we will provide the total cost but we do not have a total cubic yard. We could estimate but it would be it would be a best guess. Thank you. I think that's all I have for you. Thank you. Administrator Foster yeah oh no I do have a question for you I'm sorry. Senator Foster. We talked about the temporary shelter assistance. I just had a quick question. So I wanted to see who actually monitors the hotel availability within the city. We're no longer we're no longer doing that. We were actually recommended by FEMA and Florida Department of Emergency Management to stop doing that because we were competing with them for rooms. When we were providing those rooms those resources were not turned on. Right. And so once the state and FEMA stepped in we have pulled out of providing that resource. Okay. So the TSA services that are currently available are the ones through the state and through FEMA. Correct. Okay. And do we know if they monitor the availability? My understanding is that daily they call to secure additional rooms. Okay. And the other messaging that they've provided is one of the challenges is there's quite a few FEMA hotels. Some of them are not answering their phones because they're being inundated. And so what we've heard back from the community and street teams is that folks are having better luck when they go directly to a hotel than calling a hotel that's on the FEMA list. But the way the program is structured is that the trailer program is absolutely last. So you have to try to do hoteling first whenever hoteling isn't available because we're you know our hospitality community then they do what's called direct leasing where they lease apartments in the name of FEMA to provide to residents. And when direct leasing isn't available then they move to RVs and single and double wide trailer systems. But that is absolutely a last ditch effort. They have to prove that they do these other hoteling efforts and direct leasing efforts prior to going to the trailer method. Do they do any of that in coordination with us so that we as the city who is closest to the people who need the assistance are able to collaborate or communicate with them about it? Because what I'm hearing is that people are approved but they can't find anything in St. Petersburg and God forbid they be someone who also lost their vehicle in Helene and now they're having to go to Tampa or other places but they work here in St. Petersburg. Their kids go to school here and it's causing additional complications because of all those elements. So I'm concerned about how we find some way to work with them and their system to try to address those sort of needs. We certainly are providing feedback. There are a number of different groups that are meeting regularly with the county, with the state, with the feds but again there's only so much availability in our community. As you've probably read about 80% of our hotels are open for tourists right now and so that's creating challenges. Okay, I'll circle back to you offline. Okay. Thank you. I have a couple of questions of course about debris. Just a couple of clarifying because I mean we get all the questions right and then we try to field those we try to understand what's going on and then I want to make sure I'm always communicating accurate information. So a couple of just real quick questions. how often is that debris So that's real time so that's updated I think they told us every seven minutes was the last I had heard. Separation of the debris I understand the importance of that but what I see when I drive around specifically my district are sometimes like these large mountainous heaps of black trash bags and we know the black trash bags are a challenge but now those black trash bags in many cases have been there since after Helene. People aren't going to go nor do I think we would want them to like dump them out right? So what's going to happen with those sort of things? So the trash bags are definitely an issue Crowder is not allowed to pick up the trash bags because they have to know because each item category is both processed and reimbursed at a different rate the trash bags if there's a small number of trash bags we're suggesting that people put those in their residential bin if there's a larger amount of trash bags we're going to have to figure that out we're going to have to go back out and either open those bags or we're going to have to come up with another solution at this point we're so focused on getting the largest amount removed that we can the way that this works with a debris hauler they have all of those units that are here now as they start to get closer to the end of the 90 days we'll see some units go to other storms or other cities and then we'll keep some back and then we start to problem solve some of those issues so that is a challenge again that is another FEMA guideline that is pretty rigid and I understand the rationale around using the sanitation schedule for those days but the debris map the explanation says that they start in like the northwest corner of the quadrant and they move through if you look at the map that doesn't necessarily seem to be based upon those that that's what's actually happening so can you explain that a little bit better I can for sure so it's not the sanitation schedule that we're using it's the sanitation zone map so what we do when Crowder came into town and that was two days after Milton passed Crowder was here and they said hey where do you want us to focus and what we did is we gave them the zones that matched the areas that were most impacted and then as more trucks as they started to build to full force we started to give them you know we want to make sure we have some in some of the districts that are maybe less impacted as well so we have that that total coverage and what they do and the reason I'm familiar with this because I've challenged them I will tell you that Crowder's told me that we're one of the toughest cities to work with because we have some pretty serious demands and one of the things that we've asked is exactly that why are we seeing what we're seeing and the folks that are here in town this is not a secondary business this is not something that they do they do landscaping on the side and come and do this is strictly all they do and the folks that own the trucks are all subcontractors and they know they know their trucks extremely well and they know that hey I'm in zone 121 I see enough that will fill me with vegetative you know debris and I can get my full you know 99% fill or whatever so that's why you start to see some of the splotchiness that comes up so what we do is we give them the zones