City Council - Sep 17, 2026

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopley Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4, and Council Chair, Lissette Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr., and District 8, and Council Vice Chair, Ritchie Floyd. We went to the September 17, 2026 City Council Meeting. Clerk, could I have a roll call, please? Gerdes. Here. Hannah Witts. Here. Gabbard. Here. Harding. Here. Dick Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Givens. Here. Floyd. Here. Today we're going to have our invocation given by Rabbi Philip Weintraub of Congregation Bethlehem Israel, and please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, if you can stand, please. Members of the Council, honored guests, and neighbors, thank you for the privilege of opening the meeting. I come to you in the season of the Jewish High Holidays. We just celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and this weekend, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. A season that is built around showing up, about saying, here I am, Hinnani. Those words are used by Abraham the prophet when he was called. Words that I used today when I welcomed a little boy into the covenant at eight days. It's the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's the word that our tradition uses whenever someone is asked to show up, not as a bystander, but as a participant, ready to be counted upon. And I asked my community this week, how do we say Hinnani? How do we say, here I am, not only to our own faith community, but to all people, to our neighbors, our city, even when it's hard? Because right now, it is hard. My community has been in the city of St. Pete for 103 years. And at the same time, thank God not here. Across the country, Jewish congregations have faced violent threats, with visibly Jewish people attacked on the street, in front of their homes, and their houses of worship. And that hatred stems from a single ancient lie, that whatever anyone's problem is, blame the Jews. Anti-Semitism is rising in ways that many of us did not see or expect in our lifetime. But we know that hatred against Jews does not end there. It multiplies and leads to hatred against so many others. So none of us is asked to call to fix that alone. But everyone is asked to notice. Everyone is asked to speak up and stand beside any person being singled out. Because their safety and dignity is bound up in our own. I truly believe that we will find a way to honor the dignity of every human being in this room, in our city, to find true peace in this world. And our city council is an example of that. So before you begin your work today, may we be a community that says Hineni, that says I show up, that I stand up for one another, Jew or Christian, Muslim or Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh, believer or seeker, every color, every race, every creed. May we have the courage to stand up for our neighbor when they're diminished, and the humanity and the humility to be stood up for when we are in need. May the decisions made in this room today be guided by justice, tempered by compassion, and rooted in the recognition that we share one city, one future, and the gift of knowing one another. Let all of us say Hineni. Here we are, together. Amen. Of the United States, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice. Thank you, Rabbi Weintraub, for the beautiful work. Council members, we have an agenda for approval. I want to entertain a motion. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing it all, present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. We have before us the approval of a consent agenda with the addition of CB20, CB21, CB22, and CB23, which are the union agreements. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I just wanted to quickly point out item CA4 regarding the social services allocations. As a follow-up to our conversation about this, a few weeks ago, our city staff from neighborhood services, as well as our police department, have been working nonstop with the folks at St. Vincent de Paul, along with the two neighborhoods that are adjacent to the facility, to create a real action plan that really got them on the path to being a better neighbor. And I'm just really pleased to share with you that there has been a remarkable improvement in the facility, the appearance, the behavior, and the relationship. And there is actually, you'll see in the backup material, there's a new exhibit, Exhibit E, which details any issues, what the plan is, and who the contact is, and all of the details, so that this type of work can continue along with the funding, and those are going to go hand in hand. So I wanted to thank city staff and our police department for all you've done to really improve the situation. And I thank the folks at St. Vincent de Paul for showing that we can be compassionate and be a good neighbor at the same time. Since you're here, I didn't know if you had something to say about this or if you were just on hand for questions. Questions? Oh, yeah. No, I just wanted to thank you. I would say, Council Member, that the addendum is also going into any of the public service agreements within housing, so that would include Emergency Solutions Grant and CDBG. Excellent. All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Hi, Chair Floyd. Thank you. Since it's come up, I also wanted to uplift that I've had volunteers from St. Vincent de Paul reach out to me and feel that some of the police presence there has been heavy-handed. I understand we're trying to work our way through this, but I was frustrated to hear that, and I hope we can take this issue on with a compassionate ideal going forward. I'm sure that that is what you all would have intended, but I did need to say that I'm getting it from both sides in this conversation, and so I'm glad to hear that things are getting better, but I hope that we're not doing it at the expense of, you know, people who are underprivileged. Thank you. This is the first that I've heard of it, but I will look into it. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you. Since it's been brought up, I just want to thank the Social Services Allocations Committee for their work on this. It's God's work every year trying to allocate the money that we have to very needy agencies, and Helen Rimes and your team and everyone, thank you for everything you do. And we have no call. No, we have any cards I was going to ask. Thank you, Clerk. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open a chain for voting. Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council Members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Oh, I'm sorry. I tried. I promise. Okay, let's enter our votes again. Now that we have all the votes entered, Clerk, if you can announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the Consent Agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Council Member Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, obviously we just approved the union agreements, and I spoke with John Vasquez, the president of the Suncoast PBA, and he just wanted me to quickly convey a message that he's sorry that he could not be here. He's doing his day job, which is training the new canine officers and dogs this morning. But on behalf of the Suncoast PBA, John wanted to thank Council for making this contract a priority and for its favorable consideration. Our Communications Center personnel are an essential part of the Police Department of the City of St. Petersburg. They are the voice on the other end of the radio and a critical link between our officers and the community we serve. So I also want to recognize Sam Smith, Communications Center supervisor and PBA representative for his work and commitment throughout the process. And John just sends his thank you for the support of this item. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you. We're sorry that John couldn't make it, but completely understand why. Next up, we have open forum, and before I go to the clerk, I just want to make sure today we have a budget hearing at 6 p.m., so if there are any public comments for the budget hearing, that's at 6 p.m. because it's a public hearing, so it has to be during the public hearing and not at open forum. So I verified that was legal again. I just wanted to make sure anyone who's here for the budget, it's at 6 p.m. With that being said, clerk, are there any speakers for open forum? Yes, Madam Chair. If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. Applause is not permitted except in connection with awards and presentation. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All 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 rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and I will be calling two speakers at a time, Madam Chair. Susan Fowler and Carl Feinstack, please go to either podium. State your name, address, or cross street, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Hello, good afternoon, council members. I know one of you, maybe two of you, I'm not sure. I'm Susan Fowler, and I live at 730 76th Avenue North in St. Petersburg, the Fossil Park neighborhood. And I'm here, excuse me, like the rabbi said, to advocate for my neighbors and basically children. Our neighborhood is changing. It was previously older people, more mature people, we're getting younger families, and a lot of children. So I'm here to advocate for the kids of my street, Cody, Nora, Lucas, Darby, Annie, and Caleb, and one on the way for next week. But anyway, the last week is September, she told me. Anyway, and the pedestrians, it's a very vital pedestrian neighborhood. We're next to the Gateway Plaza, which holds a Target and formerly a Bells, Home Goods, Miller's Ale House, a huge Publix, and also a post office. So we have a lot of walkers and pedestrians, and we have no sidewalks and no speed limit posted. So I'm interested in sidewalks, stop signs, speed limit signs, and just a safer, high quality of health for our neighborhood, just quality overall. And like I said, this morning, as I walked and run my Jack Russell and jog, there were 13 pedestrians at 730 in the morning just headed to the Target Plaza. And also, we have a lot of tractor trailers coming down our street, too. I don't know if they're coming from the Plaza or Walgreens at the end of the street. This morning, there was a Red Bull tractor trailer and also a Gatorade tractor trailer between 8 and 830, and that's when the kids are just leaving for school. And routinely have a Coca-Cola box truck and a Budweiser tractor trailer and a Doritos truck that come down twice a week down our street. This is residential. No sidewalks. And we do have at the intersection of 7th Street North and 76th Avenue, we do have what they call a rised, raised intersection, but it's 20-plus years old. The heat and the traffic has kind of, you know, diminished its incline, so it's kind of just a nice rollover where you don't have to kind of stop because it's going to hurt my car. You really kind of just roll over and roll through the stop. So that's a big, big concern to me. Like I say, it was built apparently according to the St. Pete newsletter that I received back in 2002 or something, 2002, something like that, but it's well over 20 years old. So it's diminished in its incline and its purpose, according to me. So I've... Sorry, you're three minutes off. Oh, goodness. You know, it goes by quickly. But you have a lot of issues that I think Administrator Gerdes, if you could stay here and you can get your information. Yeah. Because I think the Transportation Department could help with a lot of it. Oh, that was a quick three minutes. You brought up. It goes by quickly. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. That's that. Hello, council people. My name is Carl Feinstock. I'm Susan's husband of a number of years. I won't mention how many. And I'm a retired attorney from upstate New York and living in St. Petersburg for a number of years. And my council district person is sitting right next to your left, Mike Harding. And we've met with Mike a number of times, and I'm here basically... Sir, if you don't mind... I'm sorry. If you can just put for the record, can you give us the address, please? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's fine. It's 730-76th Avenue North. My zip code 33702. You're good. You're good. The reason we're here is because of the incredible problems, I think, our intersection, and we live close to the intersection of 7th Street North and 76th Avenue North. The traffic is horrendous. The pedestrian traffic is also expotential in relation to vehicle traffic. Cars do not stop at the four-way stop sign. They slow down, maybe. And there is what used to be a raised intersection. I have documented photographs of what it looks like, what it feels like. It's a rollover. There's no stopping at all. Many people do not stop, the drivers do not stop at the intersection. They slow down sometimes, all the right, they burst through. And it's one of the, I think, most unique intersections in all of St. Petersburg because of its locale. At 76th Avenue and 7th Street, it's a cut-through street from MLK and 4th Street North. And it's a cut-through street from the Trailer Park, we're pedestrians now, Trailer Park at 72nd Avenue, streets at 73rd, 74th, 75th, all go through this intersection, all the way to the plaza. And it's an extraordinary number of pedestrians. I've, I've, first of all, I want to apologize to former Mayor Ritchie, because in a letter to you, I said, Ritchie is the former mayor, vice mayor, actually, vice mayor of this committee, or chairman of this committee. And I apologize if I misspoke, and I hand-delivered to you, as well as Mike and some others, and the mayor, a stack of literature and information regarding our request for speed humps. I, there's one neighbor that lives right on the intersection, who's been there for 40 years with his wife, and, and he has told us that he's worried that children will be killed because cars do not stop. They slow down, maybe. It's a straightway. It's a, it's a cut-through street from MLK to 4th Street, as you people know. And I, I could go on and on, and if you give me another minute, I could read something. Well, actually, sir, you just read that. My time's expired, so I hope I haven't expired either. You can always send it, so you can send the materials to City Council, and then I know that administration is definitely going to follow up on the issue, Mr. Feinston. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, sir. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Brad Falbo and Liam Oliver. Please go to either podium, state your name, address, or cross street, and you have three minutes to address City Council. Hi, Brad Falbo, 1856, Salmeria Way South. I'm here again, and my council member, or supposed representative, is on here's cell phone. It's really nice. I came here for open forum today, which is supposed to be, quote-unquote, open forum, but I'm finding out that there's rules to that. It's not open. It's actually restricted forum, so I'm only able to talk about the budget items at 6 p.m. That's ridiculous. Honestly, it needs to be changed. If it's open forum, it should be open to all and every topic. Like, whether I'm here at 3 p.m., whether I'm here at 6 p.m., people have jobs, people have lives. Like, this is, it's just crazy. So I'll stand up here today, and I'll talk about the lawsuits you guys have. You guys have lawsuits for transparency. A judge ruled for the case that I took you guys to court for that you were not in compliance with the law to provide public records within a timely manner. There was a meeting held in January. There was, the process was being looked at. I haven't seen any follow-up on that. I haven't heard anything from that. But, of course, my council member cancels meetings with, or cancels meetings with the public and doesn't show up. She spent three hours in her last meeting, or her last email, she noted that she spent three hours last month meeting with her constituents. It's pitiful, truly pitiful. I love how you're shaking your head and laughing. It's really disrespectful. So I will yield the rest of my minute and 30 or so seconds to anybody up here who wants to address transparency and talk about what's being done to fix it in the city. In terms of open forum, it's for the public to speak. I understand, but I want to yield my time and give somebody an opportunity to talk because I don't hear anything from the city. And you guys aren't restricted from interacting with the public. I've seen it happen before. So if anybody would like to talk about what's going on with transparency, what's being done to fix it, I would appreciate that. Mr. Falvo, you have the time for you to speak. If you want to set up a meeting, I'll happy. I know you will. Yes. And I'm giving everybody else a chance. This isn't just targeted at you. It's everybody up here because everybody is accountable. So that's why a minute left, I'll give anybody a chance to talk about it. It's a shame. It's an absolute shame. Brandy Gabbard, I hope you'll make some Facebook comments about it. Deborah, I know both of you and Brandy are on Facebook all the time during the workday, so maybe you guys can give us some information there. Gave you a public records request on Facebook when you were talking about budget items, so you can respond to that when you get a chance. Deborah, any response at all? None. Okay. Thank you, sir. Liam Oliver. Good afternoon, members of city council. My name is Liam Oliver. My address, 136342nd Avenue North. I'm a senior at St. Petersburg High School. I'm the founder and president of my school's Civic Engagement Club. And so our goal is to attend city council meeting, public open forums, to attend public forums, and basically to make our students' voices heard. I'm here currently with three other speakers, Riker, Jackson, and Raleigh, as well as others who chose to attend. And the reason I made this club is because I want to lower the barrier for entry for students to be civically involved. I've noticed a real gap in that in our school. Like a lot of people don't even, it took a lot of work just to get this many people to come out to a city council meeting. A lot of them didn't know where it would be, stuff like that. There's a lot of things that, you know, I just want to promote having the youth more involved and know what's going on. These laws are being practiced about us every day. We can't vote. There's nothing else we can do, so we have to make our voices heard. I want to talk about something that is one of our most commonly recognized issues when I've asked the student body, what do we care about? What's wrong with St. Pete? And that is definitely homelessness. So right now what's going on, I mean, I'm sure you all know, affordability is a massive problem within housing. But also our state laws and our local police department makes it extremely hard for people to sleep, and you can't live without sleep. You need to be able to sleep. Sleeping publicly has become extremely criminalized, and at their school we're definitely really concerned about the human right implications and the cruelty of arresting people for sleeping publicly. We ask that you continue expanding affordable housing, rental assistance, and supportive housing. But most importantly, actually listen to what homeless people in the community are saying, what they're asking for, what they say is wrong with current shelter programs and things like that. They're human. You represent them. They're part of our community, and we ask that you take what they say into account. While making sure the city's response to homelessness connects people with housing rather than just simply moving them from one place to another and just, you know, continuing the ongoing cycle that's going on. If St. Petersburg wants to be a city where everyone can build a future, that future has to have a place to live. And right now, that's not what we're living in. So thank you, and good luck to my fellow civic engagement members who I'll be presenting their issues that have come from our student body that we want to bring to your attention. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next. Zoom speaker. Okay. Jason asks, once you enter into the meeting space, unmute yourself, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Hey, council. This is Jason Scott at 4636 Redfish Lane. I wanted to provide some insight in the recent so-called study that Duke Energy released via Concentric, which is a longtime consultant and ally of Duke Energy and other IOUs. In this study, they made ridiculous claims to build a high-end estimate of $2 to $4 billion. To break down the major flaws in the study, which any independent engineering firm would easily point out, is claiming we would need to build double the amount of substations that we have now, build over 150 additional miles of lines, separate from neighboring unincorporated areas within St. Pete, all of which would be against Florida State statues of uneconomic duplication of assets. This study does not follow any serious engineering or financial considerations, but this was the only way for them to create such outrageous claims, even more so than what assumptions they made in Clearwater, which they suggested it would cost over $1 billion. But as we all know, in Clearwater, we saw that the certified appraisal that could be taken to the state or used in court was only a small fraction of that cost. I don't think this is a sign of a good partner for the city. If they plan on spending residents' resources on misleading us and undermining the city's efforts to explore its options. Additionally, I wanted to mention that at the end of this month, Duke Energy is raising our rates again. But don't worry, they think they can save customers temporarily a whole 71 cents next year. Very exciting. At the same time, they're fighting on the state level to negate Senate Bill 484 to push more costs to residential customers to pay for data centers. That's all the updates I wanted to share with you. Thank you, Council. