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 Lisette Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Figg Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Cory Gibbons, Jr. and District 8, Richie Floyd. Good morning. We'll call to order the March 13, 2025 City Council Meeting. Could we begin with the roll call, please? Harding? Here. Hanowitz? Vic Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Gibbons? Here. Lloyd? Here. Gerdes? Here. Here. Here. Okay. Thank you. If we could please stand for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me in bowing your heads. Good and gracious God, thank you for another beautiful Thursday. I woke up this morning grateful to be in a beautiful city with beautiful people and continuing to see this city shine. I want to thank you for my colleagues on this dais for their continuous work, both locally, nationally, for their tireless effort to continue to make St. Petersburg a special place. Thank you to the administration, all the employees of the city, including our first responders who work on a day-to-day basis, night after night, to continue to make this city one that every resident can be proud of. Thank you to each of the residents. Thank you for continuing to trust us, to trust this city, for a place for you to live, work, play, raise families, create jobs. Thank you, good Lord, for all of the blessings you continue to bestow on all of us here at the city of St. Petersburg. We ask for your continued blessing in your name. 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. Okay, we're going to go into, we've got an agenda in front of us with adds and deletes. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Oh, I don't think any of us have voted yet. And vice chair definitely hasn't. 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 agenda passes unanimously. Okay, thank you so much. We're going to go into open forum. Clerk, could you please read the rules? If you wish to address city council, excuse me, 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 on the open forum must be limited to issues related to the city of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. 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 to the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When is your turn to speak? You will be unmuted. You will be asked to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting, and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and we do have some speakers. Two speakers, Mr. Chair, Matt Widener and Andy Oliver. Please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. Members, good afternoon. My name is Matt Widener at 1201 Eden Isle Drive. I'm here to talk to you again about this water issue. I watched over and over again that committee, the whole meeting. It was not responsive to what the issues are. I understand in the press of your business when this stuff is thrown at you and you're trying to digest what people are presenting to you, maybe you don't have the opportunity to go back and watch this thing five or six times and to look at the data and to come up with the real questions. But please go back and look at it. Here's the adjustment statistics. 6,000 accounts were adjusted since September. Remember, 3,000 were private property. 3,000 were over-read adjustments. Why are 6,000 accounts being adjusted? And that indicates to you that there is a very real problem. But there was exactly zero explanation for why there are 6,000 accounts that are being adjusted. Now, the private party ones probably mean that the citizen went out and spent $300, $400, $500 to get a plumber or a leak adjuster when there's clearly not a leak on their side. Council Member Harding, you came the closest to what was the explanation in that meeting. What did you say? You said there was a, quote, glitch in the matrix. The glitch in the matrix that resulted in citizens with hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars allegedly owed to the city. Mike, are you comfortable with what your dad happened? A $1,000 bill? You said you're a water expert. Are you comfortable yet with the explanation? Your dad's water was all turned off. There was no leak. And yet he got a $1,000 bill. We still have no explanation. The over-reads. 4,000. 4,000 of them in November. And no explanation. Here's another data. 1,638 in November. Zero explanation. You know I've been fielding all kinds of emails and calls and everything else, and I've encouraged them to email you folks. What about the guy who can't feed his kid because the city pulled out hundreds of dollars in his account? He didn't have 20,000 gallons coming out of him. What about the woman that you've now sent a letter saying you're going to lean the property? A priest for tens of thousands of gallons when her mom is sitting in a nursing home. She did not have four or five swimming pools dumped into her house of usage. And then just it immediately repairs itself. She had no plumber out there. She had no explanation for tens of thousands of gallons that allegedly were used at this single family house in Snell Isle. Now, our neighbor, Mike, there's no explanation for this. And you guys can't just let it dump. Hire counsel. I'm sorry. You have the ability to hire your own lawyers in the city charter. You guys need to start doing that, please. Thank you. Andy Oliver, pastor at Allendale United Methodist Church. Since receiving our police department's new ICE policy yesterday, I spent the day consulting leading immigration attorneys. And the conclusion is clear. This policy is unconstitutional. Let's start with the facts. This directive instructs St. Petersburg officers to contact ICE when they encounter someone with an administrative warrant, a warrant that, let me be clear, is not a judicial warrant. There's