City Council - Sep 05, 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 Montenari, District 4, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon, everyone. We will call to order the September 5th, 2024 City Council Meeting, beginning with the roll call, please. Curtis. Here. Excuse me. Gabbard. Here. Montenari. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Vic Sanders. Here. Griscoll. Here. Muhammad and Floyd. Here. Thank you. We will have our invocation given today by Minister Leontay Toots from New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church. And after the invocation, we're going to ask for a moment of silence for two of our following officers, and then followed by that will be the Pledge of Allegiance. Would you please join me in standing? Thank you, Chair Fig Sanders, to each of you council members, and to the citizens. Will you bow with me? Dear God, we pause in humble submission in your presence, to your will and to your way, thanking you for all the things that you've done for us, and thanking you for the opportunity of assembly to confer and discuss refinement in our communities and in our city. We pray now for covering, for shelter, for safety, for peace, and perpetual prosperity in our conversation and work, even in these unprecedented storms. In the attempt of elevation between citizens, council persons, and constituents, we pray for the exchange of some what may be argumentation for argumentation. Lastly, in all things, may we find common ground together in unity as we embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion for all persons despite race, age, gender, ethnicity, and et cetera, in this place we all call home. The great, tenacious, and soaring city of St. Petersburg. God, we ask that you cover us all. Amen. Please join me in a moment of silence for Constable Edward A. George, Fallen, September 16, 1908, Officer Charles Lee Estes, September 24, 1967. Thank you. Lord the allegiance of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. Thank you, Minister Toots. I am so honored to have been able to watch you grow, and I am so proud of who you've become, and I'm just looking so forward to what you have yet still to show the world. Thank you so much for that identification. Thank you so much. Council members, we have an agenda before us with items deferring F1 and CR2 to our September 12th council agenda, with adding F6, a time change resolution for a September 12th council meeting, as well as adding F7 and CB25, which was pulled to report. So I entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and approval, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously, with Council Member Mohammed being absent. Thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us. Can you please, do we have any public comment for the consent agenda? We have no cars, Madam Chair. Okay, I entertain a motion for the approval for the consent agenda. Second. Now that we have a proper motion and second, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously, with Council Member Mohammed being absent. Thank you. At this time, with the storms and everything that our city has experienced, we're going to add a storm update. And I'm going to open the floor to Administrative Gerdes for the presentation. Oh, and we're also joined by our Mayor, Mayor Kenneth T. Welch. Welcome. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of Council, our great St. Pete team, and all the members of the public. Reverend, thank you for being here. I won't mention Bethune-Cookman. And I think you prayed for them before USF, but good to see you as well. As you all know, we had a significant rainfall event over the last couple of days that led to heavy flooding across various parts of our city, including parts of our city that don't normally have to deal with floodwaters. I want to thank our team that's been working throughout the night and today. And Madam Chair, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to give you all the situation report to Council and to the public, including what we expect if we receive more rain, as has been forecast. So I want to hand it off now to our Emergency Management Manager, Amber Bolden. Amber. Good afternoon, Council. Good afternoon. Hello. So I'm going to give a brief overview of what we've seen, what we're forecasted, and kind of what we're planning for tonight with those protective actions. And then I'm going to hand it off to Claude, who will be able to give you a more comprehensive report about the flooding events that we've seen. So just to give you a quick summary, you know, usually I'm up here for named storms and things, and this isn't one of those. So it's a sobering reminder that we are very vulnerable to many types of weather. It's not just those named storms. So we get in the habit of the it's just a tropical storm or whatever, just a rainstorm many days in a row can really impact our city. So that's what we're seeing. I'm not going to go into two specific numbers because I know Claude will do that, but speaking from a widespread standpoint, in the last 14 days, about 13 1⁄2 inches of rainfall in St. Pete. Again, that's widespread. There's more locally heavy amounts. 4 1⁄2 inches of that is just in the last few days. I did receive an email from the National Weather Service. They said we do have a few supplemental and unofficial reports in areas of St. Petersburg that reported 7 to 9 inches of rainfall over the past two days. And so what we're hearing tonight is the risk could be similar. So we've seen that pattern of those afternoon storms that have moved from the east into the west. So today is really that last, our highest risk with that weather pattern, and it's starting to shift, and we'll start seeing those storms move more to our east in those inland counties. So tonight we are watching. There is still a high probability of heavy rains, but hopefully the risk and what we've seen in the last few days will start decreasing after today. Quick recap on response and very preliminary numbers. Police and fire were very busy over the past week, but especially last night, responding to several calls for service. 45 specific water rescue calls for fire. That includes vehicles and flood water, other types of water rescues, and sinking vehicles. Police responded to 73 community hazard calls, flooded intersections, installed out vehicles. That doesn't include the additional vehicles and incidents that they rolled up on as they're responding to other events as well. For today, we've planned a little bit more just in case we see that weather pattern again and we start to experience flooding again in the city. Fire has added additional personnel at Stations 8 and 9 to handle those flood-related calls. We have our high water 7 vehicle that will be staged at Stations 7, but it will be fully staffed tonight. And then we also have two additional high water vehicles from Water Resources that fires pulled in overtime staff to fully staff those vehicles as well. So that will be a total of six additional staff to handle this evening from 12 noon until midnight tonight. Police crews will continue to monitor those problematic areas and will respond as needed. And the city has done that additional messaging to spread that flood safety message with residents and what to expect. Claude's going to talk more about, you know, the historic rainfall that we've seen and what that can cause. And, you know, we're getting flooding in those areas that aren't our typical, you know, coastal flooded areas where we see storm surge. And it just shows the difference between coastal flooding, storm surge flooding, and that freshwater flooding, heavy rainfall. So with that, I will turn it over to Claude. Thank you. Thank you, Amber. Council Chair. Council, thank you for this opportunity. Claude Tankersley, Public Works Administrator. It's going to be just a real quick recap of the last 10 days or so since August 21st, 2024, through yesterday. So I'll just remind you, during this period, we did have Hurricane Debbie occur. And I showed you the last time some of the rainfall data that we had for Hurricane Debbie. Hurricane Debbie dumped somewhere between 7 to 12 inches of rain over a 24 to 30-hour period. Very significant. And what you're going to see in a few minutes is that, as Amber mentioned, we've had those same rainfalls over the last couple of days, even though it's not been a named storm. So for the entire month of August, if you look at the entire month of August, the average rainfall that we have for August is usually around 8.8 inches. As you can see from these numbers that I have up here from different rain gauges throughout the city, we significantly exceeded that. In some cases, almost three times the 8.8 inches that we would normally see during the month of August. The significance of that is this. When rainwater comes down, it has two ways to go, basically. One way is to percolate into the ground, to percolate into the soils. And the other way is to run off on the top of the soils. Normally, we have enough dry soils in our system that whenever we get a rainfall, you will see some of that rainfall percolate down. So if we get three inches of rain in a one-hour period, not all three inches is going to run off. Some of it is going to seep into the ground and go into the groundwater, and then leaving the remaining two, two-and-a-half inches as runoff. With this much rain during the month of August, our soil columns throughout the city are completely saturated. There is very little capacity in our soil to absorb any more water. You can think of it like a sponge. You know, a dry sponge, you can absorb a lot of water, and it's great. But once that sponge gets wet, no matter what you do, you can't pick up any more water with that sponge. So the significance of all this rain is that our groundwater is saturated. Our soils are saturated. And so if we were to see a three-inch rain during the month of April, when our soils are very dry, a lot of that gets absorbed. We see it after a month like August. None of it is being absorbed. It's all going to runoff, which is why it feels different, why it feels different to be having these storms the last few days than it may have a couple months ago, because now all of it is going to runoff. Yesterday, we had a very intense rainstorm. You can see from this slide, one of the highest rain gauges in the city was 4.94 inches in one hour. The reason why I point out the one hour is that that's a lot of rain to come down in a very, very short time. And so when you have a situation like that, then all that water comes down at once, and then our stormwater system is trying to handle all that water that came at once. If you recall, I'm going to go back, if you recall during Hurricane Debbie, we would have 10, 7, 12 inches of rain over a 30-hour period. Yesterday, we had 5 inches of rain over one hour. That makes a huge difference in the capacity of our system to be able to handle and move and remove that stormwater. So to give you some more numbers here, again, I mentioned the August monthly average is 8.8 inches. The average across St. Pete, based off of those rain gauges I showed you, was 20.15 inches. We often talk about a 100-year storm. Well, a one-hour 100-year storm for St. Pete would be expected to dump 3.8 inches in one hour. Yesterday, we had some areas 4 to 5 inches in one hour, and the average across the city in that one hour was about three inches. And so this is very close to the equivalent of a 100-year, one-hour storm. Now, I know that we get tired of hearing of 100-year storm, 50-year storm, 10-year storm. These numbers are established off of historical records, and we recognize that over the last few years, the last 5 to 10 years, our rainstorm patterns have changed. And so these numbers are going to be updated at some point. They no longer hold value for us. Finally, we received during this period 362 C-click-fix requests to come out and examine, inspect, and possibly clean any of the stormwater conveyance systems. Of those 362, we've inspected 172 of them, the orange dots. The blue dots are the remaining ones to be inspected. About 190 remain to be inspected. Every day that goes by when we have one of these storms, we get more requests to have these inspections done. And this, what I want to show you now is, if you look at the map showing where the C-click-fix requests came in versus the map on the right, the map on the right is what we call our 10-year floodplain map, floodplain map. The areas that are highlighted in the pink are areas that we would expect, that we predict, would flood with a 10-year, 24-hour storm, which is approximately 7 1⁄2 inches in the 24-hour period. And if you notice where the dots are from the C-click-fix requests versus that map where we would expect the flooding to occur, you can see that where we would expect it to occur, it was happening. Unfortunately, it was happening. So that's the data for the storms. That's an explanation of why these storms feel different, because they are different. And that's the end of the presentation for this data. Do we have anything else? So at this point, Madam Chair, I'd like to take any questions that Council may have. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. Thank you for the update. I appreciate it. I actually put myself on here just to say, I don't know if you have, but could you send us these slides so we can share and explain to our constituents. Other than that, I'll just say it was literally a scary time yesterday. My neighborhood has never experienced flooding before that I'm aware of. And water came into my garage, and a lot of homes went out this morning and checked it out. There was a lot going on and a lot of people impacted. So I think we have, fortunately, some experience with it because, I guess unfortunately, because other parts of the city have expected it. But just encourage everybody to be patient with people right now who have never experienced this before and are really worried. But I'll leave it there. Thank you for the update. Chair, if I could, Council Member Floyd talked about a lot of people being impacted, and that's true. Administrator Foster was out with her team today. I think she'd like to talk a little bit about what she saw out in the field with her team. Good afternoon, Council. Normally, we are deployed to areas that are more familiar with this type of event. So this was a little bit different to be in the center of our city where folks are a little less familiar with this happening. We do have residents that received significant water into their homes. We will be doing the kinds of things you see us do for Shore Acres and Riviera Bay for those impacted. The areas that seem to be the worst are right around 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, Burlington Avenue, and 57th and 58th. Those are kind of the intersections. There's also a large apartment complex right there. The entire first floor of that complex was also flooded. Folks are home. They're cleaning up. We have people going door to door, talking to them, finding out what their needs are. And, you know, we'll continue to provide outreach in the next day or so as well. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. First and foremost, I want to thank Claude, you and your team, for your tireless work on this, for our police department and fire and rescue. It was really amazing to get the messages last night from PD, from others, saying, we've got this. We're going, and this started, and it started before things got really bad. So it was just incredible to see everyone be able to respond and get into place really quickly to help out. I know a lot of people, I couldn't believe how many photos I saw on social media of flooded streets and flooded cars, you know. It's really good to hear that we're being proactive again and making sure that we get out there since we are expecting more of these heavy rainfalls. It's funny, someone was just asking me in an interview about, you know, our flooding during normal rains. And I know that they meant non-named storms, but to me, I said, I guess this is the new normal. And, you know, especially at this time of the year, it really is. And, you know, I have a lot of confidence in our staff and in the work that's been done on the stormwater master plan to work into the future. So we've got our short-term response and what we can do right now. But then we also have that long-range plan to make sure that our city is keeping up with these changing weather patterns. So I just wanted to thank all of you for everything that you're doing today and for tomorrow. So a lot of folks who are seeing that water intrusion for the first time, we've got, you know, some people who, unfortunately, are seasoned veterans of water intrusion. But many people are now experiencing that for the first time. So they may not know, you know, where to go. So I'm very happy to and grateful for Administrator Foster and her team for what they're doing. I wonder if staff, if marketing can help get information out through the neighborhood associations, KONA, they are business, like I call them neighborhood business associations, that could help to get the information out to folks who normally may not know where to go, just to help with that. Because we want to think of every channel we can. Absolutely. So Councilmember Driscoll, marketing has sent out some messaging for today. That is the messaging citywide. For targeted neighborhoods, we are providing messaging targeted to that neighborhood based on what we're seeing. So, you know, for example, normally we pick up debris whenever we're reimbursed by FEMA. This would not be one of those situations. So we are targeting our messages around debris pickup to the areas that we know we're impacted and need that debris pickup because we do not have the workforce to do that citywide. So we are making sure that messaging that needs to go to specific neighborhoods based on what we're seeing with the street teams and on the ground is going to where it needs to go through the neighborhood association newsletters and other communication tools. Mm-hmm. That's great. Thank you. And along with that, I hope that there is some messaging going out regarding how to spot a scam, because this type of season brings out some of the worst actors. I think, especially because we have folks dealing with this for the first time, it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of messaging around that, just to help people learn how to protect themselves. We'll definitely make a note of that. I know last week the county had a disaster housing workshop that I was out, and they had some, you know, leave behind cards, I'll call it, that how you can check if a contractor is registered and licensed to do work, and some other things that help people spot scams. And so we'll connect and make sure we get those in the hands of people, too. That's a great idea. That's terrific. Thank you. And, Claude, thanks for going through those slides. I can't wait to get a copy of that so that I can share it and, you know, respond with facts to some of the misguided information that's out there right now. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Counselor. Thank you. Thank you, Claude, for the presentation and the update. Everyone was anxiously wanting to hear about what happened yesterday. I know that we all have heard from residents. I had the unfortunate task of I dropped off my daughter for dance yesterday at 4 o'clock, and then when I looked out my window, a huge storm happened. There was a river going down my street, and I had to get on the road because they tell you don't get on the road, but I had to pick up my daughter, so I had to go towards Gandhi. And what I was wondering is, and I knew there was going to be flooding, is there a way, I mean, I tried to use ways to figure out where to go. I know that we get the updates on specific streets, but is there a way to get something where you know specifically areas on a map that you can see? I'm a visual person, and so if I'm going to get on the road and there's a storm, is there a way to do that? And I don't know if there is, I'm just throwing it out there because there are people that were having to leave work. And that was just, you tell people don't leave their house, but it's between 5 and 6 p.m. Yep. Councilmember Hanowitz, I think this is a really great safety point for us to talk about. PD does a great job in the middle of a rainstorm. They always update their social media right away with what streets they're seeing because they're in the field and seeing those. And then it gets shared through other platforms. And so I would encourage everybody to check that. I don't know about the map component. We'll have some further conversations. But one thing that I want to mention based on what I saw in the field today, if it's flooded, turn around. We saw so many cars in canals and videos that I've seen from last night where people thought they were driving on the road and we could have lost lives from people just heading off into the canals. To my point, I agree with that. It would be helpful, again, if there's a map like, do not go into this area because sometimes people find out a little too late. And, you know, sometimes people just don't make great decisions at that point when they are stressed out, given the situation. I didn't go into one of those areas, thankfully, but I'm just saying it would be helpful at some point to have some sort of map somehow. But, you know, besides that, in terms of the historical records, Claude, that we've been basing this information on, I feel like we were at a meeting before where historical records were mentioned. And they were, were, those numbers are not measuring to what we're seeing lately, as you mentioned, now. How are we using the updated information on these storms that are happening and their intensities as opposed to just, I know we have to go by historical records. But if we're seeing a pattern in the last five years, let's say, how is that being used? So what we did for our stormwater master plan, we looked at what we believe the future rainfall events will be like, as well as what the future sea level rise will be. And the sea level rise is important because all water on St. Pete eventually drains towards the bay or the gulf. The higher the bay and the gulf is, then the slower that rainwater travels. And so we need to be able to do our analysis and come up with our plans based off of what we believe we're going to be seeing in the future, not on what we saw in the past. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you so much for the update. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurdas. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just, Claude, I know lots of thank yous. Thank you for all the work, you and your team, the responsiveness. Amy, same with Joe, I was on the phone with Joe multiple times today. Marshall, just everybody, PD, fire. It's pretty incredible. And I know you're dealing with the eight of us and probably a few from that side of the building, too. And so just very, very appreciative. I did have one question, Claude. I know pre-named storms, we will lower lakes in anticipation. Is that a possibility? Did we do any of that? Did we think about doing any of that? That's really the one thing that caught me was, you know, certainly this year, I mean, we all experienced that lakes were at a significantly lower level. And then we've had this rainfall and they're back to normal slash even probably higher than some of them will be. I'll speak specifically for the west side, higher than they are normally. I'm just wondering if that's a part of the process. Is that something we should be looking at when we have this saturation like we have in August and then we see that we might have a week like we just had? Is that something we might be able to do? And was that a conversation? So what we do right now is we have three lakes that we have the facility set up in order to be able to keep them pumped down during a storm. Two of them are in Riviera Bay. And those lakes were specifically designed for that purpose. And they have dedicated permanent pump stations there. And the other is Lake McGorry, which serves pretty much all of South St. Pete. And every summer we'll put a pump there that pumps around the weir, around the gate, to make sure that Lake McGorry is pumped down so it can absorb as much water as coming in as possible. The challenge with doing that with the other lakes is that oftentimes many of our interior lakes, if we drain that lake and we pump it out through our stormwater system, then it's going to go to another lake further downstream. And so you're basically just compounding the problem further and further downstream. The reason why it works in Riviera Bay and Lake McGorry is because Lake McGorry, we can pump it to Salt Creek, which goes out, you know, to Bayboro Bay. And then with Riviera Bay, it goes right out into Tampa Bay. So we'll certainly look at it. I'm not confident or optimistic that we'll have a lot of opportunities to really do something with it. Okay. I really try not to do this, especially when we're talking about something citywide. But I think that some of the lakes on the west side of St. Petersburg that flow to Jungle Creek or to Joe's Creek or even Walter Fuller that flows straight to the intercoastal, it might be an opportunity to help, especially when you look at that flood map and that big pink ball on the west side. And so I'd be interested in it, but I totally appreciate that you don't want to push the problem down the system, and I certainly don't want to do that. But those coastal ones that are a little closer to areas where we can push them, I think it's at least something this last couple weeks has made me think about. But otherwise, I'm just thankful for everything everybody has done, man. That's the point of this whole thing. Thank you. Thank you. And seeing no further requests to speak, thank you for the update, and thank you all for all you've done. And we're going to hope today was a little bit better than yesterday. Thank you, Madam Chair. We're going to hope. Thank you so much. Now we're going to go ahead and move on to open form. Mr. Clerk, can you please read the rules? Ma'am. If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open form sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open form must be limited to issues related to the city of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open form or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which, the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the Raise Hand Feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and ask to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rule of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. Thank you, Madam Chair, we do have some speakers, and I'll call them two at a time. Thank you. First two speakers, Madam Chair, Brad McCoy and Trevor Pettiford. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Hi, my name is Brad McCoy, 1856, Elmary Way South. Council members, today I'll discuss some urgent concerns that demand immediate action from you, our elected representatives. Findings from my two-month analysis of the city's transparency process show the city is currently non-compliant with Florida Statute 119 regarding public disclosure and transparency. Mayor Ken Welch and Council Chair Deborah Fick Sanders have repeatedly failed to provide public records in a timely manner and often withholding requested information. As of August 30, 2024, Mayor Welch has 14 overdue and unanswered public record requests. Council Member Chair Fick Sanders has three overdue and unanswered requests, and there are five requests overdue related to the bonuses. The city's records database is inconsistently managed with missing clarifications, inconsistent status field updates, and incomplete responses. Of particular concern is the refusal to provide non-exempt cell phone records and the potential mishandling of public records on personal devices. Moving on to unaddressed conflicts. The Gerdes family presents a serious conflict of interest. Robert Gerdes negotiated the gas plant deal. His nephew, Copley Gerdes, approved it, and his brother, Charles Gerdes, represented a party receiving $10 million from this deal. These three people are father, son, and uncle. This is a clear conflict that demands investigation and immediate corrective action. Regarding the recent illegal bonuses, the mayor and others involved in awarding illegal bonuses have diverted funds from an already indebted water resources fund. Some employees appear to have received both overtime and bonuses, with potential raises still unclear due to unfulfilled record requests. Alongside the potential for double and triple dipping in the cookie jar, these findings suggest possible finding financial mismanagement and misuse of public funds. Most unsettling is the fact that the city attorneys did not write a check to return the funds until after they were caught. I am calling for the following. One, a full review of the city's transparency and public records processes to ensure compliance with state law and consistent use of all data fields within the database. Two, the immediate release of all overdue public record requests, especially those related to the bonuses. Additionally, an analysis of record request completion timing for 2024 is split out by the party providing records. Three, an investigation into conflicts of interest involving Council Chair Fick Sanders and Copley Gerdes. Four, the creation of an ethics commission that does not have loyalty to any one person and can take immediate action for ethics and transparency complaints. In your emails, you'll find a summary of my findings, and I'll follow up later today with my requested actions. To the people listening today or watching from home, if you fear coming forward as a whistleblower or have concerns about ethics and transparency with this administration, please contact me. There's a large number of angered taxpayers collaborating to fight this corruption and negligence. We have made great strides in recent weeks, and we will continue to put pressure on this administration to do better. In conclusion, select individuals of this administration have marked the death of the democratic process for the city of St. Petersburg. I hope every member of this administration will take time to reflect on your actions and the actions of people around you and make changes we desperately need. Thank you. Hi, Trevor Pettiford, 3036 4th Avenue North. Madam Chair and this august Council, I wanted to come before you as a grateful citizen. The decision to run for public office is a difficult one. I know because my mother ran for public office and served in Dayton, Ohio. There's possibly no person more vetted, questioned, ridiculed, second-guessed, and targeted by verbal attacks than a politician. Well, maybe a journalist, but I digress. I've had the honor and privilege of watching and covering you as a veteran journalist of 38 years. I want to thank you for your willingness, first, to sit on this dais and not in these seats. I want to thank you for making the tough decisions of realizing that they're not always perfect decisions. They're just tough decisions. And I want to thank you for following your conscience more than your constituency when you must decide what's best instead of what's popular or what's easy. A wise man once said, you can't please everyone, but you can please yourself by staying true to who you are. Don't waste your energy trying to win over people who will never truly appreciate you. Facing public criticism, scrutiny in this job is part of it, I know, because I've scrutinized you. But for anyone to make an obsession out of constantly speaking and publishing visceral, fang-toothed, venomous words of criticism, I challenge them to publish two more most important words that anyone could ever print for the public view. Put your first and last name on a ballot. Then you'll know what it's like to be in the hot seats instead of the cheap seats. Thank you. Next to the speakers, please. Janae, I believe it was Preby and Paul Carter. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address city council. My name is Janae Preby. I live at 4047 24th Avenue North in St. Petersburg. I'm the director of the Shine St. Petersburg Mural Festival for the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. I am here today to say thank you to all of you on city council. I'm here to say thank you to Mayor Welch, Celeste Davis, Tracy Kennard, and especially to Councilmember Driscoll for being at the forefront of advocating for the arts in St. Pete. Your support sends an important message to the artists and the arts organizations that work tirelessly to make St. Petersburg not just a city that's functional, but a city that's thriving and lovable, not just livable. I am especially grateful to hear that the city is including Shine in the efforts to restore the funds cut by the state. We lost $25,000 in grant funding from the state this year, and this is Shine's 10th anniversary coming up in October. And I want to take a moment just to share what I've experienced through Shine because of the city's support. We talk a lot about the economic impact of the arts. We know from a previous study that when people come out to see a Shine mural, on average they're spending $67 a day at all the businesses that surround the murals. The restaurants, the bars, the cafes, the galleries, those are the places that are benefiting from the art in addition to the artists being paid. When you support Shine, you're supporting a dynamic ecosystem of businesses and individuals with every dollar. Beyond the economic value, I can tell you from years of being out in the street during this event, these murals have been woven into the lives of our residents. I can't tell you how many people have told me I moved here because of the murals. This is my favorite part of St. Pete. This is why I'm here. This is what I love. This is my favorite time of the year. My kids got, people have told me they've gotten engaged in front of the murals. They did their wedding photos in front of the murals. They changed their route to work so that they can see the murals on their way. Every time this happens, people are forming an emotional connection with our city, and people that are more connected to their city are more likely to vote, more likely to volunteer, more likely to give of their time and their resources and their talents. These are the kind of residents I think we all would like to have. Lastly, as part of the city's sponsorship of Shine, you all are entitled for a private mural tour. During Shine, we have offered this every year, and the city doesn't ever take us up on it, but we really would love for you to come on a tour. We can take you on and show you what your money and your support is really doing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Paul Carter. I live at 341 Fifth Street South in St. Pete. And I would just encourage you all to take Janae up on her offer. The murals are wonderful, and the tour is great. So I've been before you on many occasions asking for something, and today I'm not doing that. I'm here to say thank you to the council, to the mayor, to administration, and particularly council member Driscoll for the incremental arts funding that you've approved. You know, we talk about this as the city of the arts, and often it's just a kind of throwaway line, but I think you've made it really tangible by your action in terms of supporting the arts financially. So one big thank you, much appreciated, and we hope that we can make this permanent on a going basis. Thank you all. Thank you. Any more courts? We have one Zoom speaker about a chair. Mr. R. DeField. R. DeField, need better glasses. Once you enter into the meeting space, please state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. My name is R. DeField. I live at 1017 9th Avenue South. I'm going to respectfully disagree with that prior speaker's position that the majority of this council is displaying any ethics. Like the previous speaker said, I spent last night helping my friend clean out her business as it flooded uncontrollably. I'm sure there's hundreds of others just like her today who are dealing with sudden flooding that was ruining our homes, our cars, and our businesses. With all the other skyrocketing costs of daily life, your constituents are dealing with constant devastating losses from a failing, underfunded infrastructure. It's really laughable. I want to take the chance, again, to congratulate everyone on the council who supported that brand-new stadium deal. You really showed all these unfortunate citizens who were drying out their homes and businesses today that their well-being doesn't matter as much as handing over almost $2 billion to build a baseball stadium for a billionaire. As an added bonus, now, every week brings a new disgraceful wrinkle to the public theft that everyone just supported. Councilman Gerdes, special kudos to you for your ace negotiation skills. Apparently, you extracted what amounts to a pinky promise from the developers to build that promised Black History Museum. So, of course, now they're refusing to fully fund their share. Great job on that, Councilman. You and the mayor just desecrated the legacy of the gas plant community for a second time. Congratulations. And while we're at it, Councilman and supposed mayoral hopeful Driscoll, who just mentioned, quote, how to spot a scam, in light of the museum funding news, I'm sure you can totally reassure the rest of us that the team will absolutely, definitely follow through on those demands you made to build a daycare and a grocery store. Maybe you need to take your own advice on falling for scams and recognizing them. And finally, it was really amusing last week to hear the lone GOP council member, Ed Montaneri, go all top gun maverick with indignation over the story on those $250,000 bonuses paid to city employees. Ed, you just voted to hand over 6,000 times that much to a multi-billionaire without a secretly, legally binding demand for profit sharing or relocation restrictions. It would be nice if you would just stop play acting like you're some fiscally conservative budget hawk. There's hundreds of families driving through flooded streets every time we get a storm. You've just shown them you're totally unfit to represent them. I'd like to finally thank Councilmembers Hanowitz, Floyd, and Mohammed. I want to thank you, all three of you, for showing what true ethics and integrity looks like on this vote. The citizens of St. Petersburg really need to demand more qualified and honest officials like you to represent us. Thank you. Next two speakers, Stacia Schrader and Leslie Curran. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Hello, Councilwoman Fig Sanders and Council. I am here to actually thank you. And get your name and address. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm Stacia Schrader. I live at 692 10th Avenue South in Rozier Park. I am the current chair of the city's Public Arts Commission. I am a founding and board member, still a committee member for Shine, the mural festival. I am also a board member for the Florida Craft Art on Central Avenue. And for my profession, I'm a vice president of our local community, Bank Bay First. I'm here to thank you for the economic driver of the arts in St. Pete. Cultural tourism is three times, I believe, above just a beach tourist that will come to our town. So we have built St. Pete on the arts. And when I think of sustainability, I think of sustaining our economy with the arts. When the state pulled back, I went to my own corporation. I said, we need more funding. I hold the companies that I work for accountable to give money locally, and we've been able to come up with more money. My civic responsibility, if I've got extra money in my checking account, I spend it locally. I just choose it to spend in the arts. And I want to thank you for digging deeper to find funding to keep our economy moving and our city as special as it is. It will continue to drive people moving here and give you money within the tax coffers to help solve some of our bigger problems. So thank you. Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Leslie Curran, 1234 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street North. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this afternoon. The speakers before me, of course, alluded to a lot of what I wanted to talk about. I want to thank you for the proposed 1% allocation, which really is modest compared to the economic and wellness benefits that was reported in the American for the Arts study. I thank you to Councilmember Driscoll for really spearheading this and for everybody else to realize the importance of, like, what Stacia was just talking about, the economic, eco, the tourism, the cultural tourism, that really this city is in the midst of. It's important to recognize that the arts encompass both nonprofit and for-profit sectors. While nonprofits often rely on government funding, for-profit art businesses contribute equally to our vibrant art scene and receive no such support. We look to the city to create a conducive, safe environment for all art-related enterprises, and increasing the arts budget could enhance our city's ability to market itself more effectively. St. Pete has laid a solid foundation for a thriving arts community, but we need to elevate that and take it up a notch for all kinds of arts, visual, performance, musical. Having buyers is the crucial, crucial link. Whether, you know, if we have affordable housing and studio space for artists, that's important, but without a market for their works or buyers, you know, those resources really fall short. I think we need a strategic marketing plan to attract national and international buyers, collaborating with Visit St. Pete Clearwater on a major ad campaign could be a great step. While our beaches are the major draw, we also pride ourselves as being the city of the arts. For instance, setting up a booth at Art Basel, I think we've discussed this for I don't know how many years, a simple task that could help us connect art patrons and collectors, but also integrate some of the artists that come in for that event to this area. The arts community consistently supports each other and those in need, and now it's time for the city to support its artists and arts businesses, whether it's for-profit or nonprofit. If we don't, we risk losing our claim as the city of the arts. So thank you for the proposed 1%, and hopefully that will continue to grow, and we can really bring in the market that so many of the artists need to get the buyers that are so important to their livelihood. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Final two speakers, Madam Chair, Sandra Anthony and Matt Widener. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon. My first time here. I hope my last. I'd rather be at the Rays game today. And I wouldn't have been here today had I not called the offices just, oh, sorry, Sandra Anthony, 501, 35th Avenue, Northeast. I wouldn't be here today had I not called the office to express my concern about what was happening in my neighborhood. And I just thought, maybe with my voice, and I don't have prepared statements, so I'm just speaking extemporaneously, the only time I've ever put any tickets in the ClickIt app was for mosquitoes. But recently, about two months ago, I put in because the storm drain right outside on my street was flooding and not draining. I put in the first ticket, gave it a couple weeks, nothing happened. And so I called at that time in August, mid-August, and I was told that, you know, it was acknowledged, but it was still pending. So I appreciated today's presentation, and I'm hoping that today I'm still on that pending list because nothing has happened. In fact, sometimes that water sits for about two weeks and doesn't dry out. I've been here since 2018. Something's wrong. It has never been like this. We've been through all the hurricanes, all the storms, and even in my first while I was waiting, in my first submission, I said, even with a little bit of rain, something is happening here. A couple weeks ago, there was a crew that was there. I thought they were here from the town to fix what I thought was the drain, but they were there to fix a sewer pipe. I ran over, and I thanked them for coming, and I just showed them, and he says, no, no, we're not here for that. We're here for the sewer. That's storm. And he goes, that's normal. That's from full moon. I said, no, no, no. It's never been like this. Our neighbors have been putting in as well to the app. My fear is that something is wrong, and someone thinks that it's normal, and so I guess I wanted to come today just to share my concern, first maybe just to take the opportunity to thank you. We love being here. We love St. Pete, and I thank you for your service, for everything that you're doing. I think I just wanted to have you humbly hear my voice, that something's wrong in my neighborhood. I was told I was District 4 today. I was transferred to a voicemail. I didn't leave a voicemail, but sitting here, I think I'm even District 3. I don't even know. All I know is I have a lot of mosquitoes, and I don't like my water bill. I really like my taxes, actually, and I appreciate the work, but something's wrong. I'm going to continue to follow up to see if something does fix. If somebody comes, and I'm hoping I'm on still that list, but if someone doesn't come to fix that storm drain, I think I'm going to come back because something's really wrong. I just think it's wrong. Thank you. We got you. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. Ma'am, thank you so much for coming out today. I'll have staff follow up with you directly. Yes, sir. Name and address. Madam Chair, thank you so much. My name is Matthew Widener. I own property just across the lake there at 250 Mirror Lake. I wanted to come before you to talk about two cases, circuit court and an appellate court case. They're going to have a dramatic impact on how you all practice for the rest of your careers. Just a couple weeks ago, I watched when staff explained to you about the Florida Gulf Coast case. That's right here in front of us. And I was compelled to come before you because I heard lots of questions that you folks were asking, and the best answer to the questions is in what I'm going to give to the clerk, and I urge you to read the cases. Read what the appellate court said when it bumped it back down here. These are three learned judges who heard everything, and I think you folks really should pay attention to the case. Read it carefully. But when circuit court and then appellate court judges start telling us that what we're doing is unconstitutional, that's a big warning force that we should all be paying real careful attention to. That's the first case. The most important part about, though, and the most important question that wasn't asked, I was waiting for somebody to ask, it was, well, what's the impact? And that's this order right here out of this case. This is the order granting attorney's fees. So the question out of counsel in all these cases has to be, hey, what's this going to cost us? And the answer to the question is, I don't know, $500,000, $250,000. If I had to testify as an expert and look at five years' worth of litigation going back and forth, we're all going to write a check for that. And I come before you to ask as legislators to pay attention to this stuff early on and pay attention to this case because there's a lesson there. When the judges are saying unconstitutional, that means something. The second case is even more fascinating and really interesting, Liberty Hospitality v. City of Tampa. This case is a mind-blowing and really interesting case. What it says, essentially, is that the legislative branch cannot sit in a quasi-judicial capacity. And I want all y'all to think about your careers. And I want you to think about when someone might have come up to you along the way and said, I want to talk to you about something. And you said, can't talk to you. I've been told this is quasi-judicial, and so no matter what it is, I'm not talking to you. What the judge over in Hillsborough County says is legislative judicial executive branch. There's no such thing as quasi-judicial for elected officials. I've been talking to some of the brightest people we all know. We all know they're the smartest ones that have sat in those very seats. And they say, you know what, that very concept is something that I struggled with. In fact, one said that is the concept I struggled with most. How can I be an elected official that is not permitted to talk to the people that I represent about a certain subject because someone's told me it's quasi-judicial? What Liberty says is, you're legislators. Your most important job is to listen to the people that you represent. It's going to be heard in that courthouse right across the street because it's been appealed. But I want you to think about that going forward, and I want you to think about the concept of quasi-judicial in your most important job to always be listening to the people that you represent. Thank you all. Thank you so much. No more speakers, ma'am. No more speakers. Since we have no more speakers and no requests to speak, I wanted to allow from a legal perspective, and I want to ask our Assistant City Attorney, Janine Williams, as well as our City Clerk, Chancellor Vasta, to speak on behalf of public records requests. So I don't know who's going to go first, but I think we need to kind of clarify some things in regards to public records requests. Based on open forum comment? Well, general. How does the process actually work? Well, that's a mouthful. But in general, for public records requests that are received by the City of St. Petersburg, they're coordinated through the Clerk's Office unless they're sent to an individual department who has all of the records that are requested in that public records request. So if all records are within a department, that department may respond on its own. However, if the records come from several departments, then the City Clerk is going to coordinate the response. If the records request is less than 30 minutes of time to respond to, then that record request will be put together and responded to by the City Clerk's Office. If it's more than 30 minutes according to policy, then the public record requester will receive a cost estimate. And that cost estimate must be paid before records are provided. If the records are – if the cost estimate is paid for, then the records are produced, and that production doesn't begin until the cost estimates are paid. If the cost estimates are not paid, then eventually the public records request is closed out after some time without payment. Thank you. Did you want to add anything to that? She pretty much covered everything. There's multiple methods that we can receive public records. It's not just necessarily through our GovQA system. It can be done through email. It can be done through phone call. It can be done through walk-in. It can be done anonymously. So there's multiple facets of how public records can be received. And we do adhere to Florida State Statute 119 as well as our administrative policy as it relates to not only providing public records requests, but the production of records. As Attorney Williams indicated, if a request exceeds more than 30 minutes, we provide cost estimates to those requesters. Oftentimes they go unpaid. If those cost estimates are not paid, we don't release those records or have staff begin the production of those records because the production doesn't begin until those fees have been paid. That's all I have to add to it, and is there something else that you want us to address? No, I was just interested in making sure that the constituents that are listening understand that you just don't request a public record request and don't pay it if it's over 30 minutes and that without receiving that public records request is negligent on the city. You have to pay for it. The public requests over 30 minutes are not free. And I was interested when I saw that as a city government, we receive 25,000 to 35,000 public requests annually. Correct. So there's a reason for us having to estimate and guarantee payment of time. So thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. And so now we're going to go ahead and close open forum and move to our new ordinances, beginning with item E1 and E2. Can they be presented? And we'll just do E1 first. Clerk, can you please read the title for E1? Individually. Individually? Okay, thank you. Madam Chair, propose Ordinance 597H, an ordinance repealing Division 8 of Article 5, Section 2-268 through 2-270 of the City Code relating to major construction project requirements for employing disadvantaged workers and providing an effective date. The public hearing for this particular ordinance is on October 3rd, 2024. Move approval. Second. Okay, now that this has been properly motioned and seconded, we're seeing no further requests to speak. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item E1 passes unanimously with Council Member Mohammed being absent. Thank you. Clerk, can you please read the title for E2, please? Madam Chair, propose Ordinance 598H, an ordinance repealing Division 7 of Article 5, Section 2-261 through 2-264 of the City Code relating to major construction project requirements for employing apprentices and providing an effective date. The public hearing for this ordinance is also October 3rd, 2024, and we do have one card, Madam Chair. Thank you. James Johnson, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Good afternoon. My name is James Johnson. I live at 2390 14th Avenue Southwest in Largo, Florida. Thank you, Attorney Janine Williams, for seeing me today. Having skilled construction workers to fulfill the needs of our ever-growing state is coming under attack by the number of skilled laborers retiring. They're retiring in far greater numbers than those applying, so there is a shortage and will be an even greater shortage in the coming years. The repealing of this ordinance is unfortunate, but I'm told that it's preempted by the state. That's politics. The City may no longer dictate who contractors hire, where they hire them from, nor how much they pay them, but the verbiage in Florida Statute 255.0992 regarding prohibited governmental actions pertaining to public works projects does not necessarily prohibit the City from having a preference of having apprentices employed by contractors in their request for proposals. This will still promote the use of apprentices in public works projects, but give the contractors, more say in how the work is completed, because I must say, having requirements of the current ordinance seemed a bit exhausting and unfair for contractors. While training apprentices is a very important task, telling a person how they must run their business is confining. As I said, the City is doing a fantastic job in employing apprentices, participating in apprenticeship programs, and even providing apprenticeship opportunities for the youth. I will thank you guys, so keep up the good work, and again, thank you, Attorney Janine Williams, for seeing me today. Thank you so much. Move approval. It's been approved. We need a second. Second. Thank you. And now that I have no further requests to speak, and it's been properly motioned and seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for E2, please? Council members, cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve it, and the item E2 passes unanimously. Thank you so much. So now we're going to move on to our legal item, and joining us is Assistant City Attorney, Mr. Brett Pettigrew, in regards to potential charter amendments concerning the City Council and Mayor of Vacancies, an update and request for referral to a committee of the whole. How are you, Attorney? Doing well. Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair, members of Council. Excuse me while I raise this up a bit. Didn't say it would be fast. There we go. Thank you very much. So this item started as a new business item in October of 2022 to discuss potential changes to charter provisions governing vacancies on City Council, including elimination of the appointment process to have all City Council vacancies filled through a special election. What followed was three meetings of the Public Services and Infrastructure Committee in July of 23, November of 23, and March of 24. Those three meetings culminated in an action item recommending that Council refer to a cow, two amendments related to the appointment process for Council vacancies, one related to the voting threshold, and the other related to not making an appointment during the regular election cycle for the vacant position. Before Council voted on that PS&I action item, the City Attorney's Office identified an issue related to the mayoral vacancy process, which had not been part of the discussion up until that point, related to the timeline that was inconsistent with what the supervisor of elections indicated that they would accommodate. So the City Attorney's Office recommended that issue be added to the referral. All three items were referred to a cow that met on April 18, 2024, to discuss those two amendments from PS&I and the one recommended by our office. At the conclusion of that discussion of the cow, the City Attorney's Office was requested to draft a referendum ordinance addressing the three amendments referred to the cow and another amendment that would add a special election process for Council vacancies that were not filled through an appointment during the 45-day window. So putting all of that together, the ordinance that was requested, the charter amendment that was requested, would have simplified the mayoral vacancy filling process by eliminating a special election component and filling the mayoral vacancy through the next regular municipal election cycle. Depending on the timing of that vacancy and whether a runoff was required, the City Administrator would serve in a capacity of acting mayor for a period of three to 29 months. For Council members, the vacancy filling process would be modified as follows. To avoid making an appointment during the most active period of the regular election cycle for the vacant position, appointments would be prohibited during that period, and the position would be left open until the winner of the election cycle was appointed to fill the vacancy. The window to make an appointment would be maintained at 45 days, but the threshold for voting would be raised to a supermajority, and because raising that threshold would increase the likelihood that an appointment was not made, a fallback option was added so that if no appointment occurred during the 45-day period, City Council would then call a special election to fill the vacancy with the timing and structure determined at that time. Depending on the timing of the vacancy, that special election, how quickly that could occur, the Council vacancy would exist for a period of six to 29 months. The briefing material said three to 29. I inadvertently included the mayoral timing for that. It would actually be closer to six when you factor in the 45-day window for appointments, negotiation with the supervisor, and the 90-day window that the supervisor would need to get spun up for the election. I apologize for that inadvertent typo. In any event, after receiving that direction from the COO, our office worked to draft a textual amendment to effectuate all of those changes and identified other related issues, which is our practice. Those included related amendments that would address temporary vacancies in the office of mayor and council chair, vacancies related to the resign-to-run process, extraordinary vacancies of three or more council members, and notice and other considerations for calling a special election. After developing a robust draft of the charter that would effectuate all of those amendments, several items of concern became apparent. For the amendments requested by the COO, there were outstanding policy questions related to special elections primarily, questions of the type that would normally be addressed at the committee level. The related amendments were significant enough that they would ordinarily be discussed at a committee, and taken together, this package of amendments would likely be better addressed through multiple referendum questions, which is also something that would be discussed at committee. And with that in mind, our office informed council that rather than bringing back the requested ordinance, we would provide a report on this matter and respectfully request direction, including referral back to a COO for further discussion. With that, I thank you for your attention, and I welcome the council's questions. Thank you. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much, Brett, for all of your hard work on this. I've said it before. I don't know if I should thank you or say I'm sorry, because myself and Councilmember Hanowitz were the co-sponsors of this item. It isn't often that we have an item that not only has two sponsors, but also goes through quite as many committees as this has to still not have a resolution. And I just feel like there's still so many questions that are unanswered, the fact that this process has not only brought about the conversation on the council vacancies, but also the issue with the mayoral vacancies, and all of the housekeeping items that you also have brought forward to us. It's my opinion that this exercise is worthy of continuing to move forward with, but timing is everything. And so I really feel like I'm hopeful that council will look to move this to a committee of the whole per your recommendation, but that we can take it up maybe towards the end of next year, because it'll be 2026 before we can actually put this on a ballot anyway. So, um, with that, I will go ahead and move that city council move this item to a committee of the whole to be heard no sooner than, um, January or December of 2025. Okay. So, okay. Um, we do have motion has been properly seconded and council member Driscoll. Thank you. I, I can support this. Um, there are parts of this that I think are definitely in need of change. There are other parts that I have some concerns about. Um, we, we have been talking about this for a long time and there are still, uh, multiple issues that need to be worked out. Um, and it's actually for that reason that I don't know that we want to put this off for over a year before we talk about it again. So, um, I mean, I think it should go to committee to talk about what we have. I, I don't want, um, the city attorney's office to do, um, more on this. I, I do think it's worthy of a committee discussion so that we can pick it apart when it comes to referendums. Um, it's something that's very serious. We want to make sure that we're bringing something forward to the public to vote on that is easily understood. Um, and, um, and that will truly improve our city charter. So, I mean, I'll vote, I'll vote yes on this, but I, um, it's, it would be unfortunate that we would wait that long to, to discuss this again as a group. I, I can have a one-on-one and, and let Brett know what I think of it. We actually already have, um, I, I, I, I think we should keep it fresh until we've got it right. And I think it's worth taking as long, as long as it's taken for us to get this far, we could keep talking about it and it'll still be, like, under the wire to get it on the 2026 ballot. So, um, I'll vote yes, but I wanted to put in my two cents on the timing because I, I think we, um, might want to rethink that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Hanowins. We've opened a Pandora's box. Um, my mind spins just, like, thinking about all the issues that have been brought up and then it spins even more when I think that we are going to have possible new people on city council to deal with this issue fresh. We've been having the conversation for a long time and it's, you know, my concern is at this point, we're, there are going to be people on city council. There are going to be people that have no idea what this issue is in terms of a delay. Is that where we want to go versus the people that already know what's happening, that we've been dealing with this, just deal with it and figure it out. Um, and that's where I'm kind of having a hard time. Um, I don't know if there's an easy answer to this. I think this is, it's, it's going to be a lot, no matter how we slice it or dice it, we've opened up something that there are things that probably need to be addressed that are in our charter that have to be clear. Uh, elections are important appointments are important and I, I'd be happy to hear from council member Gabbard, whether or not like what's her thought process in terms of putting it off that long versus doing it sooner during now. So, uh, but I'm happy, I think we just have to do this however, if it's now or later, so thank you council member Gabbard, if I can, um, I'm looking at, we have about four more cows before the end of the year. Okay. And I'm looking to see if we would have additional time to add this discussion, um, because December 2025 is a little bit far out. If the motion stands and, and I will support it, I will do my best to move it sooner if that's okay. May I? Yes, please. So the rationale of the timing, um, came from a one-on-one Brett and I had earlier this week and we kind of batted this around. Um, what makes sense timing wise, um, recognizing that we will have a new council here very soon and, you know, we, I think, aren't naive enough to think that we can bring this in for a landing and one more meeting. I think that it is going to take more than that. Unfortunately, um, we do have other business that we have to get done. So I appreciate the offer to bring it this year, Madam Chair. And if that is the will of the body, so be it. Um, I think the reasoning for the later in the year of next year is because we will have new council members and we all remember what it was like to be new. I mean, you're drinking from a fire hose anyway. And so I wanted to be respectful of them and give them enough time to really get their feet wet, just doing the job before we bring something back of this caliber. Um, so that was the rationale that was kind of what I came up with after my conversation with Brett, as long as we talk about it again and we keep it moving forward because to council member Hanowitz's point, there's nothing more important than making sure that the process under our charter gives people the ability to be able to choose their representatives whenever possible. possible. And so I'm open to a change on the date. I threw the date in there because of our conversation, but I'm, I'm like I said, I just want to make sure the conversation stays moving forward. Well, we have a motion and it's been properly seconded with that date. So, um, that will be my effort to get it done sooner unless you want to amend your motion, but I think you will get approval on as it stands now. Okay. So my motion was no sooner than December 2025. Right. So that's my motion and it was seconded. So we'll yeah. Okay. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. So by voting yes, we're saying that we, we are agreeing not to talk about it. No sooner. No sooner. Not to talk about it. Right. For a year. That's fine. All right. Thank you. Okay. There's been motion and improperly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam chair, the motion to approve agenda item. I one, uh, passes unanimously with council member Mohammed being absent. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy your vacation, Brad. It might take me that long to distill and consolidate the more than 100 pages. I've already presented on this topic digestible for the next gal. I will see you before that. However, Thank you. Thank you. We'll see. We'll see how big the beard is. I don't know if it's good to give breath out. So now we're gonna next, we're gonna move to our report items beginning with F2 and F2. We're being joined by our transportation and parking management director, Mr. Evan Morin. How are you Mr. Morin? Doing very well. Thank you chair, members of council. Thank you for the introduction. I'm here with good news. Uh, we can celebrate winning a grant, another grant from Ford Pinellas. And, um, just a little bit of information about this grant type. It's a complete streets and local government assistance grant program. They have two funding categories, a planning or concept planning and a construction. And we usually go for both every year. Uh, sometimes we might go for one or the other. Uh, the best thing about the concept planning is that when we win one of these awards, when we're granted one of these awards, the money's available almost immediately. Whereas for construction, you have to wait about six years because it has to go into the CIP program. So fortunately we're gonna be able to get going on this study very soon if council approves it today. And, uh, just a little history. We've been very successful with this program since Ford Pinellas rolled it out about six years ago. Uh, Chelsea Favreau is here with Ford Pinellas. I just consulted with her and she said I can, uh, not only celebrate that we're the most winning, uh, municipality or government entity with within Pinellas County, but our awards surpass all the other ones combined. So only being a quarter of, uh, the population or so and having the majority of the funding speaks to, you know, our team as well as the administration's leadership and council support. So thank you for that. Um, the program is changing moving forward. It's gonna be a little bit more broad. So we could go for similar concepts or we can go for more different things in the future. And they're also adding funding to it. So more to come, um, moving forward. Actually, this is not the first time that we applied. We, um, did not win funding the first time we've applied for 31st street. So we took the, um, advice that they gave us for how we can improve the application. We came back again and this time, uh, we were successful. So Ford Pinellas board has already approved these, these funds for us. And it's a hundred thousand dollar, uh, award. The con, the, um, study would develop concepts for continuous bike and pedestrian accommodations. Um, identify safety and operational improvements, but also maintaining travel time reliability for, for people driving motor vehicles. Uh, recommended list of prioritize, prioritized projects, uh, would be an outcome of the study. And we're using one of the on-call consultants that Ford Pinellas has already acquired through competitive, um, procurement. So 31st street is, is unique. Uh, it's a unique corridor. It extends all the way to, uh, Pinellas point in South St. Petersburg. It connects up to the sun on our corridor and points, uh, north of that. Um, it is, uh, you know, it touches, as you can see on the right side, we've got a lot of plans that, that touch this area. And, um, we also, um, really consider it needing improvement in part due to the isolation that I two 75 creates here for east west, um, connection. We will have a community engagement plan, uh, that, that goes into this so we can get buy in from the community. We have some of that already, you know, interest from the community and making changes here. As you can see where we, we have letters of support from these three different entities. Back to one of our hotspot maps that you've seen before on other corridors. 31st street itself is not part of our high injury network, but we do have some high injury intersections here. In fact, the intersection of 31st street and 54th Avenue South. Currently we have had more crashes at this intersection than any other section intersection in the whole city. So, uh, we will need to take a look at that as, as well as longitudinally. Um, there's no continuous dedicated infrastructure for bicyclists along 31st street that meets current standards. And I'll, I'll show you a couple of pictures in a minute. We do also have opportunity and opportunity to improve connections with the Pinellas trail skyway trail and, and sun runner. And, uh, I would also point out that the Southern part of this is, uh, not generally thought to be in the skyway Marina district, but we do have a South planning area. This of the skyway Marina district and 31st street from 54th down to Pinellas point is, is part of that. And some of the ideas there are to connect that portion with the, with the rest of the skyway Marina district. So we were awarded a hundred thousand dollars and the local match will be $55,000, uh, 50 to $55,000. And so for Pinellas is covering about two thirds of the cost and the city will cover a third. So this is a good example of lever leveraging limited resources for more effective outcomes. Um, and these pictures, uh, notice in the center picture that, uh, we actually have made some improvements on 31st street through. Uh, project and cooperation with the FDOT. This is the intersection where the interstate on and off ramp interact with 31st street. We've been able to add some, um, green paint. We've improved a crossing. And so this section has already been improved. But if you look at some of the other ones, uh, the picture on the far right is the southernmost section of 31st street. And what kind of looks like a bike lane on the right is actually a marked shoulder. It doesn't meet the minimum standards to be a bike lane. So we don't call it a bike lane. We actually don't put any, uh, bike emblems in that striped area. And that's why there's a sign there that says share the road because we don't want to, uh, require people to ride in that bike lane when it doesn't meet the width that we'd really like to have. So we'd like to get that, uh, studied and reviewed. Um, we, some people think that we have a trail on the west side of 31st street north of 54th, but it's also eight foot wide and we can't call it a trail unless it's 10 foot wide because an eight foot doesn't really serve the purpose. So that's really just a wide sidewalk and not a trail. So a lot of things that we could look at through this corridor and, uh, we'd like to get moving on it. And therefore I ask for council's approval on the resolution. Second. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurdas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, can we go back to the last slide, please? I, I'm all in favor of this. Very happy about it, but I'll be honest with you. That sign with how the lane is marked is confusing. Like I would definitely would have thought share the road meant that's my bike lane. So I, I just throwing it out there for future use on how that's, it would make way more sense if that white line wasn't there. And then that sign said, share the road that, that to me is confusing. And I bike on our streets all the time. So I, I'm glad that there's some space, but that makes it seem like share the road because you have your space in the car has its own. Just from like somebody that doesn't deal with this every day. Right. Like, I mean, this is. That's, that's why the picture on the right and the picture on the left are the way that we don't think that it should be in the future. Yeah. Picture in the middle is something that looks good. That's designed to current standards that we, that we like. So we would not design something like you see in the picture on the right anymore. That's a very old design. And it's something that we plan on, on fixing and getting away from. We're not even using share the road on anything new anymore. We use bike may use full lane. Okay. There you go. All right. That, that makes me feel better that if we're doing anything that we're not doing that. That's really, that's really old. All right. No, perfect. Thank you. You know, cause just from like a, I, you know, non engineering planning standpoint, that is, that's confusing. So I'm glad to hear that we're doing something different other than that. That, that is super helpful. Thank you, Evan. And this is awesome. Great job. Thank you. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. And thanks for all the work that you have put in on this. Thank you to forward Penelis, who is represented here today by Chelsea. Great job. And I can't wait to see the results from this. Yeah. Council Vice Chair Gerdes made a great point about that. The skinny. It's like share the road and be super skinny. Like squish in, you know, and it doesn't need. But today we know that it doesn't need to be that way. And the work that you're doing is going to help make it, make it so much safer for people to get around by bike. And for the drivers who need to be able to coexist with them. So, thank you. Thank you. Council member Driscoll just told me to get skinny. Oh my goodness. Suck it in Gerdes. Okay. Seeing no more requests to speak, and it's been motioned and properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for F2. Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously with council member Mohamed being absent. Thank you. Now we're going to move to F3, which is a resolution approving a supplemental appropriation of $1 million from the unappropriated balance of the opioid settlement proceeds to fund to the Housing and Neighborhood Services Administration. And joining us is our Senior Operations Analyst, Ms. Jess Rydell. How are you? Great. How are you all doing? Great. All right. Good afternoon, Chair and Councils. Council members, sorry, Jess Rydell. I'm here to talk with you today about the Opioid Settlement Funds Grant Program. So to give you a brief history about how we got here, in 2018 and 2019, the city signed on to several lawsuits against prescription opiate manufacturers, distributors, and retailers for their role in the opioid epidemic. So all the lawsuits in the U.S. were centralized into one court in Ohio and then fell under one overarching litigation effort, the National Prescription Opiate Litigation. So states brought their local governments together, and that whole process culminated in the state of Florida's statewide response agreement being signed in November 2021, which outlines how the dollars are allocated through the state through state, regional, and local buckets of funding. So that statewide response agreement outlines several guidelines for using these dollars, with the overarching rule being that all settlement dollars must be used to fund opioid education, treatment, and prevention strategies. So the full statewide agreement was in the backup, and you probably noticed Exhibits A and B, which outline the approved uses that the state has set forth. All expenditures must fall under one of those approved uses. It's a pretty long and varied list, but we must use the dollars in those ways. The Department of Children and Families is now overseeing this whole process and has convened the statewide council on opioid abatement as required by Florida statute, and we do have local representation on that council with Commissioner Peters being appointed to the Florida League of Counties. So for us, the city will receive approximately $6 million spread over a period of 18 years. The amount we receive every year varies depending on the settlement payment schedule for each company. To date, we've received about $1.084 million and some change, and you can see on the slide there the variety between the years, receiving about $300,000 in FY23 and then almost $800,000 this fiscal year. We have not spent any dollars to date, which is why we're here today bringing this grant program forward to start getting dollars out the door now that we have that pool of money to work with to start funding these needed initiatives. So to ground us in kind of what the needs are here locally, I want to share some data with you. In 2022, there were 597 accidental overdose deaths in Pinellas County, 80% of which were caused by opioids. The stat you see around usually is that means one person died from an overdose every 14 hours in Pinellas County. I do want to add a caveat quickly about the data being from 2022, which sounds like it's outdated. The 2022 official numbers were released in January of this year. It's on a very delayed schedule to receive the official numbers. So we did recently receive the interim 2023 medical examiner's report that covers January to June 2023, but we just got that like a month ago. And so it's all just on a kind of delayed schedule, so I wanted to share that with you all. But the interim 2023 report does show that overall statewide overdoses and overdose deaths have decreased, which is great news. But, however, fentanyl continues to be the most prevalent drug causing overdose deaths. And also there's been an increase in the newer drug xylazine being present in individuals after an overdose death as well. In 2021, again, this being the most recent data for this marker, Pinellas County was ranked the highest, meaning the worst in the state, on their opioid index and vulnerability index. And these represent increased adverse outcomes from opioid use and also represent a higher need for additional services and supports compared to other counties in the state. And that's a state dashboard metric that they use. And I'll share a bit about what the county is doing as well. So Pinellas County receives county funding, just like we're receiving city funding, but they also manage the regional bucket of funds. And as part of that oversight, they were required to convene the Opioid Abatement Funding Advisory Board, or the OFAB, as they call it. And we do have local representation there, too, with St. Pete Fire Rescue Division Chief Womack before and now Chief Judah serving on that board. And to start the process of identifying their funding strategy for that regional bucket of funding, they procured a gap analysis to identify needs and gaps in the county. And I've listed a few high-level takeaways here that I'll share. There's a need for more targeted awareness campaigns, specifically around reducing stigma. Affordability, wait lists, and not knowing where to go for help are major barriers to care for folks who want to access services. Harm reduction strategies need to be scaled, including naloxone distribution efforts. This is the opioid overdose reversal drug, also known as Narcan. Education about Good Samaritan laws, access to fentanyl testing strips, and syringe service programs. Peer specialists should be included in services more often as a best practice. And also housing options have limited capacity and also sometimes place barriers on residents who are receiving medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, which is a medically accepted best practice for treatment, but some programs do not allow people who are on MAT to enter their programs. So all of this has led to what we're seeking approval for today, which is the Opioid Support Grants Program. We will award up to a total of $1 million via a grant-making cycle. We'll have two tiers of funding available for applicants. Tier 1 is up to $25,000, and Tier 2 is up to $100,000. This is set up this way to allow for a variety of organization sizes and capacities, as well as project sizes and scopes. And organizations can apply to both tiers as long as they are applying under separate projects, not applying to both tiers for the same project. We are prioritizing proposals that include these priority areas here, respite housing, harm reduction, peer support, with an overall focus on filling service or resource gaps in the community that are not being funded by other sources, and scaling programs that we know work so we can increase that impact. This is what we've heard from stakeholders as needed areas specifically, which is also underscored by the findings I shared previously from the county's gap analysis. Applicants will be nonprofit 501 organizations who have a history of serving St. Pete residents, and also all of these grant dollars will be spent specifically on St. Petersburg residents. As far as next steps go, we're seeking y'all's approval today from Council. The application will be open for approximately 45 days, and then we will follow our typical city grants process where the review committee scores applications, then comes together publicly for final determinations. We'll bring the selected applicants back to y'all on consent for approval, execute agreements, and the performance period will be approximately February 2025 through a year through January 2026 with invoicing and reporting due to the city and the state, and also impact reporting we'll share with Council. That's all I have for you today. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Seeing no requests. Okay, Council Member Montaneri. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Jess, for the report. I do have a couple of questions, and I remember going back, I guess it was 2018, and Jane Jane and I had a lot of meetings on this. And Jane, if I recall, you were you were leading the city's effort on to get this funding. Can you can you kind of just do a quick refresher for me? How? When? When? When? When did you first get involved? This has been going on for many years. The city originally became involved when the city retained outside council to become involved in the opioid litigation that was going on throughout the country. I've come to you several times on this over the years. The first time was to get the permission to hire the outside council. Then the lawsuits were brought. There was a time period when they were trying to figure out, since there were so many governmental entities that were involved, how they would even begin to fashion any kind of a situation that would create finality to these lawsuits. And I came back to you with the state agreement to approve for the city to be part of the state structure that was going to dictate how the funding came through. That was the structure that set up these three buckets. One is the state bucket, one is the regional bucket, and one is the city bucket. State approximately getting 50%, regional getting 35%, and the city getting 15%. And through part of that, there were requirements for the counties, the way the regional buckets were set up. If counties met certain requirements in population, having an opioid task force and some other things, they were allowed to become a qualified county and oversee the regional bucket. And another thing that I brought to you was an agreement that we negotiated with the county, also with Pinellas Park and Clearwater, who were also litigants in the opioid litigation, to create OFAB, which is the advisory board that oversees the regional bucket. The permission still is required from the county commission for the funding coming out of that bucket, but the committee really dictates where that funding goes. So in a roundabout way, I've been to you multiple times over the years, and this is finally coming to you with, hey, we've got some money now. It's time for you to start making some changes and some differences in the community with the money. And that's why this funding program is being put together. Well, good, good. I remember our long conversations and I asked a whole lot of questions and you were just totally on top of this whole issue. And I know it's been a journey for you. I just wanted to recognize you and thank you for all that you did to kind of get us to this point so that we have this funding so we can use it to help people that were affected by this crisis. So thank you for that refresher. Jess, thank you again for the presentation. I just had just a couple questions. You mentioned a review committee. Tell me about the committee. Who's going to serve on it? And will it be like city staff, community members? Yes, it's made up of city staffs. It's an internal review committee made up of a variety of people from different departments. I can share their names. Okay, so it's me. Carly Piniella from Housing. Beatrice from Codes. Chief Judah is also serving on it from Fire. George Smith from CRA. And Cormac Haverty from Sanitation. I think I'm getting everyone. Oh, Shawnice Reed as well from Social Services. Okay, thank you. And then you mentioned that 501c3 organizations can apply to this. Do we have some idea of who those organizations are at this time? I'm not sure there's a lot of organizations locally that do this kind of work. I'm not sure. I can give you a list of them, but I don't want to fill in anyway. I was just, I was just curious. I mean, some of the organizations that I would anticipate might apply would be somebody like Operation Par, who provides substance abuse treatment. Westcare provides substance abuse treatment. PERC has services available as well as a whole host of other nonprofits. So it opens tomorrow. So, you know, we haven't seen any pre-applications. Of course, it will only open if you approve it. And so we'll have to see who takes us up on that offer. I would anticipate that maybe other counseling providers that do substance use disorder treatment could apply as well. Okay. That's all I was looking for. I just wanted to. My brain went blank the minute you asked me that question. I just wanted to have an idea of like who, who's out there that might, might apply for this. Well, thank you for answering my questions. I'll go ahead and move approval. Second. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no further requests to speak, it has been motioned and properly seconded. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting for F3? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have, they have voted. Can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Muhammad being absent. Thank you. We're going to now move on to report item F4, which is a resolution of, which is a resolution approving the 2024 emergency medical services ALS first responder agreement between the city and the Pinellas County EMS authority. And joining us is fire rescue division chief Lindsey Judah. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Great. Thank you to you and your team here on the council. I appreciate being here today to provide some insight on the ALS first responder agreement. The 2024 EMS ALS first responder agreement here is a clean copy from the 2022 agreement and the number one amendment. And I'd also like to acknowledge attorney Jane Wallace for her assistance on this project. And before we get into the business, I just want to make sure that we recognize the people that are doing the hard work in the streets of our community and serving the residents and visitors, especially based on the conversations here today. They were definitely working hard yesterday during the flooding and just as just mentioned with the opioid epidemic, they are constantly going to overdoses in our community as well. The first slide here just acknowledges the language that was already approved in the city council in the ALS first responder agreement 22 and the amendment number one, we use that language and just put it into the 2024 agreement that included the traffic preemption utilization of regional 911 center and staffing to relief multiplier. The additional language that's included in the ALS first responder agreement for 2024 includes the capital EMS vehicle replacement amounts. The amounts are capped now at medic units are 125 staff vehicles are 75,000 and the rescue units are 380,000. That is an increase for the medic units of 25,000, the staff vehicles of 25,000 and the rescue units are increased by $50,000. This also includes our annual compensation for this agreement. 2024 is FY 25. The budget's listed there and that also includes a additional 24 seven paramedic positions. It also includes an appendix a the projected capital, which includes the medic units will be provided. There are 3 medic units for staff vehicles and 11 rescue units throughout this 5 year agreement. And there is also a possible for a 5 year extension. Those are the years that we anticipate the apparatus deliveries for the rescues just for your awareness. Those are for the remountable rescues to highlight the paramedic positions that we have. We currently have 112 county funded paramedic positions and as of October 1st, if this is approved by you all, we will now have 120. That is an increase of eight and we also anticipate an increase of eight positions for next FY as well. That will be for a total of 22 additional 24 seven paramedic positions. I would also like to share some information related to the firefighter paramedic transition. So we have firefighter EMTs and we also have firefighter paramedics. We hope that our firefighter EMTs will consider joining in as a paramedic, but that does require additional schooling. As you may be aware in your fields, the workforce and recruitment is a bit challenging. And so we want to try to encourage our EMTs to become paramedics. We want to encourage the advancement and we do sponsor our firefighter EMTs through paramedic school if they so choose. We currently have four firefighter EMTs who are attending paramedic school. We have two firefighter EMTs who are studying to complete the national registry. They have already went to school and we have six now that are working toward the standalone paramedic status. They have already finished school and they have tested and passed the national registry. And lastly, I would like to highlight the peak paramedics that we have. In addition to our firefighter paramedics, we have a paramedic job classification, which is very helpful in reducing the workload on our 24 seven personnel. And we do offer a sponsorship to these individuals as well to send them to fire academy. The difference between sending a firefighter EMT to paramedic school, which requires at least 12 months of training, is a little bit different for us for the peak paramedics in which we can send them to fire academy. And that can take up to five months. So this is a faster route for them to be able to become dual certs and serve our community as firefighter paramedics. Aside from hiring current firefighter paramedics, which has become increasingly difficult, hiring our paramedics and offering to sponsor them through fire academy is one of the fastest ways that we can increase our numbers of firefighter paramedics who are serving our community. We had two paramedics complete fire academy. Just recently they went through the oriented new higher orientation process. And we have three additional peak paramedics currently in fire academy. We anticipate that they will transition to the firefighter paramedic positions and attend the new higher orientation just after the first of the year or the next new higher orientation class in 2025. That is all I have for updates. We appreciate your time and support for St. Petersburg Fire Rescue, especially as it pertains to providing exceptional emergency services to our residents and visitors. We hope that you approve this agreement and I am available for any questions you may have. Thank you. Councilmember Montaneri. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chair. And good to see you, Chief. Thank you for the presentation. Usually these agreements are one year agreements. Why are we going to a five year agreement? The county approached all of the fire departments and asked if they were interested in a five year agreement. We do have the ability and we do go each year to discuss the different caps that we have to increase generally. So we will address each year what caps we need to increase. If we need to change any language, if something comes up that we need to address within the agreement, we have the ability to do that. We just have it set for five years. So if we don't have anything or maybe other departments don't have anything that they address, they may keep the same agreement and not adjust any language. Okay. Thank you. On slide four, you mentioned the increased positions and then the capital with the units. Are these units that are listed, are they replacement or are these new? So we have a capital replacement plan for our vehicles. And because this is listed as a five year agreement, we listed all of the units that will be replaced throughout those five years in Appendix A of the 2024 agreement. They're not new vehicles that don't exist already in our system. They're just replacements. Okay. And as we're, because it seems in your presentation, you talked about like staffing up with an additional 22 people. Should, should we have more equipment for those new people? That's, that's kind of where I'm going. No, we really need to increase our staffing levels when it comes to firefighter paramedics so that we can have more depth within our system. Uh, they'll still ride the same apparatus that we already have, but we'll be able to have more opportunities for our personnel to do what I consider some cross pollination. So then we can have a paramedic that is acting as an officer on an engine, or we can have a paramedic driving the truck. Um, so there, the apparatus are already there to provide the service. We just want to make sure that they have different opportunities throughout their career. And I believe that that will help with recruitment and retention. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Vice chair Gerdes. Thank you, madam chair. Thanks chief for the update. Great question. So, we have 112 available positions. How many are full at this point? We have four vacancies for paramedics currently. Okay. I would say that's pretty good with where we are in economic time. So, just, just a check in. So, thank you very much. And I'll move approval. Second. Thank you. Seeing no further requests to speak, we will please open the machine for voting for F4, please. Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the item F4 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll, Hanowitz, and Mohamed Bean absent. Thank you. Thank you so much, chief. Thank you. We appreciate the presentation. Now, we're going to go ahead and move on to F5, declaring the results of the primary election held on August 20th, 2024. And that will be our city clerk, Mr. Chandra Nervasa. Madam Chair, is it okay if I can stay right here? Yes, sure. Madam Chair, members of City Council, you have before you a resolution and acknowledging the results of the primary election held on August 20th, 2024. There was no primary held for Council District 1 with only one candidate, so there will be no primary or no general election for District 1. For District 5, there were only two candidates, so there was no primary, so they will go directly to the general election. For District 3, our two top go-getters, vote go-getters are Pete Bolin and Mike Harding. And for District 7, are Corey Gibbons and Wenge Newton. So, we're requesting your approval of this resolution. Second. Okay, you're seeing no further requests to speak, and there's been a motion to properly second it. Can you please open the machine for voting for F5, please? Council members, cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F5A. I'm asking unanimously with council members Hanowitz and Mohammed being absent. Okay, so I have F5A, but I don't see anything else that goes with that. Okay, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. What kind is that? What is that? Some other city, I bet. Okay, so now we're going to go ahead and move to F6, which is a time change resolution for the September 12, 2024 council meeting, and I have the resolution before me. A resolution approving the change to start time of September 12, city council meeting from 1.30 to 3 p.m. and providing an effective date. How do you entertain a motion for approval? Move approval. Now, the F6 has been motioned and properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting for F6, please? Council members, cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Mohammed being absent. Thank you. So the. Hold on. Oh, her vote didn't. Okay. Do we need to vote again? Yeah. Yeah. Do we need a motion for, can we just revote? Look. It was. I had a green light on. Hold on. Wait, hold on a minute. Her. Yeah, I think it's more of a technical issue with the. Okay. I mean, unless any of you are thinking something different in terms of not understanding the motion, I think it was more of a technical issue. Okay. It was a technical issue. I just wanted to make sure there was no reconsideration. Yeah. Okay. I didn't think so. I think if, as long as it's a technical error, you can just vote again. All right. Thank you. So can you please tell and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F6 passes unanimously with council member Mohammed being absent. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, no. F7 is being moved to public hearing because Mr. McCann is not here. Is he here? No, he's not. So we move that to the beginning of public hearing and we can't start public hearing before 5-01. So I'll see everybody at 5-10. Okay. We want to end resource, recess, and we're going to call the meeting back to order. I moved and called F7 from consent because I wanted to properly welcome our PSTA representative that was voted on at Cal for that we can have our own welcome vote for Mr. Max McCann. If you would stand, come forward Mr. Max McCann. We had 11 applications and we voted last week, week before, and you were successfully voted to represent us on the PSTA board and I know that you are going to do a fantastic job. So I wanted to give you a couple of seconds just to say hello and if there are any council members. I know council member Drissel is going to because she's the chair of the PSTA board, but I want to just give you a couple of minutes just to say hello and welcome. Hi, everybody. Thank you. And thank you so much for the appointment. It really is an honor. I'm humbled and I just hope that I can be of use to the board. It's a really important job and I'm going to take it seriously. I promise you, as you know, I live, breathe and eat this stuff. So it's right up my alley. I'm looking forward to getting to work right away. Thank you. We saw you many, many times at PSTA as a residence. You're very versed in transportation and we appreciate that. So we have council members that would like to speak. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. McCann for stepping up to serve in this capacity. It's really a pleasure to be able to confirm your appointment and welcome you to the PSTA Board, especially at a time when we have so much going on in our county as it relates to public transportation. And I think that you are so well suited for this role because of the advocacy that you've shown around both transportation and land use issues. And I've seen you speak here at City Council in front of the PSTA Board in front of the Port Forward Pinellas Board. And I know that you've been out and about at a lot of community meetings as well advocating for good transportation decisions. And I have always appreciated that so much. We need more citizens like you stepping up and speaking up. And now you will have a microphone all to yourself on the dais with the PSTA Board. And with the challenges and the opportunities that we have facing us with that, I'm really happy that we'll be able to count on you to be on our team. So thank you. Thank you. And I'll move approval. Second. Councilmember Gabbert. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Max, I just wanted to say I was unfortunately not able to be at the Committee of the Whole, but I'm very, very happy with the selection my colleagues made. Very happy to vote for your confirmation today. And I just want to thank you so much for stepping up. This is one of the most important roles that you can play as a citizen's advocate. And so I just really want to thank you and I know you'll do a great job. So thank you for your service. Thank you so much. Thank you. Councilmember Hanowitz. Thank you. And like everyone here on City Council, we've seen you come here and advocate so much on transportation issues. And you're right, you live and breathe this stuff. And we had a lot of qualified applicants. And I will tell you, even with all those qualified applicants, I thought that you were just above in terms of your knowledge and passion for the issues. And that's what you want in a representative of our community on the board. Someone who actually deeply cares about the issues. And I think you do that and you're going to do a fantastic job. So we look forward to seeing what you do. Thank you. So much. Thank you so much. We have a motion and it's been properly seconded. Seeing no request to speak, can you please open the machine for F7? Councilmembers cast your votes. Seeing that all present councilmembers have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F7 passes unanimously with Councilmember Muhammad being absent. Yay. Congratulations, Mr. McCann. Thank you. Thanks again. Thank you. We're going to go and take up our public hearings beginning with J1. We have A, B, and C, but we're going to listen to them and vote on them separately. And I also need to make a reminder for the record that the information at first reading, the ordinance that was read by the clerk's office was the actual correct version that was being read. So, clerk, can you please read the title? Opposed Ordinance 593H, an ordinance relating to sanitation rates and charges amending chapter 27, excuse me, section 27-557 of the St. Petersburg City Code, amending rates and charges for sanitation services, providing for severability of provisions, providing an explanation of words struck through and underlined, establishing a date to begin calculating new rates for billing purposes, and providing an effective date. And we have one card, Dennis J. Keaton. I'm going to do the presentation first. So, joining us is our Senior Public Works Manager, Ms. Angela Miller. Welcome. Good evening. Angela Miller, Public Works Services Manager. Joining me today is Andy Burnham, Vice President of Stantec Consulting Services. We do have him here with us as well. To assist with this presentation, we are doing our final recommendation to you all on our fiscal year 25 utility rates. So, as all of you are very much well aware of our processes, we begin this with our kickoff in January with our budget season. And so, we begin meeting with you all on our goals and objectives for our utility rate study. And this evening is our sixth time meeting with you all on this material. And so, we're hoping that we're now at a point where we can kind of tonight plan on a bigger picture. We're going to kind of focus on the goals and objectives of the program, the recommended just rates and where we're at today, a summary of our customer billing impacts, as well as Andy's going to just do a quick recap on each of the utility programs, and then we're going to close out from there. We have a significant amount of reference material in the back of your packets. So, all of those technical slides on the retail rate structure, the billing market comparisons, the affordability, the marketing and communications, all of that is there. So, if there's something in particular you'd like us to pull up after the presentation and highlight, we can do that as well. So, starting with this rate study goals for this year is always, first and foremost, balancing those long-term resiliency sustainability objectives. These are really large capital improvement programs for these utility systems, operations and maintenance, so planning for that out into the forecast to ensure that we're having resiliency for these systems, as well as sustainability. And, of course, we always look to the affordability of our customers when we're going through these rate studies. All of our planning models have that 10 to 20-year planning horizon, and we also are looking at the master plans that are now built in with the water resources and the stormwater utility programs. We also are lucky to have these rate studies every year. Some communities do these in three to five-year increments. Here at St. Pete, we do this every single year. We look at this annually, and so we do address any immediate concerns or upcoming projects that need to be adjusted. The example this year was the stormwater utility, as we're all aware of some of the adjustments to our CIP plan for projects being moved up sooner, as well as some additional funding for operations and maintenance. Andy's going to kind of dive into that a little bit. But those are the types of things that we try to look at and focus every year for some of our goals and objectives. Our program does have that sustainment of the 50-50 cash versus debt, and that's built into the entire program. And every year, we look at the different revenue structures. This year, we focused on the retail rate structure. It's actually been two years, I think, of focusing on this piece. And so this year, the goal was really to bring that forward tonight for a request for implementation moving forward into fiscal year 25. So this is where our rates are right now. If we think of these systems individually, the overall rate adjustment is going to be on that table to the left. So the green column were the rates that we were originally anticipating this year. The yellow is the forecasted recommendations for fiscal year 25. And so you can see each of those individually. When you net these across the funds, we're looking at about a 6.1% overall revenue increase for the utility systems. Those with reclaimed water, it's about 7.5. Inside of that revenue requirement, there's a lot of different ways we receive the revenue internally. And so, again, that retail rate structure was the piece that we looked at adjusting this year. And so that's adjusting the utility fixed charges and the volume tiers to reflect those current costs and usage patterns. So this is kind of an example. I think the simplest way to think about this, and this is the way our city has been set up, specifically on our water tiers. We have five water tiers in St. Pete. And you can kind of think of it as the more water you use periodically, your rate of pay goes up. And so that happens five times across the tiers for our customers. We did an analysis to review what that looked like in our revenues that came in. 83% of our customers were in that tier one. And so that retail rate structure redistributes that equitably to have the revenue burden to the individual customers based more on their services and then the demand characteristics that we're in now today. So that second bar kind of changes that from the 83% to 59% in that tier one, 32% in that tier two. And then you can see it kind of smooth out from there for tier three and tier four. You're really going to see this. I think the bills kind of give you that example of what that means to our customers. So this is a low usage monthly utility bill example. This would be, you know, one to two people living in a single family residential home, about 2,000 gallons of water wastewater usage in a stormwater tier one. So if you kind of draw your attention to that green bar, the overall rate change for this customer would be about 3.77%. Because of that retail rate structure, this went down from what would have originally been about 7.5%. So they're seeing that savings. If you look at that water, that first water line, you can see that reduction of almost 10% on their, on their bill, on the water bill, water piece. For a typical usage customer, this is your average family of four. So 3,500 gallons of water wastewater usage was all services consistent with that retail rate structure. Again, you're seeing a little bit of rate reduction. And so they're at 6.14 versus the original like 8% that would have been with the regular rate changes. Once you move into the 5,000 gallon, this is your higher volume usage customer. That rate increase starts to adjust for a higher rate of pay. So this customer is at 9.65%. It's very close. This is kind of where the tiers begin right around where they're netted. Originally, this would have been 8.9%. So it's a little bit higher, about $1. And on those higher, higher usage customers, that's 6,500 gallons. That's the top of tier two. This is 11.62%. So again, the rate of pay went up by about 2% from the 9.5%. And that's where we're at on our bills. I'm going to pass it over to Andy so he can do a quick update on the actual financial plans for each of the systems. Thanks, Angela. Good evening, counsel. What I'd like to do is just give a quick overview of some of the drivers behind these rate increases and what the outlooks are for each of the funds. And then just spend a little bit more time on the rate structure for the water and sewer system just to make sure we've got a good understanding of some of the customer impacts in a bit more detail. But first, starting with the sanitation system, we've really, each year, by way of conducting the rate studies, are able to identify kind of changes from one year to the next, both in actual data than the current year that we're in, but also in some of the future trends that we're assuming relative to growth in revenues as well as expenses. And for the wastewater, or excuse me, for the sanitation system, you know, we're in a pretty good place on the revenues that are coming in slightly above forecast, which is always a good thing. But it's also helping us to offset some pressure that we're seeing on operations and maintenance spending. So we are seeing higher expenses in 25 and beyond versus what we were forecasting last year. A couple of the drivers on that, the predominant one is something that's a bit outside of our control in that we have to take our waste to the Pinellas County landfill and they charge a tipping fee for those disposal costs. They're completing the end of a three year rate plan that has a 6.8% increase for 25. And for future assumptions, we've included a 7.8% increase in the out years for that expense going forward. The county's currently going to be evaluating updates to a new rate plan, but that's not available at this time. And then we've also had impacts associated with just continued cost increases from contract services. So for recycling, we've had to make some adjustments to make sure that we had adequate contract vendors for services. We had to extend our current vendor at a higher price than was anticipated because of some timing issues on when we went to the procurement for that particular contract. So again, these are things that are a bit beyond our control that we have to factor into our costs both today and then going forward. But the biggest driver for sanitation is if you think about it, the fleet, the vehicles themselves, those costs continue to increase. In last year's analysis, we had an average annual capital spend for vehicle replacement. That's about $4.4 million. But now reflecting current costs and needs, that's about 5.7 million per year. So generally the positive benefits we've seen on the revenue side have been offset to a large degree by increases on the operating expenses and on the vehicles. So as we kind of take a look at the forecast for this year for sanitation, we were able to really stay with the previous forecast for rate increase for 25, that 5.75% that Angela presented on the earlier slides. However, at this point, we have raised our outlook for future increases slightly from 5.75% a year to 6% a year because of the impact to some of those cost pressures. And we've just identified for you the individual impacts that each of those increases represent to both the residential collection rate as well as the recycling rate for residential service so that you can see those. But generally sanitation is in a pretty good place and we're just going to have to watch those drivers. Pinellas County tipping fees and vehicle costs will be the predominant things we have to keep our eye on with sanitation. Relative to stormwater here, what we're seeing is a significant cost pressure. And I think Angela alluded to this, you know, in terms of maintaining our assets and getting the highest level of service out of them. We've identified in the budget for 25 additional maintenance crews, the attendant equipment and vehicles to enhance our level of service for cleaning activities and other maintenance activities. But then also on capital spending, we've kind of accelerated some of the projects in the master plan and also integrated some local scale mitigation projects. That's really increased our capital spending in 25 and 26 to a fairly substantial degree. So we've got additional inflation as well as on operating expenses. So when you kind of add this up, it's about $8 million of additional cost in 25 on 32 million of revenue. So we with this fund, we really don't have a significant reserve that we can use to offset that. So it means it really translates to rate impacts. Hence the 25% increase that we've identified for this year, which is higher than last year because of those increases in operations and maintenance costs, as well as the acceleration of capital projects. But one thing to continue to note about stormwater is that this is something we do look at each year. And this forecast of the three enterprises probably has the most variability because of the timing and potential funding sources for capital. And at the end, Angela is going to talk more about some of that relative to grants. So if you rewind the conversation to last year, we actually were looking at lower increases than the prior year because of some grant funds that we'd received. And so that's going to be a continue to be a conversation each year is how does our capital needs look and what are the funding sources for those? And to the extent we get grants for our projects, that's going to have a positive impact on these increases, all else being equal. And lastly, for the water resources program, we've had some significant benefit from some kind of one time items in 24 additional interest earnings from our water cost stabilization fund. That's the proceeds from the sale of our well fields to Tampa Bay water, and that's above the forecast, as well as some interest earnings on bonds net of amounts that we have to that are due for arbitrage rebate purposes. So those have been some kind of one time helps. We've also continued to just really dial in our assumptions about future expenses, really looked at vacancy rates on personnel and future assumptions for that to try to make sure we've got a very sharp pencil on our personnel expense forecast. And as we, you know, continue to be mindful of our water use within the city and other communities continue to grow that are part of Tampa Bay water, our share of that pie goes down a little bit. So we're showing a forecast of a slightly lower Tampa Bay water expense forecast and all those things help us combat some increased operational cost above forecast key things like electricity and chemicals were drivers there and also just increases in the cost of capital projects. It's about 5 million more per year. So we're looking at about 127 almost 128 million versus about 122 123 million per year. It's important for everyone to understand that these are very infrastructure intensive services for water and wastewater. We have hundreds of miles of pipe underground that we have to replace and it's a very significant expense for water utilities, not just here in St. Pete, but across Florida in the country. So because of the near term benefits from some of those items this year, we were able to look at a bit lower rate increase trajectory than what we had identified last year. So if you'll recall last year, we were looking at seven and a half percent increases for a few years and then six and five and a half. And because of those positive occurrences, we're able to really smooth out, excuse me, and levelize that rate increase plan versus what we were looking at last year. And one thing we did include for reference is just the benefit of the decision to utilize some penny funding for some of our infrastructure needs. You know, if we were to discontinue that program, that would also cause these adjustments to be higher. So said differently, the use of penny funding is saving our customers about $2 on average on that utility bill by the time you get to 2029. So that's helping mitigate some of the cost pressures that we have for the infrastructure. But one of the big things for water resources this year that Angela talked about were the retail rate structure adjustments, and they really fall into categories of updating the fixed charges to just really capture billing and collection costs and debt related expenses. And so right sizing this, the kind of the structure, the way we collect the rates is something that we haven't looked at in a number of years. And so this was an opportunity to really tie some of these costs more specifically to our rates and also update our rates to take into account current usage profiles in the city that have changed over time. And so that's the volumetric side, whereas Angela mentioned part of the rates before you today include restructuring of your tiers to reflect those current costs as well as current customer usage patterns. And so Angela was kind of mentioning this distribution of your bills that you have in each of the different tiers. And you can see we've got 83% of our bills in the current tier one and our average use today is actually about 3,500 gallons. So over time customers have conserved. And so we have so many customers in tier one through conservation, modernization of fixtures that we've really, you know, it's time to advance our rate structure to reflect today's customer usage patterns. And so that's where the tier adjustments came from that Angela mentioned to really develop tiers that are based on our average use today, which is tier one up to 3,500 gallons. And then set it in multiples of that average use to establish tiers to tier three and then tier four is everything above that. And moreover, it was an opportunity to reconcile and alleviate some inconsistencies in the rate structure. So this is applied on a per unit basis for multifamily and commercial rates individually are based on average use in the same multiples of their average use as well. So we've been able to to really synchronize the rate structure to have some of that equity across the different customer classes that we have. And so the revised distribution looks a little bit more even, if you will. So there's always going to be a high concentration in that first tier. But then you can see tier two now has 32% of the bills, tier three is six, and then tier four is 3%. Whereas in the current structure, the top two tiers actually only have about 1% of your bills. So we're really right sizing the number of tiers based upon our current usage in the system. And so what that does is it really has an impact in terms of how the increases that we're looking at this year are effectively seen on bills of different usage. By adjusting these tiers and updating the rates for the tiers, you can see that for most low volume and average users, they may, if they're very low volume users, see a potential reduction in their bill. At 1000 gallons, you can see it would actually be a small reduction in the bill. But also for not only low volume, but average users, the increase in the bill is a little bit less than just simply applying the 6.75% increase across the board. Because now we have updated these tier breakpoints and now we have some higher bills in those higher tiers. And so that's where you start to see above say five and 10,000 gallons. Some of those higher volume bills may see increases above that 6.75% if they don't conserve. So these bill impacts are all assuming the same amount of water use before and after the rate structure. So again, that's part of the benefits of an inclining block rate structure, such as what the city has. And many other communities have is that it provides an incentive and a price signal for those that do have those higher volume uses to maybe do some conservation to mitigate their bill impacts where they have the ability to do so. And so when you kind of look at the percentages on the far right, you can basically kind of add up the numbers from one to 4,000 gallons. That represents about two thirds of the single family bills would either have a reduction or an increase that's less than the overall 6.75% increase. The 5,000 gallon point, as Angela mentioned, is kind of that breakpoint. That's about at the overall level of increase. If you include that, we're talking about three quarters of customers will see an increase that would be about the same with the current rate structure or less for those uses and below. We also looked at it and did a number of bill impacts, not just for single family customers, but also took some sample bills for various multifamily customers that reflect different combinations of meter size, number of dwelling units and average usage per dwelling unit. And so you can kind of see the range of impacts here for those that maybe have very low usage per dwelling unit. You can see there may be some reductions in the bill for those that have kind of more typical or average usage per dwelling unit. You'll see those will have a pretty moderate increase, you know, very comparable to or less than the overall amount. And for those that maybe start to get to higher levels of usage per unit, that's where you may see an increase above the overall average. But nothing too significant in terms of an impact jumped out at us from from doing the sampling analysis. And also we looked at various types of commercial enterprises. And again, the impacts vary here because each commercial customers tiers are based upon their average use. And that average use is reflective of their business profile. Some are very seasonal and have high periods of use that may cause their tier sizes to be different. But generally, again, this gives you an idea of how some of the impacts might be seen for different business types. But there are going to be individual for commercial customers is the takeaway here because of the fact that the tiers are really based on their own individual usage characteristics. So overall, though, a lot of the impacts that we're seeing are not necessarily between the different types of service between, say, single family and multifamily customers. It's really, again, within each of those customer classes. We tend to see the impacts of updating the tiers be that lower volume and average users have less of an increase than the overall amount Angel identified. And that those that have higher levels of usage would see slightly higher increases than the overall amount when you factor in the rate restructuring. And so one last thing I wanted to talk about before I turn it over to Angela to wrap up part of the ordinances that are before you do include adjustments to the sewer capacity or what's also been known as the water closet fee. This is a one time fee that's really assessed to new development or redevelopment for the additional capacity needs that they're placing on the system. We looked at the fee and identified that the actual cost per water closet was about $1,000 and previously looked at a plan that would phase that in over 10 years. However, as part of this study, we looked at an accelerated plan in consultation with your staff and legal team to make sure that we were all comfortable with it. That would accelerate the plan to get to that full cost recovery period instead of within 10 years to do that within three years. We presently get about $1.2 million a year from our water closet fees. You know, when we get to that $1,000 amount per water closet, that might get to about $3 million a year. This goes straight to our capital projects and this represents a way that we can utilize other revenue streams besides rates to help pay for some of the capital costs on the system. And so this is one of the things that can help us, you know, as we go forward, do as much as we can to try to moderate the impacts on rates to cover our infrastructure needs. But Angela also has a few other things that are pretty powerful to talk about as well. So I'd like to let her do that and we'll both be available for questions when she's done. Thank you. So just to close out, we wanted to bring something forward to you, just kind of an update. Last year, we presented the alternative funding strategy where we've really started looking at grants and possible loans. And so I know these are a lot of numbers, but this is just kind of a snapshot of what we have done this year in fiscal year 24. The table on the left are current awarded grants that we're currently managing under Public Works Administration. And then the table on the right shows you all of the grants that we've applied for this year in fiscal year 24 under that grants administration program. So we've been working very closely internally with our departments as well as our city grants management team in the budget office to try to get these applications looked at it and reviewed. So to date for this year, fiscal year 24, we've applied for almost 80 million dollars in grant funding for our water resources and stormwater utility program. So just wanted to give that as a heads up and share the news with you that we're looking forward to hopefully getting some movement on that and continuing this process annually to start submitting more grants and possible loan applications. And that's our presentation. So we open up for questions and also ask for approval for this year's fiscal year 25 utility rates. Thank you. What I wanted to do was to go ahead and have the clerk's office also read B and C to get those out of the way. We're going to vote on them separately and then that also opens up for council members to just ask questions in regards to the entire presentation. So if you could please read ordinance B please and followed by C. Proposed Ordinance 594H, an ordinance relating to utility rates, amending section 27-405, subsections B1 and B2 of the St. Petersburg City Code, amending the stormwater utility fee, amending the tiered rate structure fees for single family residential parcels, providing for servability of provisions, providing an explanation of words struck through and underlined, establishing a date, establishing a date to begin calculating new rates for billing purposes and providing an effective date. Proposed Ordinance number 595H, an ordinance relating to utility rates and charges, amending chapter 27 subsections 27-3G, 27-4, 27-6A, 27-6D, 27-109B, 27-109D, 27-113B, 27-113B, 27-141A, 27-141B, 27-142A, 27-143A, 27-143B, 27-144B, 27-146B, 27-146D, 27-177A, 27-177D, 27-147D, 27-177D, 27-250A, 27-283A, 27-284A, 27-284D, 27-334D, 8, 27-335D, and 27-337 of the St. Petersburg City Code, amending requirements for customer deposits, amending liability for certain charges, amending method of determining adjustment to accounts, amending charges for potable water connection, amending base and volume charges for water service, amending various service charges, amending wholesale water service charges for the City of Gulfport, amending the definition of combination fire service, amending base and volume charges for irrigation-only accounts, amending base charges for commercial water-only accounts, amending rates and charges for reclaimed border service, amending sewer capacity fee, amending retail and wholesale wastewater service charges, amending provisions of the grease management program, amending grease discharge permit fees, providing for servability of provisions, providing an explanation of words struck through and underlined, establishing a date to begin calculating new charges for billing purposes, and providing an effective date. All right. Thank you. So do you have a presentation for B and C, and then we'll go ahead and go to public comment? No presentation. That was everything. That was everything. I just wanted to make sure she didn't have anything else to add. No, ma'am. That was a complete presentation. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure. Okay. So now you want to go to public comment? We have one card, Madam Chair. Dennis Keaton. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. And you will have three minutes to address City Council. Yes, that's fine. Oh, yeah. My name is Dennis Keaton. I've been a resident here in three months, 65 years, and we've been here probably 65 years before that. Your address, sir? It's really difficult anymore. I mean, I just have one simple question. Are you attempting to run us out of this city that was 546 62nd Avenue North? And it's just getting really difficult. And every time they raise the rates, and I mean, the way I look at it, I didn't beg everybody to come here and build all these condos. And I know consumption has something to do with how much the price of everything is. Well, I don't think you should take it out on the people that's been here so long. I think maybe you should figure out how to grandfathered into us or do something to help us rather than push us away. I've had friends that have moved from the state that lived here for years and years because they just can't afford to live here anymore. It's getting ridiculous. And that's just my opinion as being an honest person and a resident of this city for many, many years. And that's basically all I've got to say is please don't raise our rates anymore. Thank you. No other cards? Are there any? No, ma'am. Okay. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I'm just going to recap a little bit. Some of the things that you all have heard me say since it's the last time we're talking about it this year. First, yeah, I don't like the situation we're in with rates every year. You know, I voted against the increase last year. But this year I think we've made a great stride in two respects. One is the retail rate structure changes and the way that we're not impacting people quite so much that are at the lower end of usage. I think that's really important is one of the first things I feel like I brought up whenever I sat down and had a conversation about retail rates when I first got here. And I'm really glad to see it come to fruition. The slide where it shows lesser usage having less of an impact, that really is important to me. And then the steward capacity fees, I think that's really impactful. I think it was, quite frankly, unjust that we were letting them get away with paying so little into our system when they connected to it. And I think it has been causing regular residents to subsidize the cost of development. I'm glad we're correcting that. So I'm really grateful for the work that we did this year. I look forward to continuing to do this kind of work where we get more innovative every year on seeing how we can lessen the impact of increases on regular people. And so I just wanted to say thank you to everyone involved and just acknowledge that I do feel like this year we've done the best we can. And whereas I didn't feel that previously, and I think there's still room to improve, and I look forward to doing that in the future. So thanks. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurdin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for all the hard work. I know I've said it before, truly an all-star team. It's very appreciated. I know we ask a lot of questions, and you guys continue to try to come up with innovative ways to make sure we're doing the best we can. I specifically, like Council Member Floyd, I specifically want to go to the water closet fee. I want to thank the team, the legal team, for really diving into that to try to find a way to make it more equitable. When I see this chart, this makes me super happy, and it gives us the opportunity to continue to catch up four years or five years from now, too, four years from now, too. So very happy about that. I'll just make one request for next year, thinking about this kind of in the same vein as when we talk about the millage rate. If we could see the overall, and I'm not asking for this today, just going forward, if we could see the overall cost for water resources in comparison year by year and what that increase is, we look at it in each section by percentage, I think, most of the time. But if we could look at it as a whole so that we know, okay, so in 2024, our total overall cost for water resources outside or including, excuse me, excluding CIP comparison to the next year, I think that would be really helpful. Kind of like what we do with the millage rate. I think that would just be an exercise that would be good for me on looking at the cost year over year, because then it gives us an idea, and I think this goes to Councilmember Floyd's point, of like, what would it take for us to get to a point where we don't have to raise utility rates? What's that delta from a cost comparison? I just think that would be helpful as we have these conversations, because when you look at it in silos, it's harder to come up with that number. At least that's my experience of it. But otherwise, I just thank you for all the hard work, and a big thank you to my colleagues, because this is a bunch of innovative work, and thanks for asking all the hard questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Seeing no further requests to speak, and we're going to vote on these separately. Move approval, J1A. All right, now that we've had a motion and properly seconded, can you please open the machine for voting for J1A? Councilmembers, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present Councilmembers have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J1A passes unanimously, with Councilmembers Hanowitz and Mohamed being absent. Thank you. Move approval, J1B. I was going to see if we needed anyone to speak. We have a motion for J1B. Second. All right, sorry. It's been properly seconded. Seeing no requests to speak, can you please open the... Madam Chair, I just want to double check. Do we not have any cards for B or C? Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Can you please open the machine for voting for J1B? Councilmembers, cast your votes. Now that all present Councilmembers have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J1B passes unanimously, with Councilmembers Hanowitz and Mohamed being absent. Thank you. Now we're going to go ahead and move to J2, an ordinance amending challenge. Chapter 22, Division 6 of the St. Petersburg City Code, relating to the 1984 Supplemental Police Officers Retirement System. Can you read the title, please? Opposed, excuse me, Proposed Ordinance 591H. An ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending Chapter 22, Division 6 of the St. Petersburg City Code, relating to the 1984 Supplemental Police Officers Retirement System by amending Section 22-280E by providing a minimum service requirement for Section 185, non-service-connected disability benefits applications, providing for servability and providing an effective date, and we do not have any cards for this item. Move approval. Well, joining us is our Pension Manager, Mr. Stephen Carnegie. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Council, Administration. My name is Steve Carnegie, and I'm the Pension Manager for the City of St. Petersburg. So we've had a motion and properly seconded. So are my colleagues saying that you don't need a presentation? Yes, ma'am. Thumbs up. Okay. Good seeing you, Mr. Carnegie. Thank you. So can we, we already have a motion and a second for J2. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J2 passes unanimously with Council Members Hanowitz and Mohamed being absent. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now we're going to move to J3, an ordinance submitting the comprehensive plan, Chapters 1 and 3, pertaining to commercial corridors and the Sunrunner Corridor Station areas, second public hearing. Can you please read the title? Opposed Ordinance 577-H. An ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, amending its comprehensive plan, amending Chapter 1, General Introduction Data and Analysis, amending Chapter 3, Future Land Use Element, pertaining to commercial corridors and Sunrunner Corridor Station areas, providing for servability and providing an effective date. And we do have one card for this item, Madam Chair. Thank you. So I see our urban design and historic preservation manager, Mr. Derek Kilborn, because I have a different name. So you're going to do J3s? All right. I'm just introducing. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Good evening. Derek Kilborn, manager for City's urban planning and historic preservation division. Tonight you're going to receive a series of presentations on three applications. And that is starting with this first application, Ordinance 577-H. All of them relate to the group work that we've been doing over the last few years on the Sunrunner Station area planning, specifically for the Warehouse Arts District area. And so that requires a combination of changes to the City's comprehensive plan, changes to the City's land development regulations, and also changes to the land use and zoning map. So the first presentation you're going to receive is from Britton Wilson, who is a planner on our staff. And she's going to talk to you first about the comprehensive plan text amendment. And then I'll move into a presentation on the land development regulations text amendment. Okay. Good evening. Britton Wilson, city planner for the record. So I'm presenting this first item, which is the comprehensive plan text amendments that were first heard on June 6th and were transmitted to the state and county planning authority where they were subsequently approved. And so this presentation has not changed since it was first presented in June, but I'm happy to present it again if council wishes. And then it takes them. No changes at all. Do you want to hear them? No changes? No changes. Move approval. It's been properly motioned for item J3. Can you please open the machine for voting? We do have one card. Oh, you do have? I'm so sorry. You do have one card? Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you. Because I don't see it on the... Max McCann, please go to an open podium. State your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. Max McCann, 2648 3rd Avenue South. Here on behalf of myself for this comment, I have a card in for the next agenda item on behalf of the Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association. But I just want to say a quick word about how important transit-oriented development is for our urban fabric. Because for a long time we've been building cities where we put the houses over here, the offices over there, and the shopping over here. And it means you have to drive for every trip, and you've got to spend a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk. And it just... It's led to a lot of unintended consequences for our cities. So this will allow us to build cities for people instead of for cars, and it's going to be a game changer. It's going to let us live, work, and enjoy social amenities all within walking distance of our houses. So I don't officially speak on behalf of my neighbors, but we're really excited about this. So I hope you all support it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any more cards? No, madam. Okay, seeing no further requests to speak, we have a motion and properly second. Can we go ahead and open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Seeing that our present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J3 passes unanimously with council members Hanowitz and Muhammad being absent. Okay, thank you. Now we're going to move to item J4. In ordinance amending the city code and creating a new section for the Sunrunner Target Employment Center. And joining us for that is our Urban Design and Historic Preservation Manager, Mr. Derek Kilborn. Read the title, Madam Chair. Please read the title. In ordinance, excuse me, proposed ordinance number 583H, an ordinance amending the city code creating a new section 16.30.050 Sunrunner Target Employment Center Local Overlay, providing for definitions, including local overlay specific uses, providing standards for development and design in the overlay district, providing for servability and providing an effective date. And we do have several cards for this item, Madam Chair. Okay, thank you. Mr. Kilborn, how are you? Good, thank you again. Derek Kilborn, Manager of Urban Planning Historic Preservation. And this is the second part of the presentations this evening on the land development regulations text amendment portion. What we're going to do for this presentation is not repeat the presentation from the first public hearing, rather just kind of walk you through what has happened since and update you on some of the information requests that came out of our first discussion together. Okay, so in terms of timeline, the way that this application works is it is a text amendment to the LDRs. So the first step in the process is to go to the city's development review commission. That development review commission is required to make a finding of consistency with the city's comprehensive plan. And then they make a recommendation to city council. So that development review commission hearing was on May 1st. And from that development review commission hearing, there were some comments and suggestions for us to look at clarifying language and also considering other adjustments. So as we've moved through this timeline, you have seen where the application has modified in response to feedback that we have received. This LDR text amendment then came to city council for first reading and first public hearing on June 6th. Following that hearing, it then went on to Pinellas County for a county level review with the Ford Pinellas board and the countywide planning authority in July and August. Both those agencies unanimously voted to, in one case, recommend approval and in the other actually approve the countywide changes. It also went out for consistency review with county staff. And so that was some of the findings that they were making. And so this city council public hearing is the final step in that process. Now, some of what I'm going to present to you tonight extends from our conversation in the first reading and first public hearing. And so we're going to walk you through these details, but this slide kind of summarizes some of the key areas of focus, starting with clarifying the calculation of the first floor area requirement for sites. The second bullet point is a change to the maximum base intensity before the bonus provisions click in. The third thing is modifying the FAR bonus table standards, and that really is just some cleanup work where we were removing some duplication. And then also adding flexibility for roadside bending was something that we talked about in that first hearing. And I have additional details that we're going to go over, but those were kind of the key points. So the first critical piece of conversation, I think, there has definitely been public comment on this. We've had stakeholder conversations about this, and it is clarifying the language in the code regarding the provision of target employment center uses. So in the code, there is a requirement that development projects provide a target employment center, a target employment use reservation of either 30% of the land area or 40% of the building footprint at the ground floor. Now, when we went to the DRC, there was some question about how that number was calculated. Was it a net number that excluded parking areas and mechanical rooms, or was it a net number that included all square footage of the ground floor of the building? And so coming out of that DRC meeting, we looked at clarifying the language, and the language that we have put into the recommendation is that it include the square footage of the entirety of the building footprint or footprints, if there are multiple buildings on the site. So our recommendation is 30% of the lot area or 40% of the total ground floor square footage, whichever is less. Now, the stakeholder feedback has requested that we either not look at the entirety of the ground floor and that we only look at the habitable square footage. But in response to those suggestions, we have a staff expressed concern that individuals could design projects in a way that minimizes and nearly eliminates a target employment use. Because in the ground floor, if you, for example, design in a very large parking area, and you design in mechanical rooms, and then you design a small residential lobby for the multifamily units upstairs, now your 40% is a very small portion of what you've already made small because of your parking everywhere else on that ground floor. So we were concerned that you could essentially design out the target employment use requirement that's in the provision that's proposed here with the overlay. So that is why we have written this to be a standard that includes all square footage in the ground floor of the buildings. Now, another thing that has been mentioned is that, well, the code allows 95% site coverage. So if I do like a large lot coverage up to the 95% to take advantage of what the code allows, I would have to provide a very large or substantial square footage for the target employment use. And that is assuming you're doing full coverage. We are also allowing three additional floors of building height that are not allowed under the industrial traditional zoning. So there are ways to design projects that start to reduce the building footprint at the ground floor that would reduce your target employment center obligation. Because, again, we're only measuring that ground floor of the buildings that are proposed. So this is a key area that we expect we'll continue to have conversation as we go through this particular hearing. Okay, the next thing that we discussed and council asked us to address was increasing the base FAR from 1.5 to 2.0. And so after the first discussion, we went back and looked at how to do that. We ran some different models to see if we can come up with an alternative recommendation that addressed your comments and concerns from the last meeting. And we think we have done that here by actually proposing something that increases to 2.0, but also protects some of the housing and workforce housing initiatives that have always been part of our conversation here. And so going through this graphic, you asked us to provide you an amended graphic to demonstrate what it is that we're talking about. And so that's what we're doing here on this slide. You can see that the original proposal allowed up to 1.5 floor area ratio base, at which point you were then required to do for the next 1.0 FAR, if you're including multifamily units, a workforce housing bonus. And that would get you to 2.5, and then you can see as you move up through the progression. So what we have designed now is a proposal that allows up to 2.0 FAR base before that workforce housing bonus kicks in at 2.0. Now, because we were concerned that this particular change would have an impact on workforce housing units, we put together a recommendation for projects that are 2.0 FAR or below to say that if you are proposing a workforce housing project at 2.0 or below, the first 20 units of that multifamily would be allowed by right. Once you get over 20 units, then it starts to become a 1 to 4 ratio. For every one workforce housing unit, you get an additional four market rate units. And that, again, would be for those projects that are 2.0 or below on the floor area ratio. If you're developing a project more than 2.0 FAR, then you're just using the standard FAR bonus system. So this chart is included in the presentation to show you the effect of going from the 1.5 original proposal to the 2.0 that is proposed today. And you can see what we've done here is just right here in this column. These are just some different modeling scenarios showing you the number of market rate units and then the number of workforce housing units. And when you cross over and you look at what's being proposed now, you can see that the number of market rate units increases a little more substantially as you get down to larger projects. And the workforce housing units do increase, but on a slightly smaller increase. And so in the final column over here on the right, we tried to show you the unit difference. So for a larger project, for example, by making this change from 1.5 to 2, you see that on that bottom line, if somebody's doing a 3.0 acre development, you're looking at potentially a difference of 56 market rate units and three workforce housing units. So we continue to look at that. Now, in the workforce housing bonuses that were proposed originally and included in the ordinance materials that you receive for this hearing, the bonus says, as you move into the workforce housing bonus, for each additional 1.0 FAR or fraction of the bonus FAR requested, 5% of the total number of housing units shall be provided. And so this is what was provided to you in the ordinance language. Leading up to this hearing, we continued to do some modeling just to look at and try to understand what are some of the impacts or consequences of what we're evaluating. And so having that information, we wanted to provide that to you as well for discussion. But I did want to emphasize again that the ordinance that you have in front of you does identify 5%. So if we went through that same chart that I just showed you at a 10% requirement, you can see using the same modeling that in the new 2.0 column, the increase in the workforce housing units under the 10% versus 5% proposal. And then on the far right column, you'll see the unit difference where there's a larger increase in the workforce housing units and a little more parity between the workforce housing increase and the market rate increase. Okay. And of course, we can come back to any of this. As part of the multifamily discussion, there is also a number of stakeholder comments and responses to the requirement for an environmental report. And so let me pull up that language. In the ordinance that you have, you will see there is a statement that requires an environmental report when multifamily units are provided. And the environmental report is language that is slightly different. And I will highlight that. But it is borrowed from the city's current Chapter 17.5, which regulates affordable housing that is being provided through the state preemption. Because the state preemption allows affordable housing units to go into industrially zoned areas. And so there is language in that section of the code today that says when you're doing that, you have to provide an environmental report. And so we have brought that language over from Chapter 17.5. There were some additional language added. And so in the discussion piece, we can maybe come back and address that. There are two phrases that are included in the ordinance you have that are different from the Chapter 17.5 language. And the first one of those refers to potential future industrial uses. And the second phrase was included as an example. The example says, such as, but not limited to, a noise impact assessment and an air quality analysis is provided. So one of the concerns that we've heard is that the added phrases refer to a potential future industrial use. How will the applicant know what a potential future industrial use might be? And I think the answer to that question leads into another concern or comment that we received regarding the environmental report, which is how will the report be provided by the applicant who is required to do the report? And second, who on the city review team analyzes the report and makes decisions about whether it satisfies the requirement or not? And so what we wanted to clarify tonight in the presentation on the record is that this provision is borrowed from Chapter 17.5. And the intention is to show in a site plan review that the applicant has thought through the potential impacts of developing in what is an industrially zoned area. And the applicant, in the submission of their application for site plan review, will do all the same things that they normally do in trying to address different standards for site plan review and showing that first that they're acknowledging that there's a potential issue and then describing how they may mitigate that issue through modifications to their proposal. So that could be building and site orientation, where are pool and outdoor amenities being located. It could mean providing additional custom window locations to mitigate for noise or having special air circulation systems to protect residents from nuisances that might be next door, like a salvage yard or a concrete plant. So what we were looking for in this provision is for the applicant to just provide support information showing, first acknowledging they're aware of the issue and then attempting to address it in their narrative. On the city side, we would evaluate that and use our own staff for review. We could consult with different city departments. We could consult with external agencies, but the intention here is to treat this just like any other standard in a site plan review process and consider external impacts, or in this case, for multifamily, internal impacts with the residents. The additional comment that came up was in the ordinance language. It refers to dwelling, multifamily, and this would be page 16, 6 of 17 of the ordinance, and there's language there that talks about when multifamily is provided. It says may be permitted up to 20 dwelling units, and then it goes on to describe the environmental report requirement. So there was some question, does the environmental report apply to all multifamily projects or only those that include more than 20 units? And the answer is that the environmental report, just like it does in Chapter 17.5, would apply to all multifamily projects, not just those that are more than 20 units. Okay, I'm kind of closing out the development potential and the uses related to multifamily. We did put this chart in the presentation to just show you what is the existing IT zoning and what is the new development potential that would result from the changes that you're being asked to make. And so you can see in the difference column that there are some substantial increases to the development potential for these sites. And in the process of doing this, of course, our kind of lead principle has always been to first protect what exists in the industrial area today, which are industrial manufacturing uses and art-related uses. And then from that position, how can we complement or enhance that activity by adding additional land use opportunities or additional development potential? And so we think that the recommendation we've put together for you achieves that, it protects, and then it adds to complement. Regarding temporary uses, we had some discussion about temporary uses. In the revisions that we've brought to you this time, the vending roadside market has been edited to allow for additional time requests. So the roadside market has already been expanded in our description within the overlay to include hand-fabricated material goods produced by TEC use. So these roadside markets are usually more food vending only. In this case, we've tried to expand the types of users that can benefit from the roadside market section, and then we've added the additional time option for operating hours. Those roadside markets are renewed on an annual basis, and there is no limit to the number of years that somebody can go through the annual renewal process. So this is just like roadside markets, push cart vending, these are on annual review cycles. Okay, and then the vending for mobile food trucks is another subcategory under temporary uses. Mobile food trucks are allowed on a property up to two days per week. In the overlay proposal, we had amended that language to allow up to five days per week. There has been some request that the food trucks be permitted on properties the full seven calendar days, and we've heard different variations on that. So the first is that they should just be allowed up to the full calendar week. Another variation of that is that they should be allowed up to the five days, but after the five days not be required to leave the property and just be allowed to stay on property but in a closed status. And so for us, because the language says that it's up to five days, but then the trucks typically have to leave the site in order to be considered a temporary use. Otherwise, we interpret that to be a more permanent use and that perhaps the use should then go through the normal permitting process and target employment center requirements to become a full-time permanent use for the site. But I expect that we'll come back and we'll have some additional discussion on that as well. And then finally, under parking, there have been a number of public comments coming in suggesting that parking be eliminated within the target employment center district overlay. And so this really hasn't changed from our previous proposal. We think there are substantial reductions already written into this overlay section, which are highlighted in this example on the screen. So there are a number of reductions that are already in here that we think provide a balance between this new creative and innovative approach to how to deal with mixed industrial but also protect some baseline for minimum parking to be provided. And perhaps in the future, we learn more from this experience that would allow us to further reduce these parking numbers. But our recommendation continues to be the parking that was included in the original discussion. Okay, that completes our initial presentation. And we can take any, obviously, any questions you might have following public comment. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Kilborn. Can you go ahead and call the first two speakers for item J4? First two speakers, Madam Chair. Chair Max McCann and Madison Rice, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Good evening. Max McCann, 2648 3rd Avenue South, here as the president, sorry, vice president, of the Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association in my official capacity. I'm here to let you know we approve of the code as a whole, but we do ask that council remove parking mandates from this code. We've put together a strong coalition that supports this, the Neighborhood Association, the Deuces Live, Three Daughters Brewery, residential construction developer, Yimby St. Pete, the Mayor's Bike Pet Advisory Committee. You have those letters in your inbox, and I think they're really compelling. I hope you'll consider them. Quick story. A few weeks ago, my friend was in town from Phoenix, Arizona, and we were outside in front of my house, and after a few minutes, he said, what's going on? Why are all these people walking around? And I said, because it's Saturday? It was so foreign to him that you would have foot traffic in a residential neighborhood, and that shows you how rare it is to have a walkable neighborhood in America and how special our neighborhood is. So removing parking mandates is only going to help that. It's only going to make our area more walkable because what we're seeing here – okay, what are we talking about? Parking mandates require property owners to build parking regardless of demand. So if I want to open up a bicycle repair shop on the Pinellas Trail where I don't expect any of my customers to show up by car, well, if it's more than 30 feet wide, I've got to build parking that's going to sit there empty. If I want to open up a neighborhood bar, I don't want my customers driving to the bar, too bad. I've got to build parking. I want to build housing for starving artists who can't afford cars. Well, you better hope they don't have families because if it's over 750 square feet, I'm going to have to build parking anyway. So there are a lot of these unintended consequences of parking mandates and things like more driving, higher housing costs, more pollution, more flooding. But what I want to assure you is this is a really modest reform to remove parking mandates. There will still be parking here. Every property owner is free to build as much parking as she likes. In the short term, this is going to have practically no impact at all on our built environment. But what it will do is it will give us the freedom in the decades to come to shift away from being forced to build spaces for cars instead of people. The Minneapolis planning director said the elimination of parking requirements has been the most effective regulatory reform we've made. And it's not just progressive strongholds like Minneapolis. Cities like Lexington, Kentucky, Birmingham, Alabama have completely removed parking mandates. We should be at the forefront of this movement, frankly, and we're being left behind instead. So please remove parking mandates from this zone. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh, hello. Can you move the mic a little closer to you? Thank you. Is this better? Much better. Okay, okay, okay. Hi, hi, I'm Madison Rice, 3245 Jackson Street North. I'm here to ask that you remove parking mandates from this zoning code. The whole point of transit-oriented development is to allow for residents and businesses along, oh, I lost my note, along the BRT corridor to not need or minimize the use of a car. And requiring parking does not help achieve this goal. According to the Parking Reform Network, 28% of our downtown is dedicated to off-street parking. Almost one-third of our downtown is already dedicated to cars, not people. And required parking minimums will continue this trend. Parking is one of the largest costs of new development, and this cost gets passed down to tenants, to renters, to homeowners. Parking lots contribute to the heat island effect and make places less walkable by spacing out businesses. And arbitrary parking requirements are sometimes an insurmountable hurdle for the construction of affordable housing. Removing parking mandates doesn't mean that no parking will be built, as Max said. If developers want to build parking and the demand is there, they are free to do so. So, city planner Jeff Speck said, The twin gods of smooth traffic and ample parking have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to, but not worth arriving at. So what do you want St. Pete to be? Do you want it to be easy to get in and out by car? Or do you want downtown to be a vibrant, walkable, human-scale space? It's not possible to have both at the same time. Overall, I support the zoning change. I like the increase in density around Sunrunner stops, and I'm excited that we're promoting transit and lifestyles that depend less on cars, if at all. But if we want this to be really, really successful, we need to remove parking mandates. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Warren Willingham and Justin Cornure. I believe that's how you say it. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. And you have three minutes to address city council. Hey, Warren Willingham, 3245 Jackson Street North. I love the TOD plan generally, other than the requirements of the parking minimums. I strongly recommend that we remove parking minimums from the TOD area. I, a bunch of my friends, and many, many people my age, more and more every day, do not have nor want cars. I would love to live somewhere more dense and walkable. Just because you personally don't want to live somewhere without parking, where you can actually walk to a bakery, doesn't mean that there aren't people chomping at the bit for it. It's already bad enough that I can't dig up my driveway and plant more fruit trees. Instead, I must keep parking spaces for a car that does not exist. That stinks, but to mandate this downtown along a transit corridor is insane. TOD is not a new concept that we are the guinea pigs for, though mandating parking minimums in an ostensibly TOD corridor, now that might be a first. Requiring parking minimums spreads out businesses and makes them harder to access on foot, immediately negating the benefits of TOD. Requiring parking increases costs for the business. They have to buy more land to shrink, or shrink their building, and waste that space to subsidize cars. One business's parking lot could have just been a whole other business. It's fine if a business decides on their own to build parking, go right ahead, who cares? But blanket requiring it for everyone is a destructive subsidy to car, it is a destructive subsidy to car drivers at the expense of every other mode of transit. Requiring parking is a holdover from previous decades where we thought that car-centric development could scale well with population. It does not. I worry that up-zoning along the TOD corridor, while still requiring parking minimums, will cause the corridor to be underutilized and underdeveloped. It will then be used to argue why TOD or transit doesn't work, even though we didn't try in the first place. Please vote for TOD, but first, please strip out these arbitrary parking minimums. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Justin Cornway. I live at 1026 9th Avenue South, so it's a midtown neighborhood. So this TOD is within walking distance of my house, biking distance, transit. My family uses transit, bikes, and walks everywhere we go. I don't own a car. You'll hear a lot of comments from folks that are very passionate about this, so I'll give my unique perspective. I'm a nurse at All Children's Hospital. I do trauma shifts, 24-hour shifts, so I see what happens to the kids in our city that are hit by cars. I see just the trauma that's associated with that. If you design something for cars, you get exactly that. You get a bunch of cars. If you design it for people and pedestrians and bicyclists and make it safe and vibrant, you get exactly that. So it's all by design, and that's what you guys are all here for. And I'm excited to support the removal of parking mandates for this project. I'm excited to be able to walk to this from my house and enjoy it for decades to come. So thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Next two speakers, Lindsay Wolfe and I believe it's Daniel Cameron Adelia. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Hi, I'm Lindsay Wolfe, 2439 4th Avenue South, and I'm the president of Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association. I'm also speaking on my own behalf. We are the neighborhood located in this area, so this directly affects our neighborhood, and I believe we're the only one actually touching this area we're talking about. If you talk to our neighbors, we love the walkability. We love what's coming our way, and we're really excited. I don't want to reiterate what other people have said. I see how important it is to get rid of the parking, and just as a new mom, to be able to get out with a stroller, and if there were fewer cars, that would be great, but the walkability to get to businesses and make it super easy has just made a huge change in our lives, and I just see, as we grow, if we can make sure that the transit flourishes, the walkability flourishes, and getting rid of the parking makes a huge difference, and I know our neighborhood really appreciates it. So, thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. My name is Daniel Cameradella. I live at 2726 2nd Avenue South, so I am right there. I'm about as close as you can get to the Central Avenue, 1st Avenue South, Sunrunner Corridor, and, yeah, we've invested a lot of money in public transit, but simultaneously we're also suppressing demand by still focusing on parking mandates, so I am generally for it, but I'm against the parking mandate side. You can't build public transit, like you said, while also subsidizing cars, so I'm strongly against that, and also they just aren't urban areas that are desirable and car-centric at the same time. That's how you get into these sprawl suburbs that nobody really wants to be around, so when you think about your classic Main Street, USA, it's not parking lots, and if St. Pete wants to be a desirable urban center, then we can't be car-centric at the same time. Let people at least make their own choices when developing. Thank you. Thank you. Next two speakers, please. Neil Cameradella and Dan Rodriguez. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good evening, council. My name is Neil Cameradella. I'm at 2427 2nd Avenue South in the Palmetto Park neighborhood. I also want to say that I support the TOD Sunrunner zoning changes. I would also like to see the parking minimums removed for all the reasons that we've spoken about here. I believe that cities built for people are more pleasant, they're more desirable, and again, parking will still exist. It'll just be up to the property owners and the residents to decide the parking that they want, and the parking that they don't want can be put to uses like housing, green space to reduce flooding, and things like that, so thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Good evening, city council, and happy Friday eve. Happy Friday. My name is Dan Rodriguez. I live at 2715 2nd Avenue South with my wife and cute little puppy, Lucy. This is Lucy. She couldn't make it today, but Lucy is a frequent rider of the Sunrunner and the Central Avenue Trolley, and she enjoys the walkability of St. Pete, so I'm here to ask for the removal of any parking mandates for the Sunrunner's 22nd Street corridor. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I was able to walk to get groceries, bread, biscuits, and lottery tickets and cigarettes, although those last two items my parents know nothing about from my aunt. I love this city. I've been here since 2014. I lived in the Tampa Bay area since 1989, and I love how walkable and how much of a chill vibe this city has. I have a car, but I also have a bike, a scooter, and I can walk to get my hair cut. I can bike to get my teeth cleaned, and I can take the Sunrunner to the beach and the Central Avenue Trolley to the pier. I think it's important that we just consider removing mandates because we're not removing the ability to add new parking. We're simply saying that we can add more housing and more affordable housing in those spaces that those would normally take up. And as some of the other people have mentioned, a lot of other cities have removed parking mandates, including Port Townsend, Washington. I have no idea where that is. But it's a city of about 10,000 people that took a look at that and said, hey, we want to build a more walkable city. I think it's an opportunity here for us. And so if you look at the walkability score for Tampa versus St. Petersburg, we're actually a little bit under Tampa in terms of walkability. So I guess my overall reason for asking for this removal of mandates is so that Tampa doesn't catch us. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. The next two speakers, please. The next two speakers, Madam Chair, Garrett Marple and Christine McCann. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Good evening. Garrett Marple, 4021 38th Avenue North. And to avoid repeating things that other people have already said, I just wanted to say that I am in full support of the zoning change, but that we absolutely have to get rid of parking minimums. And that is because we want to support public transit in any possible way that we can. We don't want to get run into a situation where we have half measures in place that cause people to say public transit doesn't work in Tampa or Florida, and so it gets defunded. So we need to remove parking minimums so that we can, you know, have a situation where each and every single one of the Sunrunner stops is a place where people can live, work, and play. Each stop is its own destination, and then people will ride it, you know. And as ridership increases, we'll be able to expand the system and the urban core of the city as well. So I believe that we can set a precedent here today by not only upzoning this area but also removing the parking mandates as well. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Christine McCann, and this is Sloan. And we live at 2648 3rd Avenue South. We are residents of Palmetto Park Neverhood. Which, so this area that we're talking about, we're really super excited about the zoning plans, and we are very for that. But, yes, we do want to talk about the parking mandates. This area is super tiny compared to the whole city. It's very small, and it's really just our neighborhood. And Sloan would like to walk around more. So there's a couple gaps in our neighborhood. We love our neighborhood because it's very walkable and bikeable. I was in a car accident when we first moved here, and I can't really drive. It's painful. So we can bike a lot, right? But sometimes it's difficult to walk because parking lots create a lot of empty space. It's not shaded. It's really dangerous because cars are, there's no sidewalks in parking lots. So it's just, it's really dangerous for kids. And then, you know, we can have more trees if we have less parking. And this is really about a future thing. You know, I don't know if you guys want to do this later, but, like, it's much easier to just do it now. You know, we're not changing the parking right now. We're just making it an option to change it in the future when we can use it. And I think it would encourage, especially since we're in a transit zone, you know, a lot of people are still not using the Sunrunner when they could easily use the Sunrunner. When we have visitors, we always prioritize biking and walking, but it's hard sometimes. There's a lot of stuff in the way. It's hot. But we do our best, right? We got soaked yesterday. But you know what? All those cars were stuck in the lakes, and we just biked right through the lakes. We just got a little wet, but we were already wet. So I would appreciate it if you thought about the citizens and the people and not the cars. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sloan. Next two speakers, please. Next two speakers, Madam Chair. Joseph First and Mark Ayling. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Hello, everybody. Joseph First, 423rd Street South. I thought I was coming here with my party hat on, but unfortunately, I think we have to get through a few issues first. I thought Derek did a beautiful job of explaining the issues that we're in the middle of discussing. The unfortunate reality is that we, as a neighborhood and as a community, just got to see those issues and have that discussion about an hour and a half before this meeting today. When you work on something for six years, for me personally, and many of these other people for many more years than that, it seems like there should be a little bit more time spent making thoughtful decisions when you have such significant changes happening from the draft that we've been working with through the last 10 public hearings to a significant change to today. So in the three minutes that I have, or two minutes and 18 seconds, I'm not going to be able to get into the details and mechanics of all those things, but let's talk about them very specifically. Yes, it is a goal to retain and keep TEC uses, arts, artisan, light, industrial, all of those things. It is also a goal, heard loudly from the artist community, to have commercial uses that mix with those as well to get people hanging out there, spending more time on the streets, to help actually sell art by the change that has been made requiring that 40% of the entire first floor without any exclusion of other areas, be TEC uses, will preclude any of those non-TEC uses, the commercial uses, the bars, the restaurants, et cetera, from existing on the ground floors of vertical developments. That's not the goal that we're trying to accomplish. The second piece about environmental concerns, you cannot have a development project that does not have clarity or has a series of contingencies related to future industrial uses. I think that was removed from what I heard, I think, but there has to be a very clear understanding of exactly what we're showing and what types of mediation or how you're addressing those concerns. I'm not sure there's enough clarity on that. I'd like Derek to actually present that again if I could ask. The third piece is just related to the temporary uses. We got most of what we want. You can have food trucks and roadside vending and you can have that for a year and then you can extend the permit and extend the permit. That's great. But how could you ask somebody who's investing in a food truck lot or a roadside vending location to tell the trucks that are there to have to leave the site to go to another site within the IT zoning, which is what this is, to then park overnight rather than be able to stay in place for seven days? That makes no logical sense. There should be a very clear allowance in these situations for roadside vending for those trucks to remain on site 24-7 yet only be able to operate and serve within the time periods that Derek laid out before. That's all I can do with three minutes, but I'm happy to answer any additional questions if people have them for me after I sit down. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hello. My name is Mark Ayling and I have a business at 515 22nd Street South right in the heart of the Warehouse Arts District. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the food truck consideration that Joe was just mentioning. You know, I think it's incredibly progressive of the city of St. Pete to consider this iMix. And I think it's going to take the city forward into the 21st century. We're redefining how industry functions today. And what we're basically doing is creating the entertainment district for the city. And the way that this zoning is structured, and I think Joe has had a lot to do with helping to put this together, it's really going to create a focal point for the arts and it's going to allow people to live there as well and have retail. It's going to be a completely different way for a city to function. And it's very progressive and I think it's going to be a really amazing innovation for the city of St. Petersburg. Allowing the food trucks to stay in place is going to aid in that process. Just because they're parked overnight, you've got to reconsider the way that the city is going to function and the way that that entertainment district is going to function. It doesn't make sense to have these vehicles moving off. If we've got a festival going on that's a multi-day festival and that truck has to relocate, there's no reason for that. There's no cause for that. If they can stay in place for the duration of a permit, you get to control how long that truck is there for that duration of that permit. You can still control how that functions. So I think it's very helpful to allow for that. And I just want to say that I really appreciate council considering all of this and I think it's a huge step forward for the city of St. Petersburg. Thank you. Thank you. At least the last two cards. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, and the last two cards, Marcus Gottschlich and Don Mastry. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record. We have three minutes to address to the council. Madam Chair, city council, thanks so much. Good evening. My name is Marcus Gottschlich. Business address, 515 22nd Street South. We've been extremely excited about the zoning change. I have not had a chance to speak about it. I'm not going to take up the entire time anyways about it. But also what you should know from coming from me is that the work that Joe has done has been with the artist in mind. I remember since day one that I landed here in St. Pete. He's been coming around to trying to understand the needs of the district, trying to understand the needs of the arts community. And I just want to highlight one item specifically is that in order for the arts community to thrive where we are, we need TEC and non-TEC businesses to be allowed in our zone. That's my message for this evening for you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Mastry. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Don Mastry. My dress is 200 Central Avenue. And I'm representing Mr. Duncan McClellan tonight, who I consider the founder of the Warehouse Arts District. And he is certainly in favor of the Sunrunner ordinance. He has a problem with respect to the food trucks if they have to relocate. I also think it would be ridiculous for a food truck to have to go through a site plan review process because I don't believe they would ever meet the requirements. I remember when this city first considered food trucks long before any of you were on this council. And all the fears that were thought of that would come from having food trucks. And I don't believe any of those fears have ever materialized. And I think to cause the relocation of food trucks every so many days is just a waste of effort and a waste of time. And I would urge you to disregard and remove that from the ordinance. Thank you very much. No regards? Okay. Council Member Floyd. Oh, okay. I didn't realize I was up first. Okay, let me get my bearings. I just have two things I want to bring up first. I want to ask, I guess, Derek, when you were talking about moving from, you know, 1.5 base FAR to 2, and you mentioned the workforce housing requirements and you had 10% up there with 5% struck through. Are you asking us to consider that? Is that what that was? Yes. The ordinance that we provided to you says 5%. Yes. You know, we have to provide things in advance. So we've continued to do some modeling to just go through everything and make sure that we didn't miss something. In the modeling, we could see that 10% seemed to provide a little more balance on the workforce housing number, but we also realized that we provided you an ordinance that says 5%. So because we were doing the additional modeling, we did feel some obligation to show you what that looks like if you wanted to have that discussion and consider changing the number 5% to 10%. But that is why we brought that and included it in the presentation. There is a second workforce housing bonus that we are recommending no change to, and that is the payment in lieu of option. So that option does still exist in the workforce housing bonus table. But we did feel some obligation to show you our work if that reinforced or supported the discussion you were having. Okay. No, I appreciate that because I would have preferred if it stayed at 1.5, and then the bonus would have been right there. But, you know, I'd like to see it move to 10%. I think that's reasonable. So I'll just, but I'll wait to hear from everyone else and see if they feel the same and if we can make that change. The only other thing I wanted to add was to echo my support for changing the way that the parking is mandated. I don't want to frame it at all as removing all parking. I want it to be known that, like, I support letting property owners decide how much parking should be on site. You know, we have residents who have clearly indicated that they want to live without cars. I think they're representative of a significant number of people and a growing number of people in our city and in our world, really. And then I think, you know, if a business owner wants to have a business that doesn't have parking at it, I think that should be their prerogative, especially in a transit-oriented location. So, I think, again, I want to hear from everyone else. I'm sure other people have opinions. I think, you know, something really easy that I've seen done in other places was to change the minimums to a suggestion instead of a requirement. That way, you know, if someone's building a business there, building a property there, and they maybe don't have in mind continuing to own it, they can build to the suggested minimum. But if someone is building, developing there with the potential of owning it and continuing into the future, they have the option to build a residential place that doesn't have parking or have a business that doesn't have parking. And so, I just figured I'd throw that out there. As far as the other things, I'm not sure what to think right this second. I see, yeah, some other reactions as well. So, I look forward to how the conversation progresses about the food trucks and the environmental things as well because that was kind of put on my plate at the last second too. So, but I did want to just throw out there my support for moving workforce housing bonus to 10% as well as my support for finding a path forward on the parking changes as well. But I'll leave it there for now. I look forward to hearing what everyone else has to say. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and particularly to everyone who took the time to be here tonight for this. This is important and hopefully by the time we finish this discussion, it'll be exciting. But at the moment, I do have to start by saying I was kind of disappointed to see that the presentation that we received this morning had some changes in it that I hadn't seen in the backup that it just didn't give me a whole lot of time to even try to talk about it. And I think, you know, there could be members of the public who, if they had known some of this, that they may have come to speak as well. So here we are. I had been excited because we were increasing the base FAR from 1.5 to 2. I remember during the first reading, I was cheering for 2.5, but I felt that 2 was a great compromise and something that gives developers the flexibility to build what we're envisioning. We don't want to go through all of this work only to limit too severely what can be done there. And I think that that would have done that. So I was excited about the 2.0, but then I'm seeing that that comes with a catch. So a base FAR is supposed to be a base FAR, period. Like, that's what you, that's what you can just do. Tying conditions to it doesn't make it a base FAR anymore, really. I mean, we're really, it really didn't move from 1.5. Help me understand this because I don't know what I'm missing. I have paged through this agenda trying to figure out what I missed. But then, you know, in your, I mean, it's spelled out so clearly in these slides. So let me start by just clarifying a point in the beginning. There are no changes to the ordinance that you have in front of you. In the presentation today, the only thing that is different is us showing you the additional research related to the 5 versus 10% on workforce housing. Everything else in our presentation is already included in the ordinance language that you have in front of you. So that is the only distinction between the two. Paul, if we could have the presentation back up, please. Okay, for us, when it comes to the consideration of the 1.5 versus 2, we are consistently looking at the workforce housing bonus system and the opportunities for the city to include and provide workforce housing. So in this particular case, the request to go from 1.5 to 2.0 was going to directly affect the workforce housing requirement in the bonus system. So knowing that, we tried to include some additional language that would permit up to 20 units by right and then if you were proposing something more than 20 units, it would be a 1 to 4 ratio. So for each workforce housing unit, you get an additional 3 market rate units and that was something we thought was a reasonable compromise to go from the 1.5 to 2 but still provide and protect some access to workforce housing units at that smaller scale below 2.0 FAR. Can you tell me where that is in here? Yes. In the page 6 of 17, there is a list. It's under TOD supportive uses. There is a reference to dwelling multifamily number 4. So if you're in the ordinance, it is section number 16.30.050.4.2, TOD supportive uses. Derek, page 6? At the bottom of the print, it's page 6 of 17, I believe it says. I've got two versions. So mine's the 14 page. That's the one right before it. It's a lot of paper here. We have multiple versions. Yes, of course. Sorry. Okay, so in that section, there's a list of TOD supportive uses and it identifies the multifamily dwelling option. And then this is the section where you have the environmental report requirement and then you have the breakdown for projects that are 2.0 FAR and more or less than 2.0. So can you tell me at what point we were talking about this in the June in first reading? I mean, we talked about the base FAR, but we didn't have, I don't recall, a robust discussion about workforce housing. It was about the base FAR and where the starting point was. Yes. We weren't talking about having a requirement for affordable housing as part of this. As you go up, yes. But what I was looking for and what I want now is to start at 2.0. We have to be able to, we have to be able to allow enough to be built for the numbers to make sense. Especially when we're requiring all of these, when we have all of these supportive uses, the TEC uses, that can end up, that's like the riskier part of this. You know, I want what I said last time, which is 2.0 and then we start doing bonuses after that. It's still not that much. And I remember going through and finding, using building heights to talk with you about, you know, examples around the city of what that would look like. And we're not talking about high-rises, you guys. These are like the mid-rise, they're the mid-rise buildings that we're not building downtown anymore because everyone's doing high-rises now. So, I mean, if we're going to go through all of this, I want us to allow for some good development. Don't you? Eric, you can correct me if I'm wrong. My recollection of the conversation on the FAR was we did discuss the impact that raising the FAR would have on the workforce housing bonus. That was part of the discussion. So, we tried to split the difference, go to 2.0, but put in the workforce density bonus. But it's at the discretion of city council. Right. If you guys want a base 2.0 with no workforce bonus related to that, that's fine. If there's five votes for that, it's no problem. Thank you. You know what would help to bring down the prices on this would be to take a look at that parking. Now, we've talked about that. It was actually one of the selling points that we had when we did the no minimum parking for certain buildings with certain units downtown. And part of that was to help the market drive some of those prices down. Since one that I know of has opened, and yes, it's a mid-rise, just a few floors. They've got a wine bar on the first floor. No problem filling. No problem seeing folks enjoying a glass of wine there at the bistro. And guess what? No problems with finding parking pretty much any time of day or night. I mean, there are times when that area, it can be tough. But that shows you that it is working in our city, and that's downtown. This part, as one of our speakers said, this part of the city, we're talking about a small area here, and we're talking about transit-oriented development. We have the Sunrunner right there. We've got Central Avenue Trolley, and we have the Pinellas Trail. Not to mention all of our shared devices that are out there that we've made available, the e-bikes, the scooters. This is the perfect place for no minimum parking. Let the market decide. Let the builders decide what they want. We're not going to end up with zero parking. It's going to be the amount of parking that people feel is right for what they're going to build based on how they want to attract customers, residents. It will work. And if it's going to work anywhere, it's going to work in this neighborhood. The residents of the area themselves are telling us they're in support of this plan, and they want more neighbors, less parking. How often do we hear that? Let's go for it. This is the place to do it. This is the place to create a truly walkable, bikeable neighborhood that has that easy access. I want us to give that some thought because it will. That could be the trade-off. We do 2.0, no parking minimums. Now you're talking about volume where you actually might be able to charge a little bit less, you know? And then with the parking spaces that don't have to be built, guess what can go there? Housing. And we know we need more of it. We need as much of it as we can put together. But we've got to help people make the numbers work, and y'all know that. This TEC use percentage on the ground floor, we've really got to work on that. I know that can get a little bit complicated for people who haven't been studying this for a while, but the bottom line is that it really hurts the opportunity for businesses. And that needs to be resolved somehow. And I would like to have another option given to us before we vote on that. I really think that we just have to drastically reduce that percentage. Again, there is no sense in going through this for as long as we have, only to create limits that prevent what we say we want. Finally, for now, the food trucks, I say let them stay. My question is, why wouldn't we? In this particular situation with this kind of atmosphere, is there a safety reason or a, I don't know. Because when I ask myself why not, I couldn't come up with an answer at all. So I think if we're going to allow temporary use, let's allow temporary use for that whole time. And let the people, let the people creating this decide how often they need to switch people out. This is really about listening to our neighbors, the creative class, and our developers. Along with what we know about what we want for our city and for this part of our city, I think we can get to yes, but we've got some of these tweaks that need to be made. I think we can get there. Now everyone knows how I feel about it. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Derek, for the presentation. And thank you, administration, for all the hard work over a number of years. I think we've been talking about this at least five. I think the first time I ever met Joe first was when we were in the police station for our offices. So that tells me, like, that's how I date things, right? Like, where were we? But I also want to thank the Palmetto Park neighborhood. You guys are such a great example of neighborhood advocacy. So thank you for coming out and for really all the stakeholders. And I definitely want to thank what I consider to be the pioneers of this area, those who invested in this area long ago before we ever knew what it could possibly be. So I'm very, very happy about where, that we are here today after all of these years. But to be quite honest, I think there's a little more juice we can get out of the orange. So I'm, like, kind of in the mood to squeeze it. I'm along the same lines as Councilmember Driscoll on a lot of these things. But I want to kind of dig into a couple of additional questions that I have. So I'll start, I guess, with the easy thing. And it's kind of where Councilmember Driscoll ended, which is the food trucks. Didn't really get an answer to that. So I kind of want to hear why we think that we need to ask small business owners to have this additional burden on them to remove their trucks during that time. I don't understand it. And we've come so far to now add this in just seems a little regressive to me. So I need a why. Okay. I need a why. Okay. I'll work backwards on some of those comments. Okay. So there isn't a new add-in for this meeting. Understood. Okay. Also, the food trucks are normally allowed only up to two days per calendar week. And we have written in an extension to five days per calendar week only in this overlay. So there has been some accommodation for the food trucks already. Now, the concern we have from a design perspective is that you could eventually get to creating essentially an outdoor food hall or food court, bring in the food trucks, have them operating full-time and completely circumvent the target employment center requirement to provide 40% of your first floor or 30% of lot area. And then you're not providing the target employment center requirement, but you are getting a benefit of essentially a full-time restaurant on-site, which is a TOD supportive use. Now, that being said, this isn't something that we are particularly committed to. So, you know, that is our rationale in approaching it this way. We've already provided an extension. And because food trucks are more of a temporary use, we're trying to stop from going to making them a permanent use that circumvents the target employment center requirement. Can I add to that? Food trucks generally, why we do what we do with food trucks generally. So, under the state law, we are preempted from regulating things related to the types of trucks, like how they work in a regulatory sense. But we still do have zoning, time, place, and manor. We just can't ban them from the city. So, with that, we do have, as Derek says, the regular sections of food trucks and their dates. And then, as Derek said, and you'll see outlined in here, if you get permits, you can have extended periods for extended events. And when Derek's talking about temporary use, while we see food trucks as a temporary use, is also a function of their permitting because, again, when Derek says there's concerns on the planning side from making it more of a permanent use, you would also potentially be implicating requirements for building, fire, and other life safety if it's remaining in a more permanent sense. That's not always the case, but when you're getting into a permanency at a certain size for a certain use and occupancy, you could be triggering those extra things. When you're not moving, you don't because you maintain that temporary, that mobility, and that automobile-centric state, which is in with your preemption that we don't touch. But when you get into that permanency, you're kind of coming out of that. So that's originally why we have time limits on what we have now. Okay. I hear you. Still just, I disagree. I disagree with what I see as being very cumbersome on these small business owners. And I just don't agree with you, and I think that we should change it. I'll listen to my colleagues, but I think that we should be, we're trying to be creative here. We're trying to create something brand new and something that the community is asking us for. Yet everywhere we turn, we're trying to find like these workarounds that I'm afraid in their totality is going to limit the vision of the area. That's my concern. So I'll move on then from there to the environmental report. So I want to talk about that a little bit because I have some concerns about that as well. And Derek, you mentioned that we were attempting to model Chapter 17 when it comes to the housing and industrial zoning districts. So I've gone to that language, and this language is pretty substantially different. It models it to a point, and then it kind of goes off the rails. And this future industrial uses is very ambiguous to me, and I have concerns about when we have these requirements, what that does to a developer's ability to be able to secure financing. It's additional contingencies that from a real estate point of view and a redevelopment point of view, I have real concerns about. And I'm worried that there's some unintended consequence here that will actually stifle development. So I need you to explain to me more about future industrial uses and what we believe that means because Chapter 17.5 does not say that. You're correct. Chapter 17.5 does not say that, which is why I isolated that in the original presentation to tell you that there are some additional phrases that have been included here that I expected to talk about later. So thank you. Here we are. Here we are. For us, we kind of, I'll tell you our approach. And if council would like to see this phrasing removed, I think we would be okay with that. But let me explain to you our approach to this first. So we kind of see this almost as a right to farm situation. We have people coming to the nuisance, which is an industrial area. And what we're trying to do through this language is make sure that any applicant for site plan development is prescribing in their application an awareness of what they're moving to, the nuisance they're coming to, potentially, so that in the future, if there is a problem, we are not put in a position where we have to somehow deal with an industrial user because the residential project who came to the nuisance is now complaining about this industrial development that came up next door. So that has been our approach in the phrasing. But the reference to potential future industrial use is not in Chapter 17.5. No, it's not. I would like that phrasing removed. And I don't know, legal, what that looks like. For this one in particular, I would be ready to make a motion or however you direct that I do this because I just think we are setting ourselves up for a stifling of development by having this additional language in there. And trust me, nobody here understands the Right to Farm Act better than I do. I've been there. I know that. And we're talking about a boogeyman that may or may not ever exist. And I just, I can't go there with this language and the concern about what it could potentially do down the way. So. Yeah, so Madam Chair, I'll jump in. Kind of procedurally just listening to your discussion. Yes, Council Member Gabbard, you can make a motion at any time for changes to the ordinance. Obviously, there's been discussions about other potential changes. What I would recommend hearing that is that there be a motion for any change that council would like to see, that any council member would like to see. And then maybe at the end of that, we assess kind of where we're at. You know, depending on, you know, when it comes to an ordinance compared to a resolution, we have to be very precise on the language. So if there's too many moving parts, you could continue, you could consider continuing this public hearing if there was too much, if it is targeted changes that we could have a recess