City Council - Sep 25, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair, Leseth Kanowitz, District 5, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens-Jones. And District 8, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon. Welcome to the September 25th, 2025 City Council Meeting. If we could do a roll call, please. Curtis. Here. Gabbard. Here. Hanowitz. Here. Dick Sanders. Here. Driscoll. Here. Givens. Here. Lloyd. Here. Okay, this morning we will have our invocation given today by our own Council Member Corey Givens, Jr., and then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. If you join me in standing, please. Thank you, Chair. Let us pray. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in thy path, we pray. We come this afternoon, God, to say thank you. If we had 10,000 tongues that said thank you 10,000 times, it still wouldn't be enough for all that you do and continue to do. We have so many blessings, so many blessings that we do not have room enough to receive them. We live in one of the greatest cities on earth, and for that we are grateful. We are grateful for our leadership, Lord. Lord, we ask that you cover and protect each and every one of them, each and every one of us, from local elected officials all the way to the White House. Let us lead, Lord, not by our will, but by your will and by your way, so that the greater good of humanity may be accomplished. We ask that in all we do that you be glorified. Lord, Lord, we ask that you hide us and that you continue, Father, to get the glory out of all that we do and all that we say. Let it be about you and not about us. We ask that you touch each and every person in this city, from the least fortunate, Father, to the biggest corporation. Look over us as we endeavor to do good, to walk humbly, and to love mercifully. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Councilmember Gibbons, thank you so much for the invocation. Councilmembers, real quick before we get to the agenda, obviously I have a neck brace on, and so if I'm not looking at you, I apologize in advance. I'll probably be getting up and down just to stretch, but I'm here with you for the evening, so I'm not going anywhere, but I know I've asked for this a lot over the last few weeks. Just give me a little grace and just appreciate it so much. I just wanted to give you a heads up. This will be on and off, and I'll probably be standing up and stretching. Okay, councilmembers, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other councilmembers wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present councilmembers have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote. Mr. Chair, motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Okay, councilmembers, we have a consent agenda. Clerk, do we have any cards on the consent agenda? Okay, councilmembers, we have a consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda, seeing as no other councilmembers wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously okay we're going to move right into open forum clerk if you could please read the rules 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 meal you may only speak once during the open forum when the item comes up on the agenda in order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council each individual will be given three minutes to speak and after which the microphone will be muted if you wish to address city council through the zoom meeting you must use the raise hand feature on 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'll be unmuted and actually state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three minute limit three minute time limit you will be muted all raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item regardless of the method of participation used normal rules apply including the three minute time limit on comments the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum if live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of decorum the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means including by email only and we do have some speakers mr chair okay let's call two at a time please first two speakers jamie hoke and john hoke please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council i'm sorry okay you can lower that if you want to thank you here's a switch on your left hand side by your hip oh right hand side oh we'll get it sorry about that i'm a new one here in short um okay i'm ready okay hello my city council members my name is jamie hoke born and raised st petersburg native 6801 10th avenue north st petersburg florida 33710 i'm here to urge you to save the st petersburg science center a cornerstone of our west side community a legacy for my first grandchild harrison arriving 2026 no further city funding is needed to make this happen for four years st pete for stem my son john and many others have worked to overturn over time to revive the science center securing millions in state federal and private funds they've offered 1.6 million above market value to buy the land and transform the blight bleat into a self sufficient hub with venues for community events like baby showers or my daughter rose ellen's future wedding yet the city decision to cancel the sale in favor of storm water tanks opting to keep a relocatable brush site threatens this gift as joe hamilton said you don't kill a 20 million dollar project because you don't want to move a pile of palm fronds my two children john and rose ellen are st pete natives like much of my family as a parent every time i've dropped them off i trusted that we're learning skills that would shape their problem solving abilities and world view the results speak for themselves john now president of the jungle terrace neighborhood army officer and a businessman who has stayed in saint pete and continues to give back to his community rose ellen inspired by the same graduated from emory riddle a stem university was commissioned as a navy officer and is finalizing her helicopter pilot training in pensacola i want my grandson harrison to build and dream here just like his daddy john and his aunt rose ellen the science center is a launch pad for stem dreams and building the leaders of tomorrow's saint pete its robotics artificial intelligence astronomy astronomy and sustainability exhibits inspire thousands equipping kids for tomorrow's challenges john hooke president of jungle terrace civic association calls it integral to creating great humans yet closure leaves a depressing eyesore today as you discuss its future i urge you to approve the land sale and relocate the brush site if needed a simple solution for a fully funded self-sufficient project let's ensure baby harrison and every child can build learn and soar here save the science center thank you good afternoon council members my name is john hooke 8318 40th avenue north i am here today representing the council of neighborhood associations i stand before you today not just as a neighborhood leader but as someone whose own childhood was shaped by the saint petersburg science center the foundations formed at this historic site have led me to become a successful business owner an army officer and a community leader the science center is an integral asset to creating good and great humans in saint pete as a young student i spent my summers building rockets replica engines and tapping out morris code while also learning about the native tokobaga people who once lived on this land those experiences didn't just entertain me they ignited a lifelong curiosity and a love of learning and i know i'm not alone generations of children from across saint petersburg grew up with memories just like these memories that bind us together as a new father i want saint pete's future generations to have the same experiences we did the science center is more than a building as a part of our city's history culture and neighborhood identity the mosaic trail tampa bay's largest public artwork remains a vibrant reminder of what this site means to our community we face a choice do we preserve and rebuild a historic landmark that has already secured millions in funding a gift to the city requiring no taxpayer dollars or do we risk erasing decades of history for the possibility of building water tanks that may never come to fruition especially when the water treatment capacity at the northwest plant has already been expanded the recent feasibility study compared the science center site to a brush site but it's not a fair comparison comparison the analysis was based on an inflated replacement property value of 2.9 million which overstated the cost associated with replacing the brush site the science center is being purchased for above full market value and those funds could help us replace the brush site if ever needed the truth is this doesn't have to be an either or decision we can preserve our historic science center while still meeting the city's long-term utility needs in a more thoughtful and cost-effective manner if we walk away now we lose more than a piece of property we lose a funded stem hub at a time when schools are struggling with budget cuts we lose an artificial intelligence center of excellence that would boost jobs innovation and economic competitiveness for saint pete's future leaders we lose an event space and office space for west saint pete and perhaps most importantly we lose trust trust that our city will keep its promises to its people on behalf of the 45 member neighborhoods of kona i ask you to choose preservation progress and community let us bring the science center back to life not just for today but for generations yet to come thank you thank you next two speakers next two speakers dr perry g washington and dr eight carson please go to either podium state your name and address for the record you have three minutes to address city council my name is dr perry g washington look it up on the internet perry g washington owner you find i retired at the real estate doctor washington we need your address please perry bayview incident state in the city and i'm perry perry bayboo now mr washington excuse me dr washington i need your address please sir i will not give you my address because i will not be assassinated give us your cross streets please bayview and 34th street thank you i've done this many times before now i received a letter on the 11th dated the 28th of august it stated that i was going to waive my right in the city said according to code violation first of all i don't like the way it was done you have a copy i left it last yesterday i will not go over it second of all the city does not have the right obey my rights you cannot it's against the law and every time you do it to me you do it to someone else i've heard the word we i heard the word our we who ah who i'm not going to tolerate it i've had you all stand up and donate money to a raw to a war i saw you donate fifteen thousand dollars for a game and people were standing here asking my money for a woman's assistance program bottom line i went there and i gave them what i had to say in writing i gave it to you but i like my right here i'm going to sue you what happened the other year i have forgot and i have not won the court it took all these years all these months seven months eight months we might go to court why they want me to say i'm guilty you ought to read my first of all 32 and a half years do you or me have the more knowledge thank you dr washington go ahead dr carlson i'm dr ed carlson 76 91 30th avenue north for jungle terror civic association i'm here to advocate for our grand magnificent glorious supercalifragilisticexpialidocious science center yes so 85 years in st petersburg grew up in midtown over 55 years in west st petersburg 19 years president of jungle terror civic association five decades and generations of children teens and adults have learned enjoyed and grown from our science center the reality of the northwest treatment plant which is in our neighborhood since the 2015 overflow two deep well injection sites have been rehabilitated two new deep well injection sites are drilled thus we've doubled the capacity the storage tanks from went from 10 million gallons expanded two and a half times to 25 million gallons the northwest plant is good forever into the future just in case multiple creative alternatives to move the brush site the city owns properties 635 feet long by 111 feet wide across from azalea middle school caddy corner to the science center the azalea church has a large vacant space across the street number seven on the feasibility map 2401 72nd street north is available there's vacant land at 2449 anvil street in the industrial park the greek church on four and a half acres has a large parcel south of their church which could be utilized the new science center is like our initial one it's inclusive includes everybody it's collaboration of citizens bipartisan state and federal grants local officials non-profit organizations architects engineers who love our city to kill this beautiful center of education economic development and community gathering for a brush site would be dastardly healthy gathering place for children teens and adults continues the historic guard walk of blending of states and a self-sustaining enhancing unique gift to our city and region be yes to our science center and i look forward to having my 90th birthday on the event center on the roof and you all are invited next two speakers please one zoom speaker mr chair marley price once you enter to the meetings place please unmute yourself state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council uh good afternoon can you hear me yes awesome um marley 50 34 32nd of north i was super excited to dial in today as i'm sure you all saw the news about the clearwater feasibility study for public power being released this week um i know some of you wanted to wait for those results before making any decisions here and it looks really convincing um 10 lower rates in the first year starting as soon as 2026 would make a real difference for families in our city right now um so i hope you'll all take it as seriously as you were before the study came out um as our franchise agreement end date really is sneaking up around the corner um and i also find it really interesting that this impartial study and how it compares to the one duke commissioned which obviously it's really clear now that that was a tactic to scare residents out of cutting them off um but it's inspiring that clearwater officials are willing to go up against this huge corporation on behalf of their community and of course this isn't like a concrete measure but i will also point out that it was a clearwater council member that won the best of the bay award for best politician last night um so i think that really just speaks to what people are asking their city council members to do right now um and the clearwater mayor summed it up really nicely i think that if there's a way to offer residents lower rates how can we not consider it so i really hope you all like really put some thought to that and uh do the right thing thank you thank you next two speakers please dr lynn sanat and steve elftman please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council i'm dr lynn senate 107 fair and place north saint pete 33701 dear city council members thank you for your service i speak today to implore you to support the revitalization of the science center on the west side of saint pete i realize this is an administrative decision however council and engaged citizens can play a big part in making this a reality why the science center as a retired research mathematician i know both the importance of mathematical literacy as well as what fun math can be today's new york times ironically enough is an article what declines in reading and math we mean for the u.s workforce it's not just for college everybody is concerned welding heating and manufacturing and air conditioning manufacturing for pipe fitting students need to understand fractions the u.s is falling behind employers are concerned math scores are the lowest since 2005 one executive likens it to a frog in a pot of water the pot is heating up think about the potential opportunities to assist our students bringing buses bringing youth from all over the city to have fun and learn at the center a great opportunity to enhance the stem abilities of our young citizens and increase their later job prospects so i'm ready to volunteer so i'll ask you guys how would you choose a how would you teach a youth why three times five equals five times three well i have these little bags of colored blocks and you can just set up a little thing and it's obvious to everybody so a lot um our city has so many assets museums we have many great ones artist studios hot shops um parks and beauties such as sunken garden we need the science center fully funded a gift to our city requiring no taxpayer dollars please stand with our community help make this transformational asset a reality your support honors our history invests in our future and keeps st petersburg a city that values education innovation and cultural enrichment thank you for your leadership and your consideration and i'll leave this with chan so everybody can take a look at it thank you go ahead steve uh do i have a graphic image to display my name is steve elftman president of the azalea neighborhood association i live at 1401 farragut drive and i want to say a few words about why the science center was important when it opened in 1966 and why now more than ever science matters i want to tell you about my neighborhood's first generation the pioneers who built the science center in the mid 1950s a golf course in west st pete was transformed into a thousand new homes the new neighborhood was called azaleaville meanwhile on our eastern edge at what is now known as the raytheon site electronic communications inc or eci began operations and started hiring scientists and technicians from across the country moved to west st pete for these jobs they started families and wanted better educational opportunities for their kids in 1959 they organized a science club and by 1966 there was a science center built by donations and funding efforts it immediately received national attention it was not just a west side attraction that's because 1966 was a huge year for science there was the first soft landing on the moon and the apollo program was preparing to put men on the moon in three years in 1966 the year that the science center opened was the year star trek premiered public excitement about science was everywhere the science center's opening in march was a big event with special buses ran from williams park to the ceremonies among the speakers at the opening was the voice of nasa mission control the man heard on television for every manned space flight so the science center is more than a building it represents what our first generation valued 70 years ago and what i hope we still value picture the near future a student riding a bus to azalea middle school what will she see every day a science center that makes her think that science is important or will she see wastewater storage tanks with today's challenges to science and education we need a place like the science center to inspire the next generation even more than we did in 1966. thank you for supporting our science center next two speakers please amy posadente and dr julie mastery please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council amy posadente 2860 63rd street north mayor welsh and city council members my name is amy posadente and i live in the holiday park area of st petersburg i am here today to express my strong support for rebuilding the science center at its historic home in jungle terrace as a saint pete native i remember taking field trips to the science center in grade school as the mother of a six-year-old i have been looking forward to my son having the chance to likewise visit and learn at the science center my son and his first grade class are being introduced to science more heavily as part of their first grade curriculum than they did in kindergarten excuse me topics covered so far include all about the sun and what is gravity they would benefit so much from complementing their in-class stem learning with field trips to the science center allowing them to build rockets explore the mosaic trail study local history and more as president of the holiday park neighborhood association i can confidently report that holiday park residents as well as our fellow west st pete neighbors are united in a desire to have the science center reopen less than two weeks ago in my role as hpna president i attended the mayor's annual neighborhood summit where one of the main themes was quote celebrating our uniqueness during this summit the mayor and various speakers encouraged us to identify celebrate and honor the unique and special parts of our neighborhoods and communities well the science center is certainly one of the most special opportunities here in west st petersburg that will serve as an important destination for all city residents city council and especially our west side councilman i implore you to work with administration and the mayor to figure out a way to make this project work the brush site can be moved and my son and his classmates are ready to schedule a field trip to the science center thank you thank you good afternoon council members my name is julie mastery and i come before you i'm sorry my address 100 first avenue north 33701 i come before you as a former math teacher kind of one of those nerds uh head of the cap program math science computer technology multimedia um principal of two high schools one was st pete high and countryside deputy superintendent former superintendent of pinellas county schools i am a true uh dedicated educator and i believe strongly in doing the right thing for our children in my entire life i've kind of dedicated to um helping young minds understand how math and science connect and using stem to make all of those connections in real world problems the st pete science center has always been more than a building my children know this they've experienced it for decades it was a place where children experienced the thrill of discovery through hands-on experiments stargazing at the planetarium which is still there a piece of it and robotics coding projects that brought learning to life it offered school programs during the day after school enrichment and summer camps and inspired thousands of young people when the city acquired the property it was with the promise that it would remain dedicated to science education now we must honor that promise the urgency is clear national studies and you've heard this from other speakers show that american students continue to lag behind their international peers in math and science achievement but when children engage in science outside the classroom in places like our science center their performance and confidence grows dramatically these programs create the pipeline for future engineers doctors scientists innovators right here in st pete there is a plan to not only restore update and improve the facility the plan is to provide cutting-edge programs and partners to this community this effort has strong support from the state the city educators parents in the community families are asking for it and teachers are asking for it and our children need it i urge you council members to look not at the property value but at the human value the spark in a child's eye when eyes when they light up a circuit for the first time or the pride they feel when they realize that they can do science and math preserving this property as a science center is not only honoring its history it's an investment in the future for our city and our children please keep the science center property dedicated to inspiring generations to come thank you thank you thank you next two speakers please one speaker in zoom mr chair jason s once you enter to the meeting space please unmute yourself state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council good afternoon can you hear me perfect uh jason scott 4636 redfish lane southeast i'm sure you all heard as marley said earlier of the clear water feasibility study being completed and released i hope all of you sit down and read it thoroughly while keeping in mind that it does not exactly represent rate payers or assets in the saint pete area and that a saint pete study is still required for us to understand what is possible for our city in the clearwater study it laid out how the city can effectively lower rates for its residents while taking on improvements as well and over a period of time can lower rates that is similarly significant in savings as other cities in florida enjoy i also want to point out that we're currently seeing duke advertising that are suggesting that we're going to see rate rates lowering uh in march 2026 but in reality this is due to their storm recovery charges expiring while year-over-year rates are actually increasing which was improved by the psc up to 2027. thank you thank you net two speakers mr chair brian hapala and jenna burn please go to either podium state your name and address for the record you have three minutes to address city council you can also raise the podium yep thank you didn't want to stay you're good uh good afternoon my name is brian hopla 1214 10th street north 33705 uh i'm one of the co-directors of pathfinder outdoor education and i'm here to advocate for the science center when pathfinder volunteered and was selected to be the fiscal agent of the science center our sole goal was to provide hands-on educational opportunities with a focus in science and technology to future generations in pinellas county the st pete science center served as a unique and beloved place for those who grew up visiting and learning at this facility and is fondly remembered by countless children pinellas county schools and some of us in this room today who are impacted by its programming at the science center peak it saw over 20 000 kids annually so just imagine how many more children families and pinellas county students we could provide future educational field trips to that would not have the access to these opportunities without a science center learning hub in our city knowing there is a science achievement gap in our state and city we want to increase opportunities for school-age children to participate in experiential learning hands-on education and adaptive technology we continue to face new challenges in our nation that put pressure on training and educating our future youth and scientists so with these opportunities the expertise of local educators and high quality program initiatives we can help to close that gap within our city and foster a more resilient community with science-based leaders this is a worthy investment in our future with your help in keeping the science center revitalization project alive as envisioned and planned this space would fuel inquisitive minds enthusiasm and through diverse educational collaborations on all things science and tech your support in the science center will help provide students from all ages and stages backgrounds and income levels with the opportunity to to be more capable and competent leaders develop life and technical skills that are available to respond to any future challenges our city may face please consider how the science center would be an invaluable asset to pinellas county area and provide a myriad of family-friendly classroom supportive environments for generations to come thank you for your time good afternoon council um i am you know privileged to be able to be here and speak with you today my name is jenna burn i am a very proud resident of st petersburg my address is 435 3rd ave north 33701 i'm also here representing water warrior alliance we are one of the first tenants of the st petersburg science center and we are very proud to help lead the environmental education within the facility i have been in operation for over a decade here in st petersburg and while i operate all over the state of florida st pete is my home and where all of my core programs will always be it is beautiful we have community arts culture and local businesses we've done so well with not bringing in a whole bunch of different chains and that inspires not only you know adult residents but our children see it they know it's different here and it is special here so resiliency is something that has come up a lot and a lot of the content that's come out recently resiliency is not abstract it is a lived experience so last year i was personally and professionally devastated by the hurricanes and if i didn't have community support it would have been even harder i'm still recovering i'm moving out of a storage unit and converting my garage and my new residence around the corner into my office because we lost so much so resiliency isn't just a few different decisions we're going to make now it's us investing and inspiring this next generation to understand how to be innovative and learn and they're not going to be able to do that with the means um that our public education has to offer and so you know nowadays i have two girls and i do youth programs all year round and it is my favorite thing to do as julie mastri had said being able to experience a child witness and accomplish something for the first time is so absolutely beautiful and you know our kids nowadays they love technology they need something hands-on so a worksheet in school is not going to engage them enough to have that interest to see if this is a passion of theirs that they want to follow through and commit to because it's a test they're given the day after they're given the assignment and they're expected to understand and absorb that knowledge but there are many different styles of learning and hands-on experience is one of the main things that they'll be able to experience in the saint pete science center i actually grew up in pasco county which is north of here but i grew up underprivileged and underserved and so i've been involved with joe hamilton and amazing community members here for i think three four years now at least on this project and i've spoke with several council members here before and years ago um deborah fix sanders had mentioned transportation as an issue for members in her district and i know being an thank you thank you all so much next two speakers mr chair aileen carey and joellen i think it's like i can't read the last name can you repeat that second name please clerk joellen schleich i think that's what it is can't read the writing please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address to the council hello good afternoon my name is eileen carey i'm at 5320 10th street north and i'm here um because we really need help with the permitting process for our home um i understand that city has been working really hard for recovery over the past almost year and really want to say thank you to the team members for the city and for you all for everything that you have done to help us you know get back to normal rebuild our community rebuild our city i do see that work has been done but our personal story is that a tree fell in our house during hurricane milton um and we're trying to do everything right and uh we submitted our permit 21 weeks ago and we've been really patiently waiting um and about a month ago i kind of started getting frustrated and so i started to reach out saying hey what's going on why is this being held up i don't want to skip in line but like where am i in line i need kind of an update and they were like oh you're so you're so soon you should have it you know by the end of this week or next well that was two weeks ago so we've been waiting um and uh i do want to say thank you to trisha terry specifically who's been very responsive with her communication always getting back to me letting me know where things are in the process um i've also been in contact with our contractor about daily to be like what's going on what do you need to submit where it's going and every time they're like we submitted it we're waiting and then it's like another week waiting on the city to get back to them and then they're like oh we need something else and it's just horrible back and forth um and most recently uh we were told on friday all you need to do is pay and then you got your permit so we caught our contract and said hey we were told all we need to do is pay and then they paid and then the city like oh wait you need something else so they immediately submitted it and that was monday and now we're on thursday um and so i'm just really frustrated i want my house to get back to normal we've been waiting patiently um all that to say i want to reiterate that i really appreciate everything the city's been doing and i understand that everyone's overwhelmed by workload taking care of all of our residents um but it just really feels like we have gone through the ringer with this process um and i'm really kind of at my wits end i know people who have been in my same situation who applied for permits after us who have gotten permits um and so i'm like i don't really know what's going on with ours in particular i'm trying to be patient but i'm really getting frustrated so if you all can help us get to the finish line and get this permit it would mean the world to us so thank you very much ma'am if you could just hang out for a minute callie's going to come in and get your contact information for me and i'll look into it personal last speaker let's just repeat the name one more time joellen she may have had to leave i think that may have been her that had to leave um senator daryl russon senator welcome good afternoon daryl russon 535 central avenue st petersburg 33701 i really don't have a lot to say except save the science center my little brother whose dissertation was entitled the direct numerical simulation of particle-laden channel flow fluid thermal dynamics that he learned at the science center when he was young carried him through engineering at howard and at stanford he donated the textbook that he wrote to the science center and thank them for sparking a hunger for knowledge in him that he's been able to spread throughout the united states and the world i have worked with a great team of people so far and over the last five years i've brought back nearly seven million dollars in state funding to support this operation as you know it is not easy getting appropriations out of tallahassee and if this project does not go through it very likely will revert and have to be reappropriated which is no guarantee i stand with mr hamilton the neighborhood association presidents the residents of that area in saying please save the science center thank you thank you senator no more speakers mr chair okay thank you we're going to go ahead and close open forum and council members before we go into our reports i'm going to turn it over to legal for an introduction that i accidentally skipped thank you chief thank you council i just wanted to introduce you to anastasia underwood thank you for approving confirming her appointment on your consent agenda we're very excited to have her as we always are to add a new attorney who already has a long list uh to the office um anastasia is going to be working on some grant programs land use environmental uh she's eager to learn extremely smart and we're fortunate to have her um awesome thank you and welcome anastasia thanks for putting the jersey on would you like to say anything put you on the spot you know legal doesn't have to push the button yeah we jump in thanks for this opportunity and i'm so excited to be part of um the city attorney's officer for city of st pete thanks for the opportunity thank you welcome okay council members we're going to go into reports and we're going to go to f2 uh and we're this is uh we've got lots of good news i think everybody knew it was budget so we pulled a bunch of good news this afternoon and so uh we're going to welcome brujesh on an item for good news pulled by council member harding council member harding did you want to intro the item yeah thank you very much chair i appreciate the opportunity brujesh thank you for uh for coming forward i i wanted this to uh to be pulled and for us to talk about it because um the the the understanding that the team that we have working here at the city is absolutely incredible this project that brujesh is going to talk about is i don't know how you would term it it's a regional project um the project in itself uh upon completion will affect the area from venetian isles and