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair. I believe it's Raleigh Dean Coates and Jackson Suggs. Please go to either podium. State your name, address, or across the street, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. The other speaker could go to the other podium while. It's Jackson. Okay. Good afternoon, members of City Council. My name is Raleigh Coates, and I'm a sophomore at St. Pete High School, here representing our Civic Engagement Club. As young people looking at the future of St. Pete, we believe that a city cannot be truly successful if its progress is built on deep geographic inequality. Simply being born 10 steps of South Central Avenue reduces a person's statistical life expectancy by an average of five years. If you look at extremes, it gets worse. The life expectancy is 82 years in Snell Isle, but drops to 66 years in Campbell Park. That is a 16-year gap just 15 minutes away from each other. And we know this gap didn't happen by accident. This 16-year divide is a direct generational consequence of historic redlining, discriminatory zoning, and lending maps explicitly cutting black residents of St. Pete from home ownership, investment, and wealth creation. Today, the maps may have changed, but the legacy of redlining is still prevalent in our city. It has created modern-day food deserts, a lack of medical networks, and complete economic isolation from neighborhoods like Campbell Park. Right now, the city is moving forward with the multi-billion-dollar historic gas plant district redevelopment. You are deciding exactly how public land use policies and municipal dollars will be allocated. We cannot allow this council to approve shiny new office spaces and luxury apartments while a community next door is dying 16 years younger. As concerned students of St. Pete High School, we ask that you use your municipal authority to expand local food access. We know the city cannot force a massive corporate grocery store chain to open a store, but the city does control municipal land grants. We ask the council to vote to use the city's economic development funds to help subsidize community-led initiatives like the ongoing One Community Grocery Co-op, use municipal property, speed up zoning variances, and match funding to get a community-owned food market open in the Southside food desert. We ask you to stop treating these disparities like an unfixable tragedy. You have the historical data, and you have the municipal tools, and you have the budget. Vote to use the city's actual power to heal St. Petersburg and close this 16-year gap for good. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Hello, I'm Jackson Suggs. I'm a sophomore at St. Petersburg High School with the Civic Engagement Club. I live at 3321 Jackson Street North. One of the main things that comes up when we ask students what they wanted to fix in the city was infrastructure. As students who live and drive in the city every day, we're tired of watching road construction projects drag on for months and years and no end in sight. You cannot go anywhere in St. Pete without seeing the road work ahead signs and blocked off lanes. It grids locks our traffic, hurts local businesses, and it feels like there is no urgency to finish the job. We understand that projects are needed to improve the city, but for the students we are representing, the infrastructure problem also has something to do with our safety. We went through massive storms with Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and we saw how our streets flood and how long it takes to recover. Our biggest fear right now is that we are going to get hit by another major storm, and our roads will wash away all over again because they weren't built right the first time. Our ask today is simple. Stop letting road construction go on, definitely, and make sure that roads are built strong and can withstand any future accidents. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, I believe it's Ryler, Flannery, and Kathy Harrelson. Please go to either podium, state your name, address, or across the street, and you will have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, members of council. My name is Riker, and I'm also with the Civic Engagement Club of St. Pete High. As students growing up in St. Pete, we care deeply for the local policy because the decisions you guys make today are the ones that we inherit tomorrow, and that's why I'm here with our club to talk about the local policy on flock cameras. In a poll conducted by our club, among students who knew what flock safety was, 97% had a negative opinion while only three had a positive opinion. We understand that the council has voted to send the flock program its ongoing $700,000 contract to the Public Services and Infrastructure Committee for an emergency re-evaluation. As young people who care for the civil liberties, we believe this is a critical moment for St. Petersburg. Our first concern is privacy and the potential for police abuse. Roughly one-third of the St. Pete Police Department already has direct access to the FLOC database. We only have to look across Florida to Haines City, where an officer used this system to stalk his ex-wife, tracking her movement 717 times. We need stronger safeguards to ensure that abuse cannot happen in St. Pete. Second, FLOC is a private third-party corporation, and when the police department uploads information about our family's daily movements to the cloud network, the city gives significant control of that data and how it is stored or accessed. Furthermore, we are concerned about mistakes in AI tracking. St. Petersburg's cameras use this AI tracking to identify details such as bumper stickers, roof racks, and vehicle damage. In Volusia County, a woman was wrongfully arrested after a FLOC camera misidentified her vehicle. Innocent St. Pete residents should not face that same risk. Finally, there are concerns about disproportionate surveillance. National data has found that FLOC cameras are heavily concentrated in black and brown communities, with surveillance occurring at nearly four times the rate of majority white neighborhoods. In a city already working to address inequality, we should carefully consider whether this technology could deepen those divides. We understand that this issue is currently within a subcommittee, but a decision like this significant should not be buried. We hope it reaches a full vote. If it does, our Civic Engagement Club asks you to vote to exit the FLOC contract completely, even if it costs the city money. No amount of budget savings is worth sacrificing the privacy of St. Pete residents. Please represent the people you serve, protect our civil liberties, and help get rid of FLOC. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon. I'm Kathy Harrelson. I live at 26th Street and 32nd Ave North in St. Pete Heights. Regarding this morning's HERS Committee item to establish a Citizen Advisory Committee for designing, implementing, and overseeing green infrastructure, I heartily support the initial efforts of the OSR office and the expressed desires of HERS committee members to strengthen and consolidate that effort. In fact, I'd like to get a copy of Maven Rogers' presentation, if I could. That said, I want to continue to stress that the number one item needed in this city and in any and all efforts toward the use of living infrastructure is that of protecting our shade tree canopy. I've been calling it Stop the Chop, but if you think that's cute or not serious enough to be considered, I'll say this. The most important, most cost-effective, absolutely first thing we can and must do is prioritize and protect our existing shade tree canopy. All the other items, tree plantings, rain gardens, hydro planters, bioswales, living shorelines, and mangrove buffers are critical. But nothing gives us the best and most sweeping return on the investment of all residents than protecting our canopy. That brings me to my second item. Please understand, I do think sidewalks are important before I say this. But why and how can we complete our sidewalk master plan until and unless we implement my indicated step one above? Trees have to be given priority. Sidewalks can and must go around trees. We obviously want sidewalks, but without the shade of big trees, you won't be able to use it half the year. So you're really shooting yourselves in the foot. I did attend the city's sidewalk Zoom call on Tuesday and was disappointed that trees are considered but not prioritized. And without, as I say, without the shade of the big trees, what's the point? Please, one other item, please recommit to the important tree inventory of the Urban Forestry Committee. We were engaged in that actively before the committee was disbanded a year ago. That process enables us to measure the data and asset value of every tree map and engages the community while doing so. So, thank you very much. And I just did want to say one thing. I was told to be taken seriously. I needed to dress up. So I want you to know, I put on shoes for this meeting. Thank you. Thank you. No more speakers. So, I want to tell the Civic Engagement Club of St. Pete High, first of all, thank you for being here. You know that you're welcome to reach out to me or probably any city council member. I speak for everyone, but you're always welcome to reach out and have a meeting and talk about these issues in depth. And I think that may be something that your group can do. So, I just wanted to put that out there for you all before I go. And I have a feeling that council members may want to say something about that. Council Member Hardy. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I am overly impressed with you all. Not only the engagement of the club, but you obviously prepared for today. You are articulate. You are well-spoken. You are well-presented. And it is, please don't stop this. You got to see today that Susan and Carl have shown up to advocate for their neighbors on their street. They're concerned with the speed. You got to see Kathy show up and advocate for trees in our city. You got to see Brad Falbo show up and enthusiastically advocate for transparency in the city. This is the engagement that matters. This is how city government, local government really gets managed. It is by the individuals and the civic organizations and the neighborhood organizations. And it all starts with, you know, if you got to come in the back where we all hang out, one of the things that you'll hear us talk about is we really wish that there are more people that advocated for. We would love to have more feedback for how we do the city's business up here. And that was absolutely fantastic. Probably one of the best presentations we've seen up here. Make sure that you seniors keep the sophomores engaged. Sophomores, make sure that you find freshmen to come along with you. Make sure that this group continues. And what the chair said, you'll find plenty of support from your city. We would love to come out individually and talk to your classes. You're welcome to come back and administration, if you want to talk to the mayor or if you want to talk to the guy who really runs the city sitting down there or any of us, just do it. All you have to do is reach out. Thank you very much, chair. Thank you. And thank you for mentioning Sunshine Law because we can't meet together outside of this meeting. So we have to do this separately if you want to meet with us. Councilmember Fig Sanders. Hello, and thank you so much. I want to echo some of what Councilmember Harding said. The young man that actually spoke about the homelessness, I wanted to reach out to you as I share it with Councilmember Harding. I actually chair our continuum of care that pays specific attention to our homeless, and we meet via Zoom. And you are more than welcome to join us on that Zoom call if you leave your information. So that you can address your same concerns with the agencies that handle homelessness. So, again, as it was said before, we are always available and always willing to meet, regardless of what you hear. We are available to meet. And so I am so impressed. I love young people. I just said this the other day. We need to encourage our young people because we are not going to be here forever, not to mention we are term limited. So we need new blood. We need new energy. We need new voices. And I am so glad that you all were here today. And thank you so much. And I loved how you all took one particular cause because this is a big city. We have a whole lot that's going on. So I do. I appreciate that. And thank you for your involvement. And I do appreciate the fact that you were here and we did hear your voices. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And I just echo what my colleagues have said. You all, you showed up. And I just want to say I am so proud of each of you. It was like a walk down memory lane for me because I'm looking at Jackie and Jean. And both of them have been around long enough to remember when I was probably about your age and I started showing up here, speaking up. And here I am now. So just know you may make mistakes. You may fumble the ball a couple times. But just like any good football player, you recover and you keep on going. And so this is just the beginning. I took a picture of you and I sent it to Ms. Lebo because Principal Lebo was my Spanish teacher when I was in high school. So she should be proud of you all because you have the riz. You really do. You have that charisma that is needed to be in these seats. So I feel like we should just give our seats up to you all because you really are not just the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today. So keep up the goat word. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So now you know we're going to be expecting some e-mails to set up some meetings. You brought up a lot of subjects that we can all go pretty in-depth on. And I think that's going to be really good for the club. So thank you. No more speakers, right? Okay. Open form is closed. We go to new ordinances. E1, this is to set the October 1, 2026 date as a public hearing date for an ordinance designating the Mikey House located at 147 Wildwood Lane Southeast as a local historic landmark and adding the property to the St. Petersburg Register of Historic Places pursuant to city code. Clerk? Thank you. I want to take a motion. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve agenda of E1 passes unanimously with council member Gabbert being absent. Thank you. Next one, clerk, E2. Proposed ordinance number 766-L. An ordinance submitting the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the City of St. Petersburg, Florida by changing the future land use map designation for a 0.43-acre MOL parcel generally located at the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue North and 35th Street North. From residential medium RM to planned redevelopment mixed use PR-MU, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective date. And the public hearing is scheduled for October 15th, 2026. This is for E2A. Can we do them separately or? You can do them together. Together? We have approval of items E2A and E2B. I need to read. It need to read. It need to read. It need 3B. Okay. Proposed ordinance number 801Z. An ordinance amending the official zoning map of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida by changing the zoning for a 0.43-acre MOL parcel generally located at the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue North and 34th Street North from neighborhood suburban multifamily-1 NSM-1 to corridor commercial suburban-1 CCS-1. And providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also on October 15th, 2026. We have a motion for A and B. E2. Is there a second? Second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve the job of E2. Passes unanimously. Next up, we go to new business. G1. This is Council Member Fick Sanders. It's your item. Hey. Thank you so much. Chair, just to preface where the request is coming from, you know that I'm a strong advocate for small business. And in some travels, I saw a unique method of supporting small restaurants. And in a conversation that I've had with legal in regards to some of the parking issues that we have downtown in some of our other areas of the city. And let me also state, we are preempted from preventing this from happening. But what this would do is help support some of our smaller restaurants in regards to food delivery. And I respectfully request a referral to public services and infrastructure committee or other relevant committee for discussion on autonomous food delivery services in areas with a strong concentration of restaurants and cafes, in addition to areas with limited and restricted parking. The discussion should include what actions the city may take to encourage the operation of autonomous food delivery services in such areas and the scope of the city's ability to regulate such services. So the conversation that I had was, although we did actually have a company approach the city two years ago to do this, they completed all the documents, proof of insurance, and was supposed to start and for some reason did not. I don't know what happened with that. I just wanted to make sure my colleagues have, because at the end of the day, we're going to be responsible for some of the actions, the pros and cons of it. And so I wanted us to be able to have that conversation in the sunshine as to our feedback on that. And so with that, I move approval. Second. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. I just want to double check on this. It's PSI. I know this would be something that Evan would handle in transportation. So I think Mr. Morey will definitely be involved. Mr. Corbett's been involved, and I think Attorney Ben James has been involved in reviewing it. So the team is looking at these things, and we'll get the team together to provide a report. Sounds good. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve of the channel. G1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Next up, we have Council Committee reports. H1, Vice Chair Floyd. Thank you. I am respectfully requesting City Council approval to remove the following items from the Housing, Land, Use, and Transportation Committee referral list. First, the connecting South St. Petersburg CRA Mobility Study, and second, a discussion on neighborhood traffic calming. These items both were addressed in committee and remained on the referral list, so now we're removing them. So I'll move approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present Council members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve of the agenda. H1 passes unanimously. Next up, we have H2, and it's Vice Chair Ford. Yep. This is a resolution to reappoint, I believe, Commissioner Seymour to the St. Pete Housing Authority. I'll move approval. Second. Yeah. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Seeing that all present Council members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve of the agenda. H2 passes unanimously. Thank you. We recessed at City Council. Now we convene as the CRA, CRA2. We have Beth here. Hey, Beth. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of City Council. Beth Herondine, City Development Managing Director. Happy to be with you this afternoon. I am requesting approval of our FY27 spending plan for tax increment revenues for the in-town redevelopment area. Just as a quick refresher, the in-town redevelopment area was created in the early 1980s, 1981-82, and includes a large portion of downtown from most of Vinoy Park down past the Dali and from the waterfront to Tropicana Field. So right now, for FY27, the current spending plan includes two items. The first, debt service payments for the peer and peer approach projects in the amount of a little over $5.7 million. This item has been in the in-town redevelopment budget since 2016. The initial draw was approximately $56.2 million, and the balance after this payment will be just over $26 million. And then the second item in the current spending plan is $200,000 for capital improvements for Al Lang, and we are obligated to pay that in our agreement with the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Both of these items are consistent with the in-town redevelopment plan as improvements to both the peer district and the Center for the Arts are specifically named in the plan, and additionally, the downtown waterfront master plan speaks to enhancements at both the peer and Al Lang. As additional CIP projects are developed, and I know we've talked about some of those for the peer that would use CRA funds, in-town budget amendments will come before the CRA and City Council for approval, and we anticipate doing that in the near future. Move approval. Second. Motion is second. Administration, when are we getting the CRA for the sunset setting, which is something that has been pending for a bit? Well, I know as far as the amended table two and the changes that are being made, yes, those changes have been discussed with the county, and we anticipate those coming before you and the county through that process just in the coming months, like next few weeks, months. I know we've been, the thing is we've been hearing this for a bit that the county, I thought the county conversations were done, I just need to check out what the holdup was. So just to be clear on that, we started out with conversations with the county commissioners, those have been done, we're now engaged in conversations with the staff on the process of moving it through their process for the county commission, and we are working on the material to bring it to City Council. Okay. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, Clerk, please tally announce a vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve, agenda item, CRA2, passes unanimous. Next up, we have CRA3, and this is George's item. Hi, George. You have a presentation for us. I do. Is there a public comment? You can start. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Vice Chair, Council members. I'm George Smith, Chief Impact Officer with the Office of Community Impact. I'm here today to present the FY 2027 Budget Recommendation for the South St. Petersburg CRA. The administration is requesting that the Community Redevelopment Agency recommend and City Council approve the FY 2027 Budget Plan and allocate an estimated $22,914,117 in FY 2027 TIF revenue across four budget categories. Housing and neighborhood revitalization, $15,143,839, or 66.1% of the total. Business and commercial development, $5,108,000, or 22.3% of the total. Workforce development and education, $1,058,471, or 4.6% of the total. And CRA operations and personnel, $1,603,807, or 7% of the total. We're also asking that the agency to adopt Ordinance 647-H, which formally appropriates that funding for FY 2027. The estimated FY 2027 TIF revenue of $22.9 million comes from three sources. The projected City TIF revenue is $13,425,425,000. The projected Pinellas County TIF revenue is just under $8.5 million, or $8,484,346. In addition, just over $1,000,000 is anticipated interest, $1,404,869, and the total comes to $22,914,117. This chart really tells the real story of the CRA's growth. In FY 2016, the district generated $468,162 in combined city and county TIF revenue. Last year, for the first time, combined TIF revenue surpassed $20,000,000. And in FY 2027, we're projecting nearly $22,000,000 in combined city and county TIF revenue plus interest. That growth reflects the compounding effect of redevelopment activity in the district. And it's only why the CRA today can fund a meaningful, larger, and more diverse set of programs that it could in early years. In particular, it's allowed us to significantly place more emphasis on affordable housing development and retention, as well as infrastructure investments like safe streets and transportation projects. Housing and neighborhood revalorization. This is the largest category in the budget at $15,143,839, or 66.1% of the total funding. And it covers several distinct programs. The affordable housing redevelopment loan program at $11,613,000 is the funding that we utilize for multifamily affordable housing development. There are currently more than $35 million in pending requests under review, representing 398 affordable units. And we expect more applications this coming fiscal year. The affordable family, single-family residential housing programs at $2,745,900. Of that amount, we're recommending roughly $2.7 million in single-family programs. And included in that amount is housing rehab assistance, which is our RAP program, at $180,000 of new funding, which offers up to $60,000 in rehab loans, or $16,000 for barrier-free mitigation. Our down payment assistance program is $2.4 million in new funding. At an average grant amount of $55,700, this supports about 43 households with down payment and closing cost assistance. Our residential facade improvement grant of $75,000 will fund five new applications. And our Paint Your Heart Out at $90,900 in new funding. The neighborhood team operationalizes the Paint Your Heart Out program, which provides home repair and maintenance support to low-income, elderly, or disabled homeowners, restoring both code compliance and a sense of pride of homeownership. This funding covers materials for up to 150 projects. The neighborhood planning program of $784,500 in new funding. There are three neighborhoods currently are eligible with adopted plans. Campbell Park, Palmetto Park, and 13th Street Heights. There are two more neighborhoods, Melrose Mercy and Wildwood Heights, have plans in progress. Business and commercial development. Our commercial site improvement grant program, requesting an additional $1 million in new funding. We will bring to you a program amendment in a couple of months with relaunch anticipated in early 2027. Our economic development incentive program, we're requesting $183,000 in new funding. This program provides gap financing for private sector projects that increase quality employment opportunities. The next launch, the next round will be launched in Q1 of next year. With $817,000 in uncommitted rollover funding, we will have total available funding of $1 million for FY 2027. Our CRA grant match program, $650,000. This funds for improved Pinellas County Trail connections from the Child's Park and Palmetto Park neighborhoods, matching $1.2 million FDOT construction grant that covers four citywide connections, two of which fall within the CRA. The commercial corridor planning program, the commercial corridor planning program, at $3,275,000. This covers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street South, 22nd Street South, 49th Street, 18th Avenue, and 5th Avenue. Corridor by corridor details will follow. 18th Avenue South, $275,000 for crosswalks at 21st and 19th Street, plus supplemental planning and design. 5th Avenue South, $200,000 for a corridor study between 31st Street and 20th Street. 49th Street South, $100,000 for modular infrastructure as a grant match. This is additional funding on top of a total CRA commitment of $850,000 with a total project investment of $2.5 million. This funding supports a community's preferred alternative under the Safe Streets for All plan for the corridor. Earlier this year, $750,000 in CRA funding was approved for Phase I, along with $500,000 from the City of Gulfport, covering intersection improvements, enhanced sidewalks, crosswalks, accessibility ramps. This new $100,000 matches an $800,000 federal grant alongside Gulfport's own $100,000 match to install modular infrastructure between 1st Avenue South and 22nd Avenue South. Total investment across the CRA, total investment across the CRA, Gulfport, and the federal grant is $2.25 million. 22nd Street South, $1.475,000 for pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements as a grant match. This is additional funding for a total CRA commitment of $3,211,000. $1,736,000 is already committed to this grant match, with some of that already spent on right-of-way surveying, parcel title searches, and general project feasibility study. And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street South, $1,050,000 for crosswalks on 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue, and 14th Avenue. $750,000 in FY2026 funds is also committed for this project, bringing a total CRA investment of $1.8 million. An additional $175,000 for a corridor study between 9th and 18th Avenue South. Workforce development and education, $1,058,471. This category funds two programs, one for youth and one for adults. Youth Work Readiness and Entrepreneurship Program, or our youth farm. These funds, $588,045, were paid for youth farm staff, participant stipends, and operations. Our Workforce Readiness and Development Program, which is for adults, we're requesting $470,426 for the St. Pete Works Edge Program. This is a $2 million annual partnership with St. Pete College, in which we have sufficient rollover from the prior year to cover the cost of operations. Together, these programs build a pipeline of work readiness and entrepreneurship skills for South St. Petersburg residents, from youth engagement through adult services. Our CRA operations and personnel, $1,603,807. This is the funding that keeps the CRA running day-to-day. It covers salary and benefits for CRA personnel, staff training, general operations, and CRA program communications and outreach. At 7% of the total budget, this is the smallest of the four categories, but it's what allows every program that I've just described to actually be administered, monitored, and communicated to the community. The administration is requesting that the CRA, Community Redevelopment Agency, recommend, and that City Council approves the FY 2027 CRA budget plan and allocate an estimated $22,914,117 in FY 2027 TIF revenue across the four categories that we've just walked through today. Housing and Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization, $15,000,143,839. Business and Commercial Development, $5,108,000. Workforce Development and Education, $1,058,471. And CRA Operations and Personnel, $1,603,807. And that the agency adopt the Ordinance 647-H appropriating this funding for FY 2027. I'm happy to answer any questions at this time. Joining me today are staff from Economic and Workforce Development, Transportation, and Housing and Community Development, who are our collaborative partners who support and help implement these programs. Thank you. Thank you. Brother John Muhammad, once you enter into the meeting space, unmute yourself, state your name and address. You have three minutes to address City Council. Brother John, are you there? Oh, it wouldn't be a Zoom meeting if I didn't forget to unmute myself. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of City Council. Brother John Muhammad, I'm a legacy resident of South St. Pete, 46th Street, 15th Avenue South. And I think there's broad agreement on the intent and purpose of what we're trying to accomplish with the South St. Pete CRA. We want people to stay in their homes, become homeowners, earn more, grow businesses, build wealth and benefit from the investments that's happening in our community. And so these aren't new priorities. I think the budget reflects that. And after doing multiple community presentations, more than 300 surveys and getting respondents to show up for a community convening on September 2nd with over 130 people present, we're hearing a lot of the same priorities from residents. And so tonight, my talk is really not about changing the direction, but it's an opportunity I think to better adjust some of the dollars to reflect the priorities that we share. I did send in some council specific recommendations, so I won't bore you with the full details of those, but just a couple of examples. We have about 11.6 million proposed for multi-family development developer incentives compared with about 346,000 combined for housing and rehab. Paint your heart out and the single family facade improvements. I think we can continue to invest heavily in affordable housing while putting more resources directly into helping existing homeowners repair and keep the homes that they already have. The workforce development and education represents 4.6% of the budget. I think we can move maybe, should move maybe closer to about 8% and again, invest more directly in the jobs, skills, credentials, and people's earning power, because that was something that we also heard. And then of course, of the more than 5 million for the business and commercial development, 3.275 is for commercial corridor planning. I believe we can make some more meaningful investments and resources that directly reach businesses and the entrepreneurs in the CRA. We can put some real resources behind the housing, stability, and anti-displacement as well, because those came up as strategies and opportunities for investment. So again, these are not a new direction, and they don't require a larger budget, and so I promised to those who attended that meeting that I would speak tonight, and hopefully we can identify if there's agreement on the substance of the recommendations, maybe getting some clarity from the city attorney on the appropriate ways to act on them before the budget is finally adopted. Because a lot of times it feels like we're either too late in the game, or it'll just be a rubber stamp, and so can the adjustments be made through amendments? Should council request a budget neutral alternative from the mayor and administration? Is there another appropriate mechanism on the questions that are coming up from the community? And then whatever the proper vehicle is, I'm going to provide it tonight. Okay. Is that the last speaker? Two more speakers. Okay. And then before we go to council member comments, I don't think it was in the presentation, but this went before the city advisory. This did. The citizen, sorry. The citizen advisory committee on September 1st, 2026. Okay. Okay. Council member Gabbard. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, George, for the presentation. So I wanted to, first of all, I will first say my thanks for not only the youth farm funding, again, have been happy to advocate and uplift that over pretty much every year that I've been here on city council now. So thank you so much for your continued commitment and investment in that program. And thank you for the commercial corridor planning program. I do agree with Brother John Muhammad that we want to see more, but this is certainly better than where we have been in the past. And so just continue to uplift wanting to have more investments in pedestrian bicycle safety and just making sure that people can get around and have a greater chance of returning home at the end of the day. But I want to kind of hone in a little bit on a couple of specific questions. I think first I'll start with one of the lower hanging fruit, which is the personnel and operations. Can you tell me off the top of your head, hopefully, how much of that budget? I know that you said it's about 7% total of the entire budget, but how much of that 7% is actually towards community outreach? Because what we hear so many times is that the programs exist, but people don't know that the programs exist. So can you speak a little bit about the specific outreach and are we increasing funding for that? Is most of the increase going towards staff? What does that look like? I do not have the percentage breakdown of staff in operations and marketing. I can tell you that we work very closely with our marketing department in notifying the community of the outset of any new programs that we kick off. And it's a constant using all the mediums that they have available to them to notify the community of our various programs. The meetings that we have. We attend neighborhood association meetings and business association meetings. But I can get you a number, a numerical figure back to you to let you know what that amount is. Okay, that's fair. Thank you. Yeah, to do that just because I think it's important to understand, you know, where those barriers are for people applying for the funding and how people can get their hands on these dollars. And just kind of where that disconnect is because we continue to hear it. So just be interested in more information on that. So the rest of my questions are going to be very specific to the housing and neighborhood revitalization slide that talks about the breakdown of the $15 million. And again, you know, John Muhammad said it best, I think, you know, just really this the split between these dollars specifically around the fact that there is such a large portion of it that is for new development. And there is a much smaller portion of it that is for rehab and keeping people in place. And that is such an incredibly important piece of the affordable housing puzzle. And I first want to ask on down payment assistance, the $2.4 million. We've talked about this a little bit in the past. Sometimes we talk about it when developers come forward and we give them one of the multifamily developer incentives. Is there anything that has been discussed within the DPA program specifically with these dollars that can be used to really prioritize individuals who already live within the CRA who are looking to purchase within the CRA? I think I defer to Dr. Slacker for her comments, please. Thank you, George. For all of the housing programs, CRA is a population that is already prioritized. It is. It is. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I wasn't sure on the DPA specifically. It is. And so when you're looking at the housing rehab assistance and you hear the numbers that are CRA funded, remember that CRA dollars. We also have SHIP dollars that go in to CRA rehabilitation and we utilize SHIP dollars first. Okay. Yeah. I think sometimes it would be nice to see that laid out side by side. So we have a total picture because you're right. We are just, you know, looking at these particular funds and we have that a lot where it's in different buckets and comes from different funding mechanisms. So to understand what that total is, I think is really important. So, you know, George, I was kind of looking through the back up again as you were speaking, trying to kind of break down some of this on the $180,000 with the housing rehabilitation assistance program, the RAP program. You said up to $60,000, but I mean, do you know kind of what the average normally is? Because if it's up to $60,000, that's only three properties, right? If it's, if it is $60,000, but I would imagine there's probably an average. We're working on that. So, I'm sorry. Sure. Avery Snyker. Yes. Interrupting George. 65,000. And why you've got that extra is that, remember, we will overlay with facade. Okay. Got it. So if the house has a rehabilitation and then it needs a facade, especially if we're doing roofs. Got it. So you can layer those two programs together, but even at that, it's still not very many people, right? Um, and I think that's, I think the rub that I continue to hear from the community is that we continue to build, um, which is great. Um, I think we've had great strides, uh, much of that building though, um, oftentimes is rental and not ownership. Um, and people want to be able to stay in the homes, the naturally occurring affordable housing that currently exists and keep those homes, um, for future generations even. And that seems to be a lot of the financial disconnect that we see within the community. And so when you all are having your conversations about how you break down multifamily versus the, um, affordable single family, how do you come up with the, the math on that? Um, because I think most, a lot of committee, community members would say, why isn't it a 50 50 split? Why are we giving so much to the developers when we have so many people who need it in their own pockets to keep their homes? Um, so how do you come up with that split? So we defer to housing community development to tell us what is it that they need for the upcoming year. This only represents new money. Yeah. We will have additional funds from rollover. Mm-hm. And when we come back after budget cleanup, we will have the total amount of funds that are available for this bucket of money for this category. But I can say, and maybe Avery can speak better to this, I don't think we have any projects that we, we turn down individuals from CRA for lack of funding. Okay. So we find funding. We do not. We have the funding to cover the costs or any applications for any applicants that apply for rehab assistance. Okay. So again, this is the budget for new funding, but we have sufficient funding. Okay. And I think my last question, Madame Chair, I think I'll hold for a minute. I think I have one more question, but I'm going to hold for a minute and see what everybody else has to say. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much, Mr. Smith, for being here. You know, this is something that is near and dear to my heart. Having seen this whole thing grow, it's like a baby. You see it grow from its infancy in 2016, where I served as a community advisory council member to now a city council member in 2026. So I'm happy to see the investment in affordable housing. I'm happy to see the investment in small business growth, and I'm also happy to see investments in our business corridors. All great things. But can you talk a little bit, Mr. George, and it doesn't have to be a deep dive, but just a glance about how we got where we are today. How much have we exhausted in South St. Pete CRA tip dollars? What's working? What's not working? Brother John alluded to a survey that has been done. We know policy partners has played a significant role in keeping the community informed on the progress of the South St. Pete CRA. But can you talk a little bit about lessons learned and how we've restructured the program to make sure that it better fits or best fits the needs of the community that we're trying to serve? Well, one thing I can say that with the revenue that we continuously receive every year and the focus and we hear the community and we read the data and we understand affordable housing affordability is one of the biggest challenges that we face. So that is one reason that we focus so much funding in that area. But we also recognize the need to assist with small businesses. A couple of years ago, we had a very successful micro fund program that we were able to serve a lot of businesses to the extent that once we got to the end, we I wouldn't say we were pulling teeth to get more people, more businesses to apply. But I think we had reached the maximum amount that we could serve at that time. Since then, we have been able to analyze that program and we should come out with a report very soon and share it with you on what the outcomes of the program was. In fact, we have the report and I'm not sure if you all have not received it. We'll make sure you get a copy of it. We are now focusing on the corridors working on our commercial facade improvement grant program, which I mentioned earlier. We have a million dollars set aside for that commercial site improvement program, which the amendment has been completed. In fact, it's in our legal department. We are finalizing and now we'll bring it forward to you all to review and hopefully approve in the upcoming months. In addition to that, following that, we will have a commercials interior program available for those businesses that need to repair. And this will be a program that hopefully will be a little better, if you will, from the consumer's perspective, that it will not necessarily just be a one for one match. We've improved that, that we can help more small businesses. So those are areas that we're focusing on now on the corridors and the small businesses to provide additional assistance and support for them. Thank you for that, Mr. George. Can you go a little bit into this grant matching program that we've had? Because it's my understanding that was one of the barriers in the past, why a lot of folks did not participate. How has that changed now? Is it no longer you have to put up upfront cash? What does it look like now? So what is proposed, and again, it's still under review, but we're proposing a two for one match up to a maximum of $75,000. So if a business needs $75,000 worth of improvements to their business for both exterior and interior, for every dollar they put in, we will put in two. So we'll invest $50,000, and there are $25,000. That is a plan as proposed right now. I appreciate that. And I know we have a very successful housing rehabilitation program. However, I feel like we can do a little bit more, and that's primarily because of outreach. I think we all, as a better job, can work with your team and the South St. Pete CRA team, the housing team, all departments across the board to make sure more residents are aware of these programs. But I do feel like there's a disproportionate amount of money that is dedicated to multifamily housing rather than to the single-family rehabilitation programs. I'm thinking about roof repair, those types of things. I know this is a budget recommendation, so I would recommend that we look at allocating more money towards those housing rehab programs. I know Dr. Slaker's spoken a little bit about the different pots that we have, so this could be one of those things where we already have so many dollars from SHIP funds, and that's why we've only allocated this amount of money to it. I can understand that if that is the case. However, I do feel like, again, more can be done when it comes to targeted outreach, and if that's the case, I feel like that would exhaust these funds pretty quickly. Can you talk a little bit, Mr. Smith, about the probate program that we have? I understand there is a probate assistance program. Can you tell us about where we are now with that program? Well, we're coming to the end of that agreement that we have with community law program, and that program expires in September this current year. Administration staff has not decided on next steps forward as relates to that. We may put out another RFP to see if there are any other agencies or attorneys that are interested in moving forward with it. We should have a report for you in the upcoming weeks with a year-end report on what the outcomes were this past year. As many people know, the probate process can be very extensive and can be very long. So that's something that we have found that many times the attorneys get involved in a case, and it can go on and on and on, especially when you look at the many errors that may be involved with each case. So that's one of the lessons learned, if you will, that we found out. So we'll come back to you with our recommendation for our next steps in that direction. And where does the eviction diversion program stand currently? That's not something that is in- I thought we were talking about some sort of eviction prevention program or funding something like that. Was that not part of the discussion at some point? Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of Council. Council Member Givens, just for clarity on that, there was a pilot program that was funded through the CRA, but we recently approved that citywide now. So that will be covered through community law citywide instead of just being within the CRA. I appreciate that. And my last question is regarding the youth farm program. We have that program, however it was brought up in conversations, this youth team tech ambassador program that we had had discussions about piloting. I just wanted to know, have we followed up with parks and rec or libraries to find out if that is something that we could look at piloting in fiscal year 27, or is that something that we've put on hold? We haven't put it on hold. We have had some initial conversations with Administrator Jeffries, as well as the library staff. We will round back with them to get more information on what their ideas may be as we're able to move that forward. I appreciate you very much. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Smith, for the presentation. I do appreciate it. Some of the things that I was going to ask has been asked, and I do want to thank you for the youth farm, because it wasn't too long ago where we had a whole other plan on funding for youth farms, so I'm glad that administration has found that a priority enough to fund it ourselves versus the initial funding, financing opportunity that we were faced with. I also agree with the outreach piece of it, and I know that we've spoken to Dream Defenders and some of their ask, and I know that we are not proponents of sending teenagers out in regards to outreach, but they do have adults that can actually look at some of the outreach. And so I've had this conversation, definitely offered to serve as the intermediary between that two, but I want us to see if we can find funding to address some of their concerns. I do know they had an exorbitant budget, but I do think that we've been creative with other things. I would look for us to be creative with some of the outreach in the South St. Pete CRA with that. The Paint Your Heart program, how is that manned? Are those city employees? They are city employees, but they are paid for out of the CRA. So there are four employees with the end team that we cover the cost of their salaries. Okay, because I saw the $90,000 budget, so that's totally for projects and not salary, right? That is correct. Salaries comes under operations. Okay, so what is the max per residence on the Paint Your Heart out? Councilmember Pig-Sanner, so that covers materials, basically. So we have funds that are set aside in our general, or the sanitation operating fund, actually, for the end team. And then this is supplemental to that for our projects that specifically get done within the South St. Pete CRA. Okay, thank you for that, because I was going to ask about the end team. Was that a collaboration between the two? So you answered that question. Thank you, Mr. Weil. And I just have one last thank you for the budget. The St. Pete Works Edge program, the continuation of St. Pete Works with St. Pete College, because they did a phenomenal job with St. Pete Works. And I'm glad that we've been able to find a way to continue workforce development. And SVC is the best to do it. So I do appreciate that as well. So with that, thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Chair Foy. Thank you. I'll just have two quick things. First, to Councilmember Fig Sanders' point about outreach and whatnot in the CRA. I did have a good conversation with staff after the meeting the other day about things being more holistic. So I look forward to that continuing is what I'll say. I don't really have anything specific there. But I do like the idea of if there's funding needed, the CRA could take that up going forward. But really what I put myself on here was the ask questions that Councilmember Gabbard pretty much already covered, which was about the funding for multifamily housing versus like rehab. But what I'm hearing from you all is that you have every intention of funding everyone who asks for rehab help. And I kind of just wanted to clarify two quick things. First, if actually, how do I say it? First, about the multifamily housing, when you say you look forward and see like what you're going to need for the coming year, does that mean you have conversations with people who are wanting to create affordable housing and you understand like what subsidies might be needed and whatnot and sort of prepare for that? Is that basically what the comment was about? So one of our better partners, again, is housing and community development. And their team works specifically. In fact, thank you. I saw Dr. Slyker stand up. Yeah. Yeah. She's hovering over you. I hovered. I hovered. Normally, that's what we do. We have the conversation with the developers. We hear what they're saying. However, this year, we currently have 11 development applications in our system for over $60 million in the CRA loan. Okay. So this year we've done everything you can. We've done all we can this year. And so I guess to say, to go back to this single family home rehabilitation, so we're not meeting the need in multifamily, I guess, but we still feel like we can with single family. Yes. The rehabilitation specifically, sorry. For the rehabilitation program, please keep in mind this is our new funding ask. Yeah. And what we did was we took a look at the current applications and the applications that are waiting to be submitted. Okay. We have over 250 applications that are in progress. Mm-hmm. And what we do is we run a report and we look at that and we say, hmm, how many of these really could be viable? Mm-hmm. Or did somebody just start an application, stop, start again, and there's a duplicate in there? So we go through and we deduplicate all that. Mm-hmm. But what we do is we take a real hard look at what funds will we roll over? Why are we rolling the funds over? Mm-hmm. Is there funding that we're rolling over because it's invested already in a project that's just taking longer to finish, which is a good majority? Or what do we see coming? So we've already done that forecasting and that's why we knew we would need additional money. There's been years past where we've just rolled over. Mm-hmm. And this year we came to the CRA and said, this is what we would need to make the mark for this coming year. Okay. Thank you for that. You know, we had Councilmember Mohamed speak on some of this stuff. And this, obviously, like the numbers jump out at you, but having heard your response about increasing stuff for the residential affordable single family, you've already done an increase. We're not meeting the need here. I guess what I would say to that is, to bring me comfort for today, you know, say going forward we have some sort of something out of balance. Does staff feel comfortable that we can make sure that we're still addressing everything as described today? Vice Chair, we can come back and request from Council to move money between the buckets as we go forward. I just wanted to get you all on the record saying, like, that was possible. And if we have people wanting rehabilitation or down payment assistance or something and all of a sudden the money is gone, then, yeah, I think that a lot of us would probably prioritize that. And so to hear that you're open to that conversation going forward brings me some comfort. So I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for this presentation. I'll sort of start where Vice Chair Floyd left off with the balancing. I think it would be beneficial to everyone if that balancing was done in the first place. It looks like this is just kind of a carryover from last year. If you know that some money is going to move, move it now. Show us a real budget. Show us what reality looks like as you're going to go through the coming year. What is the increase over last year? I mean, we have a bar chart, but there's no detail to that. So we're at almost 23 million that you're asking us to approve for this year. What was the amount last year? It was for you in a moment. Okay. Meaning gross in total TIF revenue. Is that your question? Yes. Okay. What was that? I do know it's over 20 million. Last year is the first year we reached 20 million. Okay. 20 million, 900,000. Okay. So 20.9. Yes. Thank you. And what is the rollover amount going to be from this year to next year? We won't know that until we close the books and then we have the budget clean up. You do forecasting though, right? We do. Okay. So what's it looking like? I don't have that right now. I'm sorry, council member. I can have a number for you tomorrow if that will work for you. Okay. It's better if we have that information before we're asked to approve this stuff. Because we need to take a lot of different things into consideration. And as you can see and as you know from conversations in the community, people are paying attention to this. We want to know where the money has gone, where the leftover money is going and how much it is and what we've got to work with right now and what our values are, which determines those buckets. We got to have all of that before we get to today. I really want to know what the rollover amount is going to be because historically it has been a disappointingly high amount, which indicates that we are not getting the money back into the community fast enough. I'm asking because I want to make sure that that's happening. That's fine. One thing that we have to take into consideration is that many times we may say that there is rollover, but what that means is that those funds are not encumbered. They're not necessarily not committed. Right. So we will have projects. And I will use as an example our Fairfield Avenue development that we worked on for four to five years, that we invested $9.7 million in that project. We still have, I think, about $7 million that will be rolled over because those funds have not been drawn down by the developer. So when you have those types of projects, the rollover number can somewhat be a little misleading because it is committed but it is not encumbered. Right. Right. We need the total amount, what's encumbered, and what's not. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Looking back at the current fiscal year and what's been accomplished, can you give us, just a couple of examples? No narrative, just tell us a couple of projects that have been transformative. I mean, like at the beginning of our budget season, we usually get like a whole spiral bound notebook from community enrichment with all of the different things that they've accomplished through the years, or through the previous fiscal year, so that we get a really good idea of what they're accomplishing with the money that we allocate to their department. So the South St. Pete CRU was created with high hopes for transformative progress. So I'm just asking within this one year, what are a couple of things that you are really, really proud of that you got done? Okay. So just mentioned Fairfield. Mm-hmm. We completed deuces. More work been done on the deuces where we've done some improvements along the road. We have Pelican Place is now under construction and it's 40 additional units. We have the Grove, which is on 18th Avenue, which is another 12 units. We have on Dr. Martin Luther King Street the Namaste project, which is another 11 units that we've completed. All these are affordable housing developments. We have on 16th Street another Namaste project, which, again, is another 10 units of affordable housing. And there are many multiple units scattered throughout the CRA that extensive rehab work has been done on them. And one thing that we're doing now, which will help answer the question for you, is that we're developing a dashboard that will be forward-facing for the community, that anyone would be able to look at that and tell at any point in time the outcomes that we've achieved, not only over the year, but over the entire length of time of the CRA. So that's something that is a project that we're actively working on right now. The initiative that we completed, again, with St. Pete Works and St. Pete Edge, it is now getting up to speed. There's ongoing work with the St. Pete Youth Farm. Again, many of these we've already mentioned. That they're transformative in how they may impact people's lives. And there are, again, rehab projects, multifamily projects, as well as single-family units that we've completed. All right. Thank you. As has been mentioned, the rehabs and the funding that we're allocating for people who already live in the St. Pete CRA and want help with improving their homes, I really want us to make that more of a priority. This, when we talk about housing, it's not just about bringing more units on for more people to move in. We want to make sure that this funding is also taking care of the people who already live there. Because guess what? Where's that tax money coming from? Where is this money coming from? The people who already live there, right? Yeah. Let's give some of it back in the form of assistance. Ask them what they need and make sure that they get it. It's great that we can move the buckets. But again, I'm going back to let's have those buckets reflect our priorities in the first place. I want to make sure that the people who are paying in are getting the benefits and not just people who are moving into a new apartment. There is so much more that we could be doing with rehab right now. And making sure that the housing, the homes that we already have in these neighborhoods are strong, resilient, waterproof, and built and repaired to last. So that families can continue to live there and have something to pass on. As far as the transportation funding away, I'm going to before I go to that. There were several reports mentioned that you said are coming in the next few weeks. Again, that would be great to have before you ask us for approval of the budget. Just having the full picture means a lot. Do you have, is this something that, are you putting this on the council agenda for October to bring us all these reports? So what is planned to come before you are two new programs that we're initiating. We have one report that I thought had been circulated, which was an update on the micro fund program. That's the report. And if you do not have it, we can make sure that you have it by tomorrow. In addition to that, we have a couple of programs that we need your approval, but we need to take them to the CAC first. Our next CAC meeting is in November. Once it's approved by the CAC, we'll bring it to you for approval. Okay. Just please keep in mind that you spend a lot of time with the CAC and I respect and appreciate all that they do. But we're not a rubber stamp for them. Okay. Like once you get them on board, you got to come and get us on board. That's really important. I'm not incredibly inspired by anything that I see in this. It just feels like there's nothing new here. What does give me a lot of hope and some optimism is the transportation improvements and the corridor improvements. I think you said there was someone from transportation here to answer those questions. Yes. Oh, Cheryl. Sorry. I can't see from over here. Hi. So I think it was like a total of 1.8 million that's slated to improve those corridors. There's 1.8 million combined from the fiscal year 26 appropriation and the proposed fiscal year 20 appropriation for ML King Street South. Okay. And those were the highest priority projects that came out of the Connecting South St. Pete CRA mobility plan. So it's got an enhanced crosswalk and center medians, flashing beacons at 9th Avenue South, 10th Avenue South, and 14th Avenue South. There's a short section of a shared use path from about 9th Avenue South, kind of around the bend, kind of bringing a shared use path behind a new transit shelter and then some transit infrastructure as well. So combined total that would pay for all of the design and construction for all of those improvements. Okay. So that, so it would be enough, you know, the, that little, that section of MLK Street South is a hot topic right now, especially in my district. And I want to make sure that we have enough money to make it happen. I mean, the residents have a really strong point that this is located in the South St. Pete CRA. There is no reason why we should say that we don't have the money to make that a safe street. And so I'm asking you to let us know, is this enough money to create the safety elements that are sorely needed, critically needed on that street? Yes, it is for, uh, so it leads into a grant, a future grant, um, through forward Pinellas. So this also identifies funding that would allow us to the lane repurposing study. And then we've got the funding that we're, um, contemplating from forward Pinellas that would let us do the two way conversion, which would also improve safety on the corridor. And then in addition to this funding, what we have already from the fiscal year 26 appropriation in the neighborhood plans, um, are improvements to add the crosswalk at 7th Avenue South. And that includes flashing beacons and the whole nine yards there, plus additional sidewalks in Campbell Park that would lead to that particular crossing too. So, um, in total, uh, there are a lot of elements here that are set to make a big impact towards safety on ML King street South. Thank you. And will you be able to start on any of these elements soon or is it an everything at once? The, um, the crosswalks at 7th Avenue, the crosswalk at 7th Avenue South and the Campbell Park sidewalks. That design is, um, essentially completed. We're about ready to move that forward to construction. So you may see that starting this fall. The other ones, they have the $1.8 million for the crosswalks at 9th, 10th and 14th. Those are starting design right now. So we'll be able to move that. And they already have the concept design from the South St. Pete CRA mobility plan. So we'll be able to move through that detailed design process very, very quickly, um, to get that moving forward to construction. And then we, um, we'll initiate the two way conversion study, um, with the funding and the approval of the budget. Um, as soon as that money is available. Okay. That's fantastic. So it sounds like seventh might be first. Yes. Seventh will be first. Okay. And these can be done even like with the two way conversion thing. Um, we don't have to wait on that, right? That's that's well, yeah, we'll have to do the lane repurposing study based on state standards. Yeah. But we're moving through the process. And as things are ready, we're going to implement them as they are ready. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Um, overall, I will be supporting this budget today. Um, I hope that I've been heard in terms of how this is brought to us. Um, and how the distribution of the funds is presented to us, um, in the future. I mean, I won't be here, but I think that it would be in everyone's best interest to have it, um, be more realistic and, um, um, more, um, more well rounded and more comprehensive in the presentation. Um, $23 million is a lot of money. We should have all the information that we need to make a sound, um, positive decision without having to ask so many questions leading up to this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion. Move approval. Second. Motion. Second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Chair, motion to approve adjourn CRA 3 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, George. F1. We have the resolution. You need to adjourn, Chair. Huh? Oh, I'm sorry. I need to adjourn as CRA. I have to pick up my daughter shortly, so I'm like thinking about that. Um, yes, well, we're adjourned as CRA and reconvened as City Council. Move approval, F1. Second. Motion and second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve adjourn F1 passes unanimously. Thank you. Move approval, F2. Second. We have a motion and second. Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting. Council members, please enter your votes. Third. Seeing that all present council members have voted. Clerk, please tally announce the vote. Madam Chair, motion to approve adjourn F2 passes unanimously. Council member Fick Sanders being absent. Thank you. Okay. We have reached the end until our budget, which is at 6 p.m., so we will be in recess until then. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Chair. City Council is back in session for our FY 2022, 2027 budget second reading and second public hearing. As you all know, this is a script that I'm going to be reading through this process, so you're going to have to bear with me. This is the start of the public hearing. The public hearing is on the final budget, the final millage rate, and the budget appropriations ordinance for fiscal year 2027, which has been amended for second reading to include small i, the intent of the request made by City Council at the first public hearing, and two, administration's proposed changes since the first reading, as outlined in attachment B, recap changes, recap of changes. This is also a public hearing on the proposed multi-year CIP program for the city of St. Petersburg. Prior to public comment, the first substantive issue discussed shall be the percentage increase in millage over the rolled back rate necessary to fund the budget, if any, and the specific purposes for which ad valorem tax revenues are being increased. That issue will be discussed by the mayor and his staff after the title to the budget slash appropriations ordinance is read. At this time, I will ask the city clerk to read the title of the budget slash appropriations ordinance. Thank you, Madam Chair. Proposed ordinance number 647-H, an ordinance making fiscal, excuse me, making appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027, making appropriations for the payment of the operating expenses of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, including its utilities, and for the payment of principal and interest of revenue bonds and other obligations of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. Making appropriations for the capital improvement program of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. Making appropriations for the dependent special districts of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. Adopting this appropriations ordinance as the budget for the city of St. Petersburg, Florida for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027. Providing for related matters and providing an effective date. And we do have speakers on the side, Ms. Wellman. Thank you. Next we have, are there any introductory remarks by administration? Okay. And after that, we go to the brief PowerPoint presentation from Liz. Hi, Liz. Hello. Good evening. Before we begin this public hearing, if anyone has specific questions or concerns regarding the assessed value of their property, exemptions or classification related to your property, or information on the trim notices, tonight we have here with us Alex Luca, the deputy of assessment administration from the Pinellas County property appraiser's office. For those of you who have questions or would like to speak with them, please follow him at this time and he will be able to answer some of your questions. For those attending virtually, please contact the Pinellas County property appraiser's office at 727-464-3207, Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. So good evening and thank you, Mayor, Chair, and members of City Council. This evening is the second of two public hearings on the fiscal year 2027 budget of the City of St. Petersburg. Florida Statutes 200.065, the Truth and Millage Act, also referred to as the Trim Act, requires a specific process for our discussion tonight. The order of the process is laid out in Attachment A of the backup materials. The City Clerk has provided the second reading of the FY27 budget ordinance and in just a moment I will review with Council and the public any proposed changes to the tentative FY27 budget that City Council approved two weeks ago. Upon conclusion of the budget presentation, we will hear from the public and after the public comment period and discussion and deliberation by City Council, you will be asked to take action on three items and each of these actions will need to be done as a standalone. The first one is to adopt by resolution the final millage rate of 6.4525 for FY27. The second item is to adopt the FY27 budget appropriation ordinance as the final budget. And the third is to adopt by resolution the FY27 through 31 capital improvement program. So under the Florida Statutes 200.065, also known as the Trim process, the first item of substance to be discussed is the percent increase, if any, in millage over the rollback rate. For purposes of the FY27 budget, the rollback rate is 6.3854 and is the millage rate that would generate roughly the same amount of avalorm revenues in FY27 as the City received in FY26. Under the trim statutes, we are allowed to recognize ad valorem revenue associated with new taxable value added to the tax base. So the rollback rate generates slightly higher revenues in FY27 than the City is scheduled to receive in FY26. The proposed FY27 millage rate again is 6.4525 and represents a 1.05% increase over the rollback rate. The year-over-year increase in ad valorem revenue from FY26 to FY27 is 14.816 million. The second step in the state required trim process is to discuss the reasons ad valorem tax revenues are being increased. All ad valorem revenues go towards funding the City's public safety costs after the required tax increment financing district contributions. And the main reason for the increase in ad valorem revenue is to provide the resources needed for contracted wage increases for police and fire rescue employees. The addition of six sworn positions in the fire rescue department related to the additional floating R-day included in the union contract for FY27. And to cover other contractual increases including the call and acts on program contracts. For the FY27 citywide budget, the key areas of planned investment are aligned with the mayor's five pillars for progress. For the education and youth opportunities pillar, there's funding to continue programs such as the mayor's Future Readiness Academy, year-round youth employment programs, development grants, literacy and STEAM programs. And under the equitable development arts and business opportunities pillars, we look to fund the continuation of many of our economic and workforce development and arts programs. Under the neighborhood health and safety pillar, we are continuing to fund neighborhood and public safety programs like the community impact grants and programs, the healthy neighborhood store program and the healthy food action program. Under the housing opportunities for all pillar, there will be funding to continue our progress on the 10 year housing opportunities for all agenda and to provide resources for some of our social service programs. And finally, in the environment infrastructure and resilience pillar, the preliminary budget will have funding for projects that protect our environment, increase our resilience and improve our city's infrastructure, including the St. Pete agile resistance or bar program and increased funding for both the street and road improvements and the complete streets programs. The increase in Avalorum tax is based on a 6.85% increase in 2026 property values over 2025. This chart shows a 10 year history of property tax revenue in relation to public safety costs. You can see that in FY27, after accounting for the transfer to the three TIF funds, Avalorum revenue will cover all of the police and a portion of fire rescue costs for the city. This next slide illustrates the calculation of the military for FY27. The first step in the calculation is to determine the value of one mill. To do this, we take the gross property value amount of $39.341 billion and multiply it by 96%, which results in $37.767 billion in value for budgeting purposes. We then divide the 96% of gross taxable value amount, which is that $37.767 billion amount by $1,000. This gives us the value of one mill, which is $37.767 million. The second step is to look at our FY27 general fund requirements, which total $437.325 million. Net out the other sources of revenue other than ad valorem, which totals $193.633 million, to arrive at the amount of required ad valorem taxes of $243.691 million. The third and final step is to divide this required ad valorem taxes of $243.691 or B on the slide by the value of one mill or A on the slide to get the 6.4525 mills required. This slide illustrates a typical tax bill for a resident of the City of St. Petersburg. The City of St. Petersburg makes up approximately 30% of this homeowner's tax bill and or 30 cents of every dollar of ad valorem tax paid by property owners. The school system with its two components makes up 36%, and Pinellas County makes up 22%. The balance of 12% is made up of various other taxing authorities. So we'll now move into a discussion of the changes to the FY27 tentative budget since City Council approved the tentative budget two weeks ago at the first public hearing. This information is included in more detail in Attachment B, recap of changes. The only changes to the budget since the first public hearing are in the requirements or expenditures in the general fund. The requirement changes listed reflect a reorganization of the Office of Community Impact from the Mayor's Office to the City Development Administration and Economic Workforce Development Departments and have a net zero effect on the general fund. In this next section, we'll go over a quick overview using tables, charts, and graphs to illustrate the City's FY27 budget. These tables are also included in the FY27 budget and brief, which has been posted on the City's website and is available with handouts tonight. The total operating revenue budget for the City is $1.047 billion. Charges for services make up the largest category of $449.6 million, or 42.9%, followed by taxes at $322.9 million, or 30.8%. The FY27 operating budget of $1.018 billion is 4.25% higher than the FY26 operating budget. The Water Resources Operating Fund decreased by 0.55% year-over-year from $249.2 million to $247.8 million. The general fund and reserves budget increased by 6.26% from $412.4 million to $438.2 million. Looking specifically at the general fund, the total general fund revenue budget is $437.325 million. The general fund revenue comes from various sources, as illustrated on this chart. The largest single source of revenue are taxes, which includes our ad valorem property taxes, franchise taxes, utility rates, and others, and that totals 73.84%, or $322.9 million of revenue. Pilot in G&A is the second largest source at 9.7%, or $42.4 million. The total general fund expenditure budget for FY27 is also $437.325 million, and the city's general fund is categorized into six administrations. The single largest general fund investment made by the city is in our Public Safety Administration at 55%, and this includes both our police and fire rescue departments. The general government administration makes up the next largest category at 18.6%, and includes departments such as budget, finance, legal, and human resources. And third, we have the community enrichment administration at 16.3%, and includes parks and recreation and the libraries. This chart shows the general fund budget broken out by expenditure type. The single largest expenditure category of the general fund is the wages and benefits category, at just under $300 million, or 68.5% of the total. Services and commodities make up the next largest category at 19.6%, or $85.8 million. The FY27 CIP includes a total of $196.551 million in capital projects. The water resources projects account for the largest percentage of the projects at 112.47 million, or 57.2%, followed by stormwater projects at 37.25 million, or 18.95%, and Penny for Pinellas projects at 17.3%, or 34.04 million. Looking at the overall five-year CIP plan for FY27 through 31, there's a total of $1.191 billion in projects over the five-year plan. This next slide shows the fund balance commitment categories that Council will need to reaffirm, these and other categories when the budget is adopted. However, the amounts to be set aside in each category did not need to be determined until the FY26 fiscal year is closed and we have our year-end actual results. At that time, we will have a better idea of how much fund balance is available to allocate to each category, and the commitment categories can then be funded as part of the year-end cleanup process in November. In closing, I'd like to mention that information on the city's FY27 budget is available on the city's website, and I would also like to take a moment to thank the budget team for their hard work on this budget and all the department personnel throughout the city who provide assistance throughout the budget process. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. As mentioned before, this budget process is driven by Florida Statutes. I will continue reading the script as we have to follow this order. This is the beginning of the public comment portion of the hearing. The general public shall be allowed to speak and ask questions prior to the adoption of the final millage rate and final budget by City Council. At this time, we'll take public comment. Madam Chair, I'll call them two at a time. First two speakers, Brad Falbo and Lauren Hubbard. Please go to the podium. State your name, address, or cross street, and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Hi, Brad Falbo, 1856, Delmeria Way South. I'm asking for the 2027 budget to be denied for all the following reasons. Axon, a company related to the Flock cameras, gave the city a free year trial of Flock, and in this budget, their allocated funds go from 3.3 million to almost 6 million in one year, an 81% increase. Last November, you renewed an $87 million contract with Axon, 8 to nothing, no discussion. Axon invested in Flock safety, resold Flock's cameras. Axon now sells its own license plate readers mounted in patrol cars, and the surveillance you bought on fixed poles is about to become mobile. Over 34 months, the city spent $2.1 million on food. Of about 10,000 food expenditures, fewer than 3,000 say what the money bought and why. Roughly 7,000 food expenditures are missing descriptions and reasons for the purchases. In the mayor's office, 86% of those food purchases are missing information. Council member Gabbard went on Facebook and told residents what some of these charges were probably for, but probably is not oversight. Replying to her comment with a records request for the 7,000 receipts, following up a week later, she has yet to provide a response. I also sent this record request directly to the city, and they told me it would require a charge to receive the requested information, but they've yet to tell me what the cost for these receipts will be. $300,000 on T-shirts and other custom print materials in 34 months. Some of this is for Sunken Gardens gift shop, which the city auditor found cannot track inventory because their software is not capable. I asked which organizations received city grant money this year. The city demanded $505 from me to see the listing and stated it would take 10 hours to put this together. How the hell does the city not have a way to easily export financial information? Tonight, you appropriate $20 million in aid to private organizations, and we'll have to pay to find out who that went to. I asked how the city holds contractors accountable. According to the procurement manual you have, performance measurement is optional. Under the last mayor, the quarterly financial report was a 150 page document with every funds statement. The first one after Mayor Welch took office, and nearly every one of the quarterly reports under this administration are now simple PowerPoint slides with significantly reduced information. What the city used to publish now takes records request time and money to obtain. Harassment between employees bonuses paid outside of policy project overages $10,000 water bills. Why isn't council investigating? The cherry on top of this is council members have the same view as the general public when it comes to public records. You have to go through the mayor's office. How are you making decisions when you cannot conduct a proper audit and you're unable to receive every detail without barriers? You cannot audit what you are not allowed to see. You need to deny this budget. Then you need to legislate yourselves direct access to city records and financial systems so you can do your job and the people can have confidence in your ability to make decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Council members. I am Lauren Hubbard. My address is 1 1 1 0 3rd Street South St. Petersburg, Florida 3 3 7 0 1. I am an advocate community ambassador and nonprofit founder that has taken interest in the 31st Street South case study that seems to have launched in 2024 and is still ongoing. Initially, when this was brought to me, I was the interim executive director for the Skyway Marina District. After my initial 60 days, I decided to step down from that role, but continue to lead in the investment of beautifying and revitalizing the Lakewood Trail Connector in partnership with Connect Pinellas Lakewood Estates Civic Association and Maximo Elementary School future leaders. If you go around 31st Street South to the Lakewood Trail Connector, you'll be able to see what we invested in with a city level up arts grant in the amount of $5,000, which we transformed into a $60,000 investment into the city. So we wanted to just say we're here. We know that your work is hard. We know that it's strenuous. We know that there's a law on your plates as it is. We would like, if possible, to work with you on completing that street study just to see if there's a way for us to alleviate and mitigate further accidents, deaths, things that everyday working people are facing over on the 31st Street South corridor, which is also a funnel for our future leaders to get to school back and forth and also for our business and entrepreneurs that work in the city in the Skyway Marina District. So with that, you know, I guess that's really it. Just to please consider finishing the street study and we are grateful for all that you do and all of the time that you put into the city. We see you and we appreciate you. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks to the speakers, Madam Chair. Jacob Elrick, Jacob Elrick, and Matthew Fall Harbor. Harbor, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, or cross street, and you have three minutes to address city council. You can go first, sir. Oh, you first. Hi, everyone. Jacob Ehrlich, 2386 Grenada Circle West, St. Petersburg, Florida. Good evening, council. I don't do this that much, so apologies in advance. So I live in Lakewood Estates. I volunteer with Connect Pinellas, which was just mentioned. And also I help clean up 31st Street South along with the Lakewood Estate Civic Association on a pretty regular basis. And tonight what I'm here for is I'm asking for the city and for you to help us get the city to include and prioritize the 31st Street South complete street study and Lakewood Trail Connector projects as part of its safe streets slash complete streets priority budget items. So let's talk about the 31st Street study. That was supposed to be done in 2025, and it got pushed to the end of 2026 now. That's what's been communicated at least silently on the government, the city website without really any communication to the residents. So we're wondering what's happening there. We would like to see that state completed. I drive down that road every day. I walk it. I bike it. I biked it today, and there's no shade. There's no crosswalks for miles, and garbage piles up on the shoulder regularly. Me and my neighbor, Matt, who's over there, we clean it up pretty frequently. It's about, and really it's not about cleaning it up and making it more of a leisure space, you know, biking and walking. It's about safety. We don't need another death on that road. One occurred back in 2024, and there's injuries all the time. We really want to see that study completed. For Lakewood Trail Connector, the mural that was created is a beautiful start. It's something that we love. I see it every morning. It's a real investment in our community that we're proud of and we celebrate. But there's a lot more to do there. This year alone, we've taken about 400 pounds of trash out of that area ourselves just through weekend cleanups. And, you know, we see broken glass among other sharp things, fractured pavement, almost no lighting, deferred maintenance, and infrastructure problems, and real safety concerns around that trail connector. I believe you're all aware of these issues. But the thing is, you know, we see children walk through it every day to school. I see them as I drive my son to school, you know, walking through, and it's heavily utilized. Maybe not everyone's going by there throughout the day, but in the morning it's used. We need to prioritize it and not ignore it anymore. You know, it's a little off script here, but, you know, people in the city, they're struggling. Everyone's struggling. People are struggling for food, housing, health care, to find work, and also simply get around. And I see it in my neighbors, honestly, I do. Walking down the street should not add to that stress, you know, and they shouldn't worry about having a heat stroke walking down the road or their kid getting to school safely. I see them out of time, so I'll stop there. Thank you. Ready? Hi. My name is Matthew Fallhaber. I live at 4321 Columbus Way South. I am the current Vice President of the Lakewood Estate Civic Association. And we are also here tonight to request very kindly that you guys would take consideration for the 31st Street South study. As we've all mentioned, the traffic has increased. I've lived in the neighborhood now 14 years. I've been in St. Pete. I moved back here in 2004, and that street used to be very slow and not a lot of traffic. And now, if you drive the speed limit, you'll occasionally get people driving in the median to go around you. A lot of bikes getting, if they're not on the sidewalk or whatever, I've seen a lot of cars just kind of speed by and push the bikes aside. And I know the study, we had requested some crosswalks. It's several miles of just, you know, no stoplights, no way for anybody to cross easily. I have letters both from the previous president of the association for 20 years and the current president. And we also polled our nearly 500 members. And we only had, at the time, one dissent person who said that they didn't agree with us. But out of the 500 that we did ask, everybody was very, very adamant that we need to really change the, you know, the safety of that area. Especially where it turns, there's areas where you can turn to get onto 34th Street. And those are getting so busy now, those intersections, that it's hard for cars to turn. People will speed out. And so we'd like to look at some of those options. And thank you guys for your time. I appreciate it. Next two speakers. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Jay James and Sabrina Stewart. Please go to, state your name and address and, or cross street. And you have, go to either podium. You have three minutes to address city council. Hello, everyone. My name is Jay James. My pronouns are they, them, and theirs. 1181 3rd Avenue North. Across the country here in St. Pete, one of the best indicators of increased violence is a lack of investment in local community. We need to address violence at the root, which means supporting communities most impacted. When a neighborhood doesn't have access to stable work, stable housing, stable healthcare, stable childcare programs, then how do we expect them to have any form of stability? This is a story that we see in city after city. The presence of violence in the community is a reflection of the willingness of city officials to support that community. We cannot separate funding youth programs from safety. The public safety budget is being proposed to increase by $10 million for the fiscal, for the next fiscal year. We believe that the safety of our youth is in dire need of investment. Instead of adding more money in public safety budget towards police, that increase should be reflected in supporting youth programming as a public safety measure. The September 3rd budget hearing provided another disappointing response from St. Pete's administrative staff. Members of the Dream Defenders were frustrated and offended when city administrators Foster and Jeffreys present their straw man arguments, followed by claims that they understood Dream Defenders' request loud and clear. However, the discomfort in our proposal structure was tasking teens to canvas neighborhood door-to-door to conduct surveys with residents. This was listed as a task in a position description for teen staff, but by no means inferred that they would have to do this without adult staff members or in any format that didn't prioritize their safety. Come on now. Unfortunately, this one line in the eight-page proposal would use to discount the valuability of the plan in its entirety. We argued that a more sincere consideration would have led to far more discussions than the few conversations we've managed to arrange over the last few years. As disappointing as their response was, we understand that what and who we're advocating for, and that advocacy will continue. City administrators continue claiming that the SOS campaign's request already have been fulfilled through the Community Support Hub's partnerships with local nonprofits, like the Gulf Coast Jewish Family Community Services, who serve the lead nonprofit for implementing PERC as well as PAL and all that good stuff. The plan is spent efforts next year is, sorry, nerves, breath. I'm just going to skip for it. In year one, we're advocating for $2,500 for new computers at the Charles Park Rec Center, $19,188 to make summer programs at Charles Park Free, $155,000 for community outreach including teen and young adult specialists. That's $176,688, 0.017% of the total budget and 0.04% of the general fund budget. Apprentice. Come on now. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Sabrina Stewart. My address is 34th Street North and 30th Avenue North. I'm a member of the Bay Area Dream Defenders, primarily because we believe in people power. And we live that by taking action not only in our communities, but with our communities. The Save Our Streets campaign was born from that core belief, even though my comrades have given comment for years. I'm proud to say tonight won't be our last, but I do hope we can meet to discuss new priorities in the future. For years, we've shared that the community identified its top priority as safer, accessible programming for our youth to protect them from violence, neighborhood groups, and prepare them to lead successful lives. To paint a picture of what funding the Save Our Streets campaign could be, I'm going to describe a scenario so that everyone understands the vision that was presented two years ago. It starts with employing a community-sourced engagement coordinator and specialist whose role is to actively engage neighbors in a relevant way during a realistic time for hardworking parents. We know this is critical because a parent who may take a second job just to afford this month's electricity bill from Duke has limited time, not to mention bandwidth and money. So we were intentional in emphasizing that the engagement burden was on the staff to have the highest chance of success that passive methods such as pamphlets, decals, and school announcements would not produce. The coordinator manages specialists who dispatch into the community to meet the people where they are. They may post signs with contact info, host designated office hours for those wanting appointments, set up info tables at community events. They may even go door to door or host events so neighbors can come to one place and meet a variety of local program representatives. They probably use branded apparel and gadgets for kids with contact information for parents so that they have mobile marketing moving through the city and multiplying the impact of one engagement. They're available for radio and news interviews and they incentivize every referral shared by word of mouth. They travel with a tablet so they can add contact info to a mailing list and track individuals who received actionable info or need follow up for specific questions or even just to refer them to the exact opportunity they're hoping their child can participate in. They even direct older kids into internships and summer job programs with the city and local nonprofits, allowing them to earn a stipend and exposing them to fields that aren't always visible before they graduate high school. The coordinator can enroll families into the city's youth engagement voucher program, which hopefully this exists soon. That also allows trend out on the child's participation from year to year and signals which programs are utilized heavily and which ones may need expanding restructuring or advertisement. Not to mention which programs are providing impactful return for the tax dollar supported funding they receive. They may also coordinate safe transportation to and from activities. I hope this description makes the investment requested seem possible. When I think about the nearly 40% increase in the city's police budget, presumably to enhance safety. It makes sense that a fraction of that could be used to support prevention programs like Save Our Streets campaign. Thank you. Thank you. There's two speakers, Madam Chair. Hong Nam Dong and Jessica Tomlinson. Please go to either podium, state your name, address, or cross street. You have three minutes to address city council. I have two speakers. Go ahead, ma'am. Give us your name and address. Can you hear them? Yep. My name is Jessica Tomlinson and I live at 1005 36th Avenue North. And I am a lifelong St. Petersburg resident. I'm here today to speak on behalf of the Bay Area Dream Defenders Save Our Streets campaign. I understand that St. Petersburg has nearly a $1 billion public safety budget. And I would like to encourage that some of that public safety money go towards youth development programs. After all, public safety occurs when we have peace in our neighborhoods. And peace occurs when we have stability. Stability is fostered by good health care, affordable housing, quality education, and youth development programs. Now, youth development programs provide a third space where young people can develop their interests, be themselves, and form deeper relationships with one another, their families, and their communities. And I understand that there are already some very good youth programs in St. Petersburg, but they're currently underutilized because many families are not aware what is available to them, who is eligible, or how to enroll. Some of the enrollment systems for programs in general can be quite Byzantine, and it can be hard to find information about what is available to families. So, therefore, I endorse the idea of having coordinators that are able to sit down with families and explain what all is available to them. And as others have stated, these coordinators can go into schools and share information with young people and also coordinate transportation and table at events and generally be a community liaison. So, I encourage the budget team and the council to please consider putting some public safety money into community development programs specifically for youth. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, ma'am. Hello. My name is Hong Nam Dong, and I live at 5210 43rd Avenue North in St. Petersburg. I am a member of the Bay Area Dream Defender. I am here in support of Save Our Streets and to demand for an increased funding for youth program. There has been an increase of death and gun violence in the city of St. Petersburg among our youth, and we need to address this. Just a few months ago, July 22nd, an 18-year-old was shot dead inside a bathroom at the Child's Park YMCA St. Petersburg. The aggressor was another 18-year-old. We need to ask ourselves what we can do to prevent tragedies like this before they happen. Our kids need places that give them structure, support, and a positive path. Many parents are working multiple jobs just to keep food on the table. From my own experience, my parents worked all the time. My older brother got pulled into gangs, and I was given another path. During my middle school years, my parents put me in an after-school program called the Asian Neighborhood Family Center. That place gave me belonging and structure. My brother wasn't a bad kid. He just didn't have the support he needed. There are so many organizations in St. Petersburg doing this work every day. They are showing up for young people and helping kids keep kids safe. They just need more funding and trust from the city to continue and grow. When we invest in youth, we are preventing harm before it happens and building long-term safety for the whole community. Last year, the city increased the policing budget to about $10 million. I am not against public safety, but I do believe we also need to invest earlier through prevention so that policing, arrests, and death doesn't need to happen. We can solve this problem. I am asking the council to prioritize funding for youth, especially the organization already doing the work in our community. And I know from my own experience, this does change. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The public comment portion of the hearing is now closed. At this time, it's council comments, discussion, and consideration of the budget. Councilmember Fig Sanders. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again for everyone that has come out to speak on the budget because you do know that we engage in extensive conversation in regards, and several of us have had some valid requests moving into before approving the budget. And so hopefully we'll have some of those needs met. I want to thank Lika for coming out and speaking on behalf. And I enjoyed attending your year-end meeting, but I am more impressed with what you do for your residents. So if it were not for our neighborhood associations, civic associations, giving us direction, because I say all the time, we don't know what we don't know. And you all really are the feet on the ground to help us identify this. I also want to let the correct panelists know, I think you should have received information in regards to after the mayor and the staff's touring of the underpass over by that very mural that you're looking at and looking for, that they're going to find the funding for the wayfinding signs as well as the funding for the cameras under that I-75. So hopefully you would have gotten that information yesterday. So there is an additional investment that will be given to Connect Panellas. And I'm glad that you did take my advice and come on out and speak. So now everyone is aware with where you are and what it is and the good work that you're actually doing. So we're not going to stop here. But I thought that that was fantastic news that I received in regards to the additional services that they're going to provide. And I just want to also address Dream Defenders. I had a very encouraging conversation with the mayor yesterday. And my ask was maybe not, there's a lot in your proposal that we can't support. You know, and I hear what you say about teens not going by themselves and door to door. I hear that. But my request was to some of the extensive funding that we have already designated for youth programs. Why can't we find a way for youth defenders and share what we would need from you to do? At least you would have a connection to the budget. You will be getting funded in some shape, form, or fashion. And that I was particularly advocating for your outreach. Because you will go places a lot of people will not go. And that is such a needed service for that. So hopefully from that conversation there will be something positive that comes out of it. Because like I said the last time, you all have been here year after year after year. And I've heard you. And there's a way that we can definitely be creative in funding when it comes down to youth programming. Because we do have dollars allocated for youth programming. Because I mentioned it before. So again, please know that your voices have not gone unheard. I had that conversation yesterday. But let me also be very clear. That shooting in Child's Park YMCA would not have been prevented. I don't care what you do unless Child's Park YMCA had gun detectors at that front door. And those young men were not from St. Pete. They were not from the city of St. Petersburg. So, you know, there's going to be ownership and accountability for everyone. But I don't think that ownership is the city of St. Pete. That is just my two cents on that. Because there's no program that would have prevented that. They saw a location. They took advantage. It went left. And unfortunately, we had an incident that no one was prepared for. No one. Because the YMCA staff was devastated. Did not go back to work for a while trying to foster care to those individuals. So I don't want us to continue to say that that was the fault of the city of St. Pete for not funding youth programming. Because there's no way we would have stopped that. We couldn't have stopped that. Again, like I said, and the Y was phenomenal. You know, they jumped right on into it. The executive director have put things in place. But we've had that conversation. And I just wanted to share those things with you. But again, please know you do have someone advocating on your behalf. Especially for this year's budget. And don't stop having the conversation. Do not stop showing up. Do not stop sharing what it is that you bring to the table. And hopefully we'll be able to connect those dots with this budget season. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I know Evan is here and I see him back there. But I just want to touch base on the LECA request. First of all, you sent a letter to us. So thank you for that. You send it to City Council. I forwarded it to administration. And Evan, if you just real quickly can touch upon just some of the things that have been requested and what you're doing, because I want to make sure, first of all, we did receive the letter. They're looking at all the issues and there is funding for a lot of things. I just want you to touch upon some of the stuff that may have not been mentioned. Sure. First off, the study for 31st Street is nearing completion. We don't need any more funding for that. We did have to add funding and extend the study, but we had funding for that already in FY26. So that will wrap up soon. Another part of my communication earlier today was that we would like to basically earmark or set aside some of the complete streets funding for FY27 to advance design for those study findings. Probably should do a committee referral for that and make sure Council is on board with the proposed plan for that before we start doing design. So that's 31st Street as long or as far as the trail connector goes. The city portion already has security cameras. It's well maintained. It's kind of out in the open. And the part that's FDOT right away, just because of the way the interstate is, it's more hidden. It attracts more trash just naturally. And so we did walk that, the mayor and I and some other staff, as well as the police department and Pinellas County School Administration and Maximal Elementary. And the consensus there was to add cameras. You know, it needs other things as well as far as maintenance goes. But the main thing for security as a major step is adding cameras. So we already have a quote for that, $40,000 to add 10 cameras. And we can just go ahead and find funding for that. We don't need any last-minute budget changes for an amount of that sort. Well, thank you, Evan. Yep, that's all I have for that. Thank you so much. The other thing I want to bring up on, we got from administration a report that there was a request for proposals for engaging disengaged youth. And that's something that has been done. We're waiting for that item for the report. My question is, and I pulled the information. Council approved this back in March of 2025. So I'm just curious as to why it's taken so long. I actually read the agreement to figure out the deliverables and there weren't specific dates on deliverables. It was going to be worked with, I guess, with administration. So it looks like, and I was told September 30th, I mean, that's just a long turnaround time. But I want to verify to see the request for proposals was back in 2024, and we approved it in early 2025. Hello, Dr. Brandt. Good evening, City Council. Good evening, everyone. Your question, to be clear, is why it took so long? That's what I heard as I was coming through. So one of the things we were intentional about was that it is actually social science research and not simply just surveys. The process involved with social science research means you have to get approval from an institutional review board. That's a process. That takes time. And in this case, the institutional review board was on two sides. So the school system, Pinellas County Schools, we had to go through their process because we were interviewing their students or researching, I should say. They were the research subjects. And then USF had their own. So this is a process that could take anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months. Then on top of that, there had to be agreement on the research questions. There had to be agreements signed between the researchers and the school system. All of this took many, many months. And then the research actually started, where are we now? September. It started in the early spring of 2026. And so now we're at the place where the data has been collected and the researchers are analyzing the data coming up with the general themes to be able to produce a report. And we have a date aimed at September 30th for that report. So that's essentially it. It's just the process of research and how long it took to get it done so we could be legal. Okay. I was just wondering, because we approved it back March 25, and there wasn't a date specific in the contract in terms of the deliberable. And so I know I was told it was coming up. And it's kind of related, obviously, to the conversation that's happening right now, which is how do you disengage youth? And this report was about engaging youth that are between 15 and 24 years old. And I just want to put out there that we are waiting for this, and that is coming September 30th. September 30th is the day we put on the calendar. We are doing everything to make that date a reality. And just to add to something else you said there, no, there was not a date, because it's hard to say research will be in the agreement. Research will be done on this date, because you have so many variables that you have to consider. And that's why it was written to say this is complete when the research is complete. So we set that date September 30th. And so far, it looks like we're going to hit it. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. I don't see any other questions from council members. First of all, I want to thank everyone that's here. Oh, council member Fig Sanders. I do. Thank you, Chair, for bringing that up. So if we have a survey already being done for disengaged youth, we just had a list last week about another 200,000 for another survey for disengaged youth. Is this the same survey? Yes, that's my understanding, and that was what the email was intended to say. If it was confusing, I'm sorry, was that it was in the previous budget year and not this coming budget year. So it was not money that was available, essentially. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we weren't redoing something we've already approved. Okay. Thank you. It was brought up, and that's why I was asking when the RFP was, and it's already been taken care of, so that's already been appropriated. Yes? You can come and answer a question. I'm back. So the funds, the original funds that were approved have mostly been expended, and as I said, will be done September 30. There is no more. There is not another line item for engaging disengage youth. Okay. By Chair Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to speak to some of the stuff about the Save Our Streets campaign briefly. I did talk in depth with the administration more afterwards about the outreach plan, and it's been talked about a lot in the context of parks and rec, but when you bring in the work being done around the hub, I think that gets a little bit closer to what people are asking for. So what I think I will do going forward is probably discuss with people from Dream Defenders about how they'd like to see that put together. Yeah. Implemented. Implemented. Implemented. Implemented. And if we can get us closer. Implemented. Um, and if we can get us closer, but also I want to say that like, it has been focused on a lot, and I mean, maybe it's partially my fault. Over the last couple of years, I thought, okay, what's really crucial to this plan that Dream Defenders brings forward? and i focused on uh the outreach aspect of it as something that i thought we could move towards and i do think we've moved in that direction but not exactly uh the way that it was advocated for envisioned uh but there are other things as well and so uh stuff like i think when i had this conversation with them recently or some members of dream defenders it was also the stuff around um not just making sure people are aware but maybe like providing services to get people to the uh uh to get people to youth services and so i can't with confidence speak to that today but like that's i want everyone to know like that's the direction in addition to making sure everybody's on the same page about outreach that's the direction that i think i'll work towards along with um anything else that comes up uh but uh i did get some better feedback and i think that there's some possibility for coming to terms with some of the stuff this year so i'll leave it there also member kivins thank you chair uh just wanted to chime in i feel like i know the answers to these questions but for the sake of transparency uh and for the public who's here i do want to ask um some of the questions that were brought up um had to do with and i'll start with axon um i think a claim was made that there's money allocated in the budget um for additional funds to go to axon i just wanted to get clarification on what that figure was and if that claim was true or not hey chief i was asking about axon um how much we're allocating in fiscal year 27 to spend with them do we have a figure out there yet or is that something that you all are still working on uh yet so i don't have the figure directly in front of me um i want to say this year's spend with axon was two point something million um liz might have a better number for you um but i think it's important to note uh because i heard earlier during comment and i appreciate the input very much um axon got kind of erroneously um combined with flock um axon is a completely separate contract and axon is also not lpr license plate technology reader uh technology axon is our it's our fleet in-car systems um it is our body cameras most importantly which is of course something that uh there was great community support for when we rolled that program out um and it's been a very successful program i think both for for public confidence in the police but also for the department um it's also it's training tools it's taser technology which which helps limit both offender and officer injury so it's a it's a very very broad contract with a lot of different services involved in it i appreciate that and i figured that it has something to do with our body cameras but i just wanted some clarification yes sir it's a it's a whole host of programs and i very much appreciate the opportunity to to point that out of course thank you so much i appreciate you chief uh my other question had to do with uh recreation center something was brought up i think it was uh to the point of child's park not having computers or uh the lab being swapped out um do we know i know there's some upgrades happening at centers throughout the community is there a timeline on when child's park can anticipate those computer upgrades or um there he is hey mike mike i was asking about child's park there was a claim made about i guess laptops needed to be upgraded or swapped out the lab there needed to have a transformation do you have any update on if that's going to take place and if so when yes so all of our recreation centers have we've gone away from computer labs because we really are looking for more convertible space space that we can use for multiple functions we used to build rooms that were computer labs you were locked in that's all that room could be used for so what we've gone to now is a cart system with laptops that have the wi-fi all of our recreation centers have that including child's park it's used by our tutors it's used by the education specialists that we hire from the middle schools to come in and to tutor the the children that are in our after school program and in our summer program i appreciate that mike and i think one of the things that the dream defenders and other organizations may be looking for is sort of a transformation of those rec centers can you speak a little bit to what is in the budget what is planned i see our rec centers becoming digital transition hubs i would love to see that day when all rec centers look like the obama library but i know that probably can't happen um overnight so i just want to know a little bit about what are the plans specifically regarding child's park wildwood those centers that have had those upgrades so it's it's um again kind of the same thing that we were just talking about what we started out doing um 20 years ago with the computer labs we really we really thought that the computer labs would be used by the public by the participants um at the rec centers we really found that not to be the case we found that if somebody is looking to do a certification do an online course do a ged something like that those individuals are really going to the libraries and they're going to that environment to have that experience so what we've done is we've sort of evolved and this is kind of a national standard as well we've evolved our technology at the rec centers to be more focused on tutoring that educational component and that kind of after school homework help we find that to be more successful i would be remiss if i didn't mention the juvenile welfare board they've helped us with grants they've helped us with funding for those programs that's really where we've been focusing our technology money when it comes to the rec centers i do want to remind everybody that we have tasco as well and so tasco has um in in chair hanowitz's neighborhood we've got the um the center for uh technology at uh huggins tingle field and so we have a program that's housed there but we also have a program that is mobile and goes to the different recreation centers and so again just like therapeutic rec we have a hub but then we offer those programs throughout the entire system and that's how we've really been kind of doing the website design the dj services and the computer building we've taken that out into the community into those different rec centers and so if there is a child who might be interested at a rec center they have that available availability if there's someone who really finds that that's all they're interested in then we have transportation that we take them from the rec center using our city vans to the tasco center for advanced technology mike it sounds like you just gave us the answer to this age-old problem which is where do we find the employment opportunities for our youth and that is it you brought it up last time administrator foster talked about it this tasco program i feel like is going to be the answer i love what you just talked about what's happening in district four i would love to see that expand we've had conversations before about this dream child that i have the teen tech ambassadors i would love to see us employ these teenagers throughout the city recreation centers and libraries to really help facilitate a lot of that peer-to-peer tutoring peer-to-peer counseling mentoring um the engagement starts there with peers and i really think tasco is going to be our our ticket through the door and i do want to share that as we're looking at the uh the reimagining of the enoch davis center our goal and our plan is to really make enoch another tech hub so that we have one at tasco and then we have another one at enoch because it has been so successful candidly when we try new programs and we try new things we don't want to be uh we don't want to be bleeding edge we want to be cutting edge but there's a difference and so sometimes you move in a direction and the community says ah you know that's great but that's not really how we're going to utilize it and we found that this technology center for teens has worked out very well and so our goal is to emulate that and to kind of reproduce that at enoch as we redesign that facility one more question for you mike while i have you um it was mentioned about subsidizing child care can you talk a little bit about what the city is currently doing how we subsidize child care because i do know that we are helping a lot of families right now can you talk a little bit about how many families are receiving that help i'm so thankful that you asked that question i was hoping somebody would um here in the city of st petersburg any middle schooler can go to any of our programs absolutely for free so that's already on the table that's been on the table for years now we have after school we have summer and that is at every one of our recreation centers for any middle schoolers that is not income based that is not based on any other criteria that is free and that is available we are one of the only cities that's taken the juvenile welfare dollar juvenile welfare board dollars and applied that to our middle school programs because we know we we absolutely we agree with the dream defenders this is a this is a pivotal time the the middle school the teenage uh transitional years that's important so we decided we didn't want any family to decide that it was too expensive for any of uh any of our middle schoolers to go to one of those programs so those are free at all of our recreation centers we also subsidize um our elementary school programs um significantly to the tune of about i don't have the file in front of me um but i believe that we're somewhere close to 80 percent of our after school before school after school and summer are in a a some form of subsidized child care um the the the model that we use we we've adopted the pinellas county school free and reduced lunch model so that if your child qualifies for free lunch then we charge a much lower rate for the after school before school and summer and again we're one of the only um agencies in the area that allows parents to do all a cart so if you just need after school or you just need before school or you need it both we we work with you so that we're not kind of forcing everybody into one size fits all um again there are programs for free reduced we also work with elc the early learning coalition and so if we have families that can't afford the free rates that we have we direct them to elc we actually work with them we bring elc out to our facilities we table there with the early learning coalition and provide the information on how to go through that process and um the child care fee that elc charges is based on income and it's pennies on the dollar um based on you know the information that that we've seen um the information that's come back and the number of folks that are in those programs i appreciate all the work that you do mike thank you so much thank you chair thank you thank you council member driscoll thank you i just i had a follow-up question to the 31st street trail connector study um i i appreciate the information that council member fig sanders shared regarding um some improvements over in that area but that particular study kind of stuck with me that it was started in 2024 it was supposed to end it was supposed to be completed in 2025 and here we are so what's up happy to elaborate on that a little bit so the the process was initiated we did a lot of public engagement two opportunities came back one was a side path on the west side making that wider separate it from the street a lot of people like that but what was the more preferred option from the feedback that we got was a lane elimination of the center turn lane for the section that we're talking about mostly here and reallocating that for buffered bike lanes which is good but it triggers the whole process of lane elimination study and before we went down that route we needed to do some more traffic analysis to see what the repercussions of that would be okay because when you take that center turn lane away it can introduce rear-end crashes it can introduce delay so we needed to look at that more specifically we got traffic counts we added some funding to the consultant agreement and that's what's taking additional time because we didn't want to bring forward something that wasn't implementable right okay thank you and i forgot to say something earlier we also in the email that i sent council earlier but for the audience we're also moving forward with wayfinding so we have i think it's about 40 signs and it's all the way from the pinellas trail down the skyway connector through 31st street including the underpass so we're also doing that and that's going to be in-house probably twenty thousand dollars and we don't need additional budget for that either okay and you've got lighting coming to go with that the lighting would be separate so that's that's not part of the wayfinding but we can we can look at that as well and i think that the lighting is more likely going to be if it's improvements under the underpass that's again going to have oh i think through fdot yeah i think that's what yeah okay good well thank goodness you have such a great relationship with that time um so that explains the delay so thank you for that um so you've got so the first choice is the one that's that creates this additional process because of the state yes so in that main section from like 22nd to 54th it would be a little center turn lane then when you go further south 54th to peniles point drive the concept is eliminating uh through lane in both directions because right now we have two southbound two northbound and a center turn lane so all that's lane elimination and it can have big impacts on traffic so we just want to make sure we understand that and plan accordingly right right and um as as folks said earlier that area is not getting less busy so i appreciate that you're taking the time to make sure um we consider everything before moving forward this the second option the first one that you mentioned um would that be viable if this if the preferred option doesn't work out is it still good or like better than what we have now if not the best option is it still yes i would say that's a decent fallback plan but um we're hoping not to have to do that yeah i know you never settle for decent so um thanks for all the work that you're doing on that you can tell people care a lot and it's one of those areas that we don't always talk about um in our meetings when we're talking about making our streets safer for for people no matter how they want to get around so i appreciate your work and look forward to seeing how that turns out all right thank you chair thank you councilmember fix sanders thank you just for um since we're operating in the sunshine and for transparency um dream dream defenders and our save our streets program so you've heard i've had conversation you've also heard vice chair floyd have conversation so i'm going to transfer what my conversation would be for him to hopefully hopefully incorporate in his conversation with administration because it doesn't take all of us to have the same conversation so again what i asked for was maybe not what is coming from their proposal but where the city could find to invite you all to participate in what's already being scheduled so with that being said hopefully they will find um funding for you now to get you have your foot in the door and actually access some of your talents and skills that will move the save our streets um initiative further um but it does make sense for both of us to be having the same conversation and if he's already had it um with administrative uh administration and i've had it with the mayor i think i'll let him move further with that and we'll be glad to support him when it brings when he brings it back to either committee or to full council okay thank you chair okay vice chair floyd thanks uh thank you for that but to something else evan