to tackle once they clear those zones and they do they start in the northwest corner of the zone and they work systematically and then we also have inspectors Crowder has inspectors that are out that are driving around as well the other thing that happens that kind of creates the randomness if you will is that if there are any debris piles that are maybe blocking a sight line at an intersection or a four-way stop or something that is creating a bigger safety issue than the regular debris piles because they're all safety issues then they tackle those as well so that's why you kind of see some of the one-offs throughout the map as well I ask some of the same questions the other thing that we're running into we've got some properties that say hey none of my debris has been picked up whatsoever and there's a dot well that again that could be the Crowder cut and toss team that's been there cutting the debris while it hasn't moved yet there's still activity so that's you've got different teams that are doing different things kind of all in those zones follow-up let's say somebody gets excited on their street here it comes okay now it's full it can't get to them the logic is that okay well that's all right it'll be back and it'll start where it left off and then people are not seeing them come back and start where they left off so how do we explain that that would be contrary to what we're being told by Crowder we're being told that they are starting as best as close as possible to where they left off so you have these units that the units that are working the zones it doesn't once they go and they dump their load that same unit is coming back and we're being told that they pick up where they left off so they can keep that continuity and I've been following them around and I'm seeing that residents are reporting that to me I should report that to you so you can look into it I'm happy to look into it what we've been very so if you if you spend the time and you look at the the local cities and counties that are near us we are absolutely removing more debris than anybody else what I've been very cautious about doing and I've had some conversations with each of you about this I've been very reluctant to micromanage them because any debris off the street is debris out of our city and so because they're doing it at such a fast clip I've been cautious about getting in and kind of well you were at house 57 and now you're you know what happened there type of a thing so but if you have if you have concerns like that I'm happy to happy to investigate a lot of those concerns are specifically around the flood debris that is still there not the vegetative I think people are people are kind of like okay the vegetative will get picked up when it gets picked up right like we're more familiar citywide at least with that kind of debris and how long that took this is stuff that was from Helene and it's sitting there it's moldy it's nasty it's causing health concerns and so people are very concerned about that and so to me there is a difference and when you look at those numbers and you see that vegetative debris is much higher than the flood debris at this point that is also a concern but I think that's also important to note that that's what our DMS can handle as well so we're trying to balance you know Raytheon at one point last week we were supposed to capacity at Raytheon so we had to we had to get some of that so that's all part of the the strategic management that Crowder's doing to make sure that we don't the worst case scenario is we have a truck that's full of debris that can't be dumped somewhere so it's there are a lot of moving pieces and you know I think again it's not lost on me I've had many sleepless nights over debris and you know I would love to remove all of it as quickly as possible I think that you know my commitment to this body and to this community is we will meet the 90 day which is unprecedented and we will meet that I personally believe and you know I don't want to be held to this as far as what does that number look like but I think we're going to I think we're going to exceed the 90 days I think that we're going to I think that we're under promising and we'll over deliver I mean we're I forgot Mayor where we at 22 days we've been having a number since he gave me four more days we were playing on the 7th he went with the 11th but you know we're already well over a third of the way there we're over 370 right now and if we're if we're thinking the million is where we're at then I think we're going to be done very quickly and then my last question for you Mike is you talked about the Northeast St. Pete trying to find a location very happy that we're continuing to try to pursue that because you're right that commute time is killing my district because it just takes so long to get back have we talked to the county about Toytown because I've had that question yes I know Doyle has had conversations with the county we will continue to have we're having we're having many conversations with lots of different I was I was confident that we would get the I think the last time I reported I reported that the Times publishing property was well on our way that is looking like it's not going to come to fruition so I mean we are looking for any area and again I would share with you all if there's a property that we haven't I put a lot of miles on my city car looking for a property that we can we can put debris I would be very interested in any suggestions that you might have yeah I mean I would think that you know Toytown would be a great place to talk with the county about it's out in the middle of the industrial area so if it's out there it's not going to disturb residents that are around and it's a large parcel I know that there are some you know other issues with it but it's sitting there and I have to say the county has been great to work with they've really been a great partner during this so we'll continue to have those those conversations okay perfect and I just have two more questions but I think they're both for Tom perfect thank you you talked about the reimbursement of the this is back to the debris to the rate the 80 to 100 million and that we're going to get the 50% yada yada is that that high impact waiver that Guthrie was talking about is that the same thing because I mean we have a report or an email that shows the rates that we are paying now compared to what we were originally paying and for vegetative it's 95% increase and for the C&O it's the 134% increase I mean it's remarkable how much we had to increase our rates with no FEMA guarantee at that point in time that we were