like we've done in the past sometimes and give you something specific back. But what we can't do with an ordinance is, you know, obviously having any of you voting on something without seeing with precision the exact changes that would be made so you're on the same page before you make a final vote. Okay. So that's a long-winded way of saying, considering everything going on, I'd say motions for every change and then maybe we take it from there. Okay. So my desire would be, and I think the simplest way to do this is for this language to mirror chapter 17.5. We did the work on that language in, I mean, if the property is located in an industrial zoning district, an environmental report of the subject property and an analysis of the surrounding industrial uses, including any mitigation measures needed to address the health and safety of future residents due to proximity of such uses. Simple. We did the work once, we wrote that language, we all, like, council approved that language. Now here we are. Why would we not use that language again? So that is what I would like to see so that we're not recrafting something brand new sitting here. We already have it. And then, as I'm always a fan of, we have consistency in our code. I never like to see wild differences within our code when it's around the same topics. So that is what I would like to see. I guess I can make a motion for that. Is that okay? You could. I mean, so motion, any motion that any council could make more of a conceptual motion like that, and then there'd be a follow-up with, okay, where would the exact changes, how would the language change, in what section or sections? But yes, it's certainly fine for you to make that motion. Okay. So I would make the motion that the language in regards to the multi-family dwelling be changed to mirror the language that is in Chapter 17.5 around the environmental report requirement. Second. Oh, look. Thank you, Derek. Okay, it took us a minute to get there, but we got it. So this is, sorry for the pink highlighting, but that is showing the section and the language in Chapter 17.5 as you just read aloud. We'll see if I can get this in here. And there's the old language, hopefully. And so this is what is in the ordinance right now, and so we've highlighted the reference to and potential future industrial uses because we knew that that would be a discussion point. And then also the example language that's included there says such as but not limited to. So those were the modifications to the language. But the top highlighted in pink is what is in Chapter 17.5 today. So before I move on, do we have to vote on this one or do we? I need to comment. So that was going to be. Okay, so what I'll do is I'll yield my time since I've made the motion so that we can have discussion on it. For clarification, since you made the comment that everyone, that we have to make individual motions to the changes that we've stressed here today because I know I've heard Council Member Driscoll make at least two or three. I haven't made any motions. No, what you'd like to see. No, you haven't made any motions yet. But she made some recommendations or some things that she would see prior to getting your instruction about making the motion. So how do we back up so that everybody is on the same page? Right, so I think right now you can discuss the motion on the floor. Vote on that motion and then any other Council Member can make subsequent motions for changes that they would like to see. Okay, so you ready for that, Council Member Gabbert? I would love for us to have a discussion on the motion. Thank you. Again, it's already been properly seconded so I don't see anyone. No, I got my button pushed. I'm getting ready to call your name. Give me a minute. So you're speaking on Council Member Gabbert's motion. So Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I do have, so I think about when we collect this information, when we get an environmental report, it's for us, it's something that we're paying for. Would this information and perhaps Council Member Gabbert with her expertise in real estate might have something to lend to this, but I'm wondering if that could be considered sensitive information that if it's submitted to us it becomes a public record and we're talking about folks who are trying to pull financing together and I think some of that is none of our business. What is our business is to know that a report has been done and that, you know, to some satisfaction that it's buildable land. So I'm looking for a way to get what we want while protecting the interest of the developer in getting the financing that they need. We certainly defer to City Council and, you know, happy to hear from the development community if they want to address that. I'll just share with you my own direct experience because we've had several applications under Chapter 17.5 and there's been no objections to handing over a Phase 1 environmental and it's been very effective. We've had some things happen out of it. So, for example, one was near a school so they put in some windows that had, you know, better sound protection than maybe otherwise they would have but the process has been pretty smooth under 17.5. So I'll just share that with you. No, that's great to know. I just, you know, I know that with some of these things and especially these days I think financing gets more and more complicated and so I'm just trying to make sure that we're not throwing up a barrier that maybe I just didn't know about. So, as Vice Chair Gerdes says sometimes tell me like I'm in kindergarten. So if there's no if there's no concern about that sort of thing then I'm supportive. Thank you. Council Member Gabbert. Well, I would just respond to the question as well. Just from my experience with commercial real estate Phase 1 is very common and so lenders are very familiar with that process. The heartburn for me was this additional language and I think by removing that it does no more harm than it does to any of the other multi-family housing units that are being built in other industrial areas with our current code. Got it. Thank you. Okay, seeing no further requests to speak we do have a motion on the floor that's been properly seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting for the first I don't know how to what to call it J4 because we're going to have Amendment 1 Yeah, because we're going to have several amendments so how do we need to cast Amendment 1 Okay, we'll take J4 Amendment 1 Can you please open the machine for voting Council Members can you please cast your vote Oh, it's going to change it Okay All right Council Members can you please cast your votes Now that our present Council Members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes Madam Chair the motion to approve agenda item J4 Amendment 1 passes unanimously with Council Member Mohamed being absent All right So I see no other requests to speak but I still Okay So I still want to make sure that we get Council Member Driscoll's Amendment Well, I think Ed had his button pushed inside Well, they're not showing but now Madam Chair I'm happy to do it on the second round I do want to hear from my colleagues before I start Okay So now you're back up Council Member Montaneri Yes, I didn't have any comments on the motion so that's why I didn't keep my button pressed So thank you for the presentation Thank you everybody for coming out I too had some questions on the base FAR and so we received two versions of this ordinance We received a clean copy and then we had a strike through an underlying copy and when I was reviewing this on the strike through an underlying copy page 5 of 14 there was no number 4 which is the which was the dwelling part The one I was studying That's page 5 of 14 Yes Yeah So what did this look like before? It just said dwelling comma multifamily And that was it? I believe so yes Okay And then one of the changes was to bring forward the environmental report language which was originally in the design standards so it was pulled up to the multifamily line and then the additional language regarding the 20 units and the 1 to 4 ratio was a new add Okay Well I when we brought this up back in June I guess it was and we discussed this and we discussed the base FAR and increasing it to either 2.0 or 2.5 I I too thought that was going to be the base and this requirement the 10% requirement to me is we are so close to trying to get this this ordinance approved and it just seems like all these changes kind of came came up out of the blue and it's it's almost like we can see the promised land we want to get this thing done but we are going to have to make some changes I just wanted to say on this requirement I'm just not in agreement of moving it to 10% I did want to mention the food trucks because there was a lot of common comments about the food trucks and you know a lot of times I've got the contrarian point of view here on city council you know I love food trucks trucks I think I think they're good they're flexible but if you're trying to develop something and you want permanent development it's hard for somebody to stand up a restaurant if you've got a competition right there so I kind of see things a little bit different with food trucks I want to have them but I also want the development to happen at the same time and then sticking with my contrarian point of view I do agree with the staff on the parking requirements I'm sure that's not going to be a shock to anybody here I would like to ask Mr. First to come to the podium because I want to see get his thoughts on the parking issue okay so I guess I am like the sole developer in the room although I don't really consider myself that but I'm generally supportive of no parking mandates because I do believe the private sector should make those decisions as to what is marketable for those proposed developments the reason why I've not been an advocate to remove the parking mandates here although I've been very much in support of Max and obviously the no parking advocates that came out tonight is that I do think that the requirements that are put in the code are relatively benign not only are they using the downtown standard but there's a 25% reduction on top of that given the fact that it's in proximity to the Pinellas Trail and transit oriented development and the BRT so my sole anxiety with the parking mandates being completely removed although candidly it can probably work better for me economically because there'll be another economic driver from parking spaces because I have the sites at the scale and magnitude to be able to provide parking but my rationale for not being a diehard no parking person for this area is that as it currently stands today the parking infrastructure for Three Daughters the parking infrastructure for the Urban Still House the parking infrastructure for other surrounding businesses are all of my vacant properties there's not a single on-street parking space along 22nd street that should change as part of the streetscape redesign and through the development process and there's not a single structured parking facility that exists in the area so it is a little bit different than downtown where you have existing parking infrastructure and you have years of maybe over parking being built that can absorb the demand for cars so it is unique here that we don't have any of that but I am generally supportive of no parking mandates there's just that wrinkle with what is the infrastructure in place in this area to actually support that that's good to hear because I'm all for the flexibility I get concerned about how do you get people to that part of town you know if you live outside of if you're not in close proximity to the Sunrunner or have access to a trolley or something like that like where I live I've got to get in a car to get someplace and so if we want this to be successful I want to give the development community the flexibility but I also I want this to succeed so I struggle with not having a parking requirement and I see other parts of our city that have the same kind of situation where they need parking so people can make that at destination I just want to add one thing just really out of respect for the Palmetto Park Neighborhood Association which obviously Max is a part of and many of the others are the people that should be most concerned about no parking requirements are the group that through resolution I believe is advocating to have no parking requirements because all of that parking spillover is going to spill west into Palmetto Park that is the reality of what's going to take place and so I do think that their opinions should be taken into deep consideration I just want to make that clear because I so deeply respect their progressive nature about urbanism and I very much subscribe to it and having them as neighbors for a project of the scale and magnitude that I hope to deliver here is something that gives me extreme confidence and I want to make sure that they were appropriately heard and have that appreciation as to where that spillover would occur okay thank you I'll leave it right there thank you thank you madam chair I'll just start on parking because that's where we were I was actually open to the no parking but that concerns me about urban still house and three daughters but I appreciate what you said about palmetto park so I'll table that I'm open to it but that certainly is concerning because most of that parking is on lots I'm but I'll listen to my colleagues because I'm sure everybody has comments on what Mr. First just shared but so I'm open to it but that that does concern me I don't want to hurt other businesses by creating no parking on this development and there's a hurt to somebody else by doing it so I'm open to it but I want to hear what my colleagues have to say Joe can you can you come back for a second sorry I should have kept you up there so obviously there's this conversation about TEC which rather that and the 40% which hasn't really been talked about since kind of the beginning of this conversation I think Councilmember Driscoll brought up maybe there's some in between and I was trying to come up with something I don't think I did a very good job so I won't even say what I wrote but is there is is there some combination to make sure that we're getting that's that's written in the ordinance that gets us where we want to be on TEC but also you know ensures that we have these other commercial uses because I totally understand your point that you want to have you know the restaurants and the bars and the non-TEC and if the TEC is taking up all of the square footage on the bottom that hurts that I don't want that to happen but I also understand staff's point of view where it's like not every developer is you and could come in and just make the bottom floor real small and the TEC essentially disappears and I have a concern about that yeah and so is there somewhere in the can you see somewhere in the middle and Derek I'd love your point of view on this too is there somewhere in the middle where we can achieve both and I'm hoping that one of the two guys at the podium who are smarter than me can help me out with this the answer is I think we can and I want to give Derek a lot of credit for finding a very material issue that I completely understand their desire to avoid which is basically somebody putting a development together putting parking primarily on the ground floor because they don't want to spend the money to do it vertically in a structured setting and as a result being left over with very little habitable space which is to be fully transparent our expectation was that the definition was going to be 40% of the habitable ground floor space so when the definition came out we were quite surprised that it was saying that it was including all of the back of house and space because we thought it was going to say excluding that that's where this sort of rub has come I think that there is an easy path for me if you are investing in development where you're putting structured parking and you're paying the additional cost for that you are obviously going to have parking ramps you're going to be loading inside of the building you're going to have all sorts of back of house space that you need to service a vertical development so for me if the definition said something more like excluding parking ramps and loading space that would surely not be the majority of the ground floor it wouldn't allow somebody to then put a bunch of random parking and in my studies I do have ground floor parking on some and I get that okay maybe that should not help me avoid my TEC number but loading parking ramps and other backup house service elements for a building should not preclude you from achieving this TEC balance and I want to just point out one other thing when the code originally came out it said 30% of the lot area and Derek will remember this there were two issues with that the first was if you adaptively reuse a building that is only on a small portion of a large lot how do you accomplish 30% if your building is less than 30% of the lot area so that was number one that's why that didn't work and the second reason was that for vertical developments that have all of this back of house junk our expectation was that 40% number would be of that habitable space the thing the thing the thing that I think shows the intent very clearly is that with a 95% lot coverage ratio and a 40% as they've defined it the actual TEC requirement is 38% of the area which is greater than the 30% of the lot area so I think that very clearly shows that there is a miss meeting of the minds on that intent and I know this stuff is very detailed and complex but I think if you just focus on that one key fact how is the 40% of the first floor greater than 30% of the lot area when you're trying to ensure that you have a balanced mix of TEC and non TEC uses meaning a balanced mix of light industrial maker arts and artisan while still having general commercial uses so the definition by removing those necessary guts of a vertical building parking ramps back of house and loading I think that's probably a fair compromise for me I don't know if that would work for staff thank you Derek any feedback thoughts yeah thank you a couple comments I something that didn't come up but I think is important to this discussion to make sure everybody understands the rule application correctly so in the earlier discussion there was a reference to target employment center use being on the first floor and I want to make sure it's understood that the calculation to determine what is the TEC requirement is based on the ground floor but there is no requirement that the TEC use be included on the ground floor and so the TEC use when provided doesn't have to take away from a transit supportive use on the ground floor because it can be located upstairs it could be located in the back of the property it does not have to be on the first floor so I just want to make sure everybody understands that distinction the second thing and it's kind of an extension of the first point and then I'll come back to you the target employment uses in some case we have on in the ordinance we have explicitly stated what are target employment uses and a number of those target employment uses arts education arts related sales and service museum office performing arts venue we have a performing arts venue downtown that is located on the second floor not the first so there are opportunities to satisfy the target employment uses that are supportive of an active street facing storefront or they could be provided elsewhere in the building upstairs okay relating to the percentage in much of the analysis that we did first the origin of the 30 and the 40 percent is based on an analysis of existing conditions in the industrial area so what do we see there today in terms of development and some of those numbers were originally footnoted in our earlier studies that talked about the entirety of the district boundary was showing I think approximately 30% FAR if you included the vacant lots it was 40% if you include the vacant lots it was 30% if you exclude the vacant lots and so those numbers were based on some of that early analysis going forward here the other point I wanted to make is that it's correct there were some adjustments because we could see where you have a standalone single story building there was potential for the FAR number to require something more than what physically exists on the site so we adjusted some of that language and the other thing we found was that there is this alternative it's 30% of the lot area whichever is less so it's 40% of the ground floor or 30% of the lot whichever is less so in a scenario where the lot does allow something less that would apply and so in some of the modeling we could see as you went through many of the development scenarios this isn't an exact number it's a generalization but when you go through the chart once your 75% lot coverage you're getting into a scenario where you're probably switching over to the 30% of lot area rather than using the 40% of the first floor but that's kind of more of a generalization but we you know we went through all the scenarios five you know one two three four five story buildings based on a whole range of different FAR numbers to see where are these break points and so this is all the underlying information that went into the language that was drafted the way that it was thank you Derek all right I'll table that one for now I'm interested to hear what everybody else has to think on that because I don't think that one's been discussed very much I see it both ways so I'm interested to see what we come up with as a group there quickly I'll touch on the food trucks I again I'm I'm kind of in the middle on this I could go either way food trucks are made to be mobile I think they I think most of the time they want to be mobile so I get the increase of going from two days to five days I think that's making an accommodation but again what I am not willing to do is put this entire project on hold or in jeopardy because of food trucks and so you know again I I think I'm happy to support it either way because again I do think we're making an accommodation there the last thing I'll talk about is the housing Derek and council member Driscoll quoted me about the kindergarten I I'm a little confused with the new language and so you get you get 20 developments right off the bat or 20 units right off the bat excuse me and so what you're what this language is saying is that 16 of them are market rate and four of them are affordable housing is that what it is you get up to 20 units market rate okay up to 20 units market rate then anything else that you're adding above 20 becomes the one to four ratio and so if we got rid of the 20 or I guess I probably need some clarification on what councilmember Driscoll is asking but if we got rid of that how does it affect the chart that you have here on page 28 or does it because this is the 5% originally on 26 and then this is 10% on 28 is that what you're showing us yeah let me just catch up to where you're at here that's 5% right and then where you have it red lined and added on slide 28 is 10% right so this is just showing you the straight changes at 5% so this is showing that 5% right and then go to 28 so this shows the difference between 5% or the 10% number on the bonus so that's what the red is yeah okay all right so I'll just quickly and then I'll give it up I'm sorry I've taken so much time I agree with councilmember Floyd I'm in on 10% when we talk about these types of developments I think we are trying to be it's very clear we're trying to make this work for this area when we look at other developments that use chapter 17.5 there's some give to get and I the motion I think that's completely reasonable when I look at that unit count on other developments that we've approved so I'll sit back and listen to my comments but thank you for the feedback councilmember Gabbard thank you madam chair so since we're on the FAR I'll just start there because I think I only have one question left after all my colleagues so looking at the chart where what you proposed in June to what the amended proposal is now with the 2.0 the language that is on here for the 1.0 FAR bonus the half units at 80 half units at 120 that comes out of chapter 16 so that stays consistent right the AMI unit limits are still the same that's correct I should have copied and pasted it over in the new column I just needed to ask if I would have walked away tonight and not asked I would have been like is it still there because what they're doing is they're required to do the workforce housing agreement like you said through chapter 16 and that puts them in the rotation and all of this is built into chapter 16 which is why we don't see it in the code here spelled out correct got it okay I just wanted to make sure of that I am still a little torn between the 5 and the 10% I do see the rationale of going to the 10% because you do get more of those units I think for me it's only a hang up because I feel like it's just now being discussed and so it gives me a little pause just because I worry about the implications because I don't really feel like we've discussed that thoroughly but I'll leave that one right there now for the parking requirements Max could I have you come up and answer a question for me is that legal I can do that right okay absolutely the reason that I have you come up is because I completely support what Palmetto Park is asking for and what I'm hearing from the area because I believe what we're creating here is a live work and play area and so I have less heartburn with worrying about parking mandates because let's let's be honest the market will decide developers will build what they need to build that fits their development but this point about if they don't then there's the flow over that goes into your neighborhood can you discuss have you all had a conversation about the potential for that happening to you guys and how do you feel about that potential yes ma'am we specifically mentioned spillover parking I specifically mentioned spillover parking at the meeting where we voted overwhelmingly to support removing parking mandates in this code because we know there's still going to be parking this is a long term plan here my fear is we're not going to change this for 20 more years let's be realistic we're setting in stone today's level of car dependency for the next two decades and that's a problem in the short term nothing's going to change that's why Joe doesn't care about this WADA doesn't care about this they didn't even have a vote on it they just I can't it's hard to find people who want the parking mandates outside of city staff frankly okay thank you for for kind of sharing the point of view because I'm very sensitive to what your neighborhood specifically is going to encounter with this redevelopment I completely agree like I don't see the point in taking kind of a car centric mentality and laying it on top of a TOD project I just have a I have a hard time with that so I would be in favor of removing the parking mandate but I'll leave that I'm not gonna make a motion on it I'm gonna kind of leave it there right now but I want us to get somewhere at least a compromise on this issue because I just I agree I think that there's more work we could do here so thank you for coming up I appreciate it madam chair I'm gonna leave it there for right now and council member floyd thank you I will pick it right back up in that exact spot so I had here just a quick note on the parking to try to make it not mandated that I want to get to in a second but first I do want to comment on something that Mr. first said I you know I understand where you're coming from but I don't think like that removing parking mandates is gonna solve the problem that there's existing businesses there that don't have adequate infrastructure because we can't expect any of the other property owners around to be building parking for an existing business they're gonna be building parking just for their they're gonna be building parking just for their business and so I'm not sure I think like the idea of public parking is still gonna have to be a part of the conversation when it comes to the street and whatnot later on and you know one of the businesses that you cited was three daughters that endorsed removing the parking mandate so but I understand where you're coming from but I'm not sure that what you're describing is going to be solved even if we leave the minimums in right now so you know my preference would be in section 16 point wow that's a lot of numbers parking requirements just to remove sections B and C but I think you know if we wanted to still maybe encourage but not require it I think I have a couple of word changes here that would make it like just a suggestion for example in section B it says a TOD supportive uses shall provide we could just change that to may provide and in section C where it says it's in the first sentence after the second comma the minimum number of parking spaces required we could change required to suggested those two things I think and I would love legals and staff's opinion as to if that would successfully make it more of a suggestion than just than a requirement so we could do that I would like to look through a little bit and make sure we're properly changing all of this because if we are making it more subject suggestive instead of mandatory it might not need these extra sections that are kind of being like exemptions because we wouldn't there wouldn't need to be an exemption so that would require just maybe a holistic reorganization there okay well I was doing that to provide like a simple path forward that would still suggest something but I personally would just prefer sections B and C or items B and C I don't know what to call them legally just not to be here at all and there's just a that says they're they're exempt and D that has bicycle parking well to address that and I think general could comments from other members including council member Driscoll and council member Gabbard if we were going to do a targeted amendment like that it would probably be an a target employment uses and TOD supportive uses to get those both in there that are addressed currently and then we would get rid of B and C and renumber D to be and that way we're capturing everything that what isn't a target employment use or a TOD supportive use would just be complying with regular parking or no parking but it would get capture the benefit of the majority of these items that are coming into this zoning district and I would love Mr. Kilborn to comment on that if he sees any issues with that or needs further explanation from a planning standpoint for consistency I do have a couple comments on that so with I understand your intention to be go to zero parking within the overlay that's what you're asking I think it would be cleaner for us to just say that rather than have suggestions we can offer suggestions through separate information sheets provided by the planning office but we don't typically suggest through code language so my my suggestion would be to keep it real clean and if that's where you're trying to get I understand your intention to be go to zero parking within the overlay I think it would be cleaner for us to just say that rather than have suggestions we can offer suggestions through separate information sheets provided by the planning office but we don't typically suggest through code language so my suggestion would be to keep it real clean and if that's where you're trying to get within the overlay that's what you're asking i think it would be cleaner for us to just say that rather than have suggestions we can offer suggestions through separate information sheets provided by the planning office but we don't typically suggest through code language so my my suggestion would be to keep it real clean and if that's where you're trying to get just say it um with the the amendment that was discussed to just amend a and say target employment uses and transit supportive uses you still have all the other uses um so my my only comment for our question i think for legal would be whatever exemption we are writing into this section to be clear that it applies to this overlay section and does not transfer back to the underlying industrial traditional zoning if somebody is developing under the industrial traditional zoning and that's what i was trying to get to inelegantly but yes i that was the understanding is that for these uses that are being created by the overlay those would be exempt but where the underlying zoning would be remaining right there i think we i mean we can we can do that if that's the direction is we can go to zero parking requirement within this overlay section that applies to land uses that are being considered under the application of this alternative overlay so if you're coming into the overlay and you're using it then what i'm hearing is you would like to see it's a no parking requirement period yeah yeah and so that gets us uh the inclusion of um tod uses in a and the removal of b and c and then d change to b that gets us there i mean that's i think it might be cleaner to refer to all uses land uses approved through under or through the application of the overlay just to make sure because my my only concern is if you're referring to target employment center use or transit supportive use is there's something we're missing that could still be used under this overlay option so i think it would be just a general reference to land uses approved under or through the application of this overlay alternative all uses approved under the application of this overlay are exempt from the minimum number of parking spaces required and you would have a declarative statement like that and then the and then i think d is a separate yes item for discussion because that's bicycle parking that's separate i think i'm happy to leave that in i'd rather i'd like to make a motion that we change uh item a here uh to what i just previously said all uses approved under the overlay uh are exempt from the minimum number of parking spaces required uh remove items b and c and then re-number item d to uh b uh so that's my motion second okay so we have um councilmember hanuel so