shore acres all the way up to and probably past 16th and north to south from 22nd to at least 62nd this is one project that will affect and it's it's bigger than it it involves let's see there are eight districts that involves more than district three it's got to be damn near a quarter of the entire city um and the uh and the idea that um that mother nature decided she was going to do different things and we're able to uh and we're able to accommodate that on such a mass scale this will bring relief uh to just a a phenomenal amount of people and brujesh i could not be any more uh impressed with your team thank you very much thank you chair thank you rej welcome thank you council brujesh premium insurance captain improvements department first of all i would like to apologize um time-wise i did not i i really wanted to put together something to give context of the scale of the magnitude of the possible benefits but unfortunately i hit sent and i didn't i thought i had said it was still in draft so um we've all made that mistake before brujesh don't worry about it yeah so i if it's possible i may ask chan to bring up the council location map just so the residents and we can give general perspective absolutely um thank you i appreciate that and while that is being done um i wanted to really talk um big and again this is this is where we really started to take a look into the innovation and thinking outside the box that we do have projects um that we have on the books um stormwater master plan projects other type of um resiliency and sustainability projects but how all of these strategically come together towards a big picture and we had a really good conversation at the hoes committee um last week i believe about the base and sea and how those laid out strategically and this is the beginning of that thinking process within these northeast quadrants of the city so there will be more to come um but this is the start of it and you know there are the key element i want to bring apart and the council member touched on it is that the tidal gates that we're planning is to be installed within the vicinity of the shore acres it does not and i want as much as possible and we will have to do a really good job when we do the public engagement part of this that is not to benefit one community but this is a benefit to all the communities in that region um so we will have to do a lot of public engagement when we start this project um so the gates will be located within that area and why we're moving forward with this project now um council district maps okay i think i could work with that um so why that's important is because right now we're in the process of um beginning the design of the overlook bridge there are two channels that currently flow out of that water body that water body um receives water from the western section of the city stormwater basins l and m unfortunately i know these alphabet by head in my head now um and essentially stormwater systems are designed so that they're major basins and they're micro basins all those micro basins flow towards and generally flow towards a main corridor out kind of like our roads are your residential and then your collectors and the arterials so if you think about it 54th avenue channel as well as the 45th avenue channel are the interstate for the stormwater system getting out of those communities that go as far west as 16th street now those areas are tidally impacted and you we've all all spoken about the hydraulic grade line within our stormwater system and sea level rise and how that impacts the efficiency of our stormwater system so taking that into context um you know these improvement taking that into context what we looked at on the area of that water body and to give you an idea the communities that flow towards that water body out of basins l and m we're talking about edgemore placido bayou arcadia euclid heights greater growthmont harris park allendale allendale oaks allendale terrace patrician point eden isles and also parts of northeast park magnolia heights five points snell and oakwood so that gives the context of why how what we're looking at on the possible benefits of this now many of these communities were tidally impacted during helene as well as the rain induced flooding from milton um obviously with milton we had extreme rain events during cycles of our tide event so that didn't have enough time to relieve itself in the hydraulic gray line within the water body so we're looking at installing tidal gates primarily at two locations and as i mentioned it's within show acres but that's because that's the water body that provides the ultimate discharge of all these communities towards tampa bay now if we do the calculation just the high level calculation and council member scratched my head on this and this is why i did this another way he had a question on volume so just on the volume of the calculation of just that water body not taking into account the volume of what storage that we could pick up in our stormwater system for each six inches of that water body we're talking about 52 million gallons of storage capacity so if during a rain a major rain event storm we see an impact of surge we can close that gate our stormwater system can operate but we don't have that surge impact on our stormwater that puts our residents at risk of flooding as far west as these locations so you see we've done one on the south basin c this is its location we will continue to look for opportunities for these major regional benefits across our community as a whole so the objective of this project as i mentioned we're getting started to start to get moving on that bridge design but we don't want to start a bridge design that ends up with the structural supports of our bridge that are too narrow so we want to define how wide we need to be so we can fit if it's a feasible design so we can fit our um valves our gates so we don't have scour or we also have efficient drawdown of that bio and we don't affect water quality and also we can look at the extent of the benefit so that's primarily why we're looking towards this project this at this point we need to do that modeling we need to understand the design criteria so that we we can move forward with outlining that in the design of the bridge i'm sorry for the lengthy explanation but i am open to questions thank you brej and uh council member harding thanks for pulling the item so we can talk about the east side of town and the entire conversation is about district one today i appreciate that uh so uh we'll go to council member cavern thank you chair and uh thank you brujesh for the uh item thank you council member harding for pulling it for conversation um i don't know if it was you know just that it was on consent or that you pulled it or what but obviously there was an article in the tampa bay times uh that talked about this project and you can only imagine as a representative for district two uh lying 95 within the coastal high hazard area every single neighborhood being dramatically infected by helene and other events that happened prior to that my phone began to ring off the hook immediately after this article came out uh st petersburg considers flood gates to protect shore acres so what does that say to our community it says that we are prioritizing one neighborhood over another so i'm very glad that we're having this conversation today because um a lot of the confusion that was created um i don't know that we're going to be able to necessarily clear up today but as the representative for the district it is my job to elevate the concerns of the residents that i serve to the city and so i wanted to have a conversation today um and some of this is going to come from the actual analysis and the feasibility and some of these alternatives that might come from uh the study i support the study today um so i want to start there but i just wanted to ask and brujesh um hopefully you'll be able to answer some of these from our conversation the other day you know we talk about being able to hold back water well water finds a way water is always going to have to dissipate somewhere else and so when you're talking about all of these neighborhoods really if you district three and four a lot of it what do we say to district two who has had issues for a very long time with flooding dating all the way back to etta in 2020 they are a repetitive loss neighborhood riviera bay specifically what do we say to them when they say to us where is that water going to go and are you going to make us the next shore acres what do we say to that so one of the key elements in the modeling that we will have to do is to ensure the impacts on the wave action so we don't spread or we cause adverse impacts on adjoining communities so that's key and critical to it but the other element is within this area primarily we get more of that bathtub search as well and that will really go into um the analysis of how we do the modeling um but the in in retrospect and you know i don't want to say yes there's nothing to be worried about because at the end of the day ideas start with a concept sometimes the concept work but we have to vet it um this may not be the final solution it may not be the complete solution but i would say that there there are other solutions within the other communities that we're working on um you know the coordination we've had with the regional planning council is leading to some really good projects regionally in that community as well and i look forward to the conversations with the district 2 master plan because that's also going to facilitate you know the land development codes as well as how we address additional improvements within that community so i would say definitely in your first element of what are the impacts we want to make sure we don't adversely impact any other community that's we don't want to push the problem from one spot to another that's key right um the other element is so that will be taken care of in the model modeling analysis um the other element of it as far as what's next step for these communities you know we will continue working with the tampa bay regional planning council understand their projects but there are also some projects that we are proposing to them that could probably look at that regional benefit along the same scenario as well so i would say that will probably come out of the regional planning recommendations or probably be partnerships of those odd could you please um so we're talking about the regional planning council the collaboration the cooperation trying to come up with more regionalized projects um so let's talk about the resilient saint pete action plan um the residents we have asked them over the course of the last year plus to cooperate and participate in this planning um we were supposed to have had a deliverable by now unfortunately there were some staffing changes at jacobs which i think might have slowed things down a little bit residents are saying well we participated in this we thought you would all produce this plan that our say would be involved in these large regional projects and now you're moving forward with all of these things without actually taking our our thoughts into consideration so can you give the residents who are listening today a timeline estimated um recognizing things happen um but when can they expect for the regional action plan to actually be delivered to them so the product from the regional action plan we're going to be delivering it in a little bit of an unusual way than we normally do normally you know we we create a like a report story map yeah and so what we're going to be doing for this is a story map that can be on our website that can that that'll show um aerial photographs of of the different neighborhoods that are affected it'll it'll it'll it'll list some of the things that were brought to us by the neighborhoods it'll list some of the the general conceptual ideas of how to handle the flooding in those different areas and it'll be an interactive type of of uh product and so i know the staff is working on that i've seen communications between jacobs and our team on making sure that we get that that that story map up and running and i know that that they've made good progress on it i believe we're going to have something that we can review in october but i i can't i i didn't come prepared to to really nail down that date but based off of the conversations i've seen from the the um the team i think they're making good progress okay so when we had a meeting in august with the team um that i sat in on we were hoping to have a deliverable by september unfortunately again staffing changes at jacobs i think had some effect on that um now we're saying that potentially maybe october um you know i i really i just want to press on the administration that we find a way to move this forward we need to move this plan to a place where the residents can actually then give us more feedback after it gets released we can incorporate more neighborhoods um you know this really is a city-wide issue and um it's really moved to a place now where residents want to make sure that their voices are included they felt like it was through this process but now that we're kind of you know at the end and we can't just quite get it in for a landing i'm really just asking that administration honor the request of the residents and get this project done so that residents do feel included in these decisions as we move forward we're spending their utility dollars and they should feel as though they have a say in what we're doing um the last thing that i want to ask about and this might go back a little bit to um you know the concerns about where the water is going to go you know riviera bay um the canals within riviera bay took on a lot of siltation from the hurricanes and we've been talking about this behind the scenes a lot um they're they're quite frankly pretty fed up with the fact that we are kind of hand you know handicapped by the army corps of engineers um we need to move some of that stuff forward one of the questions i had about the floodgates was well you're telling us that you can't dredge our canals because of the army corps of engineers process and that you don't have the funding to do it either but you're going to do these floodgates and you're also doing that on navigable bot navigable bodies so does that not take the army corps of engineers so can we talk a little bit about the army corps and and kind of the misnomers around that so such a good question so just to put into perspective i think for the communities have to understand this is not a project to say we're doing it this is a project for evaluation so it's the modeling plus reaching out the army corps the regulatory agencies florida fish and wildlife doing the nipa evaluation to see can we do it not just the modeling so you will include the army corps in oh yeah so this is not to say we're moving forward with the design criteria to develop a design criteria and we're moving and we're building this is not that this is for and this question is so perfect um this is really for us to investigate can it be done what are the permitting implications what are we looking at at permitting timelines regulation do we have to do mitigation for this all that will be defined so i want the residents to understand it's not that we're doing it we investigate what the benefits are and what the implications are what the constraints are for us to even move forward with the project if it is feasible and i think too that kind of takes me back to my original question about the article and some of the miscommunication around that i think it's really important for residents to understand that just because we vote to even study it today does not mean that it will happen does not mean that it will happen in the way that people believe it might happen and also once again because you have the army corps involved the process for dredging these canals in riviera bay we've looked at that and with the army corps permitting alone and then all of the work that we would have to do on the back end that could be an 800 day project correct so let's think about that in the context of floodgates right like you can only imagine so this is not going to be an overnight win and all of a sudden we're going to be you know protected in this particular area and this is a long game yeah and you bring up another good point the word protected so even if this let's say in the future this pans out a perfectly viable project it provides the benefits we're looking for we have a path forward at the end of the day what residents have to understand is protection you have to understand your evacuation zone right if you any back i mean those are things that still exist and we still need to have a concerted effort and a plan for how we're going to help these communities lift themselves up out of that harm's way because we are a coastal community we are never going to keep all the water out of our city it's just not going to happen we all have to learn to adapt and get get really prepared for the future which is living with this water and so i i just i want this to be crystal clear because people read these headlines i mean i called you and i read you the article and i was like what would you think if you lived in shore acres and you're reading this article right it feels like a false promise that we're protecting and so this is our opportunity to be really clear with residents what it is what it isn't and i'm just asking again that we really get focused on a resident participation piece to everything that we do in this space one of the main drivers of community resilience is education and collaboration with our communities and if we are not educating them they're not going to know what we're doing and what the actual output is going to be so um thank you again for pulling the item and thank you chair for the time okay council members move approval second we have a motion a second on f2 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a unanimous f2 passes unanimously okay thank you all right we're going to move into f3 another good news item this one's pulled by council member givens we're going to talk about a child care food program grant we've got mike jeffries joining us but i'll turn it over to council member givens council member givens thank you chair um i said this one be pulled mainly because mike knows for years um i've been a huge reponent for fighting and combating food insecurity uh specifically in south saint pete which has been designated uh a food insecure area food desert uh wanted to make sure that the community knew that we have this opportunity to receive 262 000 from the florida department of health which will help us feed hundreds of students in food insecure areas in our after school care program so i will turn it over to you mike fantastic thank you so much for pulling and i appreciate the opportunity to uh discuss i'm mike jeffries i'm the community enrichment administrator while this is very different than floodgates we're talking about carrots and ranch it's uh just as important so i'm happy to to take the time this is a continuation grant that we've received um now for many many years and as council were given said this is a grant that provides after school snacks for the participants that are in all of our recreation centers and while i joke about carrots and ranch i do think that it's important to share that these are nutritionally uh approved snacks so we're not talking doritos we're not talking you know chocolates we're talking about uh cheese sticks we're talking about items that have fruit uh vegetables and grains and the kids really are responding very very well we are excited about this program we find that um all of our snacks that we order for each rec center are being utilized and they're being utilized appropriately so we're really excited to have this partnership this uh this is a partnership with the florida department of health we follow the dietary guidelines for americans and we work with the pinellas county schools as our vendor which is really a great partnership again we partner with them in many ways this is one more way that they support us most of you know on council we have had a real struggle trying to find vendors that will provide us uh decent uh lunches and breakfasts for another program that we have um and we equally have the same issue finding uh vendors that will provide the snacks the healthy snacks so we've partnered with pine house county schools um while we're talking about it uh just wanted to kind of say that we have been doing this since 1999 we are in what's called permanent funding status so we don't have to go back each year to renew it with the state because of our performance because of the past audits that we've had we've been able to move into that different category of funding which has been a real blessing the other thing that i will share while this is only available to our program participants we do have breakfast and lunch that's available during the summer for our entire community so anyone who is um 17 and under can participate in that and um i know how much you guys like uh statistics and data um i just wanted to report out that last year we served over 181 000 uh snacks um in this program so i know that you all um are real proud of that each and every one of you have been just an amazing advocate for um health and wellness in our community at large but especially when it comes to the children that are in our rec center so thank you so much for your support thank you and apple a day keeps the doctor away and with that move to approval second we have a motion and a second on f3 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve the gen i'm l4 passes unit f3 passes unanimously okay we're going to move into f4 this was pulled by council member harding where we're going to talk about the license agreement for the saint pete lawn bowling club council member harding i'll turn it over to you thank you chair mike thanks very much for staying up here with us i i had some questions uh you and i talked earlier um i i appreciate the the answer the time you're going to spend with us i i have some concerns with the the lease i have some concerns with the the time that the uh the the the venue is open and available to the public and i appreciate you uh you going through some details with us thank you chair thank you absolutely uh so i will jump right in um we appreciate this opportunity as well i know there have been a lot of emails that have been going back and forth and we thought that it would be important to go over some of the history as to how we got here go over our current practice and then finally come up with our recommendation as we move forward i know that i've spoken to almost all of you and have gone over some details so i appreciate the time on that today we're here to um to go into an additional lease renewal with the saint petersburg lawn bowling club and i think it's important to note that this historic facility and historic club have been working together and working with the city since 1933. it's been a fantastic relationship um we have a great relationship with the club um we uh know that this is an extremely unique facility uh we know that this is not your typical parks and rec facility this is not a pickleball cord or a basketball court or a soccer field um that is uh built just by the city uh to be open to the public this is something that um again while the club was in um in place in 1933 uh even before that uh the city and uh lawn bowling um experts worked together uh to create a partnership where the club and the city built the facility that we have here today i think most of you know that the facility has components that are historically significant there are buildings that are on the registry um there are uh lots of um lots of excitement that goes on out the lawn bowling and lots of things to be to be proud of this is not while i said this is a unique uh scenario this is not the only scenario where we have a historical facility um a a relationship with a historical club that's been running it for many many years we've got other examples of of that as we bring renewals forward i think that it should be noted that we're not required to do an rfp to go out this is not part of the procurement process this is a license agreement and we've had a long-standing practice of working with the current historical club and some of those examples would include shuffleboard the chess club tennis center the police athletic league the garden club and even usf out at clam bayou we feel like that continuity of relationship and management of the property is really beneficial to the community um and it's something that um you know we would like to continue we think that's a strong precedent and a good long-standing practice as we move forward with these renewals um we do uh we do frequently get um concerns from the community when it comes to youth sports when it comes to shuffleboard you name it we get folks that think that they have a better idea of how a facility should be run they don't like how a club um you know has decided to manage a facility we have a long-standing practice of having the individuals that have those concerns work with the elected board that is running the facility so what we like to do is we will say hey if you have a problem with a youth sports go meet with the board chat with them see if there's some way to come up with a consensus some way to work through those issues again we think that that's very important these boards are elected by the members and those boards are really running those facilities on our behalf we have had scenarios out at the tennis center i think it's important to note where we've had clubs that have not decided to renew their their management if you will and that facility has come back to the city we ran the tennis center for years after the club decided not to renew their lease we had to hire staff we had to hire all sorts of supervisory teams to go out and and kind of run that facility so i don't want to lose sight that the clubs that are managing these facilities are doing the city a great service by running those facilities and by providing the services that are detailed out in their agreement and i think as we move forward i think another one of our current practices has been to recognize the direction that the club is wanting to go and to work with the club to kind of find that consensus and move forward on a common path as we look at recommendations here today our recommendation is that we would renew with the existing club uh that has been running it since 1933 um again they've been very open to our suggestions over the last uh couple of decades and we've had just a great relationship working with them the other thing that we'll do is parks and rec um we've heard from some of the council members and some of the community that there should be an increase in availability of the facility we have chatted with the club the club is on board with that so parks and rec will work with the club to figure out what exactly that looks like so that it can be more available councilmember harding i heard you loud and clear that it's such a great facility that um we'd like to see it more available so again we will work with the club and we will figure out what that looks like as we as we move forward after um after this renewal uh councilmember girdus same conversation we had that you know it is a unique piece of property uh with a unique history and again we're happy to um liaison between any uh council member any community members that are looking to increase the availability of the property and i can tell you that even as we've met with the lawn bowling club here recently uh there's even a willingness to allow their members to have keys to a lockbox to have even more access than they have right now so i think we can get to that and i think that's something that we can that we can work through the other thing that we'll continue to do and i think this is important we'll continue to work with the engineering department um there are a couple of cip uh projects that are um on on the books have been on the books for a while now out at the out of the club one that has been on the books since february is a a rewiring electrical project that's going on in the clubhouse i have to tell you that we went through the entire process started in february working with the engineering department and cip and we got all the way to uh you know the part where the contractor was going to start to do the project and the contractor said hey this is a bigger job than we had originally uh first thought so we we met with engineers uh looked at that and they said we think the building should be de-energized uh we don't think that it's safe to leave the power on in this facility so of course if the experts are telling us to de-energize the facility that's exactly what we've done so i know in some of the emails you've heard that uh the club is not operating at capacity um one of the things is they've got a clubhouse that they don't have access to so yes that is a very real world scenario we continue to work with uh engineering and happy to report that we have permanent permitting that is pulled and ready to go to start that um that rewiring and that electrical work at the facility um the other things that um you know we'll continue to do is we'll continue to work with uh the community and navigate um the issues that that might come up but i have to tell you you have a bunch of volunteers that have been running this club the club has been in place since 1933 and they have been a fantastic partner and i think that it's important that we continue that relationship as we see um you know the facility move into the next couple of decades so that's all that i have as far as my report happy to answer any questions that you might have thanks mike let's go into public comment please first two speakers mr chair beth eschenfelder and robert costia please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address to the council thank you my name is beth eschenfelder and for the past 25 years i've resided at 532 6th avenue north which is two blocks directly north of the lawn bowling courts and even though i live so close i know you share a common experience with me which is coming down that i set i 375 off ramp getting stopped at that fifth street light right and you look to the right and you see deserted minimally maintained lawn bowling courts and facilities and you think you might think this is the gateway to our city it should be a shining example of the vibrancy we have here to share with the community and it should and more access is one way that we can do that and that's what i want to talk about specifically that the city really needs to guarantee that we have adequate access to this public parks facility for city residents and our visiting guests by access i mean two things game time and then other access for dues paying members the current licensee is only structuring game time 7.5 percent of the time currently allowed in their license agreement that includes a limited number of days that really are not convenient for a lot of working residents no weekend hours one night a week and all of that is reduced drastically in the summer when the club is off season regarding other access for dues paying members there is none unlike the neighboring shuffleboard court that has 2600 members they operate like other lawn bowling clubs around central florida where members are given an access code and they're simply asked to return the equipment maintain the courts have a great time which is really important for a lawn bowler who might be representing the city at an upcoming regional national or international competition they need that time to practice on the courts that they can't get during game time the current licensee has demonstrated their unwillingness to grow and change and add more access and we in the city should not stand back and wait and hope that things will change because it will not so i'm asking you to do two things today one to vote no on this particular license agreement and second to demand that something more progressive come back that will guarantee more access to city residents and will restore the majesty of this great facility in its efficiency its use and its appearance for years to come so when you stop at that fifth street light in the future you'll be glad you made a difference because we have the ability to see something different and you can make that happen thank you thank you good afternoon my name is robert kasha homeowner at 532 6th avenue north i've been a real estate broker for almost two decades and i work with contracts leases management and association rules on almost a daily basis in my opinion this 93 percent inaccessible multi-million dollar public recreational property located at the gateway to the city is not even close to being in its highest and best use not for the community its club members the handicap or visiting tourists immediate intervention is required after over a year of study i think the facility should be temporarily closed and restructured to bring it into compliance with city state and federal ada laws and remedy local code violations before reopening it should be internally restructured as well like the now successful shovel boat club organization has 2 600 members this organization has fewer than 40 members the community wants and deserves one more public court time member access to the facility a member lock box and two an ada compliant facility as required in the license agreement an external ada expert advises the facility is not even close to being compliant at the 2025 annual meeting 90 percent of membership voted for more access and a lock box this vote was overridden at the pleasure of the board keeping the public facility closed to the public and members for 93 percent of the time the city has no object objection to a lock box at the city uh saint pete lawn bowling club some club members drive 40 plus minutes to use the clear water lawn bowling club because the saint pete club is closed 93 percent of the time when the facility is open monday wednesday friday mornings it is not accessible to many working and school going people the facility is managed by a board composed of 50 percent snowbirds who do not have physical presence here to run the facility properly please do not allow the license agreement to be renewed that will continue to keep this facility 93 percent inaccessible to city residents these shortcomings can be rectified by a third party taking over the property to fix the deficiencies and create a club that is safe successful and acceptable to all the public including the disabled the mismanagement of this facility has fallen through the cracks for years due to lack of effective monitoring by the city but now is the time to make that stop thank you thank you next two speakers final speaker mr chair sheila lake please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and have three minutes to adjust to the council thank you my name is sheila lake i am the attorney for saint pete lawn bowling club my address is 475 central avenue right over there my office address i'm also a resident of saint pete and i've been a resident of saint pete for almost 25 years but my family is from saint pete i i i tell you this my grandmother and my mother and her siblings performed a variety show on the pier in the 60s we are entrenched in saint pete and i tell you this because i want to talk to you about the history of saint pete and how it's disappearing all around us the lawn bowling club has been here since 1916 in the same spot the city took over in 1933 the lawn bowling club owned the property until then so they have been there for almost 110 years the board would love to open up the bowling club for any time you want to come in that would be wonderful the problem here is funding they are a small association they are funded by their membership dues they don't get any federal or government funding any state funding so they are as i'm sorry i can't remember your name as mike said they they have been speaking with mike and they are interested in expanding um it's from my point of view when i get off that interstate exit and i look to my right and i see saint pete lawn bowling club i know i'm home because it's been there my whole life even i grew up in virginia because my father was in the military but when i came here i would see it it's always been there it's home every day we see more and more of saint pete's history being taken away to put up new development and i'll tell