going to actually be able to get reimbursed so I'd like to understand this just a little bit more because this could be a huge impact to us I think I may need some help from Mike but let me just explain one difference here on the Helene that is prior to the increased rate so that would be and I think that is correct and I will confirm and then the the Milton was at or is at the higher rate and then I'll ask Mr. Jeffries if he can navigate the next part of that question so Mayor and I have coined the term trash wars which is what has been going on with the last couple hurricanes and debris what we understand occurred is when the state operated the incinerator they hired a debris company to do that this is all what we've been told this is not something that we've been part of those discussions this is just how it's been explained to us there's a company that they hired to handle that operation during the emergency between the two storms when they did that in an effort to get as much debris off of the streets as possible when the FDOT trucks were running and were here kind of working the beaches and whatnot they went to what's called an FDOT rate for debris we all had our contracts in place and our rate was lower than that FDOT contract we then heard that the county Hillsborough county and the city of Tampa matched the FDOT rate that created an issue for our haulers Crowder has their own trucks but they also depend on subcontractors and they were hearing that there was the potential to you know if you're a subcontractor you're going to go where the best rate is and they were hearing that there was the strong potential that we would lose some of our subs that were already here in St. Pete to Tampa or Hillsborough county and we met we met with the county the county kind of spearheaded this and took this on they realized that this was going to be a regional concern and the county put together an interlocal agreement that had many if not all of the debris contractors listed with the rate that matched what the state had paid for FDOT and what the city of Tampa in Hillsborough county was paying for their debris and so in an effort to stay nimble and to stay competitive in this emerging debris market we agreed to match that rate so that we didn't lose the assets that were already here in the city and then my last question and I'll yield my time is for Tom again this goes to the Thompson Consulting and the letter that we received so reading through that I mean it's clear to me that there are contracts that we have entered into with them that there must be like a Helene contract and maybe a Milton contract or maybe a Helene contract but then an addendum to for Milton I'm not quite sure how all that works and I don't need you to really explain it to me now but I would like to request that all of these agreements that we have entered into with the numerous different entities that are laid out on this the memo that you sent yesterday could all of those be put into like a OneDrive folder so that council can review them and look at them understanding they were all done under the emergency order and I understand that process and the need for it but I also feel like that city council needs to be able to get their hands on those because I think a lot of the questions that we have could probably be answered if we had access to all of them so that's my request it's not really a question it's a request and I think we can do that councilmember okay all right thank you madam chair thank you councilmember driscoll thank you and I'll begin by thanking the administration and all city staff who have been involved in the preparation and the handling of our city before during and after both storms it is you know really something for us to go through something so unprecedented and to hear that we actually do have some good news coming out of this and some it's it's hard to call them victories because every you know we're still struggling so much but the way that this has been handled in in some ways is quite exemplary at the same time I think there are lessons that can be learned all around and I know we said that after Helene when we had our council meeting then that with each storm there are things that you learn so I want to go through a little bit of both as I make my comments and before I do that I did want to add on to Chief Holloway's comments regarding Mr. Kilgore's inquiry on the gentleman who was found deceased in Campbell Park I did hear about that too as Chief Holloway said it is an ongoing investigation but I hope that it can give some comfort to know that I was told officers urged the individual to take shelter and offered to help with that the individual refused and said that he would ride out the storm in the park and that I hope it comforts you to know that he was not found with any signs of major trauma more to come on that as the investigation continues but I wanted to share what I know about that particular incident it was very sad to think about that tragedy I have a ton of questions I'm not going to get to them all today I'll continue having some one-on-ones but I'm also asking my aide is in the process of asking that a report be added for next week's city council meeting so that we can do any kind of follow up that's needed I'm sure that there will be new numbers to report and perhaps some new questions to be asked so rather than trying to just continue this I'm just asking for another storm update to be put on as a report item on next week's agenda I want to point out one of the things that we discussed in yesterday's PSTA board meeting and no one has mentioned it I don't think is that PSTA provided over 570,000 trips to help people across both storms that is huge and one of PSTA's partners Transdev actually helped to outfit some of the PSTA access vehicles to accommodate wheelchairs so that they could actually help more people with special needs to be able to get to shelters they had the jolly trolley people over at the beaches working with the sheriff's office to get people to evacuate who were trying to hold out and bus drivers actually went and knocked on apartment doors and with some people it just took that bus driver coming in and just a regular person basically saying come on let's get you to safety and they would go so there was a lot of heroic work that was done by PSTA and especially the bus operators during that time and so I wanted to let everyone know what a great job that they did I had some concerns about the evacuation orders and I know this is a county thing but I'm just going to say it I think those evacuation orders came late it seemed like it took forever other counties