a fundamental difference here. A judicial warrant is issued by a judge based on probable cause and gives law enforcement legal authority to arrest or detain someone. An administrative warrant, like the 700,000 ICE warrants just dumped into NCIC, is issued by a federal agency, not a judge. It does not establish probable cause of a crime. It does not give local law enforcement the power to detain or arrest anyone. Due process is not optional. It is not a suggestion. It is the law. And under the law, you cannot detain someone based on an administrative warrant alone. Now, let me say this so the reporter in the room can get the headline right. Know your rights. If St. Petersburg police detains you without probable cause, ask, am I free to go? And then walk away. And if anyone is unlawfully detained under this policy, I will personally ensure that they have top legal counsel and that the city pays for violating their rights. Now let's talk about the 700,000 names ICE just dumped into that system. If I had a green card and this administration didn't like what I was saying at this podium or preaching in my pulpit, would I be on this list? Would I be detained at a traffic stop for a crime of speaking out against fascism? This isn't some distant threat or hyperbole. This is happening now to real people. Just look at Mahmoud Khalil, who was placed on a so-called deportation list simply for practicing free speech. This policy doesn't just flirt with white supremacy and fascism. It bends the knee to it. So I'm going to do what this policy deserves. This policy is unconstitutional, white supremacist, fascist trash. And anyone who lets this stand is complicit, period. So I ask you, are we going to uphold the law or are we going to bow to an authoritarian regime? Because history will remember our answer. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Okay. We'll go ahead and close open forum. And just before we go into our report item, I'll almost repeat myself from this morning. I just want to thank my colleagues for their flexibility in adding this special meeting. You know, the way I thought about this was I don't think I have any scooters in District 1. But if I did have scooters in District 1, I'd want to have this conversation. And then I would want it as a special meeting. That way, they just weren't there at some point. And so I appreciate the flexibility. And we'll move into this report item. And I think we have Evan Morey here. Evan, we'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Chair. If I could... Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Good morning, City Council. I just want to piggyback on that and say that the administration greatly supports City Council's flexibility in being here. I know a lot of you have been traveling. It was very short notice. We don't like to do this on short notice. So thank you so much for accommodating us today. The reason we did ask for this meeting is, frankly, we got caught in between on doing a short-term extension on the scooters downtown. We were pursuing looking at an administrative extension. As we looked into it more, we realized we absolutely needed City Council approval. There was not an opportunity to get it on a Council agenda before tomorrow when the scooter agreement expires. We were faced with the possibility of having to pull all the scooters off the street tomorrow. We felt like that was not something that we wanted to do before at least a discussion with City Council. So thank you so much for accommodating us today. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Morey to go over a few of the details for you. Thank you. All right. Good morning, Chair and members of City Council. Thank you for taking up this matter today. We're seeking City Council's approval of a short-term extension to the existing scooter share agreement with VeoRide so that we can finish a competitive request for proposal process. Within the Council materials, we'll find an explanatory memo, a draft agreement, and a resolution for consideration. The RFP committee has been working diligently with the procurement department beginning late last year with a goal of making a recommendation of award for a multi-year agreement. However, it's the diligence and thoughtfulness resulting in the need for multiple rounds of requests for clarification that has prevented the committee from already making a final decision in time to bring the Council recommendation for award before the expiration of this current term. As the administrator mentioned, the City's procurement code allows an administrative extension of existing contracts for up to six months to allow the City to finalize the solicitation and negotiation of a replacement contract under the same terms and conditions as an agreement already in place. However, in this particular case, it's been decided that the most appropriate action is to request City Council approval of a 90-day extension so that we can finish the RFP process. Returning to Council with a recommendation award is conditioned upon being able to successfully negotiate an agreement that allows for a long-term continuation of shared scooters that's in the best interest of the City. Assuming we are successful in identifying an operator or operators that are well-suited to providing shared scooters on a long-term basis, we will also provide a more substantial report that outlines the benefits and some trade-offs that are associated with scooters so the Council can make an informed decision about the provision of scooters on an ongoing basis to enhance mobility options for our residents and visitors. While keeping this report concise, I do want to point out that shared scooters have been very popular in St. Petersburg. Just a statistic on that, or a fact, is that since we launched this