you i'm a real estate attorney so i'm not against development but i think it's very important for saint pete and for its citizens that we keep some of our history the lawn bowling club is the first lawn bowling club in florida it's the largest lawn bowling club in florida and it's the 10th largest in the country so it's very important to saint pete in this area and i want to say this so it doesn't sound like i am attacking or on the offensive but the two prior members that you just heard speak are prior members they're disgruntled they've had a serious issue for several months because the board would not let them do what they wanted to do so i'm urging you to look at the history of saint pete to look at the history of this club to know that lawn bowling is actually on the rise again and it's amazing i just attended a wedding my daughter's wedding in england and half the people there are lawn bowling club members and so i think that working with mike and the city and the board i think saint pete lawn bowling could come back thank you any other speakers more speakers mr chair okay we're going to go to council member discussion council member driscoll thank you and thank you council member harding for pulling this item um i had been in in discussions as well after hearing from folks about concerns that they had on this particular agreement i think that the lawn bowling club actually has that same potential that the shuffleboard club has it can follow in those footsteps to become um the to to have a revitalization that the shuffleboard club sees that no one probably ever thought would be as big as it is imagine if the lawn bowling club had over 2 000 members that took work not from the city but from a board that was dedicated from volunteers who showed up every friday night to open the doors to to open the gates to everyone for free um to introduce them to the game to welcome them it was like having an open house every friday night and the members started signing up and the leagues started growing and success came back to the shuffleboard club it's a great example of what you can do when you put a plan together and execute it for something like this i would like nothing more to see than to see something uh these improvements i think they would be very welcome i think we can all agree we'd love to see it open more i'd love to see it open to more to explore and discover this and i i think it would i think it would behoove the the board and the membership of the lawn bowling club to talk with the shuffleboard club especially those long-time board members and members who were there and find out how did you get that going and and i think they would be more than happy they're a great bunch they would be more than happy to help share their share their secrets and um there and perhaps offer an opportunity for collaboration because they're right there so there is some real magic that can happen there if you have the the people to put it together um the funding was mentioned that will come too but you've got to open the doors so i hope that we see that move forward now when you have conflicts between um boards and and and members and all of that um we hear that quite a bit whether it's with um you know a club whether it's with an hoa whether it's with a neighborhood association i mean we get a lot of that the important part is that the city is here as a resource but not as a mediator this stuff really needs to be worked out that's how we grow is by learning how to resolve conflicts within organizations that is why although i would love to see improvements i would love to see better relations i would love to see better public relations it is not for us to get involved and decide the lease that we have in place could it be stronger could it be could it have more requirements yes but that might actually hinder the lawn bowling club from being successful and growing i need this to happen organically i need it to happen collaboratively and i need it to happen without government getting in the way so um i am willing to off off the dais i am willing to meet with the stakeholders with the lawn bowling club and give my opinion or make some introductions so that real conversations can take place um and that's where i'm at with it today i'd like i like the way the agreement is because it gives the flexibility the flexibility for growth that i think is needed especially at this juncture for the lawn bowling club and so i will um be happy to support it and happy to be available for ongoing conversations that make it work for everyone thank you thank you councilmember harding thank you chair mike again thanks for um and to be clear i intend to to move this along um when i'm done talking i i had the opportunity to read through the lease um and really here's the basis of of my concern um the the well let me back up a step the the historical significance is is is is evident the fact that that not only is it there but the same the same club um is also still in existence and running it um takes a take takes a a lion's share of effort to get it there but where we are today and and what i read in the lease is that the onus is on the city for everything the club is responsible for the first two thousand dollars worth of r&m and aside from that the city does everything else we pay the power we pay the water we pay the r&m we pay the cip we pay everything and that's okay as long as it is a there is a benefit to the city and so i look at the i looked at the website um and um and and that's the basis of of of this discussion is that that if the city is going to pick that up if the if we're going to pay all that then it just has to be available and it does to the citizens as a whole that doesn't have to be available tomorrow but there needs to be a plan i don't i apologize i don't have any other comparison but the the shuffleboard um property went through this cycle as well um where there is no one there and the and the group put in the effort the city is definitely putting in the effort you're talking about spending money on on uh on cip which i agree with um but we but i but we need to see it from the other side we need to see that that this is something that's not going to benefit whoever is a member but it's available to all um and um and i mean this this is yours i just wanted us to talk about it i appreciate it i appreciate the opportunity and we completely agree um we do think that lawn bowling is on the uptick and we do think that this is a fork in the road we think that you know the the trajectory can be different and our conversations with the board members um indicate that they feel the exact same way and i'm not sure that was always the case over the last 10 five years you know that i'm not sure that it was as popular and and we did watch it with shuffleboard i totally agree with councilmember driscoll you know that i bring many agreements forward to you all and i i like to have teeth in my agreements i don't know how to structure this one that doesn't stymie the growth um because i put in the wrong the wrong teeth the wrong deliverables i think we can get there and based on my relationship and rick's relationship with the board we have a group of people who really love the sport and really want to see it move forward and i i think that's to me that's a commitment enough that we're going to take it to the next level we do again you know i heard from several of you about the availability and the board is is on board with a lockbox for their members you know as a first as a first start you know to to get those to get that process started and i think if we could connect them with shuffleboard that would be fantastic we can help do that as well but i think that um i guess i look at kind of the other way i'm really glad that when the shuffleboard club was not thriving that we didn't give the operation to someone else and and i think that we were able to keep that continuity and we were able to keep that longevity moving forward and give them a chance and i think lawn bowling can do the exact same thank you mike and to your point uh leases are are hindering and sometimes the the spoken word gentlemen's agreements and just making your point hurt is enough so with that i move approval chair second okay just quickly uh first mike thanks for the one-on-one on this appreciate uh you hearing kind of my feedback on all this um quickly just um council member driscoll thanks for your willingness to mediate uh in the middle of this i do i really do think it's important um i mike i know you you and i talked about this but is is the best thing maybe for like if i put an mbi for an update for psni just to see how this is going a year from now there's no rush i just want to make sure it doesn't get forgotten yeah i i think did i hear you say uh an update a year yeah yeah i think that would be perfect let's do an update that would be great because i just think um listen you guys do an amazing job we have a bunch of assets that you have to follow and track i just think um as we want to see this one grow and maybe we just spend a little bit more time on this one as we want to see it gives council member driscoll some time and and staff some time to spend some time with the board and see what can collaboration can happen there's my voice going and uh and and so i just i wanted to throw that out there real quickly but i like that idea it also gives us a chance to get power into their clubhouse yeah yeah it gives time right you're in permitting i don't want it three months from now i want it a year from now let's see how it goes and then and then i think if now that i'm saying it out loud everybody knows that we're paying attention and a year from now we'll we'll redirect the conversation and make sure some changes have happened so i appreciate your willingness and staff's willingness to continue to work on it council member driscoll thanks for being being willing to to mediate in that and then council member harding thanks for pulling the item i do think it was important that we have the discussion all right council members we've got a a motion in a second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a janine f4 passes you do that miss okay thank you everybody all right we're going to move into f5 this was also pulled by council member gibbons uh and we've got burgess joining us again but i'll turn it over to council member gibbons thank you very much i'll be very brief chair um burgess i just had a couple of questions um you know obviously i get the complaints that i'm sure a lot of people get when it comes to pavement and depressions that are opening up so i know that there was a change in the contractual amount so i just wanted to know what was included in that and hopefully just get an update and see where we stand with pavement restoration sure thank you um sorry and um i want to just take a little step back you know we did do that psi presentation related to the difference between operational and capital um so this is primary capital so um what this is focused on and the reason why um and kind of this kind of brings me back a little bit of time back and a comment that council member driscoll mentioned when we were dealing with all the contractors and trying to package bids in such a way that we could attract contractors um because it's not a small to us it's not a small amount that we're putting out on resurfacing but these contractors that are doing 18 20 million dollar contracts you know straight road right away it's very easy for them to bid those things so this was a mechanism of getting the contractors to commit to staying here and hitting these projects hard to getting more of our roads paved as quickly as possible so they don't start and demobilize to go to another location and wait for the next batch of work so this was really focused on making sure that we get the best bang for the bug um dollar but also um leveraging and accelerating as much roadway projects as we can to also get some fiscal benefit in the magnitude of work that we're going to give them at the at the time as well so this is what's really driven um on the capital side of this but on the operational side i will gladly follow up um with you as well on that smart and efficient as always projects so thank you very much and with that i move to approval second we've got a motion a second on f5 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted council member floyd may be turned there uh clerk could you please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve agenda f5 passes unanimously with council member floyd being absent thank you i asked my chair to be my right my left she failed on that one all right we're going to move into f1 where we've got a science center update councilmember driscoll i believe this was an update you asked for so i'll turn it over to you before we go to aaron fish and claude tankersley thank you and um thanks to city staff for preparing for this this is a um you know the the plans for the the science center it's something that um as a city council member i have heard about and been involved with since 2020 2021 um and it was it was an incredibly exciting opportunity for us to revitalize the science center i i do see that former council member robert blackman is here this was his um original idea to revitalize this as the council member for the west side and district one at the time and i do want to extend my gratitude for envisioning a new day for the science center at the time um there were three out of the eight city council members that you see here who were serving then who voted on um the the initial plans for the science center and so today we've got several members who were not involved then i have um watched and and kept in touch with this project as it's moved forward and um you know at the time it had a ton of public support we see through the emails and through the folks who um spoke today that that support is still there and so um when i got a phone call a few weeks ago um letting me know that the administration had decided not to move forward with the science center i was understandably disappointed this is something i had been looking forward to for a long time um i've i walked through it back then and and saw what it could become and it was really hard to take um i understand that as you know especially now with the things we've learned even in the last year um that we have to really focus on balancing our infrastructure needs and planning for the future with um the other projects that we want to see happen that's why i just kept having this nagging feeling that there was a way for us to do both that we can strengthen our infrastructure that we can plan for the future while planning for the future of our students our children in our community and their exposure and experience with science this is a fantastic community asset it's a city-wide asset if you're not going here where's the closest place mostly you put never you got to go all the way there so i thought we need to talk about this because it has been so popular because it had so much support not just from residents but we heard from former students teachers we had incredible support the group had incredible support for funding i wish senator russon was still here from senator russon and others in state leadership and also our former congressman charlie christ was able to oh he's back senator russon i just recognized you and um expressing my gratitude for the support that you have given to the science center over the years and for the incredible amount of funding that you have been able to bring home uh for your hometown and for the science center as well as um millions um that were were um achieved by our former congressman charlie christ and yes city council early on had much gave much support for this so with all of that i felt like we really owed it to the public to explain why there was this turn of events that um led to the announcement that the science center project would be canceled and also because of florida sunshine law i wanted to hear from my colleagues and hear what everyone else thought um so i asked for this to be discussed in a public meeting i do appreciate all of the the emails that were received the comments that were made today and the presence by people here who care and i hope that no matter how we move forward we're going to do it with the children in mind and knowing that um we really need to do we we really need to look at all of the different ways that we could possibly get a win-win and do this and that going forward that's my hope with that sorry it took so long but um this became a much bigger deal than i thought it was going to be when i first asked for it to be reported on and aaron i know you've created a presentation for us that um i i would love to hear and then hear from my colleagues thank you thank you council member for the introduction uh good afternoon council chair vice chair members of council aaron fish real estate and property manage management director uh here to discuss uh more or less a timeline of events um related to the science center since the city's acquisition of the property this is a property that's at 7701 22nd avenue north immediately abutting uh to the south of the northwest water reclamation facility as you see in this image here this is the the current layout of the treatment facility with the remainder of the science center property outlined in red on november of 20 uh november 20 of 2019 the city did uh complete the acquisition of of the property from work net pinellas this was a strategic acquisition that was to serve two purposes uh one was for the expansion of the northwest water reclamation facility and the other was to ensure that the city's brush site could remain on the property the property originally totaled 6.78 acres included 27 000 square feet of improvements along with those improvements a main two-story science center building and the the approximate purchase price was 3.2 million the expansion of the northwest facility on the north half of the site progressed real estate did order an appraisal and that appraisal for the remaining 3.89 acres of the southern portion of the site was determined to be 1 million 860 000 in the as-is value it was at this time that staff and public works decided to discuss the the possibility of of selling the site uh due to the appraisal on september 30th of 2021 council passed a resolution to approve wikiwachi funds those funds were to cover mold remediation a feasibility study and operational costs associated with the site 175 000 of those approved funds was expensed for those items in may of 2022 the city commissioned a renovation and feasibility study to assess the viability of reusing the two-story building the study estimated costs ranging from approximately 3.5 million up to approximately nine million dollars to bring the building up to either basic code compliance or a complete shell renovation the property was formally replatted in june of 2022 this resulted in a console consolidation of the treatment facility parcels and it split off the brush site parcel and then the remainder of the science center property to the south conversations about the site's future began circulating in around 2021 and 2022 this was initiated in part by then council member robert blackman ideas including reactivating the site as a city operated event center or developing a new science education facility around this time the st petersburg group became involved in exploring possibilities for the sites reuse in january of 2023 the st petersburg group submitted a formal proposal to purchase the property for a new science center dedicated to stem and steam education st petersburg group followed up with a rise proposal in february of 2023 and in response to the proposal submitted the city did issue a non-binding letter of intent in february 17 outlining proposed sales outlining the proposed sales terms contingent upon updated appraisals a public notice of the city's intent to dispose of the property was published in february of 2023 inviting alternative proposals of which none were received two appraisals were obtained in march and april of 2023 this resulted in as is market value to be between 1.5 million and approximately 1.64 million with the highest and best use value to be approximately 2.66 million on august 9th of 2023 the city transmitted a draft agreement for the sale and purchase to the st petersburg group with the sale terms including a purchase price of 1.6 million 60 days of due diligence 180 days to secure financing and a closing window window of 30 days thereafter in september of 23 the st petersburg group opted to pursue a hud grant to fund the science center project which took over a year to complete the hud grant process required an environmental review and historic review and the historic review initiate was initiated by the state of florida the historic review determined the rotunda planetarium and the tile mosaic walkway were to remain as part of the science center project as a condition of the hud grant which were memorialized in a memorandum of agreement executed on august 26 2024 the conditions placed on the property were directly related to the hud grant and the use of federal funding proposed for the science center project the conditions resulting from the historic review did not result in the property being registered as a historic site on october 15 2024 hud issued a letter confirming completion of the environmental review and released the conditions associated with the grant with former authorization to use grant funds received through the hud environmental review online system on october 23 of 24 following the hud grant approval in october of 24 the city resent the previously negotiated agreement for execution st petersburg group requested modifications to the agreement including a request for the city to hold a purchase money mortgage as part of the renegotiation the city requested to write a first refusal to repurchase the property under specific conditions on april 10th 2025 city's legal department issued a memorandum to mayor welch city council and administrative staff notifying that the law firm of bryant miller olive had been retained to assist with legal matters concerning the disposition of the utility system and at this point i'll have administrator tankersley cover the next point thank you aaron claude tankersley public works administrator i asked aaron if i could step in and clarify this next point because it can be misleading and we want to make sure that we got it right and so the the for the second bullet really what we were advised by bond council was that a qualified independent consultant needed to certify that the sale of the property which is a water resources asset would not materially adversely affect the net revenues of the sewer system and i apologize for any miscommunication or misunderstanding particularly to my colleagues and as a result public works contracted with wade trim to prepare a feasibility report evaluating multiple sites including the science center for potential future wastewater expansion the need for this evaluation was underscored by events in 2024 when hurricane saline and milton inflicted significant damage across the region which included impacts from a seven foot storm surge and over 20 inches of rain which severely stressed the northwest plant although no sewage spills occurred at the plant the extreme flows overwhelm many treatment processes with the situation being exacerbated by the fact that the northwest plant is the sole wastewater treatment facility serving the barrier island communities of st pete beach and treasure island both of which experienced major infrastructure failures due to the storms these vulnerabilities highlighted the need for increased treatment capacity and storm resilience in response the city initiated the northwest water reclamation equalization storage feasibility report the study's goals were to assess the feasibility of adding equalization and short-term wet weather storage at or near near the northwest plant and to evaluate potential sites for maximum storage capacity capacity thank you aaron i'll go through the results of the feasibility study now so as i mentioned before bond council advised that a qualified independent consultant needed to certify that the sale of the property which is a water resources asset would not materially adversely affect net revenues of the system in order to do this the bond covenants also state that the the asset can be a asset can be disposed of it's if it's no longer necessary or useful to the operation because of this public works and water resources department made the decision to pursue the feasibility study to evaluate whether or not these this asset was useful or necessary for the system we had a stress test on our system last year with the storms in 2024 like nothing we'd seen before and we learned a lot about our system after last year's stress tests on our sewer system we felt it was prudent to do a third-party feasibility study on the property which is a sewer utility currently owns whether that property is necessary or useful before we sell it to do our due diligence it was my decision as a steward of the utility to pursue this feasibility study and it is my responsibility to advise the mayor on what's best for the facility so in june and july wade trim worked on the study in august of 25 a draft of the report was submitted to the city and in september of 25 a final report was submitted to the city the scope of the project entailed conducting a conceptual level evaluation that considered the feasibility complexity and relative cost of constructing equalization wet weather storage tanks either on the existing site or adjacent sites or nearby sites and this was done in alignment with the city's long-term resiliency planning framework to consider the importance of preserving key locations for future plant expansions by identifying sites that were best suited for the eq tank placement while preserving the some other sites for process related infrastructure this drawing here shows you the nine sites that we evaluated many of them are close to if not on the site or immediately adjacent to the site the science center property is located in site number one the brush site property is located at site number five site number four is part of the the overall northwest plant facility it's a centralized area that currently does not have much infrastructure on it and site number nine is the northern half of the former raytheon property that we are understand may be still available for the city to pursue so the feasibility study looked at these nine properties to determine what size tanks and how much storage could be placed on each of the properties and you can see on on this figure here how each of those properties could be utilized the study did look at accommodating a minimum of a five million gallons of eq storage this minimum five million gallons came from the saint pete water plan which was completed in 2019 which had recommended that at some point we we move forward with an equalization tank at the northwest site these sites were evaluated on multiple evaluation criteria that included ease of construction the hydraulics of being able to connect the tanks to the other facilities any ancillary infrastructure such as other control systems fencing force mains etc how much storage volume could be achieved at each site what a conceptual cost would be for each site including any property acquisition costs if applicable and these cost comparisons were normalized on a cost per gallon of storage basis and then also we looked at the operating strategies how would these tanks be operated these tanks in in the right situation could be occupied operated as both what we call an eq tank and well as well as a wet weather storage tank or they might be depending on the location better served as a wet weather storage tank not so much as an eq tank i'm trying not to get too too detailed into the science so the feasibility report evaluation criteria that we laid out each of these had a weighted score we did feel that and in consultation with our consultants we did feel that the most important to the facility and most important to the utility was the amount of the amount of storage available to be had and the cost to achieve that storage on the criteria scoring uh if a score of one would suggest that in that criteria it was least favorable it was more most complex it was a smaller size and a score of five would be the most favorable so based off of these scorings we came up with a weighted score for each of the facility each of the locations and as you can see highlighted here the number one location identified was what we call the south part of the plant the part of the plant that's in the central uh that that that's that that's between all of the different processes on the south side of the plant it's it's number four site number four the second site was the science center the third was the former raytheon property and the fourth ranked site was the brush site and again highlighting here what those four sites where they were located again the brush site and the and the science center site and the site number four are all currently owned by the by the asset by the utility the science of the raytheon site number nine is not owned by the utility i want to take a closer look at the two sites in question the science center site and the brush site and how they compared to each other and their scoring you'll see that they compared relatively similarly in many different areas and i'm going to go back to the previous slide because as you can see site number one and site number five they're they're kind of they're both on the west side of the plant on what we call the tail end of the plant and so they they have a lot of similarities they're both easily acceptable by by roadways and so they they got a lot of weighted scores the same where they differed was on ease of construction and cost so for the science center the cost for the science center was determined to be less than the cost of the brush site primarily because the brush site if we were to move the brush site we would have to find another location for it as it is an important asset to the city and so the it was estimated at a 2.9 million dollar property acquisition cost for the brush site both sites had some level of demolition but obviously the science center site had the most level of demolition and therefore a higher cost for that one of the questions that we've had is why is the property acquisition so expensive for a brush site and actually aaron if you don't mind taking that and talking about what you found sure the reason for the higher cost is scarcity of land there's not a lot of raw land left in this vicinity to buy a replacement location to continue serving the area residents would most likely require buying an improved site an improved site comes at a much higher cost because you're paying for the value of a building that you would then have to demolish to make it raw land for the brush site it's unknown really at this point what that cost would be one of the i would say one of the sites that was evaluated it was site number six recently sold it's an improved site sold this month for seven million dollars so that illustrates the challenge of finding a site within close proximity that is raw land at a reasonable fair price to relocate the brush site thank you aaron there were some additional considerations for the consultants in their final recommendation and so i mentioned that as part of our long-term planning we we do anticipate that there will be some expansions to the plant at some point in the future for a variety of different reasons one of them being regulatory and and i do have john palanchar and dr drexler here from our water resources department to answer any questions that may come up about this but we do know that from a regulatory standpoint we do expect at some point in the future that the state will require us to do more nutrient removal from our reclaimed water we don't know when that's going to happen could be five years could be 10 years we just don't know but it was anticipated as part of our saint pete water plan and as part of the saint pete water plan they did a conceptual layout of what that would look like if we had to add additional unit processes for that additional removal of nutrients and those processes were proposed to be placed in the site number four that that area on the on the actually on the site to accommodate that that function the other thing we're looking at is is as i mentioned the 2024 storms were a stress test for our system and one of the things that we have been considering for a while and trying to figure out how to do is when one plant is being stressed more than other plants that we can try to find a way to transfer flows from one plant to another so for instance if the northeast plant is being inundated and is being stressed to avoid sanitary sewer overflows for that plant if we had a way to transfer some of those flows over to the northwest plant then that would allow us to control the system better for those sanitary sewer overflows the northwest plant is is it is at an advantage in the fact that it is higher in elevation than the other two plants uh the northeast plant is about five six feet above sea level southwest plant is about six to eight feet above sea level the northwest plant is about 24 feet above sea level and it was the only plant during the storms that we did not have to shut down so that's what we're that's what we mean when we talk about future plant expansions that we are anticipating but they are not yet developed um and also i meant into the the fact that um you know some of these sites are closer to the other processes than others and so therefore we may be able to use the the tanks uh either for eq and wet weather or maybe just only for wet weather and so we took specific comments from the report put them in this table here i won't read it to everyone i know everybody can read it on their own but one of the things that the consultant did share was that some upon some of the sites do appear suitable for tank placement but they may be more valuable for housing process equipment essential to future wet weather expansion so the final recommendation from the feasibility report from our consultant uh re-ranked the the four sites with the science center being ranked number one the brush site number two again the on-site area the south area number three and the former raytheon site number four for the reasons that i mentioned earlier um the they they had recommended that the brush site is better suited as a contingency site given that it's closer to two of the uh processes the sludge processes and reclaimed water storage and then the the former raytheon property and the on-site south property were better and more critical footprints for long-term treatment expansion and should be preserved accordingly so i'll close with our presentation by noting the irony that i am a professional engineer my staff are engineers and scientists and the feasibility study was developed by engineers and scientists and all of us chose to build our careers around science we love science we did this because we we love science and we're aware of the irony that we are here to to talk about the fact that our love of science also runs up against our requirement to provide resiliency for our sewer system as best we can and to strive to be good stewards of the utility so that is the conclusion of my presentation and i thank you for the opportunity thank you claude okay go to do we have any speakers okay we'll go to by share hanowitz thank you um first of all i want to thank everyone that's here today you've been very patient i know that some of you had looked on your faces when you're like hold on this is f1 and these other items are happening and you're wondering when this item was happening what happens is uh we have an agenda and they sometimes reorder things so it came up at the end because i guess the other one should have gone a little quicker but in any event i i i thank you i just think i look i haven't spoken really i thank you for waiting patiently um for this item i was one of the council members that was not involved when this first came up as was first mentioned there were three council members here so when this was brought to my attention um by um and i was contacted by joe hamilton and i heard from the community i really did not have a lot of information um and especially because the last time that i got an information the sale was happening and i did not know and my big question was how did