had already issued and yet here we were right on the edge before there were even evacuation orders for zone A and I do understand and totally agree that to some extent everyone's got to figure out for themselves whether and when to go and most of us who live in zone A knew it was coming at some point I think it might help in the future if we consider making the suggestion I know we can't call for an evacuation order but being trying to be more influential and persuasive in telling people not just make your plans but make your plans to leave now don't wait for the announcement don't wait for it to be mandatory and really do more to encourage voluntary evacuation and then I have not started on this yet but it's on my to-do list to work on ways that we can help our seniors who live in independent living apartment buildings they do not qualify as assisted living facilities and yet we had two senior apartment buildings downtown specifically for seniors who can live independently but they need medication to stay cool they need they have mobility issues they may not be able to live on the eighth floor of a building if they use a walker or a wheelchair and if the elevators go down if the power goes out there can be some trouble and we saw that we saw that fortunately there was nothing tragic that happened as a result of that but and I know that we're going to have to look at state laws things like that I want to know how can St. Petersburg keep more of our seniors safe before during and after a storm if they're in an independent living residential building I don't want to get those calls again and I think with more people finding ways to live their later years independently and especially downtown where they can walk to the grocery store they can walk to or use their electric wheelchair to go pick up prescriptions that that means the world to a person we want to make sure that they also are able to stay safe from a storm independently or with a little bit of our help some others that I was worried about were the people who were affected by the crane cranes plural and there's going to be a lot more discussion about this because as you know I have a new business item today I'll be trying to ask to go to committee for a deeper discussion but what I want to point out today was that this is perhaps our biggest area of opportunity for learning how to do things better the day before a hurricane is supposed to make landfall at or near St. Petersburg is not what I think should be the day that we let people know people who are not in an evac zone people who have decided to shelter in place I don't think that's really the time to go put a sign on the building saying by the way there's a crane nearby that might kill you if that was me I want to have a little bit more notice than that and the state does not preempt us from creating a better procedure on notification when there is a dangerous crane in the vicinity we can keep people more safe by helping them stay informed that is going to be one part of my new business item there are two sides to this there's the part that we can do for notification but there's also that safety side and I'm looking forward to getting into that more because there were 20 buildings that had to be informed there were 20 buildings affected by this very late discovery that we had dangerous cranes that we could not do anything about that were within striking distance 20 buildings a total of 2,881 units if you figure maybe an average of 1.5 residents per unit that comes to 4,322 residents of St. Petersburg who thought they were safe and were informed at the last minute that they were not we can do better in the way that we do approvals for developments in our city I know we can't tell them what kind of a cream that they can have but there are other paths to safety and then we can certainly look at how we go about the notification and resolve to do it better more on cranes to come the Vinoy Basin seawall is one of the downtown waterfront assets one of many that suffered damage and I would like to know from Claude or maybe Brej if there's a timeline on fixing that particular one and I do point that out today because it is a safety hazard that sidewalk that the seawall is pulling in has got people walking out into the street and it's a fairly well traveled street not used to having pedestrians walking out into the street to get around and so if it's short term I want to know when if it's longer term if it's going to take a while can we create a barrier of some kind and create a protected walkway to get around that until we can fix it so good great question and first of all I will let you operations is already working on implementing a temporary pedestrian pathway also there was an existing AD accessible route however this alternate route is being provided because people are not taking the alternate route they're going as you said around the session is closed off so there's a path for them to cross correctly across the street it's just a longer path we know people tend to choose the path of least resistance so an alternative path is being implemented by operations teams right now as far as the long term and the next path we already received the GMP we're preparing a council memo the design should be completed the soil borings essay and we should be I was going to ask for approval to bring it as an adds and deletes to council for the next council meeting to go into construction I hope that works out okay okay it's on way thank you and maybe this is regarding Lake Magori and the flooding that occurred there a resident asked me if the dam was opened because they had not seen something like this before and this was you know really troubling I mean you've got people who have seen a lot with Lake Magori and I know that much of what we experienced was unprecedented but even to me it didn't seem like it was matching up with the tides or with overflow that we were seeing in other parts of the Tampa Bay area with bodies of water like this first of all what was going on with the dam so I can circle back to the dam because that part was more operational but I can talk a little bit about the drainage dynamics within the surrounding basins okay influence Lake Magori itself so a lot of the neighborhoods and I'll say east of MLK along Salt Creek Channel drains towards Salt Creek so that area was already high but topographically there is a natural break in the land itself once you get past 4th Street so and then you start heading towards the west it's a hill going up towards 4th Street then it slopes down towards Lake Magori and that general configuration exists for a lot of the areas along Lake