actually uh i don't have any questions for you but uh in addition to you know the last time i put myself on here i was to talk about the conversations i had following up the first uh budget hearing i also had conversations with evan following up the first budget hearing about uh complete streets funding and uh it was in the cra uh stuff that we did earlier today and you could see it if you looked into the backup uh and it did come up a little bit but it wasn't explicit but i do think that the uh funding that we have for uh corridor uh commercial corridor development um and improvement is going it's substantial and moves the needle on thing complete streets types projects and so i'm very grateful uh that it was explicitly laid out today uh and very clearly uh explained uh how we're making a significant difference with the dollars that we were able to invest this year um so i at sense have talked to a lot of the advocates that were here last time to talk about it and they're not as many here today uh and i think that that makes a difference uh and i hope that uh everyone has expressed uh that they appreciate the work that has gone on in your department in that respect thank you yes uh almost four million dollars was in what was approved earlier today for towards complete streets so thank you thank you that's very appreciated by share floyd because i know evan and his team the transportation department and neighborhood meetings wow it gets heated people get very passionate about transportation issues so you've done a great job on this and making sure that everybody's on the same page and responding to all the emails and you know tackling all the issues so it's very much appreciated um approval j1a second oh hold on i'm not i i'm not done with my script i need to do my script i should know that too i apologize i have to go through my script all right read away chair this is this is driven by florida statue but i do want to say something i i i do have the want to say something before we finish since we were talking about budget and i'm going to be hammering this since till november as we know um amendment three is going to be on the ballot we are here talking about all the community's needs um amendment three three is about increasing the homestead exemption in 2027 by 105 to 150 000 in 2028 to 250 k and then every year adjusted annually by cpi if anyone has the opportunity to read the revenue estimating conference analysis and their forecasts of anticipated state and local revenue impacts i think it's probably worth while i'm just going to put on the record right now uh for the city of st petersburg their impacts as estimated for 27 to 38 34.6 million in 28 to 29 59.3 million 29 to 30 64.7 million 30 to 31 70.2 million 31 to 32 73.8 million dollars that would be money that is not in our budget and and goes into our general funds so that would be a huge impact it's not just us we mentioned jwb there's also the independent special districts that are supported by tax dollars and those are impacted and it tells you exactly how much in pinellas county it will cost those independent special district in 27 28 it's going to be 36 million dollars 28 29 60 million dollars so on and so forth and then you also have all the water districts in the state of florida that manage our flooding issues and all these other things that we face in the state of florida and you can look at those numbers and if that doesn't cause you heartburn uh i don't i i can't understand but those are just some of the things that should be looked at and i just mentioned our numbers that i mentioned statewide but it's something to really think about i know everyone's focused on their issue this is a big issue this is a big issue to really get educated and learn about and understand this cost doesn't just disappear it's absorbed by someone it's shifted to someone else it reduces in less services it's a reduction in services we still don't know in total how this is going to impact us it is september november is around the corner and i understand that you know you're going to hear from the other side how much waste in government there is but you know what we don't hear from residents in the city of st petersburg i want less services i never hear that they always want more it without fail whether it's whether it's their sidewalks whether it's the pothole whether it's the street whatever it may be we're supposed to be solve every issue from homelessness to hunger to infrastructure you name it and we're supposed to solve it and here we are we're they're going to take a hatchet to the budget so i'm just going to leave it there and i'm going to go back to my script okay the final millage rate for the city of st petersburg is 6.4525 mils which is a 1.05 increase over the rolled back rate of 6.3854 mils at this point we can approve the resolution setting the final millage rate so moved you have a motion to a second i'm j1a clerk if you can open the machine city council members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote i'm chair motion to approve with june item j1a passes six to two with council members driscoll and gibbons voting no council members vick sanders floyd gabbert girdus hannah witz and harding voting yes thank you now the next thing that we have up is the adopting the budget appropriations ordinance as amended i moved second we have a motion a second clerk if you can open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote madam chair motion to approve with j1b passes six to two with council members driscoll and gibbons voting no council members frick sanders floyd gabbert girdus hannah witz and harding voting yes thank you next up we have the approval of the resolution adopting the multi-year cip program for the city of st petersburg approval second we have a motion a second clerk if you can open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote madam chair motion to approve agenda j1c passes seven to one with council member driscoll voting no council members vick sanders floyd gabbert girdus gibbons henowitz and harding voting yes thank you the public hearing on the budget the military the budget slash appropriations ordinance and the multi-year cip program is now closed thank you all for joining us today on this and now we go back to our regular agenda and we go to our last open forum do we have any speakers we have no speakers we close that and we go to announcements and i think we you can take the j1c right okay announcements council member harding thank you chair i'm gonna do something i haven't done in my tenure i'm going to talk a little bit about something that i don't know enough about um normally i know nothing about it now i know a little bit um the uh i bring this up for um just the attention of my fellow council members and i bring it up without enough knowledge because it's it seems to be somewhat time sensitive if we if administration chooses to move forward with it the um the uh agreement or contract with our towing service that the city uses comes up at the end of this month there was a apparently there was a process um and i mean in a couple of conversations i've got this although i haven't seen it in writing but we will uh at some point uh for the past 32 years the city has used a company called tri-j they provide services um the tow truck services for uh our heavy fleet vehicles uh for sanitation for fire um they handle all call outs for the police departments they provide um crash vehicles for um for fire for for training um and i believe they also work with uh with parking management towing putting uh putting um the things on that make your cars not drivable um tri-j's apparently had this this contract for 32 years and it's always come up as an rfp uh and it's multi-generational inside this company apparently and this year it came back as a different bid process and i believe um in talking with administration we're going with a different company the the um the contract itself as i understand it is not really that that valuable to the city i think it's been sixty thousand dollars in the past now it's worth about fifteen thousand dollars but the value in in the contract as i understand it is in the services that the the citizens or the the insurance companies then then pay for right the police have an accident that they respond to they call it a tow truck service and and those cars are towed and the insurance companies are the the the individuals pay for it and that that contract from what i understand is possibly in the millions or that value is in the millions of dollars um my my issue is um is the way uh and i'd like to be corrected on this the way that the process was handled in the beginning instead of as an rfp it was what is referred to in in um in our in our organization as direct bid and it went out one way and the bid process went forward and and again um this part i'm not completely clear on but from what i understand tri-j was was the winner of that bid process and then that bid process was changed and we called out part of it the larger vehicles um or that what what they're referred to as the large vehicles the the fire trucks and the and the sanitation vehicles um and as a result when the numbers were reprocessed the other company one they're going to be awarded the contract the part that uh the the other part that i draw attention to is inside of that that the contract is based on the amount of money the city pays in somehow in the in the final termination determination and um and as a result folks who who use the towing services that are that are that come through the city instead of being charged 130 for that towing service um which would have been the the agreement with that with the first company they'll now pay 150 so we're going to be charging um the citizens more as a result of our relationship with the tow truck company and this is thousands of cars a year um and so i i have i have issue with this i think historically and i'm glad to be wrong on this i think historically this has come to council um i think that that as i understand it it's less than a hundred thousand dollars now that it'll be much less than a hundred thousand dollars um now it's not going to come to council um i've been i have been told that this definitely won't be coming to council it possibly was coming in the middle of october um and and i think that in the end that the the the relationship that uh that we had with with tri-j if that goes away that company goes away so that the company will just cease to exist this seems to be uh this seems to be a majority of their business they don't know what to do with all the information that i've just given you um i have i have talked to um not in any not in i have talked to um various departments about just their relationship with them uh are they are they reliable um and i was and from what i understand it this is a this is possibly part of that bid process and part of maybe what we're we're left with as a result of gao standards or gao oversight um and this is just maybe this direct bid process is just based on money um but it but if there is something that that we can do to to bring this to light or if there's something that we can do to hold this off um until uh council gets to learn more about it but i'm lost on this what i'm presenting to you is everything that i had that i know and i don't know this to be accurate quite frankly um that's my story chair thank you for the time thank you administration do you want to chime in on then we've just all heard about this and i would figure maybe administration has something i have some cursory information in my understanding is councilman harding's meeting with mr green and and stephanie tomorrow to talk in more detail about it that this was a process determined with the police department with stephanie and was agreed upon and it's my understanding that chief gerardo um is comfortable with the process and and where we're going so that's what i know at this point right okay um in terms of i guess whether it's rfp and direct bid i'm just curious how does any can anybody provide us like some context so we can go back with some knowledge of how this happens and changes i mean sometimes i i know i never know when there's an rfp for something and there isn't an rfp for something you know we may have done it the first time then we don't do it the second time and so what's this so good evening and and you know this is um kind of live information as we're as we're standing here tonight so um through the history of this contract we have used various methods of solicitation we have used the invitation to bid which is the process we used and quite candidly prior to i think 2021 that was our normal method of seeking this type of service was through a an invitation to bid in 2021 i believe we did do an rfp um and and and just to make this as simple as possible uh we use an invitation to bid or invitation for bid when we know what we want you know we know exactly what we want it's really a commodity that we're seeking we use an rfp process when the scope is evolving we're not exactly sure we want to get ideas from providers to really help us hone what it is we're trying to do so there are different methods of procurement that we use and this method seems reasonable in this in this situation so if that's the case then why did you do an rfp anyhow and if it is a commodity it was a commodity in 2021 but then there was an rfp done i don't recall i can i can do that research but i don't standing here this evening i don't know why we did an rfp yeah it's just kind of one of the things that you know i mean we'll get we sometimes question i sometimes wonder why we do one thing versus the other or you change a process and you may get a provider or somebody that thought a process was going to happen like the last time and it kind of changes so i'd just be curious especially if it was a commodity and then that means frankly then the invitation to bid should have never changed in the first place but somehow we went to an rfp in 21st i mean tom correct me if i'm wrong but typically it's i think it's the department director working with the director of procurement at the time to determine what the best path forward is and it's my understanding they work together in this instance um to go down this path okay okay well thank you um council member gibbons thank you madam chair i'll be brief uh just want to invite the community out this weekend there'll be a couple of events happening within district seven uh the long anticipated reopening of the historic manhattan casino two cheers three cheers for that one uh we got the september 19th from 10 a.m to 1 p.m 642 22nd street south all are invited to attend that uh and then there's also going to be the keys for life gun violence awareness walk september 19th from 11 30 to 1 p.m right around the corner at wildwood recreation center so we invite you all to come and take part in both of those events thank you chair thank you councilmember driscoll thank you just to follow up on that yes that um the towing the department director and the procurement director may have been in agreement with things um but i do wonder if they realized at the time that by changing the process they were ultimately going to not just eliminate um a long-time partner but put them out of business i can't speak to that i know no this is where it's not a question st petersburg right yeah i i i just kind of wonder you know um if they would do it the same way um knowing the results it sounds like i i just this doesn't sound like a case where somebody can just say well rules are rules so thank you councilmember harding for taking an interest in this for letting us know about it and for um working to learn more and see if there is uh some type of resolution i um i hate to see a long time local business have to shut its doors because of a change in a process so um and you know i i don't know what we could do i would suggest having someone from the city attorney's office in that meeting um just to provide some guidance but that's not why i push my button i push my button because this sunday pete's bagels on four street south which was originally a standard oil gas station will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of said gas station which has been lovingly restored historically designated and is now providing delicious bagels for many many people in south saint pete it is near harbordale park they are doing a celebration on sunday from nine to two manny leto from preserve the berg will be speaking um they've got some some vendors that will be there some fun family stuff and um as as a special um gift that they'll be announcing so i'm giving a little i'm like stealing their thunder i guess um but i'm so excited i was able to get them connected with the parks department because they wanted to do a gift to the community and um they are going to be having they're going to have a tree planted in the newly expanded harbordale park in honor of the standard oil 100th anniversary just a couple blocks away um and that is just the type of partner that steven peterman and the gang at pete's bagels really are i appreciate them so much their investment in the community and their um continuation of just putting their arms around the community it's going to be a great time if anyone wants to come out and join thank you thank you council member curtis thank you very much madam chair i'll try to be as brief as possible uh first and foremost i just want to thank the budget team and administration i know this was a long budget year but not more importantly but more personally i want to thank all of you i know this was a stressful budget year when you're talking about a three to five percent department cut across all those things i have the line items sitting on my desk it's like 1700 pages long of proposed line items and so just very thankful thankful for all of you and and your diligent work and normally i would say well we get a little bit of a reprieve until budget priorities but i think we'll all have amendment three looming over our heads and lots of conversations to be had over the next 60 days so i i don't think uh budget will leave our brains uh in in 2026 but just wanted to say a very big thank you to all of you and all the work and all the care you put into this budget and uh getting it to where we got it today uh second and a little bit more personally today is my dad's 70th birthday and so uh we won't i won't i won't make everybody sing to him but i just wanted to tell him happy birthday i wouldn't be sitting in the seat without you thank you for being a lovely uh an amazing role model an awesome dad uh and frankly an even better friend um and so i love you dad thank you so much and that it's my wife's birthday on september 22nd so i just wanted to tell her happy birthday on tv so my kids can watch it and so i love you no we won't do that i'll sing for her later it's okay and uh and and so uh just wanted to say happy birthday and again thank you everybody uh today was today was a good day thank you chair thank you i should say what you say you stole my thunder you did all the thank you i'm sorry no that's okay i was more concerned about like doing doing my script right because you know i know i jacked it up i apologize you get the eye you get the eye over there and i i was go i was trying to go for two i the first one i got an a yeah yeah so i think i did an a i i didn't mess it up this time no mess whatsoever yeah no he interrupted me you know i put it back in the lane yeah i'll push my button it was his phone happy to take the blame chair so um no thank you all for it has been a a very stressful year and continuing to be very stressful with the amendment and what's going to happen and budget season is never easy um as we've always heard there's unlimited needs and limited resources and we try to balance all that and sometimes it may seem solutions are easier you know the people say solutions and but there are you don't apply them as easy as it said uh when it works out whether it's legal reasons or other reasons or whatever um we balance all those issues and we try to come up the best we can and and i think we did a good job this year given all the um pressures that we've been receiving uh council member harding thank you for bringing up that issue it's clear that um you know first of all i i have no doubt that you you care about you know the residents and businesses in the community but you know learning about you know you're a business owner and learning that this may affect business it it's clear from your voice that it's important to you so i i guess what i'll do is i want to make sure um if um and this is because i just found out about it get more information and maybe administration could send you know cut the invitation to bid on this with all the information behind it the people that put in and all that and that way we can all get it and we can look at that and also get the rfp the prior time so we could see what the difference was and and kind of get that information so we have it um i i think that's at least the least we could do right now and and try to get that information so i'll follow up with an email that would be great yeah i'll do that so you don't have to worry about writing that i mean it's on the record but i'll make sure that i'll follow up with an email you're welcome okay i think that we have come to the end of our agenda there is nothing else for the good of the order so thank you all for joining us today thank you for your work meeting adjourned