we end up here so i asked administration to provide records back on september 8th so i can do a review of everything and be able to ask intelligent questions to figure this out and that's what i've been trying to do i started getting records i think it was around september 16th and a lot of them came right before this meeting and i have spent a lot of time on this i also want to mention there was a clarification made about the powerpoint presentation today and that's based on a conversation i had yesterday with administration and i want to i want to point this out because i think it's important because it goes back to why we're here today when i looked at the records that were produced and when i looked at the powerpoint the timeline was important and the reason as to why we're here was important and the thing that struck out to me was the legal counsel had advised for this formal study so i'm thinking okay i'm going to talk to the attorneys figure out what's happening well yesterday i had a meeting with the attorneys both in-house and outside counsel and to my surprise i was told that that legal advice had not been given at all now that was a problem for me so when you hear a clarification that's made here i speak with attorneys to figure out did they advise that a formal study was necessary to determine whether the property remain essential to the utility system that did not happen and with that being said i want jackie because this happened yesterday and just so they hear from someone else not just from me what happened yesterday in terms of the conversations that we had with outside counsel and you were there and i'm obviously allowing you to disclose this because the attorney you typically you you would not you know i keep those things on lockdown right um yeah so we had in general there was a discussion about what is required pursuant to the bond covenant which claude clarified um and does the language in the bond covenant that all of you received that was highlighted in green require a feasibility study or is it something different from that we advised it was something different from that which was confirmed by duane draper from barrett miller all of our bond council and we also pointed to the fact that there is some precedent for this that corresponds with the highlighted language which was done for albert witted which was a you know a one-page qualified independent consultant determination as claude explained for albert witted at that time with the corresponding resolution approved by city council and so yesterday i because i don't like to surprise anyone i i contacted claude and i contacted rob to let them know that i was going to bring up this issue and he you know an explanation was provided today uh and claude has taken responsibility for that he ordered this one of the problems that i have and i'm going to say it out here is that this timeline was done back in july there were three different people that reviewed this timeline there were edits made to this timeline and one of the timeline edits were made by mr tankersley and specifically on this item the edit that was made was as a result and this was added by mr tankersley of the recommendation from legal counsel public works added design center property to the scope of services for the northwest eq storage and i appreciate everything i said i have a hard time when something like this is provided it's edited by professionals your engineers you guys are really detail oriented and that is put in there specifically added counsel advised me no conversations happen with them with the public works department duane the outside counsel and i had a conversation with them and jackie is that true yeah that's that is what mr so so forgive me for bringing this up because i have to rely on experts and i don't like doing this and i had that conversation yesterday i don't like doing this because i can't make up these facts but when i am presenting with with facts by experts i usually take them for face value and it really upset me when i'm looking at documents and contradicts and and trust me i could go through more documents contradict what has been presented to us that's the first part the second part is that we're looking at a study and i understand that you're looking at the science center and other properties when you look at the feasibility study that was done we weren't advised there was going to be a change of course the last conversation we had a sale was happening and there was correspondence as council member gabbard asked for information and in the documents that were provided this was back in july there was a an email that said am i crazy or wasn't this going to be done by stantec provided by janey because all of a sudden wait trim is here and your response was that was a common misperception i have emails all the way from january through march including from erica langham from many people talking about stantec there's the reason why outside counsel was hired and they were going forward with it so it wasn't a misperception it was actually happening and at some point the brakes were put on because all the emails show that and if anybody has a doubt about what i'm saying guess what just ask for the records that i asked for and review them yourself because i'm i'm reading from records so stantec was actually contacted and there is an email in there regarding the conversation with bond council and we'll need to stantec to complete the one page consultant certificate that was provided to erin all that happened so it wasn't a misperception and it just shifted now something caused a shift and maybe you all decided okay we want to make sure that we want to use this property like you said um because whether we need it and we have to make that determination that wasn't based on conversations with the attorneys because my understanding is that this study this feasibility study doesn't change the fact that you could still sell the property so it and i covered that yesterday with outside counsel as a matter of fact it's the opposite because when you're doing the one page document that you're going to do it's because you're getting rid of property this is to basically have documentation to say guess what we're not going to get rid of the property because these are a reason so it's completely the opposite thing that just happened when we talk about land that's important and the scarcity of land and i see emails that talk about raytheon offering the property and it's declined in this process there's a feasibility study happening you want to receive unbiased information about what's the best course and while that is happening which nobody else knows while that's happening you actually say no to the sale of a property and not say well we're just going to wait to see what a feasibility study does and then the same group that does the feasibility report in their report say basically that you should definitely given the strategic location and size the property of raytheon should be pursued for purchase by the city i'm sorry i just right now and i could go on from some other stuff that i found in the short period of time i'm having a hard time with this i'm having a hard time without this came about i'm having a hard time trusting some of the information based on what i've seen i'm also having a hard time when i see notes when they started this process like please do not include the brush light when you're trying to consider everything so forgive me and i hate to be part of this i cannot believe that this is presented to council the way it has and how it's come before us i just can't so thank you council member and claude if you don't mind let me say a few words and then uh you can clean it up for me i'm sure um you know the first thing i want to do is i also just want to thank everyone who came out today uh growing up in west st petersburg myself i could relate to a lot of the experiences uh that you had so um really want to thank you for being here also want to say that the administration really has deep empathy for mr hamilton um you know we know that he's worked hard on this um and it's difficult when a project changes course we've all experienced that so just wanted to say that publicly joe that i'm sorry i know you probably feel tough and it's disappointing so i understand that um you know going back to there were a lot of things you mentioned there we might have to go one at a time and you know the one thing i'll say is that i i think there was miscommunication at the staff level um i think in looking at it that's accurate i certainly think that i could have done a better job uh of asking some more difficult questions to staff members and and what was going on uh and where it was at but but my understanding is that essentially outside counsel worked through miss dyer who worked through the cfo who worked through aaron and i i haven't seen anything that shows that claude was aware of those conversations or that he was a part of it he was doing his best to try and see what was best for the utility you mentioned albert whitted and it's true that there's a one page analysis a financial analysis on the net revenues that's true there's also an alternative study that goes with that i don't know if you have that but it was part of that and that's kind of the work that claude was doing in the feasibility study was similar to the alternatives analysis that was done at albert whitted so look if have we made mistakes sure we've made mistakes but we're operating in good faith and we're trying to protect the utility as best as we can everybody knows that wastewater is a significant issue in the city of st petersburg and we're doing our best to protect the residents interests in that area so claude i don't know if you want to add anything to that so some of the um some of the correspondence uh that you mentioned i don't believe that i was a part of it and so i i so for instance the the do not include the brush site i i don't recall being a part of that um it's possible that i was i just don't recall it um so but i you know i do want to give our our team an opportunity to to talk about anything that they you know remember from our conversations i do also remember talking to aaron about the the raytheon site when the raytheon site first became available a while ago like a year or two ago they had some um restrictive covenants to the the site that we felt made it difficult if not impossible for us to use it for the wastewater system expansion they they had restrictive covenants on it related to putting underground piping and while we could put above ground piping at a wastewater treatment plant it does make it difficult to to do that and so at the time we decided not to pursue it because we weren't able to get them to change on that they ended up selling the properties my understanding and the new property owner has indicated to us that they were willing to turn it over to to to sell us the northern part of it again aaron reached out to find out if those restrictive covenants were still available or still on the property and was determined that they were and the asking price for it was like 2.2 2.1 million somewhere around there and i and i felt that since we already owned the science center property to sell the science center property for 1.6 million to turn around and buy another piece of property for 2.1 million wasn't the best option at the time and i appreciate that except for the fact that you have a contract that is pending right now for 1.6 million for that site and you're not taking into consideration anything that we've heard here i get what you're saying but the delta is 500 000 what you're talking about negotiations weren't even entered into as a matter of fact you can negotiate these restrictions and they require mutual agreement have the attorneys been engaged to negotiate these restrictions i mean council member i can't to the extent that we were that would have been mr dima so i can't really confirm whether we were or weren't but my point is you can negotiate the restrictions yes okay so what i'm saying is i understand where you're coming from but if you're trying to get a feasibility study based on all the factors without it without influencing letting these experts look at everything and come back why would you not say just let's wait this as a matter of fact it was a rush let's just wait till the feasibility study happens and you don't have to turn anything down at that point in time because you can look at whatever the report says because they were actually analyzing the report and the report does say that it talks about the covenants it talks about the fact what you mentioned that you don't you know you have you can still do it above ground and there can be cost to that but that these restrictions will require mutual agreement and it can happen and it says that although these restrictions limit some uses the site remains feasible for tank placement provided that piping and pumping equipment are installed above grade so it's not like it's out of the ball game i'm just the fact that in the process it was completely declined you're doing a feasibility study to get a result at the beginning there are notes from and it's from the departments it was within with water resources and i it the employee escapes my mind because they were reviewing it says do not look at the brush site to me that's indicating trying to actually move something to a certain point and i just i have a hard time with that when i see that and i i i respect you claude i understand what administration is that but i hope you understand where i'm coming at and where i'm looking at it from an outsider and seeing all this and the it's just the math isn't mapping like the new young the young people say so if i could just say for the record i mean we did not absolutely try and dictate a result uh to the consultant we don't we don't want to have a meeting like this with a black cloud over it we'd like to be here saying look we're going to build a science center and we're going to be able to take care of the utility too we've been sitting around looking for a both and answer i i agree with you can i i think it's my turn please the quorum so i just want to put that on the record and that's fair but from what my reading of everything when you're having a feasibility study done to me those are factors as taking the totality of the circumstances that causes me concern and i would love to hear from other council members thank you thank you council member gabbert thank you chair and uh thank you all for coming out thank you to everyone who may be listening that has emailed in and shared information i know that there have been a lot of community meetings on the west side the neighborhoods that have been talking about this and um certainly understand as one of the three council members who was here when uh former council member blackman brought this forward uh the passion that exists um it's no secret i'm not originally from st petersburg i did not grow up here so i don't have a memory of the science center um but people very close to me do and i know that there is a great love um i'm also married to an engineer so i am science adjacent and um definitely understand uh you know the complications and claude what you said at the end about the irony of this all right um i guess i'm just going to kind of fill in some blanks if we can because you mentioned that in july i did send an email asking for the status or the scope of work on this study so i'm going to fill in some blanks for everyone and claude i'm going to start by saying that um i support you in the work that you have done to get us to this place because i do believe you were doing the due diligence that is your role to do and behind the scenes in my one-on-one conversations that is what i pushed for because i believe that it was important to make sure that as we were going through this process that we were dotting our i's crossing our t's and making sure that we were looking through the lens of resiliency on this project so i say all of that to say that um luckily i take really good notes in all of my one-on-one meetings so i'm going to go back to april 1st i had a meeting with aaron um to discuss the project at that point in time the project was moving forward um it was the first that i had really heard about it i think other than an article that might have been in the catalyst about some uh site plans um since probably 21 or 22 it had been quite a while since we had really talked about the project um so had this meeting with aaron was told at that time and i just want to say um from the notes that legal was working with outside bond council to do a stantec consultant study occurring to see if it makes sense for the city to dispose of property the analysis will occur and then a resolution will be brought to city council for approval if recommended to dispose so i started to ask aaron some questions um just a little more probing and it it kind of got a little bit outside of the scope of you know what i think is probably appropriate for city council because i was asking a lot of questions that i really felt were more fair for administration than for aaron um so you know we ended the meeting and then two weeks later i had a meeting with rob and with james um so when it came up in that meeting um i was also told that it was going to be a stantec study um bryant miller all uh miller olive was involved and that um i had asked when that was going to be completed and they did not have that information some time passed had not heard any more about it i had a call with the mayor at sometime in april after this meeting and the science center came up he told me that they were continuing to move forward with the science center and the entire conversation really around that it was quite brief i said that i just wanted us to make sure we were looking through the lens of resiliency as we moved forward that was the extent of my conversations about the study until i asked in july through the email that you saw what's going on can we see the study can we see the scope of work like just more curiosity because it was never my intention in us doing this study to kill the science center deal it was always my intention for us to make sure that we were looking at that and making sure that we were doing everything that we could to try to get the best of both worlds expansion for the facility to make sure that we understand what can be done there but at the same time honoring what the community obviously wants now did i go out on a limb and advocate that yes we got to do the science center at all costs no absolutely not every it is no surprise to anybody that resiliency is my number one concern for this city so i wanted to kind of fill in some of the blanks for city council here because we have these conversations with administration behind the scenes and we don't ever really we don't get to share that unless a situation like this comes along and so i thought that the history lesson from my perspective over the course of the last several months was important to the public records request that you pulled because i really want to thank you for doing that i spent quite a bit of time uh this week as well going through all of that comparing that with the timeline that the st petersburg group has been taking around to the neighborhood associations and i too have had some concerns about kind of where the miscommunication has lied um that that piece of it is still very concerning to me so when we talk about the actual study um can we bring back up the presentation and can we look at i believe and of course i closed it it's slide 23 yes that's the one okay so claude can you talk to us a little bit um because you know there's this ranking at the end and there is the site number four and that was ranked as number one and this is specifically um for the additional eq tanks correct yes okay so um it talks about cost and ease of construction i want to hone in on those two specifically cost is the same it weighted the same ease of construction was the one that really kind of differentiates the science center from site number four so can you talk about how when we look at this it somehow becomes in a later part of the presentation that it's the science center against the brush site how how do we go there like i don't really understand that part and we did have a meeting um about this and we went through it um but that piece of it still i just don't really understand how we go from there to the brush site certainly i'd like to change the this yes please so i'll point out here and and and again i might need some help from my colleagues here but if you see the the plant up in the northeast the the the top right corner you see some tanks there and there's some tanks that and and facilities that go across the top of the site all the way over to where the brush site is on the far west we have some tanks there on the far west and then this then the science center just below it that number four site is is part of is is part of the facility uh property and it and it's right there adjacent to all the other processes and it's a it's a spot it's a spot that doesn't have a lot of current infrastructure on it it's kind of hidden by those two blue you know tanks but there's not a lot of current infrastructure on it so it's open relatively open land uh which makes it easy to construct but also it's close to all the processes in the plant when wastewater flows through a plant it starts at one end and it flows all the way through the other end and and it receives different types of treatment through the process as i mentioned earlier as the regular as the regulatory agencies have suggested we're likely to see at some point some changes in how much nutrients we got to remove that nutrient removal occurs relatively in the middle of the process towards the beginning of the process not at the end and so having the land available in the middle of the plant makes it more usable for future and then also if if we are able to figure out a way to transfer flows during wet weather from the other plants to this plant then we are likely going to need to look at perhaps expanding the aeration tanks and the clarifiers that are also located right there next to number four but they're not located next to number one or number five so it is my understanding that's why the consultants rated that as a as a hire for um you know future use and why that was important if we put these tanks in in a location where the tanks could go somewhere else but if we put those tanks in a location that has the possibility of expansion for future use that's probably not the highest and best location for those tanks but it's not impossible it's not impossible it's just a little more difficult it's a little bit more difficult and and and it and it will limit us in the future so that it's possible at some point in the future when it when we have to expand the plant we might not have the appropriate room for it in the future and if i could just touch on that i mean that's one of our concerns and that's why we haven't been able to come up with a both end solution that we would like to come up with because you know when when we look at the brush site it's not just the importance of the brush site now which it is if you look at it it's the second most used brush site in the city it's very important but if the brush site were to go away we would want it for future use of the utility um so it's we don't see it as a swap one for one we can move things here because we could do something else there my understanding of the study is that the long-term future of the wastewater facility encompasses the entire site basically that's that's our concern and and and councilmember if i didn't fully answer your question if there's anything that my colleagues can add to maybe clarify it just let me know okay no i mean yes we're talking about this feasibility report right but ultimately your role claude as you said is to study evaluate and i still support that you did this and then advise this was not your decision and so i think it's really unfair for us to kind of hammer a little bit too much on all of you um i think it's important the facts to the future expansion of the plant but i don't i don't want to get into like kind of throwing you guys down the as the scapegoat on all of this i don't think that's fair and i don't want our community to look at it that way either um so i'm good with your team and i thank you for everything that you all do um i guess for administration is there an answer to the question of why we continued to negotiate for so long with the st petersburg group and we continued to give the green light at every single turn i think i even saw and i didn't pull i mean i probably have it here somewhere but i think it was 2023 there was an email that was like all right aaron we're good to go like let's let's get it to happen um it's 2025 yes we had a hurricane we know um but i mean why did this continue for so long with no resolution i i don't understand i mean if i'm looking at it from the community standpoint if the city is still negotiating with us then there's still hope there's okay we're still moving forward we're still investing we're still asking our senator well we didn't ask our senator but the community did to go and get money for this project why did we do all of this for so long to end up here i don't understand that yeah i i that's a good question and i'll do my best to address it and as you know because you know we were here together um i was the lead in 2019 on acquiring the property yeah um and you'll remember that water resources said we need the northern half to add the two tanks and the southern half was kind of up for grabs we had a lot of discussions we wanted yeah affordable housing we want to do this we want to do that so we had the blessing of water resources at that time that they did not need that property that continued into 2023 we were negotiating this you know um out of everyone's control i guess but the hud setback um you know was pretty significant it was 12 to 14 months um and then you know as we get into the storms and we see the impact of helene and milton uh i think the the concern of the utility team heightened when they saw the impacts of the hurricanes and how that could impact the future need of the facilities other facilities that we may need there um and i i think the feasibility study showed that they were right in that and that we had to prioritize the utility and that things had changed so back to the conversation about that raytheon site um can you tell us why and and maybe i don't know i know these emails were not you were not on these emails that i saw um so you maybe not be able to answer this but why did we not as part of this greater conversation if we felt as though this this new reality of needing to expand that plant which frankly we don't have a full-blown plan for and we don't have funding for so let's just be clear about that um why did we not pursue at least initial negotiations on that raytheon site to see if there was even a potential i mean what else are they going to sell it who else they're going to sell it to i mean come on like who else wants that property so i i just don't i don't understand and i'm in the real estate world like i mean especially commercial properties like unless they have a really desirable use for them which i wouldn't see this property having people are negotiating like it's just a fact so why didn't we at least try to do some initial like an loi or something like that to see or did we and we just didn't see the results council member good question and yes the city did uh submit an loi when we found out that the property was officially on the market for sale we looked at this again as a very strategic land purchase um we were negotiating with raytheon uh they were not wavering on their restrictions uh ultimately it was this the decision to break off those negotiations because the restrictions were pretty significant um and then later on uh the property did sell earlier this year uh 5.1 million the wait a minute the raytheon uh site hold on i just want to make sure the former raytheon property number nine there is the this the rectangular portion that's in the that is the northern portion of what was sold that we went back to raytheon or excuse me back to the developer who bought the property from raytheon uh to see if they would be interested in selling and to see what those restrictions looked like and the restrictions that the developer agreed to uh were essentially the same as what was proposed to the city from raytheon and they're very restrictive and at the time it was considered that they were too restrictive to actually use the property for its intended purpose okay well i'll remain confused on that because we just had a conversation about a five hundred thousand dollar delta between what they were asking and what we were willing to pay so or what we're making for this property so i'll remain confused on that um i think that's one that we'll just have to move on from i don't know we're going to clear that up today but i did not see an loi in our in the public records request and maybe that's because this is going back to uh sometime in 2024 is when an loi submitted and just and in this illustration the three um yellow circles that are on that north half of the raytheon site the the part that was purchased by the developer includes that piece of it and then going south all the way to 22nd avenue so that part that is just blank there yes that that was included as the entire sale but we did go back so we've essentially we made two attempts to buy property there yes okay um well i mean talked earlier about irony um i think it's kind of ironic that today a lot of our conversation has been around a lot of running themes history community science-based policy decisions such as resilience and health and nutrition yet here we sit saying that we don't want to have a science center i heard like the echoes when it came up you know can we not we can't have it all well i have to wonder why can't we like we really need a win as a city like it's a long time coming our city's been through a lot over the course of the last year we've had a lot of projects that we've tried to bring in for a landing that out of reasons that you know none of us could help they did not happen we need a win and i when i look at this see that i feel like there could have been a different decision made and so i'm i'm disappointed and i just i feel like there was another option that we should have explored and i i wish we would have done better with a faster timeline and a faster response the whole hud piece of it i think is another thing we're gonna have to all like just agree to be confused on because i've seen hud letters and lolis and like approval letters with the conditions from 2022 yet we're saying 2024 i'm not quite sure there either um so we'll leave that where it is but um i think we could have done better and quite frankly it makes me very sad to think that we're not going to continue this conversation so i look forward to hearing what the rest of city council has to say um and that maybe there is still a piece of light for the science thank you chair thank you councilmember harding thank you chair um my first concern uh and i'll i'll echo or piggyback on uh councilmember gabbard is at the end of the day we we rely on contract in this country and that's when the smart people at that end of the dais get involved but leading up to that um we rely on good faith and this process has been going on for literally years um enough so that uh that we got other parts of government involved all the way up to a state senator and um and money was spent on both sides and life force was spent on both sides and plans were made on both sides and it feels like it seems like this came out of nowhere and should have been been uh at the beginning of the process if it needed to be and i don't like the way that this feels um but irrelevant to where we are today um my my issue um with uh with the the the the study and how we've treated it and cloud i find your team as always with all of my interactions with you um to be um always incredibly enlightening cerebral and above all honorable and so thank you for the work that you've done my um my issue is not with the study it is what is it is with what we did with the study and um and what i understand is that of the four or five or six or seven sites that we looked at for possible expansion um all of them are possible all of them are are um are from an engineering perspective possible we closed down the the uh the the plant down at albert wooded airport but we still use those tanks uh and so what we're talking about is money i would imagine claude if we tasked you with putting those tanks in pasco county you could do it it's just a matter of of money and um and the difference that we're talking about here is the half a million dollars or a million dollars or whatever it is what we haven't talked about yet uh up here on the diocese is what it is that that that we're talking about we're talking about a science center for children we're talking about a place that that half the people in this room uh have memory of we're talking about uh uh some we're talking about a a a brick and mortar structure that addresses um that addresses something that has fallen short in education today and is being debated and that is that is stem and sciences um we have a a group of of people who went out formed a plan and raised money they didn't raise so many they raised 16 million dollars on the way to 25 right and it's a it's a not-for-profit entity that again um is pointed towards our kids i i i i struggle with if that group had come to us and said hey listen um we're going to build this in your community will the city get involved for a half million dollars or the city get involved for a million dollars you would find consensus all across the board in this entire building right that that's the the most precious commodity that we have and so and so at the end of the day um my struggle is that this is a good cause there's a good group behind it and the city um the city absolutely can be involved in it and should be involved in it um it is never too late uh and that's why we're talking about this today the the sorry lost track my point i i but well i'll just finish with that that is my struggle is that um is that the the most prudent thing to do is to not build this and uh and save that that land for uh future tanks but that's not what we're in the business of doing we're not a for-profit entity we're an entity that builds things um with the resources that we have for our citizens and so prudent is not necessarily a consideration the consideration is what can we do that best uh that that that that best benefits the 300 000 people who live here and the truth of the matter is that that we can accomplish the the um the the the points in the study of setting land aside possibly building extra tanks um having a place for more throughput or other processes as this gets more complicated and we can build the science center right there at the same time and so that that ultimately is my struggle is um is that all of this is doable um and that's what uh that and that's what i'll stand behind thank you chair thank you councilmember floyd thank you uh so i'll start i guess by talking about science like i am an engineer of a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering and i taught science and engineering right next door to azalea middle school for a year and now i'm not going to talk about any of that because i don't think it's relevant to the conversation anymore instead i'm going to talk about economic development and how this is a private sector economic development project that we uh had that you know we're selling for basically market rate uh this property and this public use and basically public use facility is going to be created there and we let them get a long way down the line before we pulled the rug a long way and uh when it comes to economic development like providing certainty to our private and public sector partners in this case as well uh is very important to me i think it's very important to developing the local economy of the city and so uh based off of that alone as well as the fact that i understand where y'all are coming from on the study um and i see why you got to the conclusions you got to but i also did not hear that anything outside of we would be inconvenienced if we did not have the science center property and so because of that i'm willing to be inconvenienced to allow uh a project like this go on um