Magori the rain was such a substantial amount that the storm water system could not naturally keep up with the volume of water that was coming so at which point we're starting to see cross flow between storm water basins major storm water basins so Lake Magori essentially was picking up overflow from all these adjoining storm water basins which it was not designed flow and that is what resulted in such the substantial amount of water flow and standing water for that extended period in the Lake Magori basin now coupling that into the fact of there was so much water and again as I mentioned towards 4th street it's higher so the water was over the dam the control structure so even if the control structure was open it would not have made a difference the water so we had to wait till Salt Creek itself drained the neighborhoods that were connected to Salt Creek drained and the water was below that Salt Creek wall elevation then we could start pumping because if we started pumping we would essentially be pumping within a closed basin okay you know you get me all geeked out with this stuff so I want to continue that conversation offline because I want to learn more about how that works I just wanted to get it out there that the right moves were made for that okay switching gears thank you very much switching gears with for James Corbett on October 18th you sent an excellent report to city council on damage to city facilities and assets so that was the 18th and that was like an initial assessment is there a way that you could take that same report update it for us and send us like send that to us because the list was it was really good list good information getting that initial assessment is important I'm wondering what we're looking at now and rather than you know chat on the phone or whatever and then try to get everyone else on the same page that report was so good I'd love to have it the same one but just updated is that something that you can agree to absolutely so the original report Aaron fish and our real estate team put together a lot of that information came from engineering as engineering essentially maintains all of the various statuses of the structures and facilities but we can absolutely get that updated and we'll send an updated report out to all city council okay that's great for the police department is chief Holloway still here while we're waiting for him I can ask Claude a couple of questions and just kind of give everybody a couple of suggestions when we have these longer term like the boil water notice is something that a lot of St. Petersburg residents are not used to seeing it's new to a lot of people I think that was the communication from you guys to us was good the communication to the public on how to live with a boil water notice could be amplified a little bit more I think and that's for the communications team but then also for the future when we're telling people how to prepare for a hurricane I think having that potential boil water notice in mind so that people know how much water to get because I don't that was just one of those things as I was going through I'm like and then ice you know so here we are without power can't use water out of the faucet can't use the ice maker or you know can't use ice and there really isn't any because you don't have power you know and it's like we need you know you need ice for lots of you know there are just so many uses but it's so in so high demand you can't find it those are it's just those little things that go along with having the water treatment plan issues having the boil water notice and not having power I think really taking a look at the supplies that we recommend and how much could could be another lesson that we've learned this time for Chief Holloway yes so we take your point absolutely we agree with it 100% and one of the things that I was remembering was that you know in the beginning of a storm season we always we always advertise for people to make up their to-go kits and their preparation kits and having that supply of water is always a part of that but I think we hear you know I think we hear that every year that it kind of gets becomes you know routine and so next year definitely when we're talking about that preparing we'll emphasize having that water supply that potable you know bottles of water available that is necessary yeah I think that could help bring more comfort to more people and create less panic buying after the fact absolutely thank you so okay thank you for that Chief Holloway lots of people want to say there are looters everywhere tell us what you guys have seen sure so we compare the month prior to this there was no there was sorry there was a slight increase say there were six burglaries the month before then this was eight burglaries the following month we made two arrests so there was no looting that was going on there were people that were picking up garbage and we had to explain that to people that once they set their stuff to the curb that people were allowed to pick that up and a lot of people were just upset about that some people were going past that line where the garbage were being set out but the officers out there there was an article that was posted but someone misread what we had out there there were 200 director patrol so when you see the 200 director patrol you think there's 200 calls those officers initiated patrol thank you it's it's one of the rumors that I thought should be clarified finally and I think this would be for administrator foster with the disaster recovery centers I just really really appreciated everything I saw when I when I visited and talking to residents and also to the staff it was it was so impressive and I wanted to also thank you for making sure that we had actual mental health professionals there to be on hand if anyone just needed someone to talk to I really I appreciate being heard last time around and it was just at a very difficult time you walked in and it felt like there was hope coursing through the building it meant a lot thank you for the we are St. Pete fund I'm glad that their money is still being raised for it and that there's a process that's being developed to get the money out when you spoke about it earlier I didn't hear a lot about the help that could be available for renters and that's one of the groups that I'm worried about the most because these are folks who don't own the home that flooded maybe don't have a landlord who's even shown up yet maybe they don't have the money to just pick up and put down a deposit and first and last and get someone to help them move what they do have left council member that's exactly what