program in late 2020, there have been more than 1,200,000 trips taken on shared scooters. Ridership varies by the day, where there might only be 200 trips on a Monday, but then you get to that weekend, and there's a big event, and we've seen up to over 3,800 scooter trips taken on a single day. So clearly, the program is well utilized, and we appreciate Council's consideration in approving this second amendment so that scooter share may continue while we finalize the RFP process. Thank you, and happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you, and thank you for bringing this to us. I think that some communication with us before this would have been appreciated. I do understand that the administration can do short-term extensions. I was just wondering why the switch. I mean, it just says due to the unique nature of the services. Why did this go from being something that could be done administratively to something that City Council needs to approve? I'm happy to answer that. So it's a couple things. One, we look partly at what precedent has been set for this particular agreement, what approvals has City Council granted before. The initial agreement came to you, the first amendment came to you with an extension. So in our opinion, once that process starts, any additional extension would need to come back to City Council. That's part of it. There's also, this agreement is somewhat unique in that it builds in a license of property into the agreement as well. So it was a combination of factors that led us to that conclusion. All right. Thank you. This is an issue that, of course, affects my district probably more than any other, but it is something that is of interest to City Council and our city as a whole. And so I would strongly recommend that in the future we have more participation with City Council in discussing what's happening with our scooter share program, as well as if there's something that's coming up with the e-bike shares, anything like that. We spent a lot of time working together to get this right. The numbers that you've shared with us today showed that we did it right. I want us to keep working together to make sure that that success continues. So I look forward to hearing more about this as you move forward, especially with the RFP. Is that, is, so that went out in December? I believe so. We've had four meetings. We probably will need, I anticipate, one more, but you really, you never know what's going to happen in a meeting. There's multiple people on there and we have to reach consensus. And, you know, I, it's unfortunately that it took longer, but it's only taken longer because we're trying to do a good job, myself and other members of the committee. And I hope the council appreciates that, you know, even though there's an extension option in the current agreement, that we're not going to always go to that as a default, that city council allowed us to continue this for three years. Well, we decided we wanted to do the work and make the hard decision to issue an RFP instead in the best interest of the city. So if we would have just made a decision in the first meeting, then we wouldn't be here today, but we want to do a good job. Yes. And I appreciate that so much. And it's something we can always count on you for. So thank you for that. Um, I see this as a necessary move. We don't want to have, um, all of the scooters pulled from our streets and go without until we get a new, you know, until we have a new contract in place. So, um, I am glad that we're moving forward, that it's just for 90 days, right? So, um, I'm in agreement with this and I'll move approval. Second. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Council member Gabbard. Thank you, chair. I'll quickly, uh, just pick up, uh, some of what council member Driscoll shared, which was, you know, making sure that city council is part of these conversations. I'm glad that you brought this here today. Um, and because we live in the sunshine, I wanted to share my one-on-one yesterday, uh, phone call with Evan. Some of the conversation that we had, um, actually resulted in, um, a NBI that he and I worked on together that I'll be bringing to the next, uh, city council meeting. So it's already been sent to the clerk and it'll be a referral to HLUT to actually bring the results of the RFP and the decision for the operator and all of that to committee first. So we can have a robust committee decision, um, just like we had when we first brought scooters to the city of St. Pete. And then therefore, um, hopefully be able to move that forward to city council, um, in a much more, uh, collaborative and expedited approach. So just wanted to let everybody know that that will be on your agenda for March 28th. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, we have a motion and second. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, could you please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Chair, motion to approve agenda item C-1 passes unanimously. With council member Hanowitz being absent. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We are going to move into, uh, our second open forum. We have any speakers, clerk? Okay. We'll close open forum and then, uh, council members, any announcements? My only announcement would be that, uh, St. Paddy's Fest, uh, this weekend, um, in Williams Park. I know it's a, a big celebration. And then I think they're going to have another celebration on Monday, um, closing down third street. And so, uh, as, uh, part Irish, uh, looking forward to celebrating, um, not as heavy as other people will, but, uh, just want to make that very clear to everybody. Okay. Uh, but otherwise, again, uh, appreciate the flexibility of my colleagues and city council is adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.