and and that's that's really where i'm at today and so i i'd be willing to continue figuring out how we can make this happen thank you thank you council member givens thank you so much chair i appreciate it it was brought up earlier that i think the best inspiration for a young person when it comes to this site is seeing a science center and not seeing some sort of waste storage facility um i am one of the few probably on this dais who actually benefited from the science center um some of my best field trips growing up as a child were to that science center and my dad as well after five decades you know and so i think it's important to recognize the fact that there's so many benefits and if we were to lose sight of this project we risk losing five years of senator rusan and representative jock and so many others hard work um seven million dollars in funding uh appropriations that may not necessarily follow this project because they are tied to this site um and i think it's a tough loss you know the statement was made to mr hamilton well you may not have five votes to get this thing saved well sounds like he has those five votes so um i just want to say that i certainly think this is a project that's worth us saving um it's gone too far and i think it's you know a worthy cause when i think of this site i think about the planetarium um i think about one of the largest mosaic art pieces in the united states and all of that would be at a loss for the purpose of saving a water capacity facility that we may not necessarily need um so with that share i'm done thank you thank you councilmember fix sanders thank you i i i want to first of all thank everyone for coming in and sharing your opinion and i am very appreciative to everyone's comment so i will start in full transparency i was not the 100 supporter of the science center initially because i wanted housing you know i kept thinking about housing what else can we do can we do housing we need a a large space to provide housing so i'm i'm all about housing um and as the time went um and we saw what was developing um as i shared with senator russon i see where we are the mayor had already gotten to a point i won't speak against it but i'm still in the same place of wanting housing so when i heard that all of a sudden it was stopped haunted um part of me said well okay now let's but then another part of me said if i were in those shoes and i had gotten this far i i'd invested this far how would i feel what would that do am i still wanting to have somewhere for our wastewater i i do that i mean that's a must we are we are responsible to ensure that our water that were there but then i think about how can we do both so i don't know if we can vote yes and no but i think we we need to figure out how we can do both do i still feel the same way about the science center absolutely did i see the the renderings of it that i absolutely loved yes i did um i still have the same concerns about the science center i still have the same concerns that not all students will have access to it um i was told that that would not be an issue that would not be a concern and i'm going to hold you to that um so i'm letting you know up front my concerns are still there i'm not going to let that go but i'm still struggling with how long this went to all of a sudden say now we have to stop but then the other part says we need to have that facility so um i am in the position of listening and trusting um our administration but also looking at what was invested in getting it to the next place because i got into a comfortable place i thought that the deal was done we were moving on you know it was only to hear this so i'm going to leave it there um that if it moves forward which at this point you know i don't i don't you know have a a discrepancy against it but as a city we were responsible um we people keep saying helene we had debbie helene and milton we were not prepared for all three of those things had changed since we had this conversation i think the conversation would have stopped with the science center early on i just wish it would have just it would have discontinued um early on so again i am at the position i want to can we do both um and i don't know what that may look like i don't know if we're required to act on this right now but i would love to see us um entertain what that looks like that's it thank you chair thank you councilmember driscoll thank you chair i understand that you have not had an opportunity to speak yet and i kicked us off so i wanted to yield to you if you would like to say a few words before i start uh sure thank you um so first uh thanks for the countless one-on-ones claude and team and rob and the mayor um i i don't normally say things like this but i'll i'll toot my horn a little bit um yes there were three of us on the dais that voted in september of 2001 but i had started going to meetings in july when i announced and was at the meeting when this started in september of 2001 and i can promise you maybe other than joe hamilton and i and i would put up against joe there is nobody that has had more meetings and spent more time on the science center since 2001 than me and so um i i just i wanted to level set real quick um councilmember gibbons i agree i've got lots of memories at the science center probably a few i shouldn't have um and so my my brothers went there i went there my nieces my nephews uh i live less than a mile from there and so this has been something that i think it's the first phone call i got in november of 2021 from count then councilmember blackman uh and i think the second one was a text from you councilmember gabbard and so um this this has been something where i have talked about it in every single neighborhood meeting in almost if not every one-on-one i've had with the mayor probably fifty percent of the one-on-ones i've had um with with rob and administration so i again i just wanted to level set because uh and i'll start with this and then finish somewhere else i think everywhere we were going everybody was rowing in the same direction up to a point and i know that that kind of fractured we've talked about it at nauseam already so i'm not going to go into that but i just want to make it very clear from both my perspective and speaking on behalf of my of with my meetings with administration and the mayor uh everybody was rowing in the right in the same direction this study obviously throws some different things and and again it's been talked about and we have public hearings so i'm gonna i'm gonna make sure i'm cutting myself short but here's the deal obviously i think cab i think councilmember gabbard said it best um you know we need a win and selfishly i'd love for that win to be on the west side of saint petersburg in a place that i think we saw lots of wins go from 1966 until 20 teens when the science center closed and so you know i would love to try to find a reasonable path forward i've continued to try to do that with the mayor and administration and so that all of the feedback has been very good because we're not able to talk about this most of the talk we've had has been about funding frankly of this project putting wiki watching money out then putting it back in uh you know that that's those are the conversations that we've had at this point so i just i just wanted to relay my sentiment and my my uh my passion for this project i also i listen i i get the data this is kind of where i stood when we were talking about projects in the past but i do think um you know if there's a way to get an and rather than an or i'd certainly love to get there and so um for the sake of time i'm gonna yield and we'll go to councilmember driscoll thank you and it has been um really important to me and i'm very happy to finally hear from my colleagues um on how what we think of all of this and i think um the message seems pretty clear that and is the option that we would like to move forward with um i gotta back up for a minute because claude um we have had a a great working relationship over many years now and um i have the greatest respect for you i know that you prioritize your your um your mission in our city your team and our residents not necessarily in that order it all works together it's all prioritized for you and um um that's why it's really difficult for me to hear um that there's this discrepancy on on what happened and it kind of colors this whole thing um i want to believe that there was not an intention of deception here but when i see that when i hear this and then see the study i can't help but think that this was the study was presented to us as being objective but it's actually biased and that certain elements of it were um steered in a certain direction to create a certain result i need i need to know why you why you did this i'm looking i'm looking for an explanation that i can be peace peaceful about so i did not steer it towards a specific result very clear with the staff that this needed to be objective um and that we needed to look at all the sites as with an objective lens as much as we could um and so all i can say is that i did not steer this towards a specific result okay if the study had been done after the sale of the science center was completed and it was determined that was not part of this all the other options were there would you be able to move forward with planning for the future at that site we will continue to move forward with planning but if if the science center was already sold right no longer an option right would you still be able to make it work we as as the plan should as the feasibility study showed you there are many options available yes so the and is possible and that's where i think that we should be headed towards now okay this gives me a lot of encouragement i didn't know where we were going to be with this today but being able to plan for the future for our infrastructure and be able to move forward with letting this group reimagine re-envision and revitalize the science center is really the best of both worlds especially these days we all know science is under attack right now it is up it is up to cities it is up to the private sector it is up to people like us in all in this room to make sure that our children have that access to science because why are you making these plans because we have pro we have challenges that we know will lie ahead one day how are we going to know what those are science how are we going to know how to fix it science down the road the children who will be attending the science center will be the scientists of tomorrow who are solving those problems for us and so this all the synergy here is absolutely fabulous one of the reasons that i love the maritime and defense technology hub out on the port is because students at usf st pete can go outside if they're studying marine science they can look out they can look out at the port they can look all around them and see jobs it's kind of the vibe i'm getting with this now too so i think there is a path forward and i'm hoping that we can figure out what that might look like but first um if you don't mind i need to ask the chair for permission i i think that since joe hamilton is here um with us would you oblige and allow him to step up i just want to ask him a question and give him the opportunity to speak just for a moment uh sure thank you thank you so much mr hamilton hope i didn't catch you off guard uh you're you're the kind of guy who's always ready quite a bit so definitely not off guard yes thank you if you could introduce yourself to everyone or joe hamilton i'm with st peeper steam st p foundation st petersburg group i've been working very hard on this project for a few years um i a couple quick points i'll make just for the record uh number one first and foremost copley's been an absolutely great partner in this process and he is true to his word he's busted his rear working on this and we were all rolling in the same direction so i concur and appreciate his partnership in this endeavor um timeline issues the hud grant was awarded and it was uh first it was uh robert blackman and charlie kristen a beautiful act of bipartisan uh uh goodness for the city they they brought the three million dollars into uh here it was approved in 2022 was initiated in 2021 um at that point the election just ended and there was sort of a period of hibernation as the mayor got uh used to his new role and uh we didn't have a lot of communication so it wasn't until uh 2023 that we were able to pick back up the conversation for this where this hud money was involved from the previous year and then once we actually had a path forward we started the hud process so that's why it began in 2023 was actually initiated long before that um you know and with regard to the reports i mean just stepping stepping back it's you know the top four results in this objective report three were dismissed out of hand one was just the very first one it was dismissed because these tanks weren't important enough to put there the number one site this is the number one place we should put it nah there's higher and better users these tanks aren't important enough to put there and so let's take it off the list can you stick to the side to the science center specifically because you're going to make comments on the study we should have done it during open forum or the three minutes i just want to be fair to everybody else that's fair yep and actually the point i really need to you have a question yeah i did all right that's okay let's go with the question i just want to make sure we're being fair yep yeah um but thank you thank you for all of that that that part of the timeline is great and um we've all review reviewed this study it's been out there um and you know there there could be other conversations that happen with that it is it is not for us to decide today what the alternative will be i'm hoping that we can send a message today that there is to be an alternative let's get to that later what i wanted you to share with us what i wanted to ask you was to tell us your experience and what you have put into this project over the last five or so years um i mean because this isn't done this doesn't just magically fall out of the sky this guy's blood sweat and tears and his time and his treasure are wrapped into this for the community it's not to enrich himself nobody gets rich off these kinds of projects okay joe what has this meant for you what have you put into it and um brevity is golden yeah well first it's definitely not just me pathfinder has been a great partner water warrior alliance it's been a real village all of our elected officials you know we've had bipartisan support so you know i'm i'm simply just sort of the the water carrier that that carries other people's water on this uh and you know this to me was a great opportunity it is a great opportunity because obviously there's still a path forward i believe um you know when i look at all the things uh you know and i have an interesting role it's sort of the the middle of a lot of stuff in the city um you know i'm looking at economic development i'm looking at preparing our region for the future with emerging technology i'm looking at preserving historic elements of our past i'm looking at educating our kids i'm looking at being financially sustainable which was very important for me because so many of these science centers go out of business and struggle financially so it was a beautiful beautiful puzzle uh to be able to put together something that checks so many boxes that has art that has history that has education that has economic development that it has event space and office space and things that can make us sustainable and we packed every square inch of that 50 000 square foot you know star destroyer looking building with with goodness and value for the community um and you know and that's why it is frustrating to hear these conversations about you know moving a dumpster and some palm fronts to a place would be inconvenient when so much you know i think this is what real resiliency leadership is about is understanding it's a multi-faceted issue and you know you don't say i want to fix education i'm going to buy 10 000 desks you say it's a multi-faceted issue and we solved a lot of mouth or at least worked on solving a lot of different multi-faceted elements of need in our city and that was what was really exhilarating around the project and being able to bring so many people together each each aligning with their own self-interest to contribute to this and make part of it their own and and become almost like a uh you know just a platform for everybody else to to really thrive under so that that was that was the vision that was the goal that's where the effort went all right thank you thanks for all you've done up to this point um on this on this project and i um hope that we do find a a path where we can move forward you know we've received a lot of emails um and thank you those of you who are here and emailed and those of you those who could not be here tonight um i really appreciate all of the emails there's one that stood out to me and this is what made me believe that i was doing the right thing by bringing this conversation forward in the public um today and it's from a teacher named tamika morris who used to live in the jungle terrace neighborhood she lives in a different neighborhood now um in district five and she um still passes by her middle school azalea when she's while she's waiting for the science center to be back on her field trip list she says i'm in my 31st year teaching and this trip was one that touched the lives of so many they constantly worked with our pinellas county schools department to develop hands-on activities using standards that students were currently using this can't be replicated and it was free for students like my title one students that otherwise wouldn't have some of these experiences it goes on but you get the idea this is for tamika and for all who teach at the science center who learn at the science center and who want to see the science center thrive jackie help me out here i know i know um please this isn't some this was just a report item it wasn't something for us to vote on but again one of the reasons i brought it forward was to find out what my colleagues thought about it it seems that we have several council members who would like to see this move forward um what can we do i mean you you certainly have the option today to make a motion requesting anything that you would like of administration related to the project okay do we have to do a do you have to quickly write a resolution for us no you we don't i mean we you you have that option but a resolution isn't necessary a motion would suffice okay um well then i will um make a a motion for city council to request that the administration reconsidered the plans for the science center site and um move forward with the agreement with the saint petersburg group um for the science center and work on alternatives for the um public works uses in other locations i just made that up it doesn't sound very graceful but will that do second okay yeah councilmember pig sanders thank you i have a question now listening to administration and listening to the majority of an and instead of an or i thought i did hear that there's an option for them to be in the same location no no okay i missed it just wanted to make sure all right thank you i hear your motion okay um just one one thing i don't know if um so i don't want this to hang out there we've everyone's waited far far too long already and so um if if this should pass i would like to have administration tell us a date certain by which this transaction will be completed and um then after that i will look at a new business item to schedule a meeting in ps and i to discuss the alternatives for public works and get an update from them that way so that's kind of what i'm what's noodling in my head right now i would like to know if if we can get a timeline if we can get some we'll talk to the mayor about whatever the vote is tonight and we'll get back to city council okay great so um could you please give us an update at the october 2nd city council meeting because if you because i'm going to ask like i said we'll talk to the mayor and we'll get back to you all right thank you i look forward to hearing an update on that on october 2nd thank you chair okay we have a motion and a second on a f1 motion seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair the motion for agenda item f1 passes unanimously okay thank you all right we're going to keep moving on because we've got public hearings to get to we're going to move into new business and we're going to go to g1 this is my item if you could please try to be uh quiet as you're entering or exiting because we do have to continue to move on please and thank you and thank you for being here this is respectfully requesting a referral to the budget finance and taxation committee to discuss public revenue bonds series 25 2025 c and i'd entertain a motion for approval approval we have a motion to second on g1 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote mr chair the motion to approve a genom g1 passes unanimously will council member harding make absent okay we're going to move into g2 a referral from council member gibbons thank you chair and i'll be very brief um i brought this forward simply after being approached by pastor williams uh the owner and chair of cross and anvil the non-profit that's currently operating lincoln cemetery uh they're in a bit of a bind and so in order to keep them from going into a state of disarray i've asked that the council consider having a joint discussion uh with the gulfport city council regarding the cemetery's historical significance and the future uh again this conversation is strictly about educating uh both council bodies about the history and also the future uh for options and opportunities so with that respectfully requesting a referral to the housing land use and transportation committee or other relevant committee to discuss a potential joint meeting between the st petersburg city council and the gulfport city council to discuss the lincoln cemetery and with that i move for approval okay um seeing as there's some discussion on this item and we haven't gotten a second yet i'm going to defer g2 till after the public hearing we can bring this back up after j1 because what i want to do is i want to give council five minutes to go to the bathroom before we go into public hearing and so we're going to we'll just defer g2 till after j1 jackie that's okay yeah i would say just procedurally if if it's okay with council member givens in light of the start time right if you wouldn't mind withdrawing your motion just for the record so we can just bring it up fresh at that point so we'll bring it back up clean council member givens after j1 so just will you just put that you would draw the motion on the record i would draw the motion for the record thank you okay we're going to recess for five minutes we're going to come back at 6 25 for uh for public hearings we're in recess a call back to order the september 25th 2025 city council meeting we're going to move right into public hearing and uh i'm sure most of you uh heard vice chair hanowitz go over this lat or two weeks ago and and just vice chair hanowitz thank you for handling first reading during all this but a lot of this is scripted and so uh please bear with us i i will probably just like vice chair hanowitz said a couple weeks ago i will also probably screw this up so um okay 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 2026 which has been amended for second reading to include the intent of the request made by city council at the first public hearing administration's proposed changes since the first reading as outline and attachment b recap of changes this is also the public hearing on the excuse me 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 taxes are being increased that issue will be discussed by liz mccoskey our budget director and staff after the title to the budget appropriations ordinance is read clerk if you could please read the ordinance oppose ordinance number 619 h an ordinance making appropriations for the fiscal year ending september 30 2026 making appropriations for the vividها making the formerчик4 public government ordinance ordinance the budget for the city of st peter's organizing board for the fiscal year ending september 30 2026 and providing for related matters and providing an effective date and we do have cards okay we are going to go to uh our budget director elizabeth cosmey for our presentation and before i begin the presentation if anyone here has specific questions or concerns regarding the assessed value of their property exemptions or classification related to your property or information on your trim notices tonight we have here with us kevin mckeon the deputy of assessment administration and jeffrey haynes the director of residential appraisal appraisal from the pinellas county property appraisers office if any would like to speak with them please follow them at this time and they will answer any questions you may have for those attending virtually please contact the pinellas county property appraisers office at 727-464-3207 they're available monday through friday 8 to 5 or you can email mike at pcpao.org thank you for being here all right good good evening and thank you um chair vice chair and members of city council this evening is the second of two public hearings on the fiscal year 2026 budget for the city of saint petersburg florida statues 200.065 the truth and millage act which is also referred to as the trim act requires a specific process for our discussion tonight the order of this process is laid out in attachment a of the backup materials the clerk has just provided the second reading of the fy26 budget ordinance and in just a moment i will review with council and the public the proposed changes to the tentative fy26 budget that city council approved two weeks ago upon conclusion of the budget presentation we'll then hear from the public and after a public comment period and discussion and deliberation by city council city council will be asked to take action on three items and each of these actions will need to be done as a standalone motion the first one is to adopt by resolution the final millage rate of 6.4525 for fy26 the second is to adopt the fy26 budget appropriation ordinance as the final budget and the third item is to adopt by resolution the fy26 through fy30 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 fy26 budget the rollback rate is 6.2083 mils and is the millage rate that would generate roughly the same amount of ad valorem revenues in fy26 as the city received in fy25 under the trim statutes we're 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 fy26 than the city is scheduled to receive in 25. the proposed fy26 millage rate is 6.4525 and represents a three point nine three percent increase over the rollback rate the year-over-year increase in ad valorem revenue from fy25 to fy26 is ten point four five two million the second step in the state required trim process is to discuss the reasons ad valorem revenue taxes are being increased a major reason for the increase in the ad valorem revenue is to provide the resources needed for wage increases for all city employees including police and fire rescue there are some key areas of investments planned for the fy26 budget and they're aligned with the mayor's five pillars for progress under the education and youth opportunities pillar there's funding to continue programs such as the mayor's future ready academy year-round youth employment program youth development grants literacy and steam programs and under the equity equitable development arts and business opportunity pillars we look to fund the continuation of many of our economic and workforce development programs and our art programs while adding funding for some new programs including individual artist grants and the poetry festival under neighborhood health and safety pillar we're continuing to fund neighborhood and public safety programs like the call program community impact grants and programs the safe summer program and the healthy neighborhood store program and our healthy food action program for the housing opportunity for all pillar there'll be funding to continue our progress on the 10-year housing opportunities for all agenda and provide resources for various 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 saint pete agile resilience program the increase in ad valorem tax is based on a 4.93 increase in 2025 property values over 2024 this next chart shows a 10-year history of property tax ad valorem revenue uses per our city fiscal policies ad valorem revenues must be allocated to cover the cost of providing public safety to the city first these revenues will be used to fund the police department and any excess applied to the fire rescue department and after we transfer out the required contributions to the city's three tax increment districts which is about 26.5 million the net fy26 ad valorem revenue of just about 202 million will cover 91.6 of the city's public safety costs this slide illustrates the calculation of the millage rate for fy26 the first step in this calculation is to determine the value of one mill to do this we take the gross property value and then multiply it by 96 percent which results in 35.471 billion in value for budgeting purposes we then divide this amount the 35.471 billion by 1 000 and this gives us the value of one mill which is 35.471 million the second step is to look at our fy26 general fund requirements of 411.9 million and net out the other sources of revenue other than ad valorem which total 183 million to arrive at the amount of required ad valorem taxes or 228.87 million the third vital step is to divide the required ad valorem tax amount which is shown as b on this slide by the value of one mil which is a on the slide to arrive at the 6.4525 mils required this next slide illustrates a typical tax bill for the resident of the city of saint petersburg the city of saint petersburg makes up about 30 percent of the homeowner's tax bill or 30 cents of every ad valorem tax dollar paid by property owners the school system with its two components of their tax bill make up about 36 percent and pinellas county makes up 22 percent of the total taxes the balance of 12 percent is made up of various other taxing authorities such as the ems southwest florida water management district and the health department and various other agencies so we'll now move into a discussion of the changes to the fy26 budget since city 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 of the backup which is called the recap of changes and we had no change in the general fund revenue since the last public hearing we do have a change on the general fund side i'm sorry there is a change on the revenue there is a change to the general fund in the revenue side and this is related to the parks and recreation department the amounts for both of the fy26 jwb agreement and the annual agreement with the florida department of health for the summer food program were greater than the amount that we had in the fy26 budget so this is the additional revenue that will receive for those two grants moving on to the requirement changes in the general fund they're found on page one of attachment b and the requirement changes listed total an increase of 157 000 and mirror the revenue increase on the previous slide of those two parks and recreation grants we also had a net zero change in the general fund budget related to the police and fire rescue departments as a result of the new collective bargaining agreements and again these have a net zero effect on the general fund when combined with the contingency change the change in contingency shown is again is that net amount needed to fund the requirements for the new police and fire collective bargaining agreements requirement or expense changes for other funds are broken down on the recap of changes attachment b of the backup there is a change in the emergency medical services fund and as a result of the new collective bargain agreements and a little bit of a rounding when we added that amount into the fund we also had a net zero change to the budget per the amendment amendment number one to the 2024 emergency medical services advanced life support first responder agreement where we had a proposed a new full-time lieutenant position which was not included in the agreement so we did remove it from the emergency medical services fund and we removed the corresponding funding amount to the overtime line item so again that was a net zero change in the fund in this next section we'll give a quick overview using tables charts and graphs to illustrate the city's fy26 budget and these tables are included in the fy26 budget and brief which has been posted on the city's website the total operating revenue budget for the city is 974.464 million charges for services make up the largest category of revenue at 422.2 million or 43.3 percent followed by taxes at 302 million or 31 percent the fy26 operating budget on the requirement or expense side is 976.229 million and is 8.2 percent higher than the fy25 operating budget the water resources operating fund increased by 12.3 percent year-over-year from 222.9 million to 249.2 million and the general fund and reserves budget increased by 4.55 percent from 394.5 million to 412.4 million the total general fund revenue budget is 411.921 million the general fund revenue comes from various sources as illustrated on this chart the largest single source of revenue are taxes which include ad valorem or property taxes and is a total of 73.33 percent of the budget or 302.048 million intergovernmental revenue is our next highest category which includes our half cent sales taxes and that's the second largest source at 10.48 percent or 43.2 million the total general fund expenditure budget for fy26 is 411.921 million the city's general fund is categorized into six administrations and the single largest general fund investment made by the cities in the public safety administration which includes police and fire rescue departments and is about 54.2 percent of the budget the general government administration makes up the next larger category at about 18.6 percent and includes departments such as budget finance legal and human resources the third largest general fund investment is in the quality of life type programming provided by community enrichment administration at 16.87 percent and includes our parks and recreation department and libraries this chart shows the general fund budget broken out by expenditure type the single largest category of the general fund is in wages and benefits which totals 282.9 million or about 68.7 percent of the total and services and commodities make up the second largest at 19.9 percent or 81.9 million the fy26 cip budget includes a total of 202.022 million in projects water resources projects account for the largest portion at 126.1 million or 62.4 percent while the penny for pinellas projects account for 37.3 million or 18.45 percent the total amount budgeted for the five-year cip plan is 1.049 billion and then this next slide shows the fund balance commitment categories that council will need to reaffirm these categories or other categories when the budget is adopted however the amounts that need to be set aside for each category do not need to be determined until the end of fiscal year 25 and we have the year-end actual results at that time we'll 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 and clean up in november and in closing i'd like to mention that the information on the city's fy26 budget is available on the city's website and i'd also like to take a quick moment to thank the budget team for all their hard work and all the department personnel throughout the city that provide assistance throughout the budget process thank you thank you okay this is the beginning of the public comment portion of the hearing the general public should be allowed to speak and ask questions prior to the adoption of the final millage rate and final budget by city council normal rules apply and you'll have three minutes to speak we'll call the first two speakers please even barefield and john tyler please go to either podium state your name and address with the record you have three minutes to address city council good evening steven barefield five zero three six casilla way south as president of the st petersburg international folk fair society i'm appearing before you for