the rapid resolution fund would be about so when I mentioned that as we go out for street teams and post units you know it would be that door-to-door conversation with somebody saying I need a truck in order to move let us help you with that I need a down payment in order to be able to go somewhere else that we would do that help in real time and so that particular piece that we are contemplating would be for tenants and not for homeowners since the majority of the other programs are for homeowners okay good thank you I mean a lot of people need that money right now so the sooner we can help them the better that's all I have for now I appreciate all the time that I was given to ask my questions and again I will be asking for a follow-up report next week for us to continue the conversation and hear the latest thank you madam chair thank you before we go to councilmember Montaneri just wanted to let you know we are going to hold open forum for those of you all that are here to speak during open forum after our final council member speak we will go to open forum and this was not a one and done update report so we we're going to have updates especially through the first 90 days in regards to recovery councilmember Montaneri thank you can I start with Tom kind of give us a state of where we are with our expenses overtime rates do we have an increased cash burn rate right now with everything that we've got going on in the city that is a very good question and I know next week we're going to be at BF&T to report on how we're closing out fiscal 24 we are tracking all the expenses related to the storm I don't have those numbers in front of me but an indication might be you know one of those projects that we submitted was six million dollars for time and equipment for Helene you know so we are experiencing higher rates of overtime and certain areas that we can quantify I just don't have that right in front of me at this moment but we are tracking everything in a not to get into all the details but in projects so that we can then query the system and see all the expenses that are associated with the two disasters okay all right thank you as we start using fund balance do you anticipate tapping the economic stability fund so and I know council appreciates this there are a lot of unknowns at this point and we're trying to as things become known we will you know decide where the best application of funds from different fund balances is most appropriate my thinking is from the economic stability fund we're likely to use that to meet our participation in the insurance claims and potentially some of the deductibles so just you know generally speaking you know I think we're a participant in the first 50 million dollars of claims you know 10% of that five million dollars could be used out of the economic stability to meet that component but you know it's a little too early for us to forecast exactly what would be tapped but that's that's kind of my thinking as we're here at this moment would be to meet that our participation in the insurance program okay all right thank you James a couple questions for you on the website that was put up yesterday the 49% rule troubled to hear that there might not be accurate information on it why was that put up if so quickly well I mean some people thought it was too late we were trying to get it up as quickly as possible with the understanding that there is a lot of nuances to this and obviously based on what council member Gabbard pointed out there certainly we've already looked at it and there's a better way to describe it but with a lot of what we've done through the storm we're trying to respond quickly and sometimes perfection is lost in that but we will absolutely make those updates okay it's just very confusing for people especially people that haven't dealt with this before and I just want to make sure we have accurate information out there so and Liz I see you at the ready to go this might be a question for you what's the difference between the 49% rule and the 50% rule is 49% rule a city ordinance and the 50% rule FEMA good afternoon Liz Abernathy director of planning and development services I will say I don't think there was anything inaccurate on the website I just think that it could have been clarified because we did talk about flood damage related to drywall and items that were related to flood damage but we have already updated it and the letter is going to be absolutely clear on that before it goes out 49% is our in our local floodplain management ordinance we elected to do 49% rather than 50% because we get points for our community rating system and that helps to get us our current rating of 5 giving us the 25% reduction in our flood insurance so 50% is the FEMA we've elected the 49% to get more points okay thank you for that James I've got just a couple questions on the damage to the airport you mentioned 32 hangars were damaged there's a lot of debris out there is the airport open 24 hours a day yes okay yes and the hangars that were damaged is there a plan to remove that debris soon I believe we've already implemented I believe we've already started that process good afternoon Beth Heron Dean managing director city development yes we are working with engineering and capital improvements Bridgesh and his team for the debris removal and cleanup of the airport so that is underway all right very good thank you Mike I've got a couple questions for you and thank thank you for the briefing and the conversations that we've had both this week and last week Tetra Tech so they're the ones that are running the dashboard yes sir do they work for the city do we have a contract with them yes we have a contract with them can we direct them on what to display on their maps what we are displaying right now is what they are displaying in other municipalities as well and if we were to make changes we would have to there would be a rewrite of the map okay are you talking about I want to be clear are you talking about can I have them add data to the map when you briefed us you said the dots on the map show activity when I talked with you I was wondering if we could do something that's a little more accurate like a stoplight type of a thing like green means debris has been removed at this location yellow means there's work in progress red means it's been inspected and nothing's been done something simple like that so that the public can kind of see where the progress with Tetra Tech to see what availability they have we've matched the map that is used by City of Clearwater and is used by Pinellas County we emulated those maps so that we were kind of consistent across