did you want to speak on that motion or no oh no i haven't spoken at all i mean frankly i feel like we were making sausage on the dais and i just don't like it okay so we have a motion at this point i am like i am if i'm hearing legal having to interpret like what they're going to do and asking staff and everybody's trying to figure out language on the dais i i just i can't support this i can't so we have a motion on the floor that has been properly second um i see no further request to speak on the motion that's on the floor can you please open i don't think she want to speak on this one so can you please open the the the machine for what are we calling this now um amendment two j j4 amendment two madam chair could i just make one quick comment similar to uh councilmember hanowitz's point we're viewing the moment as kind of direction on the general nature of the amendments that you would want and then once you're through that process this is a fair amount of changes i think at that point we absolutely do need to evaluate number one you'd have to see exact language so bare minimum there would have to be a recess and language brought back before you we also have to consider any additional procedural steps in light of the changes does anything need to be redone things like that so at a minimum once you're done with this we will have a discussion and then come back to you or it could be the will of the body that you've given direction by virtue of these motions and you continue the hearing and you have the all of the language brought back to you um at a subsequent public hearing that's that's also your prerogative would be my preference okay um so we we thank you for that um jackie so we have a motion and a proper second on the j4 amendment two can you please open the machine for voting council members can you please cast your votes since all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item j4 amendment two passes five to two with council members driscoll fix sanders floyd gabbard and girdus voting yes council members hannah wentz and montaneri voting no and council member muhammad being absent so before we go to council member driscoll um jackie with the the three options that you just gave after council member driscoll gives her um recommendations for amendments then we'll need enough to have another motion to defer how we want to handle it yeah i think i think at that point what i think regardless at least from our perspective here i think everyone would need some this level at least of specificity on what you would want the next the amended ordinance to look like once you're through that process i do think it would be appropriate for you to discuss the next steps after that which would be continuance which typically for changes of this magnitude would be something that would if if we look back at your precedent of what typically would happen when there's this many changes and to ensure there's no language errors or inconsistencies or unintended consequences either administration or we haven't had an opportunity to think through that that is typically what would happen okay councilmember driscoll thank you and if we did that continuance could it be for one week from today yes because we're continuing you're continuing you as long as you announce the date of the public hearing when when it will be continued yes you could do that you could set that tonight after you're done with the other motions thank you well i think in order for all of us to have an opportunity to absorb um these changes and hopefully there will be a couple more but then also to give the public an opportunity to um look at this and and comment on the changes just in case we've already heard from a lot but i would be um perfectly open to continuing if this discussion is going to continue for a while um i agree a recess tonight if we if we wrap this up soon i think a recess tonight could do the trick but there's definitely some benefits to just giving this one more we've waited five years right uh some more one more week to make sure that we get this right i think is worth it um excited about the parking i think you know the lack of of parking infrastructure that um joe first was talking about it doesn't um i i i think the lack of that infrastructure makes it more likely that someone would include parking in their development naturally so i think i think we're going to be okay and i'm excited about that that there was let's see so we've done environmental reports so far and parking i'd like to go back to the um the food trucks and joe i'm wondering because council member montaneri um was talking about it competing with restaurants and what i understand is that there's a whole different kind of concept um and not food trucks parked across from uh restaurants that are trying to get started but more of um a unique creative uh setup that's food truck centric and with your experience and knowledge i would love for you to kind of um paint the picture for us so that everyone understands what we're talking about here sure um first if you don't mind let me let me interject the air is going off at nine o'clock so i'm going to need the conversations to be a little more brief because we still have a few one two three four five more items so just wanted to just give you just give you a rundown on that i do maybe you can speak too um thank you just for everyone else's benefit i was the owner and operator of a food truck lot in miami which is why uh council member driscoll suggested i might have some knowledge on it um yes i think that there are great economic engines especially for emerging districts um of course we mentioned three daughters and we mentioned urban distillery but urban still house rather but those are two businesses that are functioning with food and beverage operations but really under the guise of them being manufacturing facilities which is why they have the ability to open there so as you think about having neighborhood services and food and beverage in existing buildings obviously there's extensive infrastructure and expense to do that and when you have an emerging district it can be quite favorable for growth and vibrancy to have more temporary uses of vacant land such as food truck lots etc so i found them to be quite useful of course the question is as you know additional uses come into play did those uh sort of go by the wayside or then do they sort of become competition for others but i do think that they're two different opportunities for two different customers on two different days so i think that they coexist quite well with existing food and beverage uh operations and buildings okay thank you so much for that explanation yes mr master if you uh just have a minute very brief thank you in a city adjacent to this city that came up and some of the commission members were worried about the competition we had the public hearing and the nearby restaurants came and spoke in favor of the food trucks they had no fear of losing business to them at all and it passed so that's that is a fear that i don't think anybody is worried right right people like to go to places where they have multiple food options and it keeps them coming back too so um derek what can we do here can you um tell me how we can make this so that the the food trucks are um not subject to having to leave i i just while they're here under the council member i just have a question for the for for the city attorney's office for heather if it's okay um i i think if city council wanted to have the food trucks there without a time limit the administration would have uh no objection to that but what i want to know is are we going to run into any issue whether that's a permanent use if we run into that type of issue then then the administration would have a concern we have had food trucks in the past where we made them strapped down where we made them put in fire safety we made them go through the site plan approval that mr mastery's talking about so i if council wants food trucks to be there on a vacant lot you know all week it's fine i just want to make sure we're not violating any law or doing anything in a permitting situation that's going to cause us a concern and yes administrator girders that is exactly what i was trying to say you actually said it much better than i did but it could it is we could make it allowable but again if the use develops into a permanent use it could trigger life safety florida fire code when you get into a mobile kitchen situation and i'd had this discussion previously with you uh chair about mobile kitchens yes it could trigger things that we can't really amend around through zoning and just want to be aware of that just because it might be allowable here it when you turn into a permanent use you could have rather expensive when it comes to the fire code upgrades and requirements that need to be made i don't know if a compromise maybe that uh ms judd might be okay with and city council might be okay with is they could stay there seven days 24 hours a day and then after seven days they have to relocate and could come back maybe that keeps them temporary and but they don't have to move if there's a festival they don't have to drive away at 1 a.m and come back at 6 a.m or or whatever so and to really provide like the best guidance on that from a technical sense i am aware of this and from having previous discussions about mobile kitchens permanent sites or food truck lots but this is an evolving area as we move towards these new concepts or newer concepts and i would like to confirm before i provided any more information on that with our fire marshal and just make sure that it would be hard to draw a distinction right now and be like well yes if we if they move once a week then they're never going to be a permanent use there may be other mitigating factors that if we are going to take time to amend this that i would want to check with him first i mean uh mr jett i mean we could make it the city council wanted to they could make a motion if we're going to come back anyways next week contingent upon review by the fire marshal and the building official that that would help with the frequency if we're going to adjust that i would just want to make sure that we're not changing it to something that's still going to trigger a permanent use situation thank you um i will hold off on that that i mean it sounds like we are moving towards continuing um and so i will give the time for that because i'm kind of wondering why is it not why can't it just be part of a temporary use permit temporary temporary use means not permanent so why i mean and that might be the simplest way to do it is require that they all have temporary use permits but again in the consistency with how we regulate food trucks generally they don't require one as long as they're within that time yeah so i think generally but within this within this yes council member overlay they could be required to have a temporary use permit that would then allow them to not have to to move um for the duration of that permit and what do we have the um temporary use permit set out right now six months i believe and that's generally a definition when you're talking about structures the six months or less is that permanence but again if they're concurrently issued then again but yes that would be a place to start and i can definitely look into that that's better than what we have right now so i would love for you to look into that and i would love for us to take this out and take that particular element up again once there's been an opportunity for that research and hopefully some one-on-ones or something to help us get through this faster um the tec use percentage with the ground floor um could we listening to the others the other conversations could we take out those back of house elements the parking ramp the i don't know um there's pro you probably have a term for it that would you know be a a catch-all phrase but eliminating that from the calculation if you if you don't want to come off the 40 percent and take it way down and we i understand why why but i'm looking at a different way that that doesn't put us at risk but still creates something that's a little bit i think is more reasonable so what if we excluded the parking ramps the loading and other back of the house elements um i don't think these things are any of these things are really necessary i mean that's not the part that we want you know we really want to focus on that other the other part so do you see any any um negative consequences of taking that out of the calculation yes you will get less target employment center uses is what will happen because you will be cutting down or reducing the square footage required for the target employment center use that has been the foundation and principle that we've been trying to protect from the beginning of this process so if you're modifying that definition it will result in less target employment center square footage is the city ready to go in a different direction in that area i think we were demonstrating that through the changes that we've recommended in the staff report that would be another step even further reducing the potential for target employment center uses to locate there i think in the definition we usually work in definition of net or gross square footage which includes everything or excludes uh that habitable area so we based on what you're describing you want ramps and mechanical service areas excluded but you want parking spaces and parking lot drive lanes included um we would have to probably explicitly state that and how the calculation is to be done because we couldn't just say net or gross and split the description that you just um okay gave us um would another option be to allow for someone to request apply for a variance yes uh somebody could apply for a variance and go through demonstrating the standards for approving a variance that they have a unique hardship that justifies approving the variance that is requested admittedly that's going to be a hard standard to demonstrate when you have a vacant site and you're building new construction what is the hardship that prevents you from meeting the 40 percent it's probably a going to be described as a financial hardship for the developer but a financial hardship is not typically something that is taken into consideration for the granting of a variance it's usually some physical constraint or physical hardship associated with the site okay thanks it doesn't sound like that's the direction we want to go in so this one i'm going to leave on the um on the table as well because we're we're not all in we're not i think there's still too much daylight between the two concepts the two approaches to this and i think enough ideas have been thrown out that there's one that we haven't mentioned yet y'all are the experts please figure something out and bring us back something we can vote yes on that will actually encourage more business opportunities miss kovalarch am i allowed to to ask a question of mr first as long as i'm sure yes sir could you please i i don't recall exactly what you said on this issue i know you said the parking ramps removing the parking ramps square footage i don't recall you saying back of house i thought you said maybe something else besides parking ramps and something no i i believe i did say back of house you did i i believe so but and how would you define that yeah so to me let me make one quick point i will be brief so apologies um the tec uses that we want are the arts and artists and uses that exist on the ground floors of buildings where yes there is a loophole in the tecs that you can office counts as a tec use and therefore yeah you could put that on a second or third story but the uses that we want the museums the the craft operations the process enabled retailers all that stuff lives on the ground so i just want to be clear because i mean the point is obviously very well taken that yes you can just put it upstairs but the uses we want aren't going upstairs i think for me i want to deliver and i know this isn't about me this is about trying to protect you know the greater good but i want to deliver the most commercial space that i possibly can on the ground floors of buildings because that's what creates human-centric development and that's what creates vibrancy so in order to do that there needs to be a mix of the tec and the non-tec and the only way that i can see that happening given the requirements that are in place for example on one of my sites it's three acres you do 30 percent of the lot area that's 40 000 square feet how on earth can i put 40 000 square feet of tecus on the ground floor and have anything else that's going to service that neighborhood and with commercial vitality that's impossible when you think about all those elements so whether it's you know parking ramps loading and service i haven't done the massings in the map but maybe that's a way to do it if it's parking ramps loading service and maybe other ancillary back of house that's one way to do it but what i think we should be precluding to protect the staff's point which i think is a very good one is that surface level ground floor spaces should not be excluded from your calculation because that's what we're trying to prevent against is people using the ground floor to park as opposed to create commercial opportunity i think that's the distinction that i think is most relevant for this discussion what about ramps mechanical space and loading areas that probably works yes we would accept that as the administration deal this is very bizarre so i'm not sure but yes i think you i think that that obviously delivers the intent of what i'm describing like a middle ground i mean yes i agree all right then i'll make a motion but i'm not sure what to say so i could use some help with this one before we do that can just question clarification oh yes so in that exchange uh ramps and mechanical rooms would be excluded or i'm sorry included and parking spaces would be excluded what about drive lanes servicing the parking spaces themselves is that considered part of the parking structure is it considered drive lanes because there's going to be a square footage associated with that that needs to be included in the calculation as well so when we come back to you with specific language we need to identify that point can i comment on that i'd love for you to what's that yes yes um i would think that the drive lanes that are servicing ramps and obviously vertical parking also need to be excluded i think what what we're trying to avoid is somebody filling their entire ground floor with parking spaces instead of commercial space but the the nuts and bolts that are necessary to get people to drive up to vertical parking structured parking above the first floor should be excluded and rob i think that's what you were referencing yeah maybe i need to apologize to everybody because maybe i misunderstood and had it completely backwards i thought we were excluding the ramps the mechanical room and the loading dogs not from yeah i think derek misspoke not putting words in your mouth but i heard what i thought you yes communicated okay thank you i consider the driveway to be part of the ramp because that's how you get to the ramp so i would have okay yeah i mean maybe it's a good time for me to just make a general comment that you know we're super supportive of what we're trying to do here obviously it's very creative and i just have to say in my experience this is one of the most amazing urban planning conversations i've ever been able to participate in with city council and really i mean it and i've been so impressed with all the comments tonight and your passion uh around trying to do something different and we want to compromise and we want to try and find a way with you but you know derek and liz their responsibility is to try and protect you know potential adverse impacts and other things and so we we try and balance all those things but we want to find a middle ground with you oh yes thank you and i do so appreciate that knowing that you're there to provide those protections and that steady guidance is really important even when at the end of the day we decide we want to do things a little bit differently but without you as the foundation for that um i don't know where it would be right now so thank you great great that you brought that up so um i would like to make make a motion but i'm sorry to say i'm really not sure uh what that needs to sound like would it be would it be a motion we'd be on amendment three right three a motion to make amendment three and we're talking about in the 16.30.050.4.1 permitted usage subsection a when we're talking about a1 and then when it goes into the 30 of floor area for the purposes of calculating the required floor area of target employment uses the area the first floor shall include the total gross floor area of all buildings on the site right now it says including ground floor level area associated with certain things so this is where you would like the amendment correct right this language yes i'd like to amend um amend that section to remove the inclusion of ground floor level associated with stair and elevator towers and close common space and enclosed or partially enclosed vehicular use areas so we're going to keep the calculation of all gross floor area on the site but we're going to amend to exclude the three things that were mentioned yes yes is that okay so that does it for us can i just say so moved then yes yes all we're looking for at this point is the direction on how to work with administration it's exactly what i want so moved second all right we have a motion is we're probably second for j4 amendment three and please open the machine for voting now that all present council members have voted can you please tell in and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item j4 amendment three passes unanimously with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent thank you and councilmember hanowitz had to leave to get her daughter so i told her i'd make the announcement for her so um we've gotten that done council member flow i mean i'm sorry council member driscoll were you done i'm still not happy about the far situation but i'm willing to continue listening okay thank you madam chair council member floyd well that's i'm going to go to far bonuses get straight to the point i will make a motion that instead of five percent of the total number of housing units shall be provided in a bonus a workforce housing section one it'd be ten percent all right i see no further request to speak can you please change that amendment four to the far to ten percent council members can you please cast your votes now that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item j4 amendment four passes four to two council members driscoll and montaneri voting no council members fig sanders floyd gabbard girders voting yes council members hanowitz and muhammad voting or i'm sorry you're absent okay thank you all right we're going to keep moving i was going to make comments because one thing about chair you generally speak last but everybody said everything i want to say and i'm looking for another round um for that so if it's okay with everybody can we go ahead and move j5 all right we're going to go ahead and move j5 i'm sorry i forgot about that i forgot about that i forgot about that motion oh you don't want not yet okay i apologize i'll withdraw the motion well wait a minute i did forget we do have to have a motion to write a couple things so i guess the first thing is finishing like any other motions uh requesting amendments to the ordinance and it seemed like that was still on council member driscoll was the last one because i didn't see council member gabbard's name on here i'm sorry council member gabbard we didn't come this far just coming listen let me let me take mine off okay all right we just got to settle food trucks some somehow um so we left that at your conversation about the permitted special uses temporary uses but i didn't hear a motion on that do we need a motion to have staff come back with that as well in the continuation i already i already asked for that okay but i didn't hear a motion so i just want to make sure i'm not ready because they got to bring us back okay all right but you don't need a motion for the direction to come back so i i mean we could do it either way um in in light of the fact in this situation that there's because there's additional research to do yeah there's nothing specific like that we could propose and tell you now that would be okay or not um i think what not to put words in your mouth council member driscoll i think that's why a specific motion wasn't made and more of the request for us in administration to kind of go back to the drawing board and present an option or or two the temporary use permit did come up i think as a starting point um so that's that's what we'll do um obviously if you would like another motion i just wanted to make sure it was fully addressed and that when we see this come back in continuance that there will be another proposal that is going to come forward and that's what i ended with it council member yeah council member driscoll did not make a motion for that very reason okay all right i'm fine i just wanted to make sure and i will prepare we'll have this language you'll see again but there will be alternative language that either addresses it as a temporary use permit to supplement under the vending sections number two frequency i would anticipate the amendments would just be to that section and we would be removing that and replacing it either with a different permitting system that's special to this district but if there was any other considerations regarding that frequency i wanted to be able to show you what those were and possible an amendment perfect thank you thank you madam chair thank you to continue j4 to september 12th okay second all right okay we wait call to order i'll let mr girdus go thank you i just had a question and i i might have missed it and i just want to bring you back what you want there was discussion about the um base far two without the workforce bonus and i don't i don't think we addressed that or we did yeah we did i thought we did the 10 percent that was just the on the bonus but i'm talking about the base far two with no requirement for workforce units if you're over 20 units total we did not vote on that we we did not vote on that thank you administrative girders if we did not i thought that was your request council member driscoll no you said you wanted the two point i'll make a motion um to um establish the base far at 2.0 second all right so that will be amendment five yes ma'am i got the second may i ask clarification on that i'm sorry so the motion is for the base far 2.0 is that inclusive or exclusive of the 20 units that because the ordinance already said they are the ordinance already proposes a base far 2.0 yeah we're removing the workforce requirement okay i didn't know if that needed to be included in the data motion i want to speak okay so it's been motion and i think i heard a second for him i didn't get a second who did the second okay council member montaner did the second for j4 amendment five can you please let me let him update the you want to speak on j4 amendment five okay vice chair girders i just want to make make it clear so the so the motion on the floor is for a base far of 2.0 with an exclusion of the workforce housing oh yeah basically it's a base far of 2.0 with no other requirements no other requirements so that would be in the text going back to that definition of dwelling multi-family the first amendment was to revise the language to about the environmental studies to be identical to 17.5 and then after that it talks about additional units may be permitted with a workforce housing bonus in accordance and then it has for projects with an intensity of less than 2.4 2.0 far so we're going to be removing that second part and leaving the base 2.0 and then they will go to the bonus chart without this additional language correct you're on it beautifully said you okay with that administrator girders obviously it's your motion and it's at your will but that's what i was referencing yes okay i just wanted to make sure you were clear with that vice thank you you good council member floyd i'll just say real quick that i wanted to stay at 1.5 far so i'm not going to support this but i understand respect it okay so um j4 amendment five can you please open the machine for voting council members place your votes seeing that all present council members have voted can you please tell and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item j4 amendment five passes five to one with council members driscoll fix sanders gabbard girders montaneri voting yes council member floyd voting no council members hanowitz and muhammad bean absent okay so we're done with day four no other amendment i actually did i thought i heard did you say you withdrew your that was that was yours and he made it again okay oh so you made it again okay so just one quick comment um before you would vote on the continuance the the only thing where we can absolutely do this for next week and work with administration and jump on this right away uh your normal deadline for ads to leads as you know would be tomorrow so i i wouldn't think that that is feasible but we will we will do it as quickly as possible to get it to you but i just didn't i i didn't want to not at least mention that this would take a little bit more time we can handle that okay are we good okay so now we have a motion on the floor for the september 12th council meeting that would be is that that's not an amendment that's a whole nother motion isn't it continuance for the continuous so can you go ahead and change the title for us who seconded it i'm not sure brandy yeah sure made to say well yeah just put me down just put it all right the continuous for j4 to september 12th please cast your votes seeing that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to continue j4 to the nine to the september 12 2024 city council meeting passes unanimously with council with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent thank you we are going to expeditiously move now to actually madam i'm sorry to keep interrupting you i never interrupt as much um considering that you just continued the prior ordinance you don't have to do j5 you it would be more appropriate for you to also continue that item i'll move to continue j5 next week in a second that works for me as well we have a motion by councilmember floyd and a second by vice chair girdus to continue j5 to september 12th can you please change the title okay council members please cast your votes seeing that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to continue agenda item j5 to the september 12th 2024 city council meeting passes unanimously with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent okay we got through that very well next we're going to move now to our new business items and that would be g1 um and we'll go ahead and let you do g2 as well but we'll vote separately council member martini respectfully requesting referral to the public services and infrastructure committee or other relevant relevant committee for discussion of no wake zones on roads during flood events potential signage to promote compliance and enforcement under florida statutes and i move approval second okay now that we've had a motion and has been properly seconded can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item g1 passes unanimously with council members thank you g2 respectfully requesting a referral to the budget taxation and finance committee or other relevant committee for a discussion and report on on capital needs for non-enterprise capital improvement projects i move approval second thank you there's been motioned and properly seconded please cast your vote open the machine cast your votes for g2 now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the vote madam chair the motion to approve agenda item g2 passes unanimously with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent thank you we're going to move right along to council committee reports h1 vice chair girders thank you madam chair respectfully requesting city council approval of the budget finance and taxation committee committee's recommendation to approve a supplemental appropriation in the amount of just over a million dollars from the unappropriated fund balance the general fund do i need to read the number okay thank you additional bp settlement funds to the public works administration sustainability and sustainability and resiliency division for the projects identified in the attached resolution and i'll move approval second okay okay now that h1a okay i know we had an a fb of same but h1 um can you go ahead and open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item h1a passes unanimously with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent okay h2 is respectfully requesting approval of a resolution approving funding for the northwest park youth baseball lighting project in an amount not to exceed 300 000 from wikiwachi funds approval second thank you can you open the machine for voting for h2 council council members cast your votes seeing that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair the motion to approve agenda item h2a passes unanimously with council members hanowitz and muhammad being absent thank you we'll now have our final open forum is there any speakers anyone on zoom doesn't look like it people signed up but if any i can call their names if you like so i don't see anybody in the room so i think you're speaking call the names just for the record monica garcia lou jinx gillen dames that's it that's it all right do we have any announcements what is happening oh vice chair girders thank you madam chair no no birthdays but i just wanted to uh thank my colleagues for um the wikiwachi appropriation and i know northwest is very thankful i just wanted to thank administration especially mike jeffries and and his team uh for working with me on that i'm very grateful thank you madam chair you are so welcome no other announcements seeing no requests to speak meeting is adjourned thank you madam chair thank you