the third time this budgetary season regarding support for spiffs spiffs has received financial and other support from the city for the past 49 years cultural arts grant eligibility changed abruptly this year making spiffs st pete's longest running public annual event the only organization in the city that was not allowed to apply for a cultural arts grant this year i have made phone calls i have sent emails to all of you to the municipal staff to the mayor's office i've appeared here three times and the follow-up has been resounding silence it's been shocking we have found that in the 2025 budget ending in a few days there was a 10 000 amount and i quote for spiff's 50th anniversary not in the cultural arts budget of which we didn't ask and for which we were never informed and we have never received i would like to get on the record that you approved a 10 000 amount for our 50th anniversary this flat this coming year during last year's 2025 budget and that money has not been issued to spiffs i hope that council can help ensure that that happens since we were ineligible to apply for the cultural arts grant we have requested support both from the municipal budget and the council budget as we continue our work celebrating the diverse cultures that make up the fabric of st pete i respectfully ask that the council address this matter in tonight's meeting before finalizing the 2076 budget the day and time when celebrating cultural differences is under attack is the very day and time when affirming events such as this international folk fair are imperative for the safety and well-being of our citizens while i've been listening to the meeting this afternoon i've been reviewing the budget information there are four cultural annual events that have received an average of 22 to 23 000 from the city for this fiscal year under non-departmental among those you cannot find spiffs listed it's unthinkable that the city is walking away from spiffs we have not been offered a date now for three years in a st petersburg park no response from the parks department no offer of dates we have been pushed out to pinellas park and now you are closing the purse on us as well it's a tough day for st petersburg it's a tough year for st petersburg and it doesn't feel much like a 50-year celebration thank you for your time thank you i am john tyler i live at 13th avenue north uh in st pete um just call i'm just uh uh speaking today about uh i was looking over the budget and looking at the uh the complete streets aspects and uh uh bike infrastructure aspects of the budget i just like to see more you know going forward on the uh on the the bike infrastructure particularly uh i know the 28th uh street uh project has been uh approved as at least phase one is going to start i'd like to see make sure that you know we follow through with phase two and three um i'd also like to see uh more bike infrastructure on the roadways that lead to the sunrunner stops as a common area that a lot of people use use the bikes because they get they can use the bikes and get you know get on the sunrunner with their bikes so i'd like to see uh more complete streets funding uh targeted at like you know 40th 49th 58th where people uh use those areas to get to on their bikes to the sunrunner stops and then speaking the sunrunner stops uh was it the uh uh chamber of commerce uh right along on the sunrunner and the uh lady at um at the resort in st p beach was telling us about uh employees one employee in particular that she works with who uh takes three different buses every time she gets to and from uh work and you know i couldn't help but think about that lady thinking how nice it would be if there was housing for her right on the sunrunner route so instead of having to spend three hours of her day trying to navigate all the buses she could live right above a sunrunner stop and have more time with her spouse with her family all that so anything that the city council can do to get more housing i know some of these summer stops it'll just be you know one story two stories single use whether it be commercial uh residential type of buildings rather than the kind of higher density development you would expect to find at high frequency bus stops so there's a couple things i had in mind looking at the budget thank you thank you next two speakers please wendy wendy wesley and courtney burt please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council good evening council members thank you so much for having me my name is courtney burt i am the vice president for community health um and community impact and health strategies for the american heart association uh 11207 blue heron boulevard 33716 um i'm here this evening to ask the council members to please consider making a motion to add eighty two thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars to the budget this year for the fiscal year 26. uh this is for a mobile grocery store site or excuse me a mobile grocery store that would visit the jordan park families twice per month um we all know that that is an area that has low income low access based on usda data and other community health needs assessment data that we have here locally we also know that heart disease is the number one killer across all ages genders categories and nutrition is one of the biggest factors for that and access to healthy foods this mobile grocery store will break down barriers that these families face in jordan park which is lack of transportation um this evening we were going to have a family that would come share why this would be important and they have child care issues being able to bring a mobile grocery store right to their doorsteps would not only bridge a lot of those barriers for them but just make it easy um it would also make it uh the diversity of food being brought to these families versus the convenience stores and the other options that they have right now within close proximity to the jordan park area um you know we have this amazing solution for only eighty two thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars uh data suggests that returns on investment for these type of initiatives related to nutrition security could return of investment of greater uh upwards to almost two thousand percent uh depending on the engagement with the initiatives um i don't know how many of you i know council member gibbons was at one of the events i was at i personally have been out to numerous events at the jordan park community during their holiday christmas events uh during their after school events i've taught the children there how to do hands-only cpr if you guys can get this push through the budget i give you my personal commitment that not only will you get this mobile grocery store which will be provided by feeding tampa bay but you will also get my commitment that we will come alongside them and we we will provide a plethora of resources giving out clinically validated blood pressure devices teaching the children how to do hands-only cpr teaching them physical activity um if i didn't feel passionately about this i wouldn't go and spend a lot of my own personal time and i have been at at least five events this calendar year jump roping with the children myself and if you can go out to these events and see the families come out and engage we are not only building community and we're not only improving health but we are building connectedness we're building trust in our health care systems and we are really making generational changes that we can't even gauge what the financial return will be on that investment thank you thank you hi my name is wendy wesley i live at 357 4th avenue south i'm a registered and licensed dietitian nutritionist here in st petersburg and i work um weekly with populations all over st petersburg i'm here to ask for your support of the jordan park mobile grocery store i spent many years working at st anthony's as a clinical dietitian and i first could see firsthand the effects of nutrition insecurity it seems that in st petersburg we instead of adding access to food we are losing access to food most recently with the closing of the save a lot grocery store at 22nd avenue and 49th street south the closing of the save a lot at kokina key plaza and we're going on eight years without a grocery store at tangerine plaza so i would um ask council to fund this mobile grocery store at jordan park as the previous gentleman who stood at this podium said transportation is a major barrier to access to work and also to groceries and we do live in areas of low income low access um also i don't like to use the term but called and commonly known as food deserts and these areas are often linked to transportation so if this mobile grocery store could bring the groceries to where people live it would have an incredible impact on this uh part of st petersburg thank you tara hubbard and jay james please go to the podium state your name and address for the record you have three minutes to address city council well first can you hear me uh tara hubbard i live at four seven five one sixth avenue south hello council great to be here uh so wanted to chat about the budget um i'm a big multimodal transportation fan as many of you may know and seeing the the budget for next year it's it's a little disappointing i would love to see more funding in this region uh for these types of projects closer to home uh realizing the the lack of funding seeing firsthand what that causes there's been a lot of studies and planning for uh infrastructure improvements along the sun runner corridor along the pinellas trail in those uh intersections that actually go to those really world-class transportation services that we have here but the lack of connectivity is uh quite tragic to see uh for example the 49th street corridor which is where i live off of uh and my family also we have our office off of 49th street um in that that corridor coming from sun runner and coming from pinellas trail is extremely dangerous to traverse as a pedestrian or a bicyclist um just recently i arrived home from out of the country on sunday evening and went to my office on monday morning and i saw the a film crew right next to my office so i rolled down my window hey what's going on and they shared with me that that uh location was where a woman was just um tragically hit by a drunk driver uh and learning about that she was riding in a curb lane so realizing that the studies that we have uh actually promoting the bike lanes on that corridor actually this council last year uh voted on those and infrastructure improvements and just to see that nothing has been done is and seeing the actual results right in my backyard was uh really tragic so i would implore the council and the city to possibly make these types of infrastructure improvements possible uh faster and better funded that is something that i would love to see thank you all for your time hello my name is jay james my pronouns are they them and theirs to um 204 227th street south um amir williams april 26 2024 11 year old amir williams was fatally shot by his 14 year old brother kimony williams students had the day off from school on that friday and the mirror was home with his older brother and 13 year old sister said the police kimony williams told the authorities he found a gun in a nearby alley and the shooting was accidental st pete police assistant chief michael kovashev i hope i said his name right said a firearm should not have been there this is where we are today a teenager should not have had a firearm he was playing around with the firearm and it discharged marcus rivers april 20th 2025 21 year old marcus rivers was killed in his car in riviera bay a 70 year old was also shot in the same shootout and was in critical conditions afterwards but survived marcus's alleged killers are two 16 year old boys and the 70 year old who was injured these are just two of the young folk who've been killed since we launched our save our streets campaign and have been coming here and talking to y'all and the mayor we want to stop violence in our community and our budget should reflect that the residents of st pete are looking for our test dollars to prioritize the people's needs and based on our outreach it is more accessible youth programming save our streets is a public safety measure so this funding should come from as part of the city's public safety budget and we demand that there is no increase in the police budget and instead increase the public safety budget to support this initiative across this country and here in st pete one of the best indicators of increased violence is a lack of investment in a local community we need to address violence at the root which means supporting communities that are most impacted when neighborhoods don't have access to stable work stable housing stable health care stable child care 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 and violence in the community is a reflection of a city's um official's willingness to support that community that's y'all what are y'all gonna do next two speakers lena vu and misty botroff i believe that's it please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council go first good evening council members my name is misty botorff i'm the executive director of the skyway marina district i live at 6175 56 place north at st pete um first i want to thank you for your continued support you've shown to all of our main streets i've proudly served in this role for seven years and in that time we've made a real impact through community events that bring people together and strengthen our local businesses however during those seven years the funding we receive has not increased while the cost of holding events has risen significantly road closures police presence and overall expenses of putting on an event that is safe welcoming for community events continue to grow we are grateful for an arts grant that allowed us to host six arts events this year but that grant is no longer available which limits what we can provide this upcoming year so to continue offering the events that enrich our community draw visitors and support small businesses i respectfully ask that you consider an increase in the city fundings to our main street program your investment helps us sustain and grow these opportunities for residents and businesses alike thank you again for your partnership and support hello uh lana vu 77 25 78th street north um i'm here in support of the dream defender save our streets campaign as well as increased funding for other social programs i think we can all agree that children are the future and the mayor said so himself in the budget brief and he also said that their current experiences will shape their tomorrow so will their experience continue to be seeing people living on the streets or people living paycheck to paycheck unable to afford basic necessities like housing and food which is really the root cause of violence and crime will they continue to see the city council allocate over 170 million dollars to the police while people are struggling to pay rent and provide for their families we don't need over four hundred thousand dollars for police take-home vehicles we need more resources that will actually benefit the community and especially the children the the mayor seemed really proud of the safe summer program that was implemented yet last year for the youth but i want to know what you're doing year-round to make sure that they have access to the resources they need whether whether it's financial or transportation to make sure that they don't have to continue experiencing violence whether direct like jay was talking about or indirect by means of poverty and lack of resources when the city could be doing more so whatever is making you feel the need to spend so much money and resources on the police i want you to put the energy towards addressing the root cause of the issues plaguing the city and incarceration is never the answer so as long as you continue to prioritize policing and um instead of investing in the city then you will never be doing enough to keep our community safe and i hope you that room that you remember that thank you next two speakers christian arnold and rafael tabera please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council my name is christian arnold 2306 first avenue north i am the executive director of the grand central district very large district so much i have 30 of the city council representing us um i wanted to reiterate what misty had said about the main street program uh i don't think there's anybody who's interfaced with one of our associations who doesn't think that that money is well spent um we work closely with city administration we advocate for the businesses we work in economic vitality and uh it makes sense to a little more money down for our associations makes sense the reason i'm here today is we don't have a line item in the budget for for one of the ways that we make money is events and the biggest one we have is halloween halloween uh was started by downtown partnership five years ago um and as part of that the expenses there was a deduction of the city bill to to cover those costs when it started it was about 25 000 to run halloween those costs have tripled almost quadrupled i just got my city built today for this year it's sixty thousand dollars for police and traffic the deduction is still the same it's still thirty thousand dollars um the reason why you've never seen me here asking for money before is because i pride myself as i'm a good fundraiser and i like to get the the private sector involved uh it's it's tough out there right now we know with the economic and political climate right now fundraising is extremely difficult uh so i'm coming here to ask for money from the city um obviously i would like to see a lot of money from the city but if we can just cover the city bill i we can do the rest you know roger kerlin who was my colleague at the edge district he and i working tirelessly uh to find sponsors we lost our title sponsor this year but you know we've been out there nickel and diamond and we're getting close but the city bill being double that what it's been it's very difficult to even break even uh we were hoping to make a little bit money this year but it's not it's not looking that way um you know halloween is two miles of central avenue i was talking about a benefit to the city uh and economic vitality we're activating the entire central avenue corridor everyone's involved in it we have uh this year we have an autism area a sensory area we have we have a kid zone there's a million things going on and the whole city is coming out so we have 100 000 people last year and it'll be a shame if the city lost this wonderful event that we you know we're trying to do on so again i don't want to ask for a lot of money but it would be great if the city could just cover city costs first this year thanks that's all i got thank you hi everyone my name is rafael tabera and i'm a resident at 851 18th avenue north now i believe that too many of our youth has been impacted by gun violence and when we do surveys at communities that are most impacted by set gun violence communities like child's park what they tell us is that they need more youth programs for example like after school programs and things of that nature and another thing is the police department has the same exact sentiments but there's a problem here our budget doesn't reflect that and so the thing is our youth is our future and we need to invest in them they're much they're more they're more than worth the investment they're everything they're a reflection of us and what we leave with them and so it's on us to do the work and to leave a better world for them and and nevertheless these kids shouldn't even be subjected to this gun violence like that should just not even be happening so so please take note of what's occurring in these communities and in this city and please just consider it when we're talking about the budget because i mean it's everything so that's all thank you all for your time thank you next two speakers please next two speakers max mccann ulysses burden please approach you at the podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council good evening max mccann 2648 third avenue south here to ask this council to increase funding to increase its investment as the previous speaker said in complete streets and safe streets projects the last time i was here i mentioned a crash where a driver hit a cyclist on 28th street earlier today i sent you a photo of that by email i'm sure your inboxes are disasters but if you find that please look at it and please appreciate the the violence that is required for a human body to cause that much damage to a vehicle and what's also remarkable about that is we've been planning safe streets improvements on 28th street for as far as i know about five years and we haven't broken ground on those yet as tara mentioned on friday there was another tragic crash where kirsten strang was hit and killed by a suspected drunk driver on 49th street witnesses reported that her body was carried on top of the vehicle for eight blocks before falling off of it now her six-year-old son has to grow up without a mother we've also been planning improvements on 49th street for over a year this council adopted a resolution specifically for the for those improvements over a year ago on tuesday a 56 year old woman was hit and killed by a driver while walking across 34th street north yesterday an 89 year old woman angela shah she hot was killed by a suspected junk driver on 38th avenue north in a head-on collision yesterday a cyclist was struck by a driver at 22nd street south and 15th avenue south some of you may know that's on our bike to school route uh so that one hits close to home i saw a cyclist hit on 38th avenue north on my way home from work today the the mayor's uh budget and brief doesn't mention complete streets funding it's not even an item so that um sends a message that this isn't a priority but i want to be constructive here here's my idea in the future let's use a portion of these public safety funds for safe streets that's a form of public safety and what police and fire do is incredibly important but let's be real what they do is reactive and a lot of what they're reacting to is car crashes i want to use some of that money to prevent the crashes in the first place let's make our streets safer um one last thing i'm going to note these projects don't have to be expensive also in the email i sent you today was a project that atlanta did where they installed a bike lane for ten thousand dollars in less than a year we can do these kind of quick build projects here and so don't let perfect be the enemy of the good uh let's make our streets safer thank you thank you hello my name is ulysses j burden or just draw and i am a resident of 5239 springwood boulevard north pinellas park florida i grew up here in st petersburg florida i am here to support the demands of save our street campaign it is a phrase don't quote me on it that's not what you can do for your country but what i mean ask what not your country can do for you but what you can do for your country by president roosevelt moving on according to ai google research context for phrase and expression bullets don't discriminate it's often used in public commentary and advocates and politicians to emphasize that gun violence is a widespread problem that can impact anyone however the literal interpretation of the phrase is undermined by statistical data that shows the impact of gun violence is not equally distributed disparities are driven by complex socioeconomic factors including system system systematic inequalities privities and access to resource i admire senator darusa why you may ask for going to his personal resources for the greater good of the community i recall the morning of april uh april 25 2003 i was 12 years old many moons ago which marked the sunset of my mother's life she was an innocent bystander that caused a ripple effects for myself and my family uh the day scarred an officer as well since the bullet has grazed the uh law enforcement officer uh started the leo started working for the sheriff's office of pinellas county and lost his job after a dog got shot i believe that humans and animals matter according to ai research with my google to my google research uh general gender man and far are far more far more likely to be victims of gun violence than women across all and intense homicide suicide and unintentional do you know that males account for the vast majority of firearm deaths including about 90 of fatalities from 1990 to 2021 i am a survivor of gun violence myself back in 2014 i was shot i am grateful to say i beat the statistics and i am happy to be here today and intersectional race and gender certain groups are faced heightened risks when both race and genders are considered while rates for gun homicides increase faster for the black americans than any other group from like 2019 to 2021 the rate among black women specifically rose by 79 percent the sharpest increase of race or gender young black man age 15 to 34 who lives in large city faced the highest risk of gun violence i call to action let's be accountable and yell the ripple effect of gun violence within the community by stopping the violence in our communities and budget should reflect that across the country and here in st petersburg there are already good programs in the area that can make a difference but they are under advertised and underused such as the science center and tesco team program thank you next two speakers next two speakers vanessa miller sierra clark please approach either podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council hello my name is vanessa miller 1726 43rd street south we just like you want to stop the violence in our communities the city's budget should reflect that thanks to the surveying done by the save our streets campaign brought to you by the bay area dream defenders we know that our communities want more accessible youth programming we know youth and young adults need a place to be we need safe free third spaces we need mentorship we need that village that everyone is told that we need so badly and we look around and we're wondering where is it at or how much do i have to pay to get it by investing money into youth programming the city makes a clear and a very bold statement modeling for our region that we care for the future of our youth investing more money in policing clearly shows where we think our youth are destined to end up investing in their education our housing our parks our after school programs and other physical and mental health efforts is a radical act of hope that our community so desperately needs right now investing in youth programming specifically leads to better outcomes for youth including safer neighborhoods i would like to acknowledge the community programs that we do currently have in our city in our county they're doing an excellent job we love them i've worked for them i volunteer with them and i know personally that they could use more funding more funding means more outreach money allocated towards these programs can help bridge that gap between barriers that we may see such as transportation issues lack of awareness of these programs and fees that may go into participation these are some of the goals of the save our streets campaign as a public safety issue we expect that this would be reflected in the city's public safety budget rather than doing an increase in millions of dollars for our police force we deserve to see our local officials prioritize the safety of our people with comprehensive solutions and we demand that the city's budget supports our call to save our streets thank you so much for your time thank you joyful day my name is sierra clark 4544 22nd avenue south the scariest things in our youth lives today aren't monsters and scary movies it's not having safe places to dream to grow and to be obviously remarkable this summer i had the opportunity again to be a part of story 727 impact summer camp and the title of their anthology that speaks of um their truths when they found out that funding was lost and summer camp almost did not happen they titled it nightmare on camp street we have a crisis inside our city but not just our city but since this is our city and we say that we are st pete it's our problem and our priority so this year they created an anthology that did two things and told two truths what makes them obviously remarkable and their fear that they felt that they um when they found out camp was not happening we did not we do not fund programs like these we don't invest in our neighborhoods we are we are compelled um when we take on positions to do something different it isn't just our civic duty it's our god-given obligation to do something greater when christ died he said greater shall we do yes we can't keep patting ourselves on the back when it comes to overcoming hard things while continuing to um underfund the very solutions that prevent them the save our street campaign is asking that you listen to the people to fund prevention and not punishment and to invest in the future of our children maya so we know some of the things that makes our youth obviously remarkable before they're before the judge and these things are not considered or before they're taken and they're not able to come home maya loves helping people sharing her voice voice and learning who she is serenity loves her family painting and discovering the beauty of the world around us it is our opportunity and not just our right but it's our opportunity to show that we care and not just in the surface way i think your children will be proud of you because they see that you're building something but i think your grandchildren and your children's children will realize that it lacked a flavor we get an opportunity to change the way our history tastes the way our history vibrates through our community there is a corridor that the interstate ran through that used to be considered the heart of saint pete we can bring paintbrushes back again thank you next two speakers please next two speakers jerry fund excuse me and neil camandela please approach at the podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council hello my name is jerry funt 3803 haynes road north another a couple campaigns here with similar names but i'm here once again the bear air dream defenders for the save our streets campaign proposal we started this campaign a few years ago after spending substantial time talking to the community we asked what is it that you need to feel safe and how can we best resolve gun violence they didn't say we need more police on the streets or more kids in cages they told us that we needed funding for accessible effective and utilized youth programs and someone from the city to come into the community to help families identify and access support that the city already has some of you were serving on city council when we started the campaign and some of you have joined us since then when we first arrived we were told that we needed to start earlier engage the city sooner so we can make it happen so next year we came back earlier we were here consistently during last year's budget process once we got to the end after appearing over and over with often the largest group in the room we were told this is great you all deserve to have this happen we want to make it happen we just need more details meet with all of us a bit earlier let's get earlier next year and we should be able to make something happen so we listened we've met with most if not all of you over the last year we've met with the mayor's office we have revised our proposals and we have kept showing up and now we are once again at the end of the budget process and i expect we're going to hear maybe next year but we cannot keep kicking this can down the road last august 11 year old beyondre hargrove was shot and killed in child's park his alleged killer was 14 years old ashley lamardo from the saint pete pd said we understand that usually a lot of criminal activities are typically associated with boredom or having too much time on their hands in april jaden hill a 13 year old was shot and killed in a driveway near lake mcgory his alleged killer is 14 years old a few weeks ago 21 year old tyrone howard was shot and killed just outside of child's park while his daughter was in the car with him he crashed and she was fortunately physically okay but will grow up without a father his alleged killer was 20 years old all of these stories you're hearing from people with our campaign have occurred in the last two years since we started talking here lives lost while we've been kicking this can down the road my friend jay comes here and says show me your budget i'll show you your priorities so what are our priorities i don't think we're asking for a lot the first year of this programming would run on an estimated 1.1 million dollars it's something sure and there are other things i need that we need to fund as well understood but this is a worthwhile investment if it's a priority i know that we will likely leave here kick the can down the road and continue that way these are tragic stories viandre hargrove tyrone howard reginal booth jaden hill taman newkirk 974 million dollars that's a big number what can we do to show that these lives are worth something in that budget thank you good evening council members and staff my name is neil camaradella my address is 6142 4th avenue south i'm here to urge you to fulfill the funding obligations of the complete streets program which was adopted nearly 10 years ago and is intended to create a connected and comprehensive network for all users of the road including pedestrians and bicyclists since that program was adopted nearly 10 years ago over 130 pedestrians and bicyclists have been killed in saint pete and hundreds more have been seriously injured including last week on 49th street where a single mother was killed by a drunk driver her death was preventable we could have prevented her death 49th street is a thoroughly studied part of the high injury network which is precisely the kind of place that should have been fixed by the complete streets program which was adopted nearly 10 years ago more preventable deaths will occur unless we take bold and courageous action now i'd like to share this article describing how a city much larger than saint pete achieved zero traffic deaths for an entire year the key takeaway is that there's no secret or magic recipe the leaders implemented common sense safety measures like reduce speed limits and improve street design so i'd like to leave here and just ask the council to fulfill the funding obligations of the complete streets program recognize that lives can be saved with minimal or low-cost solutions and that the funding to complete streets has a positive return on investment by creating spaces that are economically and culturally vibrant thank you very much thank you last speaker beatrice farrell please approach either podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council my name is beatrice farrell i'm a business owner um at 136 fourth street south today i'm here um i work for two projects i serve as the chief community officer with hypathia collaborative and also the digital education foundation it was easier if i had the same title for both um i'm here to talk about digital education foundation two two years ago the council agreed to fund 75 000 for two years um and we were for the digital inclusion network we were encouraged to find other funding and we were successful kinda um the city of st petersburg was recommended for a 6.94 million um four-year grant from the national telecommunications and information administration based upon the activities of the project that this council and the city funded um for context there were over 700 applications received totaling 6.9 billion dollars there was 880 million dollars available to fund these applications the city of st petersburg was in the first round and at the time the only grantee in florida so congratulate ourselves okay um the foundation that hawk that um housed this initiative paused it and members of the network re re-structured ourselves and now i work for the um um digital education foundation and eighty percent eighty-five percent of the um network members are active in what we're doing now we have continued to do this work we opened a community tech hub in the middle of st petersburg we're working on a grant that provides digital training and we recently hosted a recycling drive with a psta i'm confident that