the region okay all right I still get like like most council members getting a lot of questions on the debris issue and the dashboard and the people people get frustrated looking at the dashboard because they they don't think it's frustrated you know I think there's a huge frustration about debris I think people want it removed yesterday absolutely and I was glad that Director Guthrie was here and you were here to kind of explain how big of a job this is and give us some some idea of the scope of the problem when you were talking you mentioned all these trucks that Crowder Golf is using and the trucks that you talked about the 38 double trucks the 11 C&D five vegetation eight bucket three appliance three e-ways are those all Crowder Golf trucks or a subcontractor that they've hired okay and then the city put out a something on the website about debris removal and it talks about 60 city trucks being operated in addition to the Crowder Golf are those just regular sanitation trucks or are those like dedicated to debris removal those are parks and rec trucks those are sanitation trucks and some stormwater trucks we are working on public lands and we're also working on alleys primarily and those are trucks that when that press release went out were on the street based on the fleet database that we have that showed what trucks were specifically assigned to debris removal and cut and toss okay so you referred to the streets and the alleys do we I think you mentioned something about we still have alleys that are blocked do we have any streets that haven't been cleared we do we have some streets that are in neighborhoods that are neighborhood streets that the last report that I got they are potentially blocking one lane as I understand it we don't have any streets that are completely and totally blocked by trees as we triage and kind of go through the process of cut and toss that's our first priority is to make sure that we don't have a complete street that's blocked but we do have some that are encroaching into lanes or are there's only one lane a neighborhood street that's still usable at this point and again my staff is working seven days a week cutting those and trying to clear those as best as possible okay all right thank you thank you thank you madam chair thank you council member muhammad thank you madam chair and thank you to everyone I think it kind of goes without saying how much we appreciate the work that's being done also thanks Mike for the map that was something that I had asked for and not in that way but to be able to get the data get the real time updates and at the time it was like well the priorities is just getting the stuff so thank you for finding the balance and being able to communicate as well as do the work question about reporting dumping in alleys and this is coming from an experience that I had this weekend where there was a resident or a household that had a mattress on top of the debris right near an alley and so I go to them you know just saying hey they're not going to pick this up if this alley I mean if this is not sorted and they walked out with me and said well I didn't put that there what are we hearing in that regard how should we handle it is the first question and then the second part of that is I was telling you know we just did like a C-click fix and reported it but how are we prioritizing and handling responses to C-click fix that are coming in right now I'm sure there's a lot and so what's that process like councilmember Mohammed I think your advice that you gave is exactly correct right so we never pick up debris from the alley it's always in the right-of-way in front of someone's home illegal dumping happens on a regular basis in our community you know even when there isn't a storm the illegal dumping problem is a challenge to work through I think entering a C-click fix is the first step as you know in your community we do sweeps so whether there's a C-click fix or not we're going to sweep the alley but certainly there's a longer turn time on those sweeps right now thank you and then the second part of how are we prioritizing as things are coming in with C-click fixes do you have like a rubric or order of operations like we're saying okay I mean everything is running seven days a week at this point so if there's a longer delay than usual and you have a concern about something I'm happy to talk about it up offline okay awesome I have a couple of others while I have you here landlords who have properties that they're willing to list how do they get in the game because I had a few people who said I have a place or I have some rooms or you know people who were willing to open up spaces I had a couple of landlords and I had just general residents to say you know it's just me I got this big house I'll take people if you need to so I think one of the challenges that we get into is you know the city does not legal would have to kind of weigh in here right but we typically do not recommend specific service providers or entities for a reason right it would look like we're endorsing them we've had a lot of debate about this with the housing sub center that if we were going to recommend particular landlords we would need to do what in the housing world is called an HQS inspection which is a housing quality inspection and we're not staffed to do that that's something that housing authorities typically do so I think we are trying to make available to folks who are looking for housing things that we are aware of but we are not you know recommending one group over another if somebody wants to participate in the apartment fair I can certainly get them connected to Dr. Slyker to participate in the apartment fair but other than that we're you know listing links that others have provided us similar to what you've seen on Pinellas County disaster assistance website but we're you know not endorsing or recommending any particular landlord thank you and it must be hot where you're standing you ready to get out of there the last question and I think it may be for you is around food trucks and the dispatching of food trucks greatly appreciated as always and knowing that it's kind of the nature of these things you'll get that call why wasn't my truck selected y'all always pick the same ones how is that a process that we can talk can't speak speak to that I didn't manage the food trucks that was community engagement so you know this is one of those things where whenever you're innovative in a moment that's not something that's in our disaster operations plan and so Shelly Luz Eric Vaughn and David Thompson stepped in to try and help make that possible I believe that