digital education foundation will be contracting with a city department somewhere in that big budget and i just wanted to bring awareness of what we were doing what we were continuing to do i wanted to thank you for your continued support thank you no more speakers mr chair okay the public portion of the hearing is now closed we're going to go into council comments and discussion and we'll go to councilmore driscoll first thank you and thanks to all who um made time to be here this evening and speak and um really make yourselves heard in regards to the the budget that we have before us and what our what the priorities are what your prior priorities are and what ours should be um i will start with our last speaker and say hello viatros it is great to see you thank you for being here this evening thank you for all the work that you've done you have had support from the administration and city council for years i have been tried to be your biggest champion as you work tirelessly to bridge the digital divide in our area that work continues even if the organizations evolve and i hope that as we move forward we'll be able to find more ways to support you given that we have in the past allocated money from our budget as well as partnering to secure that grant that was so exciting while it lasted before it was dissolved there's it doesn't mean that there's not more work to do and i look forward to having conversations with you about where you guys are at now and how the city can be helpful so that we can make sure that st petersburg is a place where we can say everyone is connected and has that access thank you i'm going to ask the administration about spiffs we we have talked before about the um the location being a challenge in terms of the funding i would like to know about this 10 000 that existed and then was never received by the organization that had been allocated for them it was that taken was that not dispersed because the location changed to a place outside of st petersburg hi tom good evening excuse me good evening council um yes my understanding and is that the event that the ten thousand dollars was um appropriated for did not take place um there was i think the storms impacted the timing of that and then additionally i think the event may have taken place at a different location outside of the city of st petersburg okay it sounds like there could have been a little better communication around that um and then i i have a concern about the statement that um there was no response from the parks department regarding location for the event and i was wondering if oh mike hi um this you guys are known for being very responsive and communicative so that came as a bit of a surprise to me um i i don't know if you have the answers but what i really want to hear is that um some communication will start to happen now that will absolutely happen i'm just as surprised as you are i've been texting staff all evening and that is not what our notes are showing but we will certainly reach out tomorrow and make that connection okay spiffs has such a wonderful tradition um in st petersburg and um if there is a way to help them get back into our um having the the event which literally has our name in it um in our city um it's something we've always been proud of it never gets old and i would love to be able to say that it has a home in st petersburg um for years to come we agree and we'll be reaching out tomorrow great i look forward to hearing more about that and thanks for sticking around uh go get some dinner uh complete streets and we've had a few people talking about um safer streets and and bicycle and pedestrian safety we've talked about it in the last budget uh or the first budget hearing and i know that there at there actually is um a good amount there's never enough in my opinion but there's a good amount of funding for complete streets and for bike ped safety that's in the budget but it's not always in the same location it's kind of like we have a few things that are like that it takes me forever to find all the arts funding for the year because it's not all like in one column and so tom or liz i oh evan the whole gang's here um if anyone could just do a very brief explanation of um of the funding that actually is in the budget and what it's going to enable us to move forward on because the folks have a point we approved things last year we still haven't seen any sign of of beginning to implement these things and when i when i approve money i want to see things happen and i can i'll speak to more aware in the budget and i'll let evan speak to more of the details of the plan but for at the fy26 budget we did increase complete streets by 250 000 over the prior year budget and it's in two different cip funds there's penny funding that's in fund 3027 our neighborhood and cities and there's also funding in our multimodal impacts for complete streets so it's in two separate places and it was an increase of 250. we also did increase sidewalks new sidewalks as well about 600 000 this year compared to last year um and also in at cleanup every year which happens in november any scooter share revenue over the amount needed to fund the program gets transferred into the complete streets program and correct me wrong it's about 200 000 a year i think the last couple years that we've added which you wouldn't see in the adopted budget but would show in the amended budget right thank you and um as as it stands right now with this budget do you happen to have a grand total of um the the money that we are allocating in this budget for complete streets as well as bicycle and pedestrian safety that may not be under the complete streets name oh sorry sorry i didn't mean complete streets number which was one i think 1.1 million between those two items um and then you can give us one moment on that yeah because i have a feeling it's a higher number well while they find that one um let me address 49th street and 28th yes thank you um so for um one of our funding strategies for really expensive projects um is through the through the funding of grants through the state and federal government and that's how we pursued 28th street and unfortunately when you pursue those grants uh you go through four pinellas and then they prioritize it into the program and they have to prioritize design and then construction and they'll come it's usually in the sixth year so by the time you decide you want to go for a project you apply for it and you're successful it takes six years until you can get to the design and then the construction is going to be funded in year seven or eight because you can do construction a year after design or two years after design um that's that's uh an unfortunate part of the process that it adds a lot of time one of the things that happened with 28th street too is that we had a funding gap on that but fortunately we do have one relatively new funding source that we're using more now for safety projects and complete streets so we're able to allocate some of the south st pete cra funding to close that gap and we did do the public meeting for the first segment of 28th street a couple months ago i think we had a council member or two there and so that project is going to be starting soon there's some more processes that we have to go through but within less than a year you should see 28th street start and then on 49th street we did that planning study that council was on board for about a year ago and we're taking two funding approaches for that one is safe roads and streets for all grant through the usdot again and in that one you might not have to wait the whole process or the whole time shouldn't have to because it's it's a quicker one and we partnered with four pinellas and golfport golfport is actually the lead applicant because we just won one and you can't win two years in a row so we use some strategy to try to keep the momentum going and then we're also able to use again some of the south st pete cra money to start some low-hanging fruit so you'll see a interlocal agreement probably in november that would allow golfport and st pete to work together to do some of the easier things or lower costings like but yet effective multiple crosswalks other features along the roadway so i just wanted to mention those couple things thank you there's a that's a lot going on and i think we can all agree it's very frustrating that you get this grant money and then it takes forever to actually be able to use it but you do have and you don't have to go through it tonight i just want to confirm with you it was mentioned that there are low cost options that we can take there are safety elements that could be implemented that don't cost a lot and i feel like when we when we talk you bring up those kinds of things a lot um those little tweaks that can be done that actually can go a long way over time with with improving safety yes we oftentimes do projects like that some of the ones that are more complex and more expensive we go the longer route but other ones we we can do quickly um obviously we've delivered a lot of projects over the years and but still have a long way to go one of the first demonstration projects we did was right outside here at city hall where we um narrowed the crossings we just did some flex posts and some paint just cost i think fifteen thousand dollars for this and has improved the safety right here and we've done that in other places too so we use a mix of relatively fast and relatively cheap and then other long longer more expensive projects yeah that's a that's a great example of one of those low cost um ideas that that do make a difference so um good do you guys have that total number um looking at the fy26 budget as presented in the penny fund we have 2.25 million and that includes bike pedestrian facilities neighborhood traffic transportation management program all the different sidewalk programs and complete streets and in the multimodal impact fee fund which is the other cip fund is traffic safety downtown intersection and pedestrian facilities more sidewalks and complete streets funding so those two together is um about 3.075 million between all the funds and with grants a lot of times we don't include them in the adopted budget we appropriate them as we get them so we do have a bike and pedestrian facilities grant fund but you'll see more of us coming to council mid-year when we're accepting the grant and do the appropriation at that time right um so those aren't included in the budget but we do get those throughout the year right so by the end of the year it ends up being more as we as we actually get access to that grant money that's correct all right well thank you you know um this is an area where i always want more more more um because it is um such a great concern the number of um injuries and fatalities that we're seeing these days but evan i i really appreciate you cheryl and the rest of the team for all the work that you do on this all right um i'll be quick with the rest this um i think we had a there was like some quick talk about the um groceries on the go um last time and which i love and there's a request you know for specifically a mobile grocery store um that's hosted by feeding tampa bay specifically for uh for jordan park and so rob i wanted to ask you or tom um or whoever else you have hiding back there is that something that we could fund through the south saint pete cra and you can tell me there's a process and that's okay because we're government that's what we do but i don't see a barrier because the south saint pete cra can be used for programs and so i'm sorry council member uh mr caper's here i think we're going to get mr caper and administrator foster was just reminding me that we did talk last time about the cdbgdr food component that could be a possible grant application and administrator jeffrey's also talked about some potential grants that could be applied for through his department okay that's that's just where we left off at the last meeting yeah bring everybody up i would i would really like to see that done even if it's at as a pilot and then we measure and it sounds like we have some multiple funding sources um that could apply for that could be applied to a program like this and so that converse that conversation will be continued thank you for that um regarding those who are advocating for youth programs once again thank you thank you for standing up for our our youth and the save our streets campaign continues to be of great interest to me um i we did ask um i did ask tom a while back um to add up all of the different youth programs again it comes from different places and in the budget right now we have over 3.3 it's three million three hundred ninety three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars specifically allocated for youth programs that is a lot um is it will there ever be enough to eliminate all of the um the troubles no but i asked last time and what i would like us to continue a conversation about is is that money being used to get the outcomes that we're looking for that's that's where the juice is you guys so let's keep talking about that how do we use the money that we're already allocating because if people aren't if if we have things that we're doing and we're not showing results we're not showing outcomes we're not showing real benefits and moving the needle the programs need to change councilmember driscoll i'll just jump in real quickly and just take a point of privilege and let you know that there will be a new business item coming from my office probably over the next week or two to discuss some of the outreach being done currently from some of the organizations that we partner with i don't want to say specifically which ones because if i delete or add i don't want to put myself in a spot but uh you're going to see that coming forward as an update and this is part of a conversation that came from um the dream defenders one-on-one that i had or like four on one that i had and so um and so i'm okay i can go four of you one it's all right um so you'll see that coming so hopefully that'll be a conversation and then obviously if we needed to pivot because i i would totally agree with you if we want to make sure that that that's working and get feedback on what is happening with the organizations that we're partnering with already and so um my office is being proactive with that and you'll see that come uh you'll see the new business item come here pretty quickly and we'll schedule it as soon as we can with those organizations hopefully in november thanks okay so um quickly with the main street programs i mentioned that before i'd like to have that looked at as part of budget cleanup and in the meantime the halloween on central like was such a success from the beginning it really blew up and so did the cost like was mentioned earlier for us to still be providing thirty thousand dollars but charging double what we were before if we were charging 30 for city services and giving them 30 we basically give them the money to give us back i get that um and there's a reason that that that is done but like now we've doubled it but we're not giving them more so one way or the other that gap really needs to close um so that we can show our so a real support um especially at a time when like everybody goes to this thing and the costs aren't aren't being like it's it's getting harder and harder to do it so what can we expect um i i think you can find 30 grand somewhere please try to find 30 grand um it matters okay so those are the uh notes i have from tonight you know last time i i spent a lot of time talking about the fire department and the needs that they have i'm not going to rehash that again i'm just going to say that the amount that that is not being funded for whatever reason is these are elements that make our fire department stronger i think they deserve everything they want and need i had identified i know that i did not have support last time but i had gone through and identified funding that could be shifted that would not hurt our city but would help our firefighters the marketing department alone is going up by three hundred thousand dollars in the fy26 budget but somehow there nobody could find one hundred thousand dollars to fund a public information officer which is still communications so that's just one example of how this budget is not adding up to show me that we are fully funding the fire department at the level that they're at the cadet program cutting five cadets that pays for young people who want to be a firefighter cannot afford to go through the training it pays for their training it pays for our future firefighters the fire department is out of the schools recruiting but good luck finding a cadet spot because we're not funding it but meanwhile the mayor's future ready academy has five this was three hundred and ten thousand dollars for the cadets that got caught that got some of it got shifted to another position but we're still down five cadets and but the mayor's future ready academy has five hundred thousand dollars in it and this is for exploration of city jobs guess what the fire department is it's a city job and we need them and apparently the administration would rather repave the city hall parking lot than allocate the same amount of money to fund our commitment to the bunker gear for the firefighters that they need every few years instead we've chosen to break that commitment because a parking lot on our property has to be repaved this year these are the kinds of things that i looked at and so we have many things that we can be proud of in this budget especially during a tight budget year but public safety is something that i place high priority on and if we're not funding it if we're not giving it every resource we possibly can we're not doing our best and so although there are many things i'm pleased about in this budget i can't go along with it when we're not doing right by our firefighters and so i will be voting no on this budget as i did during the first reading but i do look forward to continuing conversations to work with what we have and make our entire city stronger including our fire department thank you thank you councilmember gibbons thank you very much chair um i won't rehash some of what i was going to say recognizing the hour i'm sure there are stomachs growling other than just my own um but there were a couple of things that i wanted to bring up um saint pete excuse me the saint petersburg international folk fest folk fair our oldest festival uh it seems like they've basically just been abandoned um and i do have questions too about where the ten thousand dollars are um also want to know what the status um is with act the arts conservatory for teen um they had come before asking for an increase in funding um i know we give them fifty thousand dollars each year but again recognizing that they do so much for this community and they impact those groups who usually are underserved i definitely think they they are worthy of those increases um and then also we spoke a little bit um about this last time those uh main street business corridors um i thank you chris i thank you uh so much for showing up as always you made your voice heard um thank you missy for showing up i appreciate you as well um i just want to know from administration have we met with these executive directors to find out how we can support them if we aren't going to increase um that subsidy that we're giving them is there something that the city can do to help defray costs um whether it's security or some other service that they're paying for for these events good evening council brian caper managing director city development yes gary jones on our economic and workforce development team works very closely with the main street managers they have monthly meetings they have uh quarterly retreats so he is in constant contact with them and we continue to work with the four main streets to look for opportunities whether that's increased funding increased in-kind services support or just even networking to make sure that they're they have resources uh to help them build capacity within their organization so in those conversations where do we stand because this is our last opportunity to hear from you all and to give them an opportunity to make their voices heard so we brought this conversation up last time where do we stand now so we did have and we asked for an increase in the fy26 budget as council is very aware it's a it's a challenging uh year for the budget we were not able to get that increase through um and we remain at the 55 000 that they've received previously so the services that i guess you all have talked about what type of services are we able to provide in kind to sort of defray some of the costs that they incur host these events i i will check with our team on that and i'll get back to you with specifics please thank you very much brian i appreciate it absolutely um and then moving along um it's been said and again i thank you dream defenders so much for showing up um thank you for always making your voices heard um there are often times where you know we have requests that fall on death years and i appreciate you all for showing up to make your requests heard um i certainly believe that you shouldn't have to beg for what we need um there's a big difference between needs and wants and it seems like we always find the money to fund our wants but when we need to find the money to fund our needs we have every excuse in the book um so to me a priority um is our youth they are never a question um three million dollars may sound like a lot but when you equate that to the billion dollar budget it's a drop in the bucket um our youth are our greatest asset they are not just the future they are present and they are a gift that we should cherish and to me you know when we have three million dollars going out um for different programs and different organizations i'm happy to hear that we're going to be looking at the impact of those programs because i i look at you know the the groups that are being served and and i know we talk about zip code but zip code that's a lie because zip codes have been gentrified um so we have to start looking at the demographics of the young people who we are reaching and many times these organizations aren't serving the kids who need those services the most um so again i just want to reassess where the money is going and hopefully reallocate those dollars so that it does more good we need a greater return on our investment i heard some one councilman brought up uh we have internship programs already but how effective are these programs if it's not reaching the kids who need those jobs we wouldn't have gun violence as bad as it is if our kids had productive programming to go to um i love the safe summer campaign but again we talk about year-round opportunities let's look at expanding our recreation center operating hours um so that way these kids have productive safe spaces to go to year-round not just two or three months out of the year um again if we want them to live to see the future we have to invest in our future um and then also uh it was brought up once before the n team funding for them you know i love the work that i did in the past as a constituent out there rolling up my sleeves helping those people who needed it the most with care fest you have the hometown heroes program uh but i really would like to see that in team come back stronger and more robust um so looking for funding there i know it's tough but i think it's something that we need um it was brought up earlier the american heart association feeding tampa bay partnership with safety housing authority i just want to make mention that you know a lot of times people are hesitant to fund certain programs because they think it's only going to be germane to a certain group or a certain population or a certain neighborhood but this project would fund all of the saint pete housing authority pod excuse me uh properties so it's not just germane to jordan park so not just one community or one neighborhood benefiting from it but this mobile food pantry will be able to make stops at multiple properties that span across almost each one of our districts so i really think that we should look for those funds whether it be cdbg or something through parks and rec a grant i i definitely think that program is worthwhile especially when we talk about combating food insecurity we've got to invest in our community and those people who are doing the work especially those partners um we mentioned this last time elc has faced numerous cuts i just i'm curious from administration have we had any uh discussion about revitalizing and reviving that program i think it started under mayor krisman where there were subsidies in place to help home daycare providers defray some of the costs that came along with licensing and education requirements again the federal government has cut many many many funds that were allocated for child care tuition expenses um a lot of the people who live within the cra depend on those elc subsidies and if they're being cut most most of that cost is now incumbent upon that parent to pay when they're still trying to figure out how they're going to make rent you know and how they're going to pay their utilities i really would like to see what the city is able to do or willing to do to help defray some of those costs for those parents and also those child care providers have we had any discussion about that council member good evening again um as you recall we do we did have a program formally that we ran several years ago currently there is not there are not resources in in the fy26 to continue that um and and honestly i don't know what the status of conversations are but we can get an update and and and and report back to you as to you know what current conversations are happening yeah i'd appreciate that and even if it's just a program that again we recreated restructured uh and perhaps i don't know we can reallocate dollars from the cra to help fund that program i think that's how it was funded before i could be wrong um but i definitely think that the zip codes who need that help the most the hardest hit zip codes are right there within the south saint pete cra so if we can get creative with finding funding sources whether it be through grants or the cra or cdbg funds i really think that is an area that has been unaddressed and we really should focus in on so i look forward to continuing that conversation tom so thank you um and then a couple more items we brought up earlier complete street so i won't go into that um hearing about those deaths that really bothered me and i really think we should raise awareness there uh and try to accelerate our funding to make sure that we make our general public safer um that broke my heart seeing that mom die um literally i'm half a mile away from my home let's do what we can to protect our condition um also funding for uh utility and rental assistance i brought this up administrator before i'm not sure if we were able to find dollars in the budget for that i know sometimes funds can hide some places but is there anything out there to help specifically with utility bills and rental assistance my understanding is we're working through some possibilities um in housing and community development i don't think we have anything to report tonight but we'll keep you posted thank you um and then lastly uh thank you so much uh viatris for being here uh you brought up something that's very near and dear to my heart and that's the digital divide um digital education when you look at what's happening in our community the attacks on diversity unfortunately technology has fallen victim to this um and i definitely think when you look at the inequalities in technologies the reason that there is so many disparities um is because there are so many communities who do not have access to the technology that they need um so i really think if we want to break this cycle that continues to perpetuate we've got to be intentional about putting our money where it's best spent and i think that would be in some of these digital tech hubs um or tech programs that are out there it doesn't require the city to facilitate the program we're just funding the organizations that are already providing the work and the services so i just wanted to know um what's the status of the grant that was paused and is there an opportunity whether it be through education grants or some other funding stream to find additional resources so the the grant that was paused is not likely to happen quite candidly um which is unfortunate because it was going to be a big piece of the overall uh digital inclusion uh program um so so it is a challenge right now when you you go from the the euphoria of you know of securing a grant of that size and then kind of the reality that it is not going to happen it's disappointing it's disappointing for a lot of folks um here here at city hall as well as our partners who are going to be helping us implement it um aubrey did you have anything else you wanted to add on that um aubrey phillips is here from the grants and strategic initiatives yes we've been closely monitoring a number of our federal grants as those programs have been reviewed unfortunately the digital equity grant was one that the entire grant program was canceled um so we we will not be seeing those grant funds that were whether we were awarded but were not ultimately we did not receive because the program itself was canceled at the federal level and i know it's been a common refrain uh that's been saying tonight um but if we can really look at how we are repurposing those cra dollars i think there's there's a need in other areas where we are not getting federal funds or state funds perhaps that could be an opportunity for us to fill some of those gaps find that missing middle um again just getting creative so that way we aren't holding our breath for these cdbg dollars i just want us to utilize funds that are there because they're just sitting there um and then lastly chair and then we can wrap this up um i'm asking for an increase in funding for our city parks and recreation centers as well as our libraries um it's no secret um that there are some safety and security concerns um especially with the open carry laws that are consistently evolving every which uh every month almost so i just want to find out what plans we have when it comes to safety and security um for all of our libraries i understand there are plans for some but i want to know what is in place for the safety and security i mean beyond what's in the budget and what we've talked about i i i would be concerned about speaking publicly about our security plans i'd be happy to talk to you one-on-one on a phone call that's fine um but again i think for the sake of transparency the public should also know that the city has prioritized all of our city facilities that are spaces for our seniors and our youth i just want them to know that we are doing our due diligence to make sure that all those safe uh spaces are safe um and with that the last thing i want to say is you know i i just i'm hesitant as well um approving a budget that does not adequately address and fund all of our needs um it's one thing to say you know we'll get back to you we'll we'll research this we'll we'll follow up with you but when this is your last opportunity to ask questions and get answers but you still have more questions than answers it's tough to say yes um but with that i'm done thank you chair thank you councilmember gabbard thank you chair i will try to be brief i did uh have a lot of comments at the first reading and so i'm going to kind of hone in on just a couple of things and they are things that have been mentioned tonight um and were discussed last time so um first i want to go back to spiffs and i want to go back to the cultural arts grant specifically because we had a conversation at the i believe it was the recommended budget cow um that talked about the cultural arts grants and i asked at that point and it may have been the operating cow but either way i asked at that point um if you know the administration decided to make the change to those grants and that policy ended up eliminating a long-term relationship really and an opportunity to continue with um the spiffs program being here in the city and i was told during that meeting that there would that you all would look at it again um we've had several conversations since then we have not received any update on if you are looking at that policy what we're going to do about that policy listen spiffs is going to be in pinellas park in march of 2026 it is what it is at this point they're not going to be able to to change that we need to change so that we make sure that come 2027 they are back in the city of st petersburg and i realize that probably has to do with park availability but it is going to come down to funding as well and so um have we re-evaluated that policy and are we going to look at what changes were made that started to exclude long-term organizations uh good good afternoon uh james corvette city development administrator and council member gabbard we did evaluate that policy and there was an email that was sent out on august 11th to city council from celeste davis advising council based on the feedback that we received from council as well as the arts advisory committee that we had changed the policy and we do allow an entity to receive multiple grants from the department of arts and culture budget in fact i think i mentioned before and maybe in a previous memo that when um we reiterated this policy we encouraged all of the organizations to still apply for the grant because the grant applications happened before the budget was passed most of them followed that direction so there was act uh the saint pete history museum the palladium all of them fell in the same category where that change would have uh not allowed them to get the grant but they applied anyway because we asked them to and because of that when we changed the policy they got grants the spiffs unfortunately did not apply at our direction and they didn't get the grant but the other organizations did because they adhere to our advice to apply anyway and and was there communication to spiffs to let them know about the change yes thank you um okay so the ten thousand dollars understanding that we could not give that to them because they are now in pinellas park um what i mean can we talk about like making sure that you know in 2027 when they come back that we can make a commitment that we are going to be able to help them with that additional funding because we still have the sister city funding the forty thousand dollars for for sister city so i i just i want to what i want to really get to with spiffs is i feel like somewhere along the way our relationship with them changed somehow and i don't know if that was an accident or what that was but we're talking about we want to expand our sister city program we want to do all of these things yet we have one of the oldest festivals now no longer in our city i don't know how that all came to be um i think it was probably a series of unfortunate circumstances it doesn't matter at this point we have to rectify it we got to fix it so i'm just asking that come this time next year we are not in this same place and then in 2027 it is scheduled here in the city of saint pete period i'll leave it there um talking about the jordan park mobile grocery i kind of went through um after our conversation uh the last time recognizing that the answer was okay well you guys can apply for a grant um kind of you know other opportunities and thank you for bringing that 82 000 i didn't write it down fast enough let's just call it 83 000 um so i mean i don't disagree we have a large marketing budget increase um that understanding you know we certainly have to pay our people i don't want to eliminate that but i think there are probably other places we could carve out a little bit there there is 15 000 currently for storm drain art um let's be honest we're not getting storm drain art after what the uh state has done with pavement art and uh other things we've seen storm drain art actually be eliminated in other communities by um the government so fifteen thousand dollars like let's let's let's look at that um there's fifty thousand dollars for that fluoride for families program sure education for fluoride great but maybe we need to feed people instead i mean you know what what good is fluoride if you have a hungry belly so um i think that there are some places where we could find enough money to cobble