they worked with Renee Edwards to source the food trucks who were able to get gas which was a problem at the time and who didn't have loss of food from loss of power at the time Thank you and you actually segwayed perfectly into my next question but I don't think it's for you and it will be the final question that I have I like to hear more about some of the lessons learned and opportunities to improve our policies related to gas because that was a whole thing and just if anybody present can speak to some of the things that we saw things that we can do as a city what's the county maybe doing to address that I actually had a friend break up a fight at a gas station and so just particularly to make it a little more specific around people who have a vehicle and the gas can was one of the points of frustration that actually led to this incident and just wanted to hear about lessons learned ideas thoughts so where we are anybody have any feedback about everybody is shaking their head I look over there and all I see is this councilman after every storm we sit down and we go over lessons learned we'll be going through that and we're getting a lot of good feedback today that we'll bring into that actually I thought the state did a good job bringing down fueling I don't think we've had that happen before so that was something new that we set up at lot 800 we had a lot of our employees who were having a difficult time getting back and forth to work so we opened up our fleet gas station for them for employees so we did try and get some creative things done on gas but we'll continue to look at it and be open got it thank you and I did hear about somebody who ran out of gas in the gas line too by the way thank you that's helpful that's really all that need it and we can continue to follow up thank you madam chair all right councilmember hanowitz thank you and thank you to everyone administration staff for all your work through these storms and through all the actually all the residents in our city that were helping their neighbors and get through this I mean it took it was basically all hands on deck so it was one of the nice things after a storm is to actually see a community get together and neighbors that never never speak to each other actually speak to each other and work together so that's that's one of the benefits but by all accounts we were very lucky with this storm but just because we were affected by these two storms now and it wasn't as devastating as some other places our risk is no less it's no less today it was the same risk that was present the day before these storms it's the same risk we have every year from june 1st through november 30th it's the same risk the only difference is now that the community understands what could be the consequences that's it that's the only difference but what we experience many cities have experienced this before and understand the heartbreak and devastation that comes after these storms and not just during the storm and how scary it is for months and years and so this is a good opportunity I think for everyone not only to think about how they're going to be prepared for the next storm for us and for every organization out there to think about their disaster plans and whether they're actually enough because I think what we all realize is there are lots of gaps and there's lots of gaps everywhere and you can't just wait for someone to help you in these storms you just can't you have to be prepared I want to first touch real quick Clyde the issue with the sewer plants if we would have been hit directly with the storm or the storm way above us and the surge projections would have been eight feet or whatever other number that they were saying what would have happened to the plants and how long could they have been offline it really does depend on 10 foot 10 foot surge okay 10 foot thank you so the southwest plant when we went through the improvements there several years ago we raised the critical equipment above what's called the base flood elevation plus two additional feet and so the the lowest critical piece of equipment there is at 12 feet so if we had gotten the 10 foot storm surge most of the critical equipment would have been okay what was scary was that they're predicting possibly a 15 foot storm surge and we had done exactly what everybody tells us to do raise it above the base flood level plus two feet we had done that and yet these storm surges can't exceed that at the northeast plant as we've mentioned after Helene we have a project that's currently under construction where we are raising again some of the critical equipment to that base flood elevation plus two feet and so that brings it to 11 feet at the northeast plant so if we had gotten that 10 foot at the northeast plant since that project isn't completed yet then that could have put that plant out of commission for a while and when you say a while what does that mean I'll be honest with you I don't exactly know because one we haven't been through it I have been doing a lot of research on what other communities have gone through after Super Storm Sandy Ian and what I find is that sometimes it can be four days sometimes it can be 44 days depending on the amount of damage done to the facility so it really ranges and I haven't been able to find anything that would allow me to make a really educated guess what it would be here and my new business item obviously we're going to discuss the sewer plants and what our projects are in the future at a committee meeting because we have to go in depth but this is something I think our hospitals and our other places in our community need to understand we need to understand that there could be a possibility where we could have switch plants that go on offline for a while and what happens next because we live in Florida there is no escaping it we just do so that's one thing I want it's important for people to be aware understand their risk and communication and notice because that way they can properly prepare even for worst case scenario I'm not saying it's going to happen but it's in the realm of possibility of things that can happen and we have to figure out especially how much we're going to raise all of our equipment and these plants when we have these conversations based on what we're seeing the other thing is in terms and I agree council member Driscoll brought it up communication notice I brought it up in the first first storm when the swish plants were taken offline and half of my district was affected did not get noticed that was fixed the boil water notice issue at a minimum it was 48 hours that we were going to be without water because