together for a program that is under a hundred thousand dollars that will feed our seniors feed our people it's not that much money so i am just gonna once again encourage administration to really take a hard look at that budget amendments can always be made after today and so i want us to get back to looking at that as far as complete streets i also well i have one more thing on food insecurity and this question for mike is he still here hi mike i asked about this um in one of the cows that we had as well might have been the recommended budget about food insecurity becoming part of our mission in your department can you speak to that i can that's something that kim is taking a look at um but as you and i kind of chat a little bit about um one of the challenges is that um food insecurity is in several different administrations and budgets and uh mission statements so we're struggling with how to make that puzzle piece fit but that's something that we're working on i feel like as we've evolved in this space which has really been in the time we've been on council council member driscoll and myself um you know i i feel like more of it has come to you over time um i feel like it could be a really smart move if most of it or all of it came to you um because i think whenever we can really take oh what are you laughing at like don't give that to me okay i'm just giving him more work right but i mean listen if it's all in one shop it kind of gets us away from this like you know bifurcated kind of way that we are approaching this huge issue in our community we can't seem to solve it so we're gonna have to figure out and if it is putting it all together in one department maybe that's the way so um i just i would ask us to continue to look at that because when it is not in our documents and it is not made part of our statement out to the community unfortunately it doesn't happen so um i really want us to continue to look at that as far as complete streets listen i talked about this a little bit last time too um i do agree that some of this quick build stuff i think is going to be really really important to the equation because just i think yesterday or the day before um president trump canceled more grants for pedestrian safety and bike lanes calling them hostile to cars this is not getting better everyone this is only getting worse and we as the city are going to be left to fill the gap we just are or else people are going to keep dying on our streets and nobody besides us cares so um i think that you know the quick build idea i really want to see us do more around that evan you and your team have done incredible work with quite frankly not enough and so if we can find a way to really start to repri reprioritize some of that to doing some of these quicker solutions i think that that could really bridge that gap for a lot of people um so you know let's just be honest the budget is really complicated it takes all year long we will start next year pretty much tomorrow right and um you know city council advocates all year long we have numerous conversations we see a matrix of everything that we asked for and we were you know we kind of look at it and go okay well did we get everything we wanted absolutely not um none of us ever get everything that we want um but i did get 78 percent of everything that i asked for so i am not going to vote no this evening on all of that 78 percent that i did get but what i want us to do is i want us to really learn to tighten our belts in a way that shows our moral value to our community because the budget's going to get even harder next year it is and so um with that chair i'll leave it there but um you know i just really want to thank our team because they they really have an impossible lift and we and the mayor are the ones that set the priorities that really guide them through this process and so i would say that i think we have a long way to go to making sure all those priorities are really in concrete and we can make them a reality thank you thank you council member floyd thank you i was gonna start with uh complete streets but i'm going to put that a little bit further back now because i got really triggered by the hostile to cars comment because it's just an absurd thing to say um so instead i'll go to uh uh i'll just mention spiffs i haven't mentioned spiffs before um and honestly maybe an oversight i assumed that it was something that would get sorted out and we had a lot of council members advocating for it and so i often choose to uh advocate for things that i think are uh that i that i think need to be uplifted well at this point i'm thinking spiffs needs to be uplifted because i i just haven't been able to wrap my head around like uh the lack of uh clarity around the topic that's what i would say i think there's just been a lack of clarity and i would love to meet with administration and try to understand more uh where y'all are coming from so that that's what i'll say on it now but i want to add my voice to the uh group of people who are advocating for us to um be able to better our relationship with spiffs uh because and i'll just mention as well you know um mr corbett came up here and said you know everyone was given the opportunity to apply for the grants but you could see the representative from spiffs here like they're not agreeing there's obviously at least a miscommunication there so i would love to get that cleared up um okay i want to tell you all about how i think about this budget what i've been through with the budget over the past year uh so you can see where i'm coming from uh so i'll start with things that i didn't have mentioned in my budget uh requests um one was spiffs the next one will be events like halloween on central so uh and main streets in general but really i think the events are uh core to economic development in our city and and uh investing in uh jobs and and local businesses which create 80 of the jobs in the city so i would love for us as a city to come together and invest more in uh events specifically like halloween uh but broader than that as well uh i'm about to go uh or i'll i'll let you know no one else has no one else in this room or in this no one else has endorsed what i'm about to say uh but it'll come as no surprise as you i say that so that anyone who hears me um knows anyone who doesn't agree knows that this is just my own thoughts uh i would love for us to be spending the money that we spend on uh large corporate subsidies or subsidies to large corporations in economic development department to instead go to local businesses and events like the main streets uh events that they put on that is what i would like to see us invest our economic development dollars into i know that i've been on the receiving end of one to seven votes on that topic but that's that's what i believe our uh dollars would be much better invested in if we're going to invest in businesses um okay uh so in in the budget there and in this conversation today there's been things that i asked for that got funded things that i asked for that didn't get funded for example uh the first thing on my budget request was about funding for tenant legal aid and tenant assistance in general and it did get funded and i'm incredibly grateful for it the state has made it very difficult for us to work on housing and tenants rights but our city has found a way through our budget to be able to continue to fund those things so i'm very grateful to the administration and thankful that that has happened another thing in here that i highlighted that did get funded is i asked for an increased budget to the council office for things like constituent outreach outreach and our printing budget did get increased this past year uh i've already been using our printing budget from last year and i'll continue to to do things like we printed flyers to go drop at uh the two apartment complexes that were having water issues and we use the printing budget to print those flyers drop them off and then hosted a very large and very well attended town hall event that was able to connect tenants to legal aid services and so uh there are things in the budget that are uh very beneficial to the work that we're doing in this city and for working people in the city uh and then you know i also had complete streets and traffic calming in neighborhoods and sidewalks funding increases in here i have a new business item that uh i hope we can talk about soon in hlut on traffic calming in neighborhoods particularly uh and our speed hump policy uh and yeah we did increase it but obviously i think we need to do more and i think we're overdue for a whole i said this last time we're overdue for a holistic conversation on what the future of funding uh safe streets in our city looks like uh with all the changes that are going on so i'll continue to pursue us having that conversation uh and then let me scroll down here and then to dream defenders uh yeah i mean for the last three years i've had funding for uh i'll read you exactly how i wrote it funding for piloting community outreach in the cra area specifically to connect youth to our recreational and educational programs uh like the save our streets campaign championed by community groups like dream defenders that's been in my budget request for three years uh i know that we've had some confusion over it as department heads have changed and council members have come and gone but uh i'm glad to hear that uh chair girdus is putting a new business item forward to talk about it the only thing i'll say really is i do not see a reason why we can't fund more holistic community outreach within the budget that we have right now there's no reason why we can't it's especially when what we're what's being asked for by the community is so simple uh so i'll continue to advocate to make sure that even within the budgetary constraints we have we're able to get that done uh let's see you know i'd love to talk more about quick projects zippers in the roads uh in more depth but i think that can wait for a later time uh but i'll end similar to councilmember gabbard there's there's things that i am very happy to fund in this budget uh and there are things where i think we can do a better job and some of those things i think we can do a better job within the current budgetary constraints we have so uh i'm grateful for a lot of these things um frustrated by some of them uh and i think we'll just through the budget amendments process and throughout the year continue to uh advocate for a lot of this stuff to get funded but i just wanted to give people where i was at today thank you thank you councilmember fig thing thank you i am going to be very quick because a lot of the things that i wanted to talk about have already been said several times but i definitely want to highlight on our main streets if i heard mr correct that they've been receiving that same amount for the last what seven years um and we all know inflation and everything else has gone up in the last two and so they've been receiving the same um amount for the last seven so that is something that i think is critical because we depend on our neighborhoods and our districts to not only inform us but help us get to the next level so i do want us to look at that in the budget cleanup i still agree with my request for act i i appreciate us trying to find new programs for students but i would really like for us to look at providing more programs to pro money to programs that have proven to help our students um i made this request before and i'm going to keep hearing it keep saying it so you're going to keep hearing it our food truck vendor academy that is one of our projects that i would love for us to look into from the presentation back in february and i'm going to end with our complete streets so those four i just wanted to say out loud again tonight there are still some additional requests that have been repeated and hopefully we'll have additional conversation at a later date in regards to our budget cleanup thank you chair thank you i'm going to try to make it brief because i spoke last time but i will say that as you can see our needs always outweigh our our um our resources and this year more than ever i've heard from residents about how burdened they are whether it's food shopping whatever it is everybody's feeling the pain and more emails more than ever on the fact that we kept the military the same and their tax burden and all that so i just wanted to say that one way or the other people are paying for this and some of them are elderly people that actually have a fixed income and other people that are struggling and so we're trying to do the best with our budget and i i agree with all the council members in terms of all the things that they've talked about i ask for complete street funding every year like all the stuff we cover it but it's never enough and so it's it is frustrating and every year it's very frustrating to see um you have a budget by the way our general fund is 411 when you hear a budget that's 900 something million a lot of that money is goes to our utility systems and water resources and all that you have to use those money for those things it's not like okay you have this pot of money and you can use it for whatever you want that doesn't exist there are smaller buckets of money that you can use so that's also the hard part of doing the budget but um council member i mean chair girdus if on your item that you're going to talk about outreach and the and the programs because one of the things that i think is challenging and a lot of people do not understand is we also have a line item in our tax bill that funds children's programs and we all pay for it and it's the juvenile welfare board and i would like to cover some of that because it's important to understand all the resources that go into it and how and we put in resources too and how these programs work together i mean their budget alone last year was in the county 126 million dollars these go to fund these programs that we're talking about and we are paying for them it is literally a line item on the tax bill not a lot of people understand that but there is so and then we add to it from our budget and so i i think it's important we have that conversation to kind of start looking at that because the people that work in juvenile welfare board are actual experts when it comes to child services and 86 cents of every dollar literally goes to the child so it would be good and whoever in administration has that would be great so i just thank everyone for being engaged it's very late and so i'll keep it short thank you thank you well um i i wasn't able to be here two weeks ago so again just a big thank you to my colleagues for all the work that you've done since first reading thank you everybody for coming out um you know i'll kind of pick up where some of my colleagues left off i think the matrix is a really good uh caliber to go by um you know again i think everybody asks for things you just heard vice chair hanowitz everybody asked for something and uh and you know there are always a few things left off off the list and so um i know that we are going to continue to work towards those things you can hear it uh on and in everybody's voice up here the passion for uh their priorities and what's happening in the city and uh that doesn't just go away just because uh we pass a budget today i think it was council member gabbard we'll start working on this tomorrow for next year and so it's it's definitely a process you know being um being the chair of bfnt and on bfnt the last four years uh i think in bfnt alone so committee meetings alone i think we open the budget probably somewhere in between 20 and 25 times a year whether it's the investment portfolio or the budget in general uh we're constantly in it and so i'm just very appreciative to administration and to all the staff the countless one-on-ones uh trying to work towards a higher percentage on the matrix i just i'm always uh just so impressed with all of the work um that staff does to put this together uh liz and erica and tom and the whole team just just please know i'm just so thankful for all of you and the collaboration uh that happens with all of this and so um i i'm not going to double down on a lot of things that have been said i continue uh to believe that you know all of us are trying to make sure saint pete is sustainable for generations to come that's certainly why i signed up for it and so uh we we will continue to do that work i'm excited to continue to do that work i know we've got some updates coming on cleanup and things like that and so uh excited to continue those conversations uh with all of you and the community okay if there's yeah thanks i misplaced it for a hot second okay so uh if there is or if there are no amendments uh the the final millage rate for the city of saint petersburg is 6.4525 mills which is a 3.93 percent increase over the rolled back rate of 6.2083 mills and i would entertain a motion for approval on the millage resolution move approval we have a motion and a second on j1a seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item j1a passes seven to one with council member gibbons voting no council members driscoll fix sanders floyd gabbard girdus henowitz and harding voting yes okay now uh i'll entertain a motion to approve the resolution or excuse me adopt the budget and appropriations ordinance for j1b second i do that okay i haven't messed it up so far okay we have a motion a second on j1b seeing as no other council members wishing to speak council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item j1b passes six to two with council members driscoll and gibbons voting no council members fix sanders floyd gabbard girdus henowitz and harding voting yes okay and then we have j1c council members which is to approve the resolution adopting the multi-year cip programs for the city of st petersburg and i'd entertain a motion we have a motion a second on j1c seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item j1c passes six to two with council members driscoll and gibbons voting no council members big sanders floyd gabbard girdus hanowitz and harding voting yes okay the public hearing on the budget the millage rate and the budget appropriations ordinance and the multi-year cip program is now closed and i know not to gabble because i watched vice chair hanowitz do it i had to get one in i had to get one in vice chair okay so we are going to go back now to the item that was deferred which is g2 and council member gibbons i'll turn it back over to you we'll just kind of start from the beginning sure thank you uh councilmember floyd said something earlier he said we decide what we want to advocate for and this is something that i think is worthwhile um like i said to me i feel like when i when i ran for city council i ran because i knew that there were some battles that were worth fighting for some of those battles you win some of those battles you lose but at least we can say we had the conversation and this is one of those items that i think we need to have the conversation at least start that conversation it's kind of been sitting out there for a while um but i think it's time for us to engage with golfport and discuss the past right what's the history of lincoln cemetery but also the future um there are some folks who have discussed annexation and if that is an option i think we should start educating ourselves and also give golfport an opportunity to be educated um and then opportunity for us to all talk and dialogue in the sunshine as joint bodies so um with that respectfully requesting a referral to the housing land use and transportation committee or other relevant committees to discuss a potential joint meeting between the city of st petersburg city council and golfport city council to discuss the lincoln cemetery and with that i move for approval councilmember fix sanders thank you thank you so i have a couple of things with this particular um new business the first thing is that i know for a fact i've heard on at least three or four different occasions that a couple of council members are already stating that they're working on lincoln cemetery um so generally for council colleague courtesy once a council member has declared that they're working on that project then whoever that is that submitted that new business item who brought that new business item um they're giving that grace and courtesy to do just that um so i'm just going to leave that there with that um two municipalities meeting together i don't know um jackie what kind of logistics nightmare that would be but i'm not supporting that i wouldn't support two cities trying to converse together um our mayor has had extensive conversations with their mayor um i do know that our administration is also working with um their mayor is also working with um their um their i don't know who you're talking to over there rob but we've been talking about this for somebody a couple years um and so i think the progress that we made we need to keep making it um and the annexation piece is something that's being handled by the administration but again i think i know that initially i talked to pastor williams yesterday um and so we've been with pastor williams before he actually got um the cemetery and i know that he's in extensive conversations with the mayor i know that at one point it was announced that councilmember driscoll was handling those two cemeteries so i backed up i'm still working but um giving her the professional courtesy of those two cemeteries but i think all of us um are going to have to play a role in this once the mayor has gotten it to a certain point it is it is it is in the works i promise you it is it is in the works i know it is um and so that's why i'm not going to support it because we're not going to reinvent the wheel um and so another council member has already taken ownership of this project and i'm going to respect that thank you chair thank you councilmember driscoll thank you um i did bring forward a new business item quite some time ago to discuss ways to recognize the historic significance of both the lincoln and greenwood cemeteries since then i have had conversations about each of them with different people as i mentioned in our joint meeting with the cbpc several weeks ago the administration might be working on something with the city of gulfport or with others regarding lincoln cemetery knowing that i have this new business item on the referral list i have had absolutely zero communication from the administration on anything that they're working on or even the courtesy of asking me what my intentions are and what i would like to see what i'd like to see right now is for that to change because this is what happens when communication is failing on one side i don't want to talk about the cemeteries tonight i don't want to talk about what i'm doing i would like to have this brought forward in hlut where it's sitting on the referral list at at the chair committee chairs convenience and i would like to suggest that for council member given's item that um rather than running that separately as a as a another new business item that this discussion about having a conversation with gulfport be brought up as part of the agenda so when we have that discussion i would um fully invite and and welcome input from council member given's on what communication with gulfport might look like from a city council standpoint and i would go so far as to say that if um so we're talking about both government or both city councils but i think it might be easier if um we welcomed the mayor of gulfport to attend um and possibly be on hand to um to speak and at least introduce herself jackie there wouldn't be a problem with that would there no thank you so i think that that's how we should move forward um it's not that i don't want to support this new business item i am i am heartened by the interest in this topic um there's more people to involve because we do have greenwood as well and ruey farias has been working on that one um some amazing things are happening with that one and so i'm looking forward to this and hoping that everyone will come to that hlut meeting so that we can um really have um an open dialogue among ourselves and hopefully more transparency from the administration so um there could be a withdrawal of the new business item and um knowing that we can bring this up on that same agenda with the same new business item so consider it an unofficial co-sponsoring maybe um but that's what i think should happen i think this should be part of the same discussion i just missed however if it is decided that this will go forward as its own new business item i would just respectfully request that they both be scheduled on the same day and it's going to achieve the exact same results that's all okay thank you councilmember floyd uh oh thank you i uh put myself on here um with other things in mind but stuff's been said since then so uh i'll start uh i guess i'll start with saying like i uh support you in this and i've appreciated your advocacy on the issue both council members that i'm looking towards right now and so um yeah when i saw this new business item i did think like oh we have something similar not similar but uh a little more general and yours is quite more specific um and so um i guess i'll ask you councilmember gibbons because of the content of your new business item have you reached out to any officials in golfport had any discussions i'd love to hear if that's gone on if i made you right i have um i'm glad you brought that up and the conversations that i had was at the golfport elected officials beyond mayor love those four elected council members had no conversations um prior to me approaching them with their mayor um obviously they couldn't speak with each other which is the reason that i'm bringing this forward because for those who don't know we can't talk to each other other than up here so i wanted to give us an opportunity to converse amongst each other but also as a joint body with the city of golfport as well because they have lots of questions um i'm not sure what their legal team looks like um but i i do want to give jackie an opportunity to interject um she provided a lot of guidance for me um a lot of education for me in our one-on-one and i certainly think if other council members haven't had that conversation they could benefit from it also but the city of golfport could definitely benefit from this history lesson um from what i gather they don't even know the history richie and it's important for us to just educate people because people perish from a lack of knowledge you might not support me you might not support this initiative but at least support acknowledging our history so that history doesn't repeat itself and the last thing i want to see is what happened at tropical field 4 000 bodies re-interned to lincoln cemetery people took their eye off the ball got distracted said oh it's not our issue it's golf ports now and then we just walked away pastor williams and the conversations i've had with him i was speaking with vanessa gray the young lady who took care of the cemetery even before him and the remarks from both of them were we need help we can't do it alone and so the first step in this conversation and then i'm going to pass it over to legal is us at least starting the discussion and understanding what those steps look like if we were to pursue annexation okay yeah and i do want to ask committee discussion we shouldn't be sorry okay sorry sorry chair that's all right let's go to legal and then um we'll go to next steps i'm not sure if you have a question specifically or my question i guess will be and i don't know if you really had an opportunity to respond to councilmember big sanders is what is required to to start this process with the joint meeting yes so a joint meeting is permitted under state law um it would need to be established by resolution so that's something that after if it was discussed at a committee that we would come back and formalize something and look at some of the details and the logistics so the first step i'm sorry sorry chair is it you i'm sorry i'm just all right i'll be quick uh council member floyd please continue thank you yeah okay so uh just real quick um is gulfport a weak mayor system it's okay you don't need to know off the top of your head yeah i i'm pretty sure it is a weak mayor system that's important though because we had a discussion about inviting the mayor and but the mayor is it's not the head executive of the so okay um council member gibbons to your new business item i uh want to see it be part of the discussion about the full breadth of what you're describing because i think that's appropriate uh whether or not you want to continue with it as a standalone new business item that will be brought at the exact same time as council member driscoll's new business item or if you just want to say hey richie your chair of hlut i'm telling you right now when uh i'm told council members driscoll's is ready we're going to talk about this exact subject i'll leave it up to you uh but uh we will get into the content of the conversation that you're asking for either way uh you just verbalize after you hear what people say uh if you would like a second or not that's what i'll say thank you councilman thank you council member gibbons thank you chair and i'll be very brief and i apologize if i got out of place there um but i just want to say again this is strictly for education and i am so happy to co-sponsor this if that's allowable legal uh with council member driscoll so i'll stop and let let you explain what we need to do um because again to your point councilman floyd i wanted to get specific to lincoln her new business item involves lincoln and greenwood this conversation is specific to lincoln to discuss the historical uh background and then also talk about the future so i am so happy to co-sponsor unfortunately pursuant to your manual that you can't under these circumstances for example uh if at the time of council member driscoll's new business item you co-sponsored that or asked for an expansion of the scope of it that would have been fine or there's also a way to do it like a next day situation but under the circumstances here the technical co-sponsoring of something pursuant to your procedures is not permitted gotcha thank you for explaining that so um with that case again because i'm not privy to the conversations that the administration's having i'm not privy to the conversations taking place in the city of golfport i am asking that we have a conversation in the sunshine since we can't co-sponsor um to again go into the historical significance of lincoln but also talking about the future of lincoln cemetery thank you chair thank you uh excuse me uh councilmember fix anders okay and thank you um chair for indulging my confusion um there what i wanted to say is and i don't know if anybody heard me when i spoke the first time um that i'd also been working on lincoln and that opportunity to co-sponsor was not offered then either and as far as knowing what the administration is working on i talked to pastor williams um and so i'm having conversations with him um i knew that we had already had it on hl hlut at least i thought we did based on that last conversation so i'm hoping if there's some additional request that chair of hlut would just incorporate that conversation for that new business item um i'm hoping we all understand the importance of lincoln we've already talked about lincoln several times and to do the educational piece of it wonderful but um as the mbi was proposed no i wasn't going to support it because we've already had this conversation several times over and the conversations i've had with pastor williams he shared to me who he's talked to and who he has it in regards to he's talking to everybody because he needs assistance with the the the cemetery so if you want to continue to have that conversation of uh council member driscoll's original mbi i would support that thank you okay we have a motion and no second g2 fails without a second all right we're going to move into open forum we have no speakers okay announcements any announcements council members council member driscoll i was thank you sir i was so happy to have a sneak peek at the president barack obama library earlier this week um i i will um not be available for the the official opening but i was just delighted i mean this is something that i remember standing in front of the library in early 2018 i mean just off being sworn in to city council for the first time standing out there with um then mayor rick christman and then congressman charlie christ announcing that the name would be changed and and that a renovation would be taking place um little did we know that little did i know that a it would take so long and b it would be so fabulous when it was finished so um for anyone who has um not seen it or is planning to go um this weekend when it officially reopens um you are really in for a treat and i couldn't be more proud um some things are worth the wait right yes and congratulations to mike our community enrichment and nutrition administrator food and fun i said food and fun that's like the best job ever right um congratulations seriously congratulations to mike and the entire library team for um this incredible accomplishment thank you thank you council members pick sanders so thank you i just wanted to um publicly thank naacp saint pete um chapter as well as our saint pete police department we hosted a carry open conversation on tuesday night we put that thing together so quickly but when i tell you it was one of the most informative intriguing educating conversations that i've attended for a very long time because i knew that um that um we had a lot of concern about the open carry um and our police department did a phenomenal job in explaining where we are um in in regards to that law so i wanted to make sure that i thank them and and and thank they sean mems um for organizing that conversation as quickly as she did we had a really good turnout and we do plan on having other other community engagement engaging conversations in regards but i left feeling so much more comfortable about what we are about to embark on in regards to open carry so again thank you to sean from naacp and assistant chief kovasov and assistant chief gilliam um for being there to help educate us thank you chair thank you councilmember gibbons thank you very much chair um as some of you may or may not already know the his spirit excuse me hispanic heritage month celebration will be taking place this saturday at gladden park uh from 11 to 3 and then uh the dream defenders at 11 a.m they will be having a books and breakfast event at child's park rec center uh i have the pleasure and privilege chair of serving on the st petersburg sickle cell disease association board and last sunday the mayor was there um county commissioner flowers she was there as well we cut the ribbon on the brand new st petersburg sickle cell disease research center uh named in honor of a trailblazer here in st petersburg mrs mary murth the president of our local chapter on saturday we will be having our 53rd annual sickle cell disease musical extravaganza in dinner at usf st pete and those proceeds go towards supporting our sickle cell warriors so just wanted to let the community know thank you chair love that thank you thank you okay just a couple of announcements uh for me uh tomorrow lendell bright retires officially and so just wanted to say thank you to lendell and to all the work that you've done anita as well i know that they were a team uh and so just haven't gotten having gotten to work with them over the last few years has been an honor and a privilege and so lendell congratulations on your retirement sir um and then we have a couple of birthdays it was evan maury's birthday yesterday i didn't want to embarrass him in the middle of budget and then mccall it was your birthday earlier this week and then elizabeth's birthday is when monday last monday was it really so elizabeth you share a birthday with my wife and because my wife has pretty much not seen me all week because i've either been in a bed or here or in a surgical room um i want to wish my wife a happy birthday too and so let's sing evan mccall and elizabeth happy birthday happy birthday to you happy birthday to everyone happy birthday to you uh colleagues thank you for a uh a great budget season thank you for all the work that you do uh know that i love you very much and all the work and uh i hope you